D&D 5E The Debate of "Canon" in D&D 5E

[Jfdlsjfd]

The second piece of D&D canon, which throws the whole concept of canon for D&D into doubt, is that of the home-table. As many WotC writers and developers have said, although there are several "official" or "canonical" explanation for ever world and the multiverses cosmology, none of them actually impact people's hometable. Meaning, when you play a game of D&D at home, you do not impact official canon in any way; even if you're playing in Forgotten Realms, you are in effect playing in a "fan fiction" FR, one that has no impact on actual canon. For this reason, you can kill the entire Council of Waterdeep, and you're not "playing the game wrong." It is your table.

Actually, that is not how I understand canon with regard to D&D and "home games". I understand home games to be actually defining the canon.

My table treat canon the same ways it cames to be used as a word. With the biblical canon, you're free to consider so-and-so's gospels, but only these ones are the "true ones", said the one empowered to make this decision (the church leader, I guess, or a gathering of church leaders). As a result, the Syrian Church, the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Churches all have a different list of texts considered canon. Because there is not one canon, it's just the accepted events as decided by the one given authority to decide on this matter. And many concurrent canon can and do exist. Each faithful is expected, I suppose, to abide by the canon of his church.

My understanding on the usefulness of canon was to provide guidelines for writers in an universe where the main author is allowed to have its say. "No, ou can't have Jedi Dave kill Palpatine before ROTJ in your book, because we'll need him" or "What happens to Luke after ROTJ is off-limit, he can't become Jedi Dave's apprentice". Because when allowing Dave the Scifi author to publish a book in Lucas universe, Lucas is obviously empowered to establish limits. Same with Disney, more recently.

By RAW, (p. 6: the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.) and in my game, the playing group is the one empowered to make this decision because it's obviously what is mattering. If the PCs kill Laeral Silverhand, she'll no longer be there. Even WotC isn't empowered to bring her back, and any subsequent book featuring her will be non-canon. Because at the table, the official authorial power is shared by the players, not external writers.

This tends to remove most problem with canon, putting the perspective back where it should be. If you don't like dragonborns, they just don't exist in your greyhawk. Why would the publisher have a greater say than the DM on what is happning in his game? If you don't like Eberron to lie somewhere as an unreachable island in the greater 5e cosmology, why would Keith Baker be more empowered than the DM to say it is? Canon events are to be respected, though, once they are deemed canon: I'd be miffed as a player if suddenly, the DM decided to retcon away dragonborns from a running campaign, where we have established them to be canon...

We basically reach the same conclusion, except where you suggest we ditched the notion of canonicity altogether, I just propose we remember who is the official canon-deciding authority in an RPG (and it's not the publisher... nobody fudged any monster stats, ever?)

 

[Sidskii]

Back at you, your priorities aren't everyone priorities, and I don't have it backwards at all. I don't think your bad either, it's just that I understand Canon has practical value and problems happen when it's treated by developers, like huge fan base divisions and other problems.

I used to DM warhammer fantasy roleplay. It had fantastic canon and it was great knowing everything about the world and setting down to the number of grass straws on the continent. Now I DM D&D and I'm having a blast with the many canon modules I can pick and chose from to build my own setting. I love the creativety it allows for. I think that if you want a strong and good canon you should play warhammer. D&D should just keep making contradictory moduls that world builders can choose from in my opinion. It is what makes the game fun and unique to me.

 

[Sidskii]

If you want canon you should play another game. The beauty of D&D is that the "canon" comes as optional modules for the DM, so that the DM can build universes in anyway the DM wants 'em ^^. This is what makes D&D so creative and fun. I suggest Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for something a little similar in flavor, but with a great and solid canon. (Pre end times, which is when the game is set).

 

[AtomicPope]

Canon for D&D is like any fictional work; it provides continuity, stability, and a center from which all other related works derive. If a fiction author writes a series of books we want them to have continuity so the story extends beyond the last novel. If it doesn't, then we feel cheated like it was a bait-n-switch. Why should D&D be any different? It shouldn't. And we're not required to like it, buy it, or agree with it either.

