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]

Within the context of 'current setting' no, it's no longer canon, and is irrelevant.

Canon has bearing on relevance.

 

[Steampunkette]

It does make me wonder if this announcement was really aimed squarely at Dragonlance, and they are going to invalidate the old modules/novels with “reimagined” content.

I think it's more likely they're going to reboot the series to the War of the Lance era, keep Tika and the others as NPCs, and just start over with how things go from there, rather than keeping all the old Novels and stuff as "This is how things go in the modules and setting."

Same thing with Athas. Probably gonna see a complete retcon of Rajaat and the Cerulean Storm storyline in favor of a "New Mystery" of what really happened in the world.

Something that ties into the core spirit of the setting without being beholden to what came before, even when it uses some bits of what was previously written.

 

[Remathilis]

Also: everyone who has argued X player option (warlock, dragonborn, etc) can't be on Y setting (Greyhawk, Dark Sun), prepare to die mad.

 

[Parmandur]

If you think Ravenloft fans got salty, imagine how much saltier FR fans are going to be.

This just turned me off 5e altogether, even 4e never pulled a stunt like this and it nuked the setting. So mad.

I mean, this isn't really a change from what they've been doing for 7 years, they are just clearing the air now as major media tie-ins come online

 

[Scribe]

Canon has bearing on relevance.

To some, yes. So when they have stated that VAST amounts of content are no longer canon, then that content is now irrelevant.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

But I still think the basic idea that every game table and group creates their own canon is central and needs to be re-stated, again and again. This is where it differs from films altogether. The real and only "canonical" game world is whatever you decide it to be, at your table.

Every game has it's own canon, every game was also largely starting with the same baseline
While people could choose earlier eras to customize that baseline, WizCo still acknowledged what came before

Now it has been erased and WizCo is just dismissing the legacy of the game and declaring old baselines are invalid

And your argument only applies to game worlds you're playing
If I don't play the Realms or Dragonlance but play homebrew, then the novels ARE the only canon I have. How I engage with that world is reading the novels or playing the video games

The comparison to Star Wars lore is missing one pivotal piece of information: In D&D, we - the fans and players - change the lore ourselves. All WotC gives us is a jumping off point. You might jump off from a pretty defined point if you use an adventure path, but we all end up making changes to the lore to suit our needs. And, many DMs will reboot their setting often.

Because we can CHOOSE to change the lore ourselves doesn't mean the lore didn't exist prior
And it doesn't mean the D&D EU isn't being erased and the history of the game isn't being rebooted

Star Wars was a roleplaying game as well, and it's fans could choose to change it's lore

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Holy over-reactions Batman!

D&D lore is scattered over 40 years of sourcebooks, novels, magazines, video games, toys, cartoons, movies, and comics. It's inconsistent with itself and changes edition to edition. It makes Doctor Who look like a cohesive narrative! Why should game designers be beholden to some Dragon article published in 1987 or a Lost Tails of Dragonlance book referenced in the wiki?

This is merely an indication that in the process of updating settings they aren't going to be beholden to the old lore nor will they use RSE's to explain it. This is 100% what they did with Ravenloft and is going to be used liberally in Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and other future settings. They are preempting the "Actshully, according to 'Tails from Uncle Trapspringer...'" Type of criticism.

Is WotC going to ignore everything before 2014? Obviously not. They love thier nostalgia. But they aren't worried that the Novel Mordenheim or Lords of Necropolis is no longer cannon. They are probably going to use this to justify lore changes to various races or monsters as well.

I just don't see why this is a big deal. WotC's been doing this all along on smaller things all along (Strahd's origin, female gnome deities in ToF, etc). They are telegraphing a Dragonlance setting that isn't going to align with the novel line. It's just nice to see they are acknowledging it.

FR depth of lore is part of the appeal of the setting, that its a living setting, dumping 90% of lore kills that and also means that current FR lore makes no sense because the context of the past lore when acted as the foundation for the 5e lore.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The unbridled arrogance of Jeremy Crawford and his fellows, 5e's unearned success has gone to their heads if they think they can dump years and years of FR canon into the trash can.

When 5e was created it was to unite fans, and the fans came and it was a huge success, but now that FR fans are needed anymore, because its so popular thanks to social media, they can flip FR fans the bird. I hope they all get the firing they all so desperately deserve.

And better yet I hope Ed Greenwood sues WotC for breach of contract and takes FR back from them. I wish WotC endless failure for this act of treachery.

This is the most overreacting post ever. You went kinda far about the whole ''Ed should be mad that Elm didnt receive and MTG card''. But this trumps all.

Wishing ill for a bunch of creators because they MIGHT not follow the lore established 40 years ago is childish and frankly immature.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The only reason they're making this statement now is that they have been recently publishing radically altered versions of established classic settings, and they want to give official notice that they're going to continue doing that, because all the new fans won't care, and all the old fans are irrelevant. It sucks if you're an old fan with any emotional investment in the classic worlds of D&D, but that's where we are now. As has been said above, this changes nothing for your home game, but it's sad to know that the game that's been such an important part of your life is moving on from you.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Did anyone really get that worked up over say, Falkovnia being a zombie apocalypse domain ruled by Vladeska Drakov, instead of yet another oppressive land ruled by the most blatant Not-Dracula of Ravenloft?

The majority of the DnD audience? No
The majority of old school Ravenloft fans? Yes