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]

Yes—I'm one of them. And I'm a member of the small minority who, in that recent survey posted here, answered "I follow the canon as much as possible."

But I also don't get too upset when WotC plays around with FR canon—which, so far as I can tell, places me in a vanishingly small Venn diagram sliver of folks who are passionate about the canon setting and who follow it very closely when DMing that setting, but who don't lose sleep over new canon developments they don't like.

I tend to be loosey-goosey with the canon in play, but I too get a kick out of pouring over older Edition books for morsels and tidbits. Dontbink that is all that rare, actually.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Not.The.Point. I've said as much. Multiple times.

I did have more to my post than that. I explained why I liked the change and how it was beneficial to me and new players. I don't get "the point" if it's "I like having a mountain of lore". I have just repeatedly pointed out that you still have "a mountain of lore" free for use, it just isn't considered strictly "official" anymore. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but the previous system upset and hurt me.

Everyone refuses to acknowledge what I'm saying, while cheering that DM's are free. They have always been free.

But that wasn't always made clear.

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, and I'm being told that not only is what I would prefer wrong, but that I am a bad person because of it.

No one has said that. I've repeated multiple times that liking the piles of lore wasn't badwrongfun.

 

[Autumnal]

The part of this I always find morbidly fascinating is when people invent and tell each other stories about how people currently at WotC hate, despise, and otherwise dislike all the stuff from before their time, and then I tab over to social media to look at the feed of friends and acquaintances at WotC, Paizo, Green Ronin, and other local companies and find write-ups of their latest campaigns using AD&D 1st and 2nd editions (and some using earlier versions of D&D), in a mix of home-brew and old published settings. I'd have to do a careful tally over several months to be sure, but I am reasonably confident that many people working at those companies are, at a minimum, about as likely to use old stuff as current for their personal play.

Which is to say that so nearly as I can tell, all the hateful-attitude stuff is pure invention, drawing on bad-faith reading and willingness to extrapolate tiny snippets in isolation from the whole of their passages, and then subject to zero check for plausibility and such.

The truth is that someone who actually does loathe one or more prior editions of any game that's had multiple editions (or equivalently distinct eras) is unlikely to last at the publisher of the current one. Even when there's no publisher-side interest in using old details, there's a bunch of legacy in ambience - overall tone and style - that darned few publishers ever successfully jettison wholesale. "Absolutely everything you ever knew is wrong!" turns out to be a well-paved road to ruin, as opposed to much more selective revision of the "Learn the shocking new truth about bits X and Y!" sort, or even more temperately, "See what's become of A & B!".

 

[Autumnal]

Sorry, I posted without a sig file in place. Wasn't trying to be anonymous, just did it anyway.

Bruce Baugh <*> Somewhat retired writer & developer of RPGs
Most recent releases with me in them: Fate Horror Toolkit, Book of Oblivion for Wraith: The Oblivion
Two delightful cats live with me. See them on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/brucebaugh/

 

[Micah Sweet]

Would openning up DM's Guild for that setting count as unretiring it?

See now, if they opened up the rest of their settings to the Guild, I would stop having any issues with this. Someone out there is bound to make material for my favorite settings that works for me if they're allowed to do so. I just no longer expect that person to be WotC anymore.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The part of this I always find morbidly fascinating is when people invent and tell each other stories about how people currently at WotC hate, despise, and otherwise dislike all the stuff from before their time, and then I tab over to social media to look at the feed of friends and acquaintances at WotC, Paizo, Green Ronin, and other local companies and find write-ups of their latest campaigns using AD&D 1st and 2nd editions (and some using earlier versions of D&D), in a mix of home-brew and old published settings. I'd have to do a careful tally over several months to be sure, but I am reasonably confident that many people working at those companies are, at a minimum, about as likely to use old stuff as current for their personal play.

Which is to say that so nearly as I can tell, all the hateful-attitude stuff is pure invention, drawing on bad-faith reading and willingness to extrapolate tiny snippets in isolation from the whole of their passages, and then subject to zero check for plausibility and such.

The truth is that someone who actually does loathe one or more prior editions of any game that's had multiple editions (or equivalently distinct eras) is unlikely to last at the publisher of the current one. Even when there's no publisher-side interest in using old details, there's a bunch of legacy in ambience - overall tone and style - that darned few publishers ever successfully jettison wholesale. "Absolutely everything you ever knew is wrong!" turns out to be a well-paved road to ruin, as opposed to much more selective revision of the "Learn the shocking new truth about bits X and Y!" sort, or even more temperately, "See what's become of A & B!".

It's truly bananas to me that people could ever think, "Oh, the employees at WotC just loathe everything pre-5E."

Like, most of them worked on D&D before 5E. They all played D&D before 5E; they clearly love those editions. Their product releases for 5E show they feel the same nostalgia.

It reminds me of the "Kathleen Kennedy is a monster who hates Star Wars!" nonsense.

 

[a.everett1287]

Bye then

Huzzah!

 

[Micah Sweet]

well, but there is a BIG difference here. D&D is not, and should not, be focused on its stories. It's a game first and foremost. Books, old lore, NPCs, should not come in the way of the game. And that's why other media is not canon for the game. Novels still have their continuity, they still matter in their own medium. They just don't make the game obligated to follow their steps. Games can be inspired by the novels, when D&D often is, but they sould not be canon

See, I think it should be about the game more than the stories too. Intellectually. Emotionally, I began my serious investment in D&D in the 2nd ed era, and back then, the stories were at least as important as the game, maybe more. I can't help looking at things from that perspective, and feeling sad that they've decided to officially end those stories (even if most were unofficially ended a long time ago). It's not an abrupt shift; they've been doing this for a while now, I know. What it is is an official acknowledgment that the kind of fan I am is less important to them than it used to be. That's always a little sad, and I hope some of you out there can at least understand that.

 

[Bolares]

they've decided to officially end those stories

Did they though? Wich story has ended? The novels will keep coming... they will just not be shifting the game along with them.

 

[a.everett1287]

Understand, sure. Respect or empathize?

Ehhhhh

See, I think it should be about the game more than the stories too. Intellectually. Emotionally, I began my serious investment in D&D in the 2nd ed era, and back then, the stories were at least as important as the game, maybe more. I can't help looking at things from that perspective, and feeling sad that they've decided to officially end those stories (even if most were unofficially ended a long time ago). It's not an abrupt shift; they've been doing this for a while now, I know. What it is is an official acknowledgment that the kind of fan I am is less important to them than it used to be. That's always a little sad, and I hope some of you out there can at least understand that.