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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't know if you've seen The Empire Strikes Back, but the rebels lost the Battle of Hoth even with Luke's discovery of the AT-ATs weakness.

It was probably over two decades ago, so yeah, I'd forgotten.

When I run Star Wars games, I typically don't have the PCs involved in the big events we see in the movies. We know what happened at Hoth and Yavin so why play it out? Now I have actually run a scenario where the PCs were at the Battle of Hoth but I had them doing something entirely different from what Luke was doing. As far as the scenario was concerned, it didn't matter what Luke was doing up there because the PCs had problems of their own they were dealing with.

Okay, stop. What you are telling me right here is that Canon is pretty much completely arbitrary to what you are doing.

It doesn't matter what the canon outcome of Hoth is, because you specfically went to a place where the canon didn't cover to tell your story. The only value the canon had is if you ended up making it matter that that battle was lost, but how much of an impact did that really have?

This is why a lot of us are scratching our heads here. The canon is just a backdrop for you to say "hey, remember when this cool thing happened over here? Okay, cool, now we are going to go all the way over here and do something completely different"

I don't know which version of Star Wars you're talking about but that doesn't surprise me much. There are many, many games where the example NPCs are not possible with the rules as written. I don't think it's established anywhere in Star Wars canon that Han is the best pilot in the galaxy. But I could very well see a game designer insisting that Han had to be the best.

But it again is a problem with "canon". If Han is the best pilot out there then your character can't be the best. You are the second-best pilot out there. You can't do any of the cool things that actually changed the course of the story, because the NPCs did those things.

Like I said above, I typically don't have the PCs involved in things like rescuing Han from Jabba because why would I? We already know how that plays out and there's no reason for us to play it out at the table. I have the PCs running through their own adventures.

Then what value is the canon? What value is there in knowing that Luke saves Han and sends Bobba Fett into the Sarlac pit if it never has any bearing on your game?

Because that is literally the exact level of Canon we are talking about here in DnD and the Forgotten Realms. If it is no longer canon that Helm killed Mystra and that led to Midnight becoming Mystra and being friends with Kelemvor who also became a god, does that actually affect your game? As long as we still have Helm, Mystra and Kelemvor does any of that story actually impact your game about stealing a dragon's hoard from a Giant Jarl?

 

[Chaosmancer]

It doesn't sound like a cool concept if I want to play Star Wars.

Why not? It is an adventure that never happened on the screen. That's exactly what you run all the time.

Yeah. Just like I was interested in watching Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger fight Darth Vader in Rebels knowing they weren't going to kill Vader.

Watching a show is vastly different from playing a game. In a movie or TV show, I have no problem sitting back and watching people go at it. Makes for entertainment.

In a game, sitting back and watching someone else do something or being told that I'm not allowed to do something my character would do, is a bitter, acidic pill.

If Vader appears in a TV show and fights the heroes and escapes, I can be cool with that. If Vader shows up in a game, and the DM describes how he kicks all of our asses and we can't even lift a finger to stop him... less cool. I have a character with abilities right here, I'd want a fair fight.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In Adventurers' League, are you officially bound by lore outside of the module? If so, I suppose that would be a problem. If not - assuming "it's not canon in this game" wasn't enough - couldn't DMs just say "this is what the module says - it's canon for this module"?

But what if the module doesn't say?

I think this gets into the problem. A player sits down, and the module says "The Thayan embassy in Waterdeep" and the player is like "Wait, this taken place in year XYZ, and the Thayan were kicked out of Waterdeep a century ago, how are they here?"

If the DM doesn't know the lore and the module doesn't say? Then they might try and make something up, but now they have fallen into a debate on lore they don't know, and things are grinding to a halt. And if they just say "I don't know it doesn't say" that could cause its own problems.

And the idea of "it is canon for this module" is a problem, because it seems people can't recognize multiple canons, there is canon and non-canon, and that is part of the issue we are running into here. Because people can't accept "old canon" and "new canon" it is either canon or non-canon

 

[JEB]

If canon has value, in and of itself, then any change to that canon must be a negative. You cannot ever have a positive canon change. This is why you hear people talk about "additive canon" being fine because it never changes what came before, only builds upon. But, anything which changes established canon has to be bad by definition because if you allow canon to be changed, then that means that established canon has a variable value. Some established canon is good because it's accepted and not changed, while some canon has less value because it can be changed.

Folks who like canon aren't a monolith, anymore than folks who dislike canon are. You have a range from folks who need every established fact to be fixed and unchanging, to folks who are perfectly happy with any change as long as there's an in-universe explanation, up to and including in-universe resets like in DC Comics. What it boils down to for most canon fans is that things are explained, somehow, and their ability to see the fictional world as coherent and (for lack of a better word) "real" is maintained. (And even beyond that are folks who just make up their own head-canon. I'm sure there's a lot of that happening with D&D fans vis-a-vis 5E at this point...)

 

[JEB]

But what if the module doesn't say?

I think this gets into the problem. A player sits down, and the module says "The Thayan embassy in Waterdeep" and the player is like "Wait, this taken place in year XYZ, and the Thayan were kicked out of Waterdeep a century ago, how are they here?"

If the DM doesn't know the lore and the module doesn't say? Then they might try and make something up, but now they have fallen into a debate on lore they don't know, and things are grinding to a halt. And if they just say "I don't know it doesn't say" that could cause its own problems.

And the idea of "it is canon for this module" is a problem, because it seems people can't recognize multiple canons, there is canon and non-canon, and that is part of the issue we are running into here. Because people can't accept "old canon" and "new canon" it is either canon or non-canon

I think most reasonable people will be perfectly fine with whatever explanation a DM can give, if an explanation is even necessary. And most unreasonable people are just looking to nitpick or argue, and won't be swayed no matter what the DM or Wizards says on the matter.