None of this has to do with "authority" or "authorized work" either. If the Canon changed then the fans who liked one version stay with that version, the fans who like another go with that version. That's because the talk of Canon is really about fans, a community of fans. Fan communities, like the fiction they love, are also built on the original concept of work. If none of these stories are interconnected then the community dissolves.

When we discuss Canon and home games, the problem here is DM vs player. The DM has home game assumptions and unless these differences are spelled out clearly the players are going to make choices based on their version of "Canon". At a minimum, when the Canon is muddled then it becomes cumbersome for the DM and players to determine what is legitimate for their table. When the Canon is constantly changing then the home game walls itself off from new products, and the new community that grew with those changes.

I reckon this will become more of a problem as D&D becomes more popular. We're already seeing this happen in comics and comicbook movies where artists, writers, and directors are treating, what are essentially modern folktales, as vanity projects. They disregard the history and essential nature of these stories, acting as culture vultures on established fictional worlds.

 

[delericho]

If you don't respect the canon why should we care? If your story doesn't matter when it's convenient why should we care about your story?

This.

Back before the buy-out, I read a lot of the Star Wars novels, and at times I read some of the really bad ones even knowing that they were bad before I started, precisely because of their status as canon.

The moment Disney declared all that stuff non-canon was the moment I lost any interest in any of their new expanded universe - if they're content to wipe the slate at a stroke once, they can do it again, which means that every event is only ever conditionally "true", so why should I care? (And, indeed, they've already started retconning various bits of their sequel trilogy because they've decided they don't suit, so I'm increasingly happy with that choice.)

Similarly, I gave up on the Drizzt novels after "The Ghost King", but had been recently considering getting caught up in order to get a picture of the Realms as it is now. But since WotC have now declared everything in the novels, and everything pre-5e, to be non-canon, they've saved me a whole lot of time and money.

 

[Zardnaar]

This.

Back before the buy-out, I read a lot of the Star Wars novels, and at times I read some of the really bad ones even knowing that they were bad before I started, precisely because of their status as canon.

The moment Disney declared all that stuff non-canon was the moment I lost any interest in any of their new expanded universe - if they're content to wipe the slate at a stroke once, they can do it again, which means that every event is only ever conditionally "true", so why should I care? (And, indeed, they've already started retconning various bits of their sequel trilogy because they've decided they don't suit, so I'm increasingly happy with that choice.)

Similarly, I gave up on the Drizzt novels after "The Ghost King", but had been recently considering getting caught up in order to get a picture of the Realms as it is now. But since WotC have now declared everything in the novels, and everything pre-5e, to be non-canon, they've saved me a whole lot of time and money.

I gave up on Drizzt with the 4E thing, any new Star Wars books and comics post Legends go bye bye.

I get it times change. Make something original to appeal to the times "creativity".

To many hacks incapable of it though. Even if they drop the ball on it at least they tried something original.

 

[humble minion]

Ok, as someone who's been vocally annoyed at various FR canon changes since 4e came along, I'll have a go at answering the OP.

From an everyday, home-table point of view, canon changes matter because they cut down the amount of published resources that are consistent with your game. For example - running a War of the Lance game? Well, too bad, if canon has moved ahead and all the recent Dragonlance material is War of Souls era, there's pretty much nothing here you can use. That makes more work for you, as a DM.

However, sometimes canon changes can be good. The 4e-era timeline rewind of Dark Sun to just post Kalak's death is a good example (I know there's other canon changes to Dark Sun that happened around the same time, I'm speaking specifically about the timeline thing here). This made a lot of post-Kalak 2e-era source material useless (Beyond the Prism Pentad, basically all of the Revised boxed set...) but was nonentheless recieved positively because it fixed a widely-disliked element of the setting and let PCs be the big heroes rather than NPCs.

For me, a canon change has a legitimately negative effect if it's both a) bad, and b) destructive. 'Bad' is of course 100% subjective. 'Destructive' is a bit more easily defined - where canon changes in new supplements render old supplements incompatible with the new.

