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.

 

[Reynard]

It is: I have seen people assert that there us a metaplot in 5E, because Baldur's Gate 3 builds off of elements from the Adventure, and one possible set of events from the end. They specifically feel the need to call out video games as non-canon in this event.

The only metaplot I have seen mentioned for 5E is whatever is going on with the obelisks littered throughout all the adventures.

 

[Parmandur]

Then why mention the novels, the very things that made FR popular?

They mention all media.

 

[Steampunkette]

Probably for the best as far as Dragonlance is concerned. The original novels are remembered fondly, but haven't aged all that well, and then the series just went downhill from there as far as I'm concerned...

I'm curious as to why you think they'd retcon Rajaat. The Sorcerer Kings in the present day of Tyr, yeah maybe tone down the more gratuitous aspects of the whole slavery thing, but do people have issues with the Dark Sun backstory, and Rajaat specifically? And how much do you think they might change?

During the very long thread on Dark Sun I started up a lot of discussion was had about the Prism Pentad and while I recognized that a lot of it was poorly written I didn't actually understand the core of the anger toward it until later in the thread:

Dark Sun was interesting as a Mystery. WHAT happened to the world? Who are the Sorcerer Kings? What lead to this way of being and how do we explore it to try and fix it?

By keeping Rajaat and the other canon from the Prism Pentad, they lock themselves into a set of answers to the questions that are at the heart of the exploratory and inquisitive aspect of the setting. By discarding it, they free themselves, and our tables, to find the reasons and understanding all over again.

Or never find out in full. Like a Zombie movie without the tedious explanation of Zombies and how they came to be.

 

[Parmandur]

Indeed, pop quizzes to test whether someone was a "true fan" were a big part of the sexist backlash to the "fake gamer girl" era.

I've been playing since 1979, longer than most folks on this board or D&D gamers have been alive. You all count as "true fans" in my eyes, even if you talk smack about gnomes.

Gnomes are my wife's favorite race, actually.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

See, this is exactly the kind of derisive and insulting attitude I objected to in this thread. People are actively insulting those who prefer their D&D settings to have consistency and depth.

It was an intentionally silly example. People are allowed to change their hairstyles once or twice in 40 years. Many people would say it's encouraged.

 

[Reynard]

The whole idea of "canon" in this context baffles me anyway. Unless you're talking about organized play, I don't see how it's even a relevant concept.

They aren't talking about canon at your table. they are talking about canon in the publications.

 

[grimslade]

Ok. Look Crawford is not saying anything new here. They could always change canon. They have changed canon many, many times. Spellplague FR shows how much they can change while 'respecting' canon. All Crawford is saying is what they have done all along. They change what they want and the stories are still good, just won't stop us from doing what we want.

 

[dave2008]

So, in other words, WotC is telling longtime D&D fans they aren't welcome in 5e and that decades of learning lore isn't appreciated, in fact it's scorned?

Retroactively rebooting all of D&D lore, in all settings and core lore effective 7 years ago?

Telling Realms fans that the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide is the only canonical Realms book?

Is WotC actively trying to alienate dedicated longtime fans? The last time I felt WotC was doing this was when 4e came out.

I think that is extremely overblown. I think they are just admitting for the first time that with each edition their is a change in the lore. The fact is the lore they present in 5e has a lot of ties to the past lore. It doesn't come from nowhere. They are just admitting that they are not beholden to previous lore. Which they never were and it had changed in every edition of the game as far as I can tell.

 

[D1Tremere]

That's not the problem.

Going by what's on the first post, my issue is with them openly stating anything prior to 5e is not canon.

That's it.

Each table will do it's own thing.
Each game changes the setting at that table.
That's how it's supposed to work.

There is another stream however, where the novels 'happened' and the story existed. Where those characters exist and continue to exist with a history we can all share and recognize as having happened. Because it was canon.

Now? It's not.

That doesn't make any sense, unless I am just misunderstanding you. Just because there are 50 novels and 30 game supplements about Elminster that may or may not be consulted when a new novel gets written, that doesn't mean that those previous products cease to exist. Maybe they were false narratives, maybe the new book is not the real Elminster, maybe this is the Forgotten Realms from Universe 919 instead of 313. There are many ways to look at it, but the gist is that new cannon does not erase old cannon. It just decouples new stories from old baggage. You are free to control the narrative and experience for yourself.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This reminds me when the recent Guide To Ravenloft came out and people were all upset that lore was changed, and James Lowder made a comment on FB about how that's totally cool cuz lore changes all the time, and someone responded with (and I'm paraphrasing), "That's just your opinion, what do you know?"

Yep...(if you don't know why that's a dumb thing to say, google James Lowder)