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

 

[dave2008]

I agree about cannibalizing settings you won't run for material. Heck, my new FR campaign has a Warforged in it. It didn't come from Eberron, but I used the race for the player. He now has the first Warforged Bard that I've ever heard of.

Taking from other settings for your game is very different from choosing a setting to play in, though. I run the Forgotten Realms and it's nice to have canon to build off of. As I said earlier, companies tend to be more hesitant to alter canon than to alter just a bunch of words. If they release stuff contradicting what I've built off of, it can cause confusion as now I have to decide what to keep and what to toss and the players won't know, either. The things that their PCs use to know, can no longer be relied upon as solid knowledge until I affirm it or say it has changed. Some of that is necessary, such as the change to the Vistani to remove the Romani connection, but in general changes should be few and far between.

I understand your words, but I don't think I will truly ever understand how you feel. I just operate differently. Even if I where to run a game in a publish setting, canon, or whatever is written in the setting book, would just be inspiration. As soon as I run a game in it, it becomes my world.

 

[Maxperson]

How? How is it less stable? How has it been removed?

If you're all about the Forgotten Realms, you can still access the Forgotten Realms wiki. If you like Greyhawk, you can still use the '83 version. Or the GHA version. Or the 3e version.

Everything is out there, still. It's all accessible and useable.

If anything, it has made the home campaign more stable, because you don't need to worry about some kind of Spellsundering that plagues your campaign setting, or a total switch of the cosmology to a treeaxiswheel with any new vagaries of an advance of a quarter edition.

Besides, we all know that the only real canon is whatever Chris Pine does in the movie. He's dreamy.

It's less stable, because it's far more easily changed. I've never had to worry about spellsunderings or spellplagues. They put out canon and then I got to pluck out what I wanted. And what was left was solid, because I could reasonably rely on things not to be retconned. Social issue changes and such notwithstanding.

Now I can still decide what I want to keep or not, but if they change a bunch of stuff, it makes more work for me and presents more confusion for the players. Their PCs who "knew" things will possibly no longer know those things and will instead know other things. Since I'm not going to have the time or the inclination to go through all changes and create a sheet of what stays and what goes for the players, they are going to be limbo until something comes up in game play.

 

[Voadam]

In my experience old lore could never be relied upon. D&D lore was never a tight bible without contradictions and inconcistancies as far as I could tell it.

My experience was mostly the opposite, that it could mostly be relied upon with occasional contradictions and inconsistencies and a general goal to avoid such.

Stuff like Van Richten's just flat out deliberately contradicting old things instead of creating new things or adding on to old things is a different lore approach.

 

[billd91]

My knowledge of Greyhawk is limited, but it was my understanding that its various iterations are not fully compatible and fans of various iterations have sundry opinions about their canonicity. As far as WotC is and should be concerned, when there are conflicts with past lore, the currently-supported iteration always wins. That doesn’t mean continuity gets thrown out without reason, but it does mean that previous iterations are not canon.

A lot of the Greyhawk canon conflict stems from various groupings of fans not liking the Greyhawk Wars content and its aftermath. But as far as conflicting canon, as I see it, it's a bit like the difference between 1910 Europe and 1920 Europe. The events of the war changed a lot of things on the ground, including the map. That's less conflicting continuity and more one group preferring one timeframe while others prefer another. Individual tables can set their campaigns in either time period. It doesn't make the older time period non-canonical, just unsupported in the sense that WotC was never likely to insert a lot of material into a past era rather than the current one.
The areas where there are conflicts are based more on weird personal issues - like WotC using Robilar in a plot against the Circle of Eight and later developers retconning that because they disagreed with using Robilar in that way.

 

[Bolares]

It's less stable, because it's far more easily changed.

This is where you lose me. Maybe I'm just more cynical about this things, but canon never stopped designer from changing anything.... Now they are just upfront about it

 

[Maxperson]

This is where you lose me. Maybe I'm just more cynical about this things, but canon never stopped designer from changing anything.... Now they are just upfront about it

I get that. I think this will take off what binders there were and that we will see more changes than we previously did. They now have the, "But it's not canon and we told you that in advance." excuse.

 

[Bolares]

Stuff like Van Richten's just flat out contradicting old things instead of creating new things or adding on to old things is a different lore approach.

Well I've liked the changes in Ravenloft, but I was never that attached to it to begin with... If they changed that much about Eberron I'd probably be pissed, but in the end I hope I'd try to see what is good and what is bad about the changes and carry on in my Eberron.

 

[Yaarel]

There are entire sections dedicated to these other settings. Not just sidebars. Multiple pages are dedicated to the gods of these other settings. Advice in the DMG on how to run them.

The 5e fixation on gods is motivated by Intellectual Property branding. Hasbro/WotC aggressively asserts IP ownership of the D&D fictional gods, moreover hypes up the IP by portraying it alongside the gods of reallife religions, such as Zeus.

The intrusive IP assertiveness in the Players Handbook introduces confusion. For example, it does seem like a character that worships the reallife god Zeus is part of the canon of the Forgotten Realms setting. The caveat to refer to the DM notwithstanding.

Ideally, these gods dont belong in the Players Handbook. The players need to rely on the DM to determine what religious traditions exist inworld.

The Players Handbook is clearer when the Cleric class is about a "cosmic force". Any setting-specific discussions about which "cosmic forces" are common in each culture, as part of sacred traditions, including reallife religions, such as involving Zeus, belong in separate setting guides, and perhaps in the DMG in the context of examples, while suggesting how the DM can create new sacred traditions for a homebrew world.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's less stable, because it's far more easily changed. I've never had to worry about spellsunderings or spellplagues. They put out canon and then I got to pluck out what I wanted. And what was left was solid, because I could reasonably rely on things not to be retconned. Social issue changes and such notwithstanding.

Now I can still decide what I want to keep or not, but if they change a bunch of stuff, it makes more work for me and presents more confusion for the players. Their PCs who "knew" things will possibly no longer know those things and will instead know other things. Since I'm not going to have the time or the inclination to go through all changes and create a sheet of what stays and what goes for the players, they are going to be limbo until something comes up in game play.

Um, it sounds like you just repeated yourself.

Before, I could ignore all the canon and do what I wanted to. Who cared if they changed canon? I didn't!

Now, I have to spend time doing what I want to, because they might change canon? I care that they will change it!

 

[Bolares]

Well I've liked the changes in Ravenloft, but I was never that attached to it to begin with... If they changed that much about Eberron I'd probably be pissed, but in the end I hope I'd try to see what is good and what is bad about the changes and carry on in my Eberron.

Yeah yeah I know, quoting myself...

Some friends of mine HATE later changes to Eberron. The son of khyber, the feyspires, dragonborn in Q'barra... they hate all of it. I on the other hand think that if the spirit of the world remains intact, if the principles that Eberron was created with are respected, changes and aditons can be good. I love the new take on dwarves from Rising.... but those are all minor changes, I don't know how would I react if all of a sudden Thrane was a whole different place