Historical examples:

- the sudden introduction of Maztica into FR. Bad but non-destructive. In general, the Maztica line was generally seen as 'bad' for its naked copying of a real-life culture, and for its very 2e-era quirk of having NPCs do all the really cool and interesting stuff in some fairly cookie-cutter novels before the boxed set was even released and PCs even got the chance to set foot on the place. However, the Maztica line was not destructive. Sure, it introduced a brand new continent out to the west somewhere which had never been there before, but it had minimal impact on the rest of FR, so its abrupt existence didn't render any past material contradicted.

- as discussed above, the 4e windback of Dark Sun's timeline. Destructive, but not bad.

- the Spellplague in FR. Pretty much the exemplar of how not to do canon changes. Bad, and profoundly, profoundly destructive. The spellplague stands almost alone in the deliberately malicious way in which is systematically went and voided all possible usefulness of prior sourcebooks with the new material. Even faraway obscure parts of the game world were dropped into the sea or turned into magical/radioactive wastelands - and this was done in the space of a sentence or two, without any real attempt to detail anything new and interesting and playable that had sprung up in their place. The Spellplague was a deliberate attempt to make your vast collection of pre-4e Forgotten Realms sourcebooks not just somewhat out of date (all FR stuff was, given how continually the novel series changed the setting in those days) but actively unusable in the 'new' Realms. That made it reeeeeal easy to hate.

- As for the gold standards of canon changes - not bad and not destructive - well, that's a tough one! I'll go with the 4e introduction of the Feywild. Much as I hate the name (even a decade plus later!) the whole concept gave fey, which were prior to this a very neglected critter type, a place and society to belong to, and interesting things to do, and ways for PCs to get involved with them, in a way that was additive to and enriched existing settings, rather than breaking them (it still shouldn't have been in Dark Sun though!)

In summary. Make your canon changes good and non-destructive, and everyone will love you. Make them good and destructive, and you'll get a majority-good reception, with bonus points for courage, and even the people who hate everything you did will find stuff to mine in your material. Make them bad and non-destructive, and even if people don't like the new stuff you're introducing, it won't ruin anyone's day or obsolete their collection. Bad and destructive on the other hand, and may Vecna have mercy upon your soul...

 

[schneeland]

...
In summary. Make your canon changes good and non-destructive, and everyone will love you. Make them good and destructive, and you'll get a majority-good reception, with bonus points for courage, and even the people who hate everything you did will find stuff to mine in your material. Make them bad and non-destructive, and even if people don't like the new stuff you're introducing, it won't ruin anyone's day or obsolete their collection. Bad and destructive on the other hand, and may Vecna have mercy upon your soul...

Pretty solid classification (and I also can easily agree with your examples). There might be some wiggle room based on how important the changed elements were for the canon, but in general I find the four categories still hold.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

"Canon" as a component of fiction only matters within a confined fictional space. Settings, by definition, are not confined fictional spaces, and thus cannot have canon.

A setting can have a philosophy, goal, or purpose: just as fiction is inherently creationist, it is inherently teleological. It serves some purpose. It might be simple ("it's just fun"/Rule of Cool), but often it isn't. Arguments over canon for settings are usually proxies for "this doesn't fit what I see as the purpose of this setting." This runs into two problems: one, purpose is very much in the eye of the beholder, and two, privileging one purpose over others (since most settings serve multiple purposes) without really acknowledging this arbitrary selection.

Even when we have explicit authorial intent (which is pretty rare), settings tend to be wild and woolly things. Two people can experience "the same setting" and get very different messages out of it. For example, many fans of Dark Sun were actually happy that 4e Dark Sun rolled back all the events of the Prism Pentad (IIRC, the 4e DSCS takes as its default start time the days just before the Prism Pentad starts), because, even though those books are in some sense demonstrably "within" authorial intent, the specific direction they went conflicted with audience perception of what Dark Sun was about: a place where mere survival is a challenge, so heroism is at best a lofty goal and at worst suicide (and many would append to that "...and thus when you ARE heroic, it really matters.") Having explicit incredible power in the hands of a heroic individual interferes with some of those ideas, and if people came to the setting to explore those ideas, they'll probably get annoyed....yet some will be fine with it and annoyed that the rollback thus disrupts something they were okay with or even liked. Similar arguments pop up about nearly every setting almost any time one undergoes even the smallest changes, because purpose is a really important thing for why people engage with a piece of fiction at all.

