D&D 5E WotC Explains 'Canon' In More Detail

Recently, WotC's Jeremy Crawford indicated that only the D&D 5th Edition books were canonical for the roleplaying game. In a new blog article, Chris Perkins goes into more detail about how that works, and why.

This boils down to a few points:

• Each edition of D&D has its own canon, as does each video game, novel series, or comic book line.
• The goal is to ensure players don't feel they have to do research of 50 years of canon in order to play.
• It's about remaining consistent.

If you’re not sure what else is canonical in fifth edition, let me give you a quick primer. Strahd von Zarovich canonically sleeps in a coffin (as vampires do), Menzoberranzan is canonically a subterranean drow city under Lolth’s sway (as it has always been), and Zariel is canonically the archduke of Avernus (at least for now). Conversely, anything that transpires during an Acquisitions Incorporated live game is not canonical in fifth edition because we treat it the same as any other home game (even when members of the D&D Studio are involved).

D&D Canon | D&D Studio Blog | Dungeons & Dragons

In this D&D Studio Blog, Chris Perkins describes the D&D Studio's position on canonicity.

dnd.wizards.com

D&D General - WotC: Novels & Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

At a media press briefing last week, WotC's Jeremey Crawford clarified what is and is not canon for D&D. "For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore...

www.enworld.org

 

[Scribe]

If there's no alignment listed in the statblock, but there's a table of ideals like the ones they have for Backgrounds, then that's a great compromise. Even if most of the entries are good-natured with only one or two that aren't.

That's not a compromise, that's me losing Alignment...

 

[dave2008]

That's not exactly what they said. They said they don't have any public facing account of what is canon after those three books, not that there isn't anything other than those three that they consider to be canon internally. I would be surprised if they put out another FR book that contradicted things already put out in Sword Coast.

There's other canon, but they haven't told us about it.

Possibly, but is it really canon if it is never shared? I mean unless they reprint the core 3 and add more lore, anything in there "internal canon" is not really canon. By their statement, nothing in VGtM or MToF, or VRGtR or any other book is canon. Now maybe it follows this "internal canon" (and I suspect it does), but they have now specifically said that it is not canon. Those books are public facing, and explicitly not canon. I think that is very interesting and liberating.

 

[dave2008]

Eberron "officially" has two canons. One canon is the book that WotC publishes for the Eberron setting. The other canon is the content that Baker and fellow collaborators create on his website and sell in DMsGuild.

Actually that is incorrect. The only WotC canon on Eberron is what is in the PHB, MM, & DMG. According to Crawford, no other books are canon.

 

[Faolyn]

That's not a compromise, that's me losing Alignment...

You have your alignments in a table, though. How is that not a compromise?

Unless when you said compromise you really meant "everything remains exactly the way it is right now, except there's a table that gives other people exactly the same option that they always had." In which case... that's not a compromise. That's us being forced to have an alignment.

 

[Charlaquin]

Actually that is incorrect. The only WotC canon on Eberron is what is in the PHB, MM, & DMG. According to Crawford, no other books are canon.

That’s not exactly what he said. He said that’s the only public-facing canon: the only material partners aren’t able to contradict in their D&D branded material. Other stuff may be true for the settings they concern, and there is almost certainly a setting bible with more in it that WotC uses internally.

 

[dave2008]

If there's no alignment listed in the statblock, but there's a table of ideals like the ones they have for Backgrounds, then that's a great compromise. Even if most of the entries are good-natured with only one or two that aren't.

Listen, I am no lover of alignment and generally pay it no attention; however, this is not a great compromise. Have to reverence a different alignment table instead of the stat block is not a good option.

 

[dave2008]

That’s not exactly what he said. He said that’s the only public-facing canon: the only material partners aren’t able to contradict in their D&D branded material. Other stuff may be true for the settings they concern, and there is almost certainly a setting bible with more in it that WotC uses internally.

Possibly, but did he say that or are you assuming or inferring it? I am only basing my argument based on a quote posted by someone else, I haven't listen to it yet.

I keep mention it because I think it is a fantastic idea. Say the core books are canon and officially state that nothing else is canon - just one version idea, but not canon. That to me solves a lot of problems people have, but I clearly look at things differently!

 

[Parmandur]

That’s not exactly what he said. He said that’s the only public-facing canon: the only material partners aren’t able to contradict in their D&D branded material. Other stuff may be true for the settings they concern, and there is almost certainly a setting bible with more in it that WotC uses internally.

Yeah, I'm sure Perkins love to insert lots of continuity bits and bobs whenever and wherever he can: but he's not breathing down Paramount's neck to make sure the film script is 100% compliant with every word in Mordenkeinen's Tome of Foes.

 

[Parmandur]

Possibly, but did he say that or are you assuming or inferring it? I am only basing my argument based on a quote posted by someone else, I haven't listen to it yet.

I keep mention it because I think it is a fantastic idea. Say the core books are canon and officially state that nothing else is canon - just one version idea, but not canon. That to me solves a lot of problems people have, but I clearly look at things differently!

In the blog post, Perkins specifically says that "Beyond these core rulebooks, we don’t have a public-facing account of what is canonical in fifth edition because we don’t want to overload our fellow creators and business partners." So the focus is on not overloading Larian Studios when they make a video game, or Paramount when they make a movie, or Salvatore when he writes a novel, or even a freelancer doing a section of an RPG book for WotC. WotC is only going to be a stickler for things in the core rulebooks as central to their brand.

 

[Mistwell]

It's not the same as "A DM can change anything," though. They didn't include language letting DMs know that they should feel free to ignore armor class or change it. Nor did they put in that language letting DMs know that they should feel free to change hit points.

By including that language in the alignment section of the MM and placing it early in that section, they are effectively making alignment change of monsters an optional rule. The DM need only invoke the optional rule, rather than use Rule 0 to "A DM can change anything."

It's in the first post of this thread that they don't mean that when they talk about what they mean by canon. It's not debatable - they literally say that's not what they mean. No matter how much you want it to be what they mean, they tell us that's not it.