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

 

[Yaarel]

I think it will look more like...

"ACOLYTE
Medium humanoid (any race), any alignment"

That would be fine too.

In fact, I would probably prefer it in the sense that a "humanoid" has free will and can choose any alignment, which is the point.



Recent UAs have opened up the creature types to include nonhuman player characters, such as the fairy who is a fey, not a humanoid. There might not be a one-to-one correspondence between humanoid and "any alignment", so specifying the phrase for nonhumanoid playable characters is helpful.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Except there is zero consistency if you allow everyone to ignore 50 years of content. That statement made absolutely no sense.

I mean it's like why bother with any lore at this point? Why write monster books? Here's some tools, make your own monsters and monster lore. Because any monster writeup they do is probably going to have contradictions in lore (and even artwork) when they make the next edition anyway.
⁠
Who needs Classes? Here's some tools, write your own Paladins, Wizards, etc. and the lore for them in your game. Because nothing they write is truly canon anyway.
⁠
Want your own gods? Make them up yourself how you want. What we make isn't canon really.
⁠
Here's a whole book, basically an Unearthed Arcana version, of just Combat and Magic. We'll give you several ways running both, and call it a day.
⁠
What do you need lore for the Sword Coast, or any part of any world, for that matter? Just draw some empty world maps and sell it. (Assuming the DMs and players don't decide to draw their own maps).

You have literally described how I play D&D.

Imagine if Star Wars canon wasn't really canon and everyone just ran and created Star Wars their own way...pretty sure it's not Star Wars at that point.

This is describing the Star Wars RPG.

When I watch a Star Wars movie, I don't get to make unique choices different than how the writers and directors chose (other than turning off the movie). When I play an RPG, the canon is the palette through which I get to experience a game. I get to choose what to use and what not to use.

⁠If creators don't want to do the research, or actually truly passionately love the game enough to want to know all the lore and be consistent, then why the hell do we have them working in the field? It's like having a religious person run an Atheist group.
⁠
At least back in the days of TSR the game was done by people who truly loved the game and did the actual work and took the time and care to actually study and master the lore. Nowadays they want designers to just lazily write whatever and however, get their paycheck and move on.

I really feel you are ignoring most of what WotC is saying, which aptly describes their passion and love for this game, the settings, and the lore.

 

[Parmandur]

Perkins mentions as examples of 5e canon:

• Strahd
• Menzoberranzan
• Zariel

Do all of these appear somewhere in the core books?

The Monster Manual and DMG, yup.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean it's like why bother with any lore at this point? Why write monster books? Here's some tools, make your own monsters and monster lore. Because any monster writeup they do is probably going to have contradictions in lore (and even artwork) when they make the next edition anyway.
⁠
Who needs Classes? Here's some tools, write your own Paladins, Wizards, etc. and the lore for them in your game. Because nothing they write is truly canon anyway.
⁠
Want your own gods? Make them up yourself how you want. What we make isn't canon really.

I mean, you could be literally quotign the DMG on most of these, so they don't really work as rhetorical questions: the designers really want to encourage all of those things.

Why bother writing monster books? SO people can play D&D games.

 

[Parmandur]

Interesting that he said only the core books are canon. So all that lore in MtoF isn’t canon?!

It isn't something they expect video game, novel, or film partners to adhere to, no. That is what Perkins is saying: they will hold their partners to PHB and MM details, but not to everything in every 5E book.

 

[a.everett1287]

D&D

Tell it to the Transformers design team. And I mean, c'mon: this is D&D for goodness sakes, which has 100s of pages of rulebooks, and rules changes justified by specific Multiverse Shattering Events, etc. If Transformers aficionados can follow clear complexity, so can D&D grognards.
And please refrain from mental health diagnoses on a game forum!

As opposed to overly obsessive or compulsive, it actually sounds onerous and terrible.

You're free to incorporate that, but I don't see any reason why WoTC should devote a book to it.

