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.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

No they're not. That is, unless your "fun" is requiring people to learn as much lore as they can to prove that they're "True Fans" in unwarranted and unprovoked overly-aggressive D&D-Canon Pop Quizzes. If that's your fun, then yes, your fun is wrong.

Wrong. No one has discouraged anyone that enjoys learning lore from learning it. Whether or not it's "canon" doesn't matter, because "canon" only matters at each individual table. If you like all of FR/Dragonlance/Greyhawk's lore and having to spend hours and hours dedicating yourself to someone else's creation, that's perfect, because that's how you get enjoyment. However, it is not good to encourage new players and DMs to do the same, unless it is made clear of the task that it is to do so.

Are you SERIOUSLY telling me I'm wrong for feeling like I'm being told I'm wrong
Jesus H Christ man...

Again, nothing is lost here. It is the same as it was before, unless your table has a strange restriction on its lore only being what WotC considers "canon" for their 5e rulebooks (in which case, I would recommend finding a different table).

What's being lost is the history of the game
New people being encouraged to engage in the past and rewarded with ties to old lore
And new stories building on the old

 

[Scribe]

If there is no canon, then there is no expectation that you can carry things with you through editions, from novels, or whatever.

Books like The Grand History of the Realms, are a source of enjoyment, a way to interact with D&D outside of the game itself. To indicate that such things are 'not canon' absolutely takes something away from that.

I'm not talking crunch. I'm not talking about 'forcing DM's to respect the lore.' I am talking about something, history, that there absolutely are people which find joy in such things.

That book wouldnt even exist otherwise.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

I may be a Transformers lore nerd who can tell you all the absolute nonsense that occurred in the various flavours of G1 (Cartoon, Marvel Comics, Japanese extended G1, Japanese Boom Boom comics, the storybooks), but, does all this knowledge just, vanish if the subject of the day is IDW 05 Transformers, or Armada, or something else? Nope

It doesn't go away, but nothing new is added
The story is over
G1 ends with BEAST WARS and nothing new is added after, just various rehashes of the old

If you want to tie in all of the minutia of 40 years into your campaign, go nuts. But its not necessarily relevant any more to everyone's

Yes
But I also never need to ever buy a new D&D book again because nothing else will add to that
My money is no longer wanted. WizCo has flipped me the bird and told me not to let the door hit my ass on the way out of the hobby

I guess I can comfort myself by reading comics or watching Star Trek or reading Star Wars or any of those other properties with decades of unbroken continuity
Oh wait, no
They were all rebooted as well

 

[Zardnaar]

Even if one agrees with rebooting why would one buy any new novels if they just declear it non canon again further down the track?

If they reboot Dragonlance why should one care about it?

Bad example for me I'm not buying Dragonlance regardless although Fizbans book if whatever is fine.

 

[Campbell]

I approve. I think setting should be just as subject to scrutiny as mechanics. Just like mechanics, changes obviously will either be accepted by the audience or not. It's a self correcting process. Over the long arc I fail to see a downside.

 

[Umbran]

This is literally just one more example of something being taken away in an 'official' way, where it could have coexisted as it always has...

Except, it couldn't. At least, not quietly. Because any time they decided to veer off old canon in a published work, the old-canon lovers would raise a row of, "That contradicts canon!" They'd have to fight that fight every time they decided to do something different. It would be exhausting. Best to do it all at once and be done.

It has been said already, but bears repeating - Eventually, canon becomes a millstone around the neck of creativity. It becomes too much to stay true to all of it. The "setting bibles" get so big, and the continuity that needs to be checked across all he prior work to make sure they don't violate canon, becomes a real burden to production of new work.

Shedding canon is not unlike cleaning out the cluttered basement and garage of a property. Yeah, you got that waffle iron as a wedding present, and it was bright and shiny new and cool at that time. But you used it once, and then in ended up in a box that hasn't been opened again for five years. Time for it to go.

 

[Zardnaar]

Except, it couldn't. At least, not quietly. Because any time they decided to veer off old canon in a published, the old-canon lovers would raise a row of, "That contradicts canon!" They'd have to fight that fight every time they decided to do something different. It would be exhausting.

It has been said already, but bears repeating - Eventually, canon becomes a millstone around the neck of creativity. It becomes too much to stay true to all of it. The "setting bibles" get so big, and the continuity that needs to be checked across all he prior work to make sure they don't violate canon, becomes a real burden to production of new work.

Shedding canon is not unlike cleaning out the cluttered basement and garage of a property. Yeah, you got that waffle iron as a wedding present, and it was bright and shiny new and cool at that time. But you used it once, and then in ended up in a box that hasn't been opened again for five years. Time for it to go.

It might work out if it doesn't are they going to blame the fans? See 4E change to much and it also loses its appeal.

It might work out it might not. I don't think the majority of players care to much one way or another.

 

[Umbran]

Even if one agrees with rebooting why would one buy any new novels if they just declear it non canon again further down the track?

Because it is an entertaining book? Do you only read to establish inviolable truths about a fictional universe, or something?

If they reboot Dragonlance why should one care about it?

So, there was a time when there was no canon to Dragonlance. The first book hadn't been published. Why did anyone care about it then? Because the elements sounded cool! Dragons! War! Noble knights! Not-so-noble knights! Morally challenged wizards! Oh, and more Dragons!

 

[Umbran]

Incidentally, are you able to be civil with anyone in your offline life, or is this you all the time?

Don't make it personal, please.

 

[Scribe]

Except, it couldn't. At least, not quietly. Because any time they decided to veer off old canon in a published, the old-canon lovers would raise a row of, "That contradicts canon!" They'd have to fight that fight every time they decided to do something different. It would be exhausting.

It has been said already, but bears repeating - Eventually, canon becomes a millstone around the neck of creativity. It becomes too much to stay true to all of it. The "setting bibles" get so big, and the continuity that needs to be checked across all he prior work to make sure they don't violate canon, becomes a real burden to production of new work.

Shedding canon is not unlike cleaning out the cluttered basement and garage of a property. Yeah, you got that waffle iron as a wedding present, and it was bright and shiny new and cool at that time. But you used it once, and then in ended up in a box that hasn't been opened again for five years. Time for it to go.

Clearly, I disagree.

If Wizards doesnt care to put the time (which is money) into keeping it going. Fine.
If Wizards doesnt want to support things being seen as 'canon' that they would rather. Fine.
If Wizards wants to simply errata things out of existence (Wall of the Faithless in SCAG). Fine.
If DM's wish to ignore ANYTHING and change ANYTHING. They could, can, and will. Fine.

For me personally, to dismiss the history as no longer canon is a lessening of the game's settings. Period.