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, but they are not canonical for the D&D roleplaying game."

"If you’re looking for what’s official in the D&D roleplaying game, it’s what appears in the products for the roleplaying game. Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014, we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

2014 is the year that D&D 5th Edition launched.

He goes on to say that WotC takes inspiration from past lore and sometimes adds them into official lore.

Over the past five decades of D&D, there have been hundreds of novels, more than five editions of the game, about a hundred video games, and various other items such as comic books, and more. None of this is canon. Crawford explains that this is because they "don’t want DMs to feel that in order to run the game, they need to read a certain set of novels."

He cites the Dragonlance adventures, specifically.

 

[Parmandur]

This. It's not like the deep body of lore in Doctor Who has kept that series from becoming popular; quite the opposite, actually.

The canon that the writers aggressively violate constantly...?

 

[Alzrius]

The canon that the writers aggressively violate constantly...?

To the point of declaring that everything prior to 2005 is non-canon?

 

[Remathilis]

This. It's not like the deep body of lore in Doctor Who has kept that series from becoming popular; quite the opposite, actually.

That said, how often has the new show required a deep knowledge of said lore to understand the story? Most lore drops are rarely more than Easter eggs and certainly almost never directly connect to the old lore in a way that the old lore is necessary (or even useful) to understand the new story.

 

[Remathilis]

To the point of declaring that everything prior to 2005 is non-canon?

The Target bookline, DWM comics and Big Finish audios say "hi".

 

[Alzrius]

That said, how often has the new show required a deep knowledge of said lore to understand the story? Most lore drops are rarely more than Easter eggs and certainly almost never directly connect to the old lore in a way that the old lore is necessary (or even useful) to understand the new story.

Sure, but isn't that true for the Forgotten Realms also? I mean, people keep talking about how "the lore was preventing newcomers from understanding/enjoying the setting," but could you really not play Lost Mine of Phandelver from the 2014 Starter Set without having read piles of old products?

 

[PsyzhranV2]

You assume, falsely, that new players aren't interested in the lore, some, maybe even many are.

Scrolling down r/dnd or following the Dungeons & Dragons topic on Twitter, I think it's safe to say from what I've seen that there isn't a huge overlap between the new players and the die-hard lore buffs.

 

[Faolyn]

Nobody gained.
A certain segment, no matter how small, lost.

Looks at Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, then back at screen.

It's not like they were going to use the lore in them 100% accurately anyway. It's why there are generic "snow maidens" (generic, basically mindless, cold-oriented specters) in Curse of Strahd rather than Jezra Wagner (a cold-oriented specter with an entire backstory) that was given quite a huge amount of lore in 2e.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's been done.

Billy the Kid Versus Dracula - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Billy the Kid wasn't in the original novel.

Telling the story straight, just from the perspective of a minor character, one that's waaaaay out of the realm of traditional Gothic horror, would be the hook.

 

[TheSword]

Scrolling down r/dnd or following the Dungeons & Dragons topic on Twitter, I

That was a mistake.

 

[Remathilis]

Sure, but isn't that true for the Forgotten Realms also? I mean, people keep talking about how "the lore was preventing newcomers from understanding/enjoying the setting," but could you really not play Lost Mine of Phandelver from the 2014 Starter Set without having read piles of old products?

I think the issue is passive vs active engagement with the lore. The audience is just expected to watch the show to enjoy the Doctor saving the day, but FR lore is supposed to be a springboard for DMs, and if the amount of lore is far more intimidating. Just what you need to know from the 5e era sourcebooks can be plenty, so I'm fine with supplements like books and games being a lower priority.