Canon is official. Period. Otherwise it doesn't exist as literally everything becomes canon and not canon simultaneously. In all the years I have been playing, with all the changes that I've made to rules and lore, none of my personal changes has ever been canon. Nor will they ever be canon. Chris's absurd statement is just that, absurd.

And it's all canon! Which is to say nothing is canon and WotC simply has some internal rules that they will follow.

Canon can only exist if it comes from official sources only.

This kind of goes towards two competing forms of canon, though.
Official canon hasn't really changed, and is somewhat immutable until WoTC changes it. For instance; officially, Maxperson's terrible lore doesn't exist, whatever that may be.

Campaign canon is not the same; in that, Maxperson's MLP-based cosmology exists, and battled the WoTC cosmology for supremacy thousands of years ago. This has nothing to do with WoTCs canon, other that borrowing from it.

I'm sure that could have been typed by Chris Perkins; I'm also sure that he felt his usage of the phrase 'YOUR CAMPAIGN' kind of obviated the need to spell it out so bluntly. But here we are.

Ideally, we'd see the end of canon entirely, and then my cup would overfilleth.

 

[Malmuria]

Except there is zero consistency if you allow everyone to ignore 50 years of content. That statement made absolutely no sense.

I mean it's like why bother with any lore at this point? Why write monster books? Here's some tools, make your own monsters and monster lore. Because any monster writeup they do is probably going to have contradictions in lore (and even artwork) when they make the next edition anyway.
⁠
Who needs Classes? Here's some tools, write your own Paladins, Wizards, etc. and the lore for them in your game. Because nothing they write is truly canon anyway.
⁠
Want your own gods? Make them up yourself how you want. What we make isn't canon really.

Honestly, what you state as rhetorical questions are probably more fitting to the ethos of the original game. Something like 'take the books as a compilation of tools, advice, and suggestions, and go make your own thing.' It's why they initially were not going to sell adventures because they didn't think there would be any market for stories made by other people

At least back in the days of TSR the game was done by people who truly loved the game and did the actual work and took the time and care to actually study and master the lore. Nowadays they want designers to just lazily write whatever and however, get their paycheck and move on.

This is a complete overreach. It's one thing to say that they aren't designing products exactly to your taste (their products are not to my taste for different reasons, so I just...don't buy them). But it's another to imply that people not invested in exhaustive lore don't love the game. And btw, here's Chris Perkins on his approach:

Those among us who are fortunate enough to become shepherds or stewards of the D&D game must train ourselves to become art and lore experts so that we know when we’re being faithful to the game’s past and when we’re moving in a new direction. We decide, based on our understanding of the game’s history and audience, what artwork or lore to pull forward, what artwork or lore needs to change, and what artwork or lore should be buried so deep that it never again sees the light of day. We have a couple guiding principles:

• If the artwork holds up or the lore has been true in every past edition of the game, we think twice about changing it.
• If the artwork or lore hasn’t withstood the test of time, we can update or discard it.

The number of eyes on a stock beholder has been consistent throughout D&D’s history. No need to meddle with perfection, I say.

 

[J.Quondam]

Which is fine and something I agree with. What I choose is not going to be canon, though, unless it's officially canon. That's what canon is. Official.

Just looking over various definitions of canon*, I think the word refers more to what is "acceptable for a given purpose" rather than what is "official". And that jibes with this statement.
For the purposes that use IP for novels, crpgs, and other content, the canon is whatever WotC says it is.
And for purposes of our individual tables, canon is whatever players at those tables say it is.

* ETA: to clarify, I'm referring to uses of "canon" with respect to literature, which I think is closest to the case for gaming.

 

[Yaarel]

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.

 

[Ath-kethin]

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).

View attachment 141421

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

This all sounds like a ploy to cover for that author who accidentally included orcs in a Dragonlance novel back in the day. Or maybe the author who included the tarrasque in Lord Soth's basement in that one goofy adventure module. Right?

Right.