On the flipside though, as noted, many settings (and, indeed, many works of fiction, where canon would matter!) serve numerous purposes. Changes, even well-established or authorial-intent-based ones, often arise because the author(s)/creator(s) have a different idea of what purposes are most important about a setting. Thus, fans have to deal with the other problem: what happens if the thing they came to the setting for...isn't actually that much of a priority, whether because it never was to begin with, or because the author(s)/creator(s) have changed their minds? For many, the answer is to engage in arguments over canon or the like, because it allows them to give a veneer of objectivity to their personal frustration over a purpose they like not getting catered to (or, worse, being "attacked" in some way).

Yet ultimately, there is no such thing as an inherent purpose to any piece of fiction. Those purposes are always chosen by their creators. Audiences can accept, reject, or question. Unfortunately, to those who accept, questioning can look a lot like rejection--and for those who emphatically reject, acceptance is rather difficult to swallow.

Edit: @humble minion does actually give some good examples of why changes to a setting can matter....but I don't personally consider them to be arguments about canon, as in, internal self-consistency. The way they've spoken, it's not really about whether there's appropriate justification or rationale, which is a huge primary concern for canon. It's instead two questions: the purpose argument, as I outlined above, and a resources argument that I didn't consider.

Purpose matters, and can make (as they term it) "destructive" changes still beneficial, because they contribute to the (audience-expected) purpose of the setting. I'm very pleased that, having seen nothing of their post, our two analyses of the Dark Sun stuff end up in very similar places. I think this pretty solidly demonstrates how setting purpose is often conflated with arguments about canon proper.

The other thing that matters is use of resources. Now, properly speaking, nothing prevents anyone from continuing to use older material, other than the need to adapt...which is gonna be a hugely individual thing, since each person will have their own perception of what counts as "too much" work to adapt. (The personal/subjective aspect I mentioned above is similar.) However, with that said, there's nothing wrong with being upset that the resources you have, which you had hoped to make use of, now require a substantial (and likely ongoing) effort to make useful to you. It's perfectly reasonable to be frustrated by that....but that, again, isn't about the canonicity of the events. It's about your IRL resources, and what you can do with them without unwarranted levels of effort. (As humble minion already said, most of their FR material was already "out of date," so it isn't the canonicity failure that is the problem: it's the degree of exclusion that is the problem, the pervasiveness of the "destruction" without a mitigating purpose.)

So I feel rather confident that we can say "canon" is not actually the main concern, it's just an argument people often fall into when what they actually have problems with is disagreements over the purpose of a setting, or frustrations over being unable to simply and easily use resources they already possessed.

 

[Scott Christian]

Why must we use canon as a weapon, when it is simply but a handy tool provided to quickstart a game?

I think your post was well thought out and very well written. But, when you ask this question, you are making an enormous leap from the logic you posted. It is way more than a handy tool. Lore equates to much of the setting, and setting helps dictate mechanics, rules, pacing, and even "how we play" the game. Therefore, as much as what all your other claims were right, this leap cannot be taken.

May we all take a deep breath, and accept there is no D&D canon that needs to matter.

For you. And that is the lynchpin. If D&D canon suddenly had a plethora of space vehicles and laser guns in the PHB, it would change the game. I get that each table can create their own setting. But there is an implied acceptance of what D&D is. I have played in seven different states with many different groups - and while there were subtle differences, they all had strong ties to the "canon" that D&D has produced. This is true for young and older players. Call it Lord of the Rings-esque or Conan-esque or Elder Scrolls-esque or Greek Mythos-esque or Witcher-esque or Everquest-esque or WOW-esque or Wheel of Time-esque or Dragon Age-esque or even D&D Cartoon-esque, but all of these share a unique tie to our modern mental designs of fantasy. And while each of these are subtly novel, they are far more alike than different.
And that is why people don't just let canon go and believe it matters. Because they fear or don't care for a canon that might not have as strong of ties to the modern fantasy picture we have. Paradigms are a thing.