 

[billd91]

Fair enough. Although, not cool telling me that I am deliberately misleading people for misremembering a 30 year old point.

I might be a lot more tolerant if it didn't come up every time. I had to say it twice in this thread alone and include a quote before you conceded it was fair enough.

And, my point still stands, the longer someone games, the more their spending goes down. Yes, the totals go up, but that's to be expected. The point is, cutting things off at 35 for a MARKETING survey where you discover that the older a gamer is, the less they spend, kinda justifies the cut off.

And, since you seem to keep on claiming that spending only increases with age:



that's the issue I was taking since it's directly contradicted by what the survey results say. The total purchases would increase, of course - if I pay X for 5 years and Y for 5 years, I'm going to spend more than if I only payed X for 5 years. However, the purchasing habits of each age does not increase, it decreases.

It's not contradicted. The expenditure may go down a bit with length as a D&D player, but not with age. The 25-35 demographic spends more per month than younger cohorts. Moreover, it's a demographic span of 11 years compared to the previous cohort of 7 years - about 1.5x the span, but the total spent is nearly 4x the size. The data you're pointing at suggests there's a ramp up period (the 1-5 year period) plus a tapering off... but no indication of how long the tail on that taper is.

But either way, it appears clear that the 25-35 demographic has spent a LOT more on D&D than their younger counter parts. And as I said, how exactly that translates to the market now is anybody's guess outside of the WotC marketing department since they don't seem to be sharing anything nearly as candid or specific. But the 1999 survey was on the tail of the 2e glut, before the OGL glut, and WotC reeling in their 5e publication rate and patterns of purchasing may have changed. It's entirely possible that there isn't much of a difference between cohorts on ongoing purchases in the 5e era since it's now relatively easy to keep pace on them.

 

[Parmandur]

Ironically, this means someone can have a reverse-canon argument - reference Baldur's Gate III and they can now say "but that's not part of 5E lore"

Far from ironic, that's the real driving factor here. I have seen people try to argue that there is a developing metaplot by pointing to how Baldur's Gaye 3 ties into a potential ending of Descent into Avernus. This isn't about decanonizing novels fr the 90's, it's about decanonizing current video games and the film so the RPG team doesn't have to assume particular endings to the Sword Coast Adventures.

 

[Parmandur]

I might be a lot more tolerant if it didn't come up every time. I had to say it twice in this thread alone and include a quote before you conceded it was fair enough.


It's not contradicted. The expenditure may go down a bit with length as a D&D player, but not with age. The 25-35 demographic spends more per month than younger cohorts. Moreover, it's a demographic span of 11 years compared to the previous cohort of 7 years - about 1.5x the span, but the total spent is nearly 4x the size. The data you're pointing at suggests there's a ramp up period (the 1-5 year period) plus a tapering off... but no indication of how long the tail on that taper is.

But either way, it appears clear that the 25-35 demographic has spent a LOT more on D&D than their younger counter parts. And as I said, how exactly that translates to the market now is anybody's guess outside of the WotC marketing department since they don't seem to be sharing anything nearly as candid or specific. But the 1999 survey was on the tail of the 2e glut, before the OGL glut, and WotC reeling in their 5e publication rate and patterns of purchasing may have changed. It's entirely possible that there isn't much of a difference between cohorts on ongoing purchases in the 5e era since it's now relatively easy to keep pace on them.

We know from broader spending patterns across society that spending on things like games or movies tapers considerably after 35. That why marketers aim at 18-34 year olds, where there is potential for money to be spent, and it is more likely to be spent. That's not a D&D thing, that's a standard economic lifecycle.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I think most of those that are are going to drop out do so in their 20's and maybe early 30's. Those that I have talked to D&D about that "used to play," did so in high school and college. I've yet to talk to someone who quit playing in their 30's or later. People don't change much and by their mid 30's they are pretty set in their ways, and if those ways include D&D and other roleplaying games, they will probably play into their 40's, 50's and 60's if they can find players, which at this point are pretty easy to find.

They are only easy to find if you live in an urban area. Rural towns still have major difficulties in this arena.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Over the years, I've read a lot of FR books (fewer DS and DL). I've enjoyed some of them. When I decide to run in FR, I run from the Gray Box (or SCAG + Gray Box). When I run Greyhawk, I run from the folio. When I run Eberron .... Well, I don't need to go back to the original. It's always set there.

I understand people who really love the lore (I do to some extent), but I've never understood the need for the canon to be sacred and untouchable. For me, the events of the novels were always interesting, but true only insofar as I choose to make them true in any story I'm running.

I get that people feel an emotional loss over this recent decision regarding canonicity of earlier sourcebooks and novels. What I keep hearing is that those who don't want these to be canon can just ignore them. That's true, I've been doing it for decades (started playing a few years before the folio was released). It's true that every GM or fan gets to decide for themself what constitutes the official lore of the setting.

The real question that springs to my mind is: why is it harder for a GM who wants to include all this other material to do so than it is for other GMs to exclude it? Both groups have freedom to do what they want to do with the setting. If I want to include something outside the core, I tell the players at the table. Assuming that it is canon unless specified differently does present a hurtle for those who are trying to engage with the setting as a GM. When a a GM starts a new game, all the players at the table from old-timers like myself to those playing for the first time are in the same boat. We rely on the 5e material and information given to us by the GM. If I build a character tied to the old lore, I ask the GM about it. If they are unfamiliar with the lore, I supply a summary that applies to my character. If they say yes, I'm good. Otherwise, I make a different background.

I support the decision from the 5e team because I believe that it's the best decision for the roleplaying game that is at the heart of the Forgotten Realms.

However, it is disingenuous to claim that this has always been the policy. It's new, although I believe that the team has been moving in this direction for some time.