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]

you can choose to fully cease existing.

This is what I view being an FR Atheist as. A choice to opt out of the cosmology, and choose oblivion.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Theros also has the Iconoclast . . . and doesn't have a system like the Wall of the Faithless that actively punishes non-theists.

That's why it isn't a problem, and FR's Wall of the Faithless is.

I agree. There are at least four differences between Theros’ treatment of piety and the Forgotten Realms:
1. Theros has options for non-pious characters: both the Iconoclast track and a race that is particularly noted to reject the gods: the leonin;
2. There is no equivalent to the Wall of the Faithless: characters that reject the gods aren’t punished for rejecting the gods;
3. All of the Theros gods are presented as profoundly flawed. Even LG Heliod has a section devoted to Heliod as a campaign villain (and not just for evil parties) and a section devoted to schemes by Heliod the players may attempt to thwart.

But all this pales compared to the actual difference between Theros as nd the Forgotten Realms:
4. Theros actually IS about the character’s relationship with the gods. The Forgotten Realms campaign setting ISN’T. Remove every page from the Theros campaign setting concerning gods, and you are removing 33% of the book. The “Creating Adventures” section basically takes every single god and says “here are adventure hooks for this god, this is how the god could be a villain in your campaign, here are creatures and monsters associated with that god”. That is not the case for FR. I no longer have my 4e FR guide, but in SCAG, if I remove the passages concerning the gods, 22 pages out of 154. For Theros, I would remove over 100 pages out of 256.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You asked whether the Wall is something that players can affect. A game in which there are fictional elements that (i) the players would like to engage with, and (ii) can't, is a railroad.

Wait wait…you’re now claiming that a campaign wherein there are elements that the PCs cannot meaningfully impact…is a railroad?

So…if the PCs can’t kill God and break his throne, and then burn the entire multiverse and remake it in their image, it’s a railroad?

The good news is that D&D is getting rid of alignment so there is no more good or evil in D&D.

Well, no, obviously not. D&D never needed alignment to have good and evil.

 

[Remathilis]

No Alignment, no Canon, no Lineage ASI. What am I paying for again? lol

Those sweet d6s that come from a well placed fireball or sneak attack. Like catnip.

 

[Remathilis]

Okay. No reason you shouldn’t be able to choose that.

Oblivion can literally just be a loss of all knowledge and memory, it needn’t be fully existential. Ie, reincarnation could come with a total erasure of anything that came before, turning your soul into essentially an entirely new soul.


Or the universe/the gods could not care about or need souls, and you can choose to fully cease existing.

So where do ghosts come from then?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is what I view being an FR Atheist as. A choice to opt out of the cosmology, and choose oblivion.

That is objectively only a single perspective among many, though. It would be completely absurd to claim that all atheism is that.

Not only that, what you propose being true would only ever be the result of writing choices. It isn’t inherent to the premise of the world. Having gods be real doesn’t require that atheists cease to exist when they die.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So where do ghosts come from then?

They’re psychic echos of the will and memory of a creature. Or, they’re souls that are trapped in an unnatural state outside of the normal process of life and death.

 

[Remathilis]

So…if the PCs can’t kill God and break his throne, and then burn the entire multiverse and remake it in their image, it’s a railroad?

What is this, a JRPG?

Well, no, obviously not. D&D never needed alignment to have good and evil.

No good. No evil. Just realpolitik and enlightened self interest. Kinda brings the game back to it's roots in a way...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What is this, a JRPG?

If you’ve nothing to actually add to an exchange I’m involved in, please don’t waste my time with interjected silly quips that have nothing to do with anything.

No good. No evil. Just realpolitik and enlightened self interest. Kinda brings the game back to it's roots in a way...

Gross. Keep it.

Luckily, it’s also not remotely true on any level, since good and evil absolutely still exist in D&D.

 

[FrozenNorth]

No Alignment, no Canon, no Lineage ASI. What am I paying for again? lol

I can’t answer that for you, but I can answer that for myself. I can definitely say that I am satisfied with my recent purchases of Candlekeep Mysteries and Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, even without Alignment, Canon or Lineage ASI.