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.

 

[Scribe]

That fair enough. Poor quality storytelling devalues the setting more for me.

Certainly, but that's not hard canons fault.

 

[TheSword]

Certainly, but that's not hard canons fault.

It is, if hard cannon makes writers tie themselves up in knots, or stretch suspension of disbelief to breaking point. The sad tale of 30 years of Myth Drannor story ends ups with

Spoiler: FR Spoiler

Its Mythal being destroyed and then the city of Shade being dropped on it. Destroying both Thultanthar and Myth Drannor.

Thanks very much hard cannon. If I want the rich, wondrous and interesting multi-factional Ruin of Myth Drannor in my campaign… and to stay on canon, it’s now screwed. Cheers!

 

[Bolares]

Certainly, but that's not hard canons fault.

Maybe not. But hard canon makes bad authors permanent. It's really hard to make hard canon consistent and good trhough decades and dozens of authors.

 

[Scribe]

It is, if hard cannon makes writers tie themselves up in knots, or stretch suspension of disbelief to breaking point. The sad tale of 30 years of Myth Drannor story ends ups with

Spoiler: FR Spoiler

Its Mythal being destroyed and then the city of Shade being dropped on it. Destroying both Thultanthar and Myth Drannor.

Thanks very much hard cannon. If I want the rich, wondrous and interesting multi-factional Ruin of Myth Drannor in my campaign… and to stay on canon, it’s now screwed. Cheers!

Sometimes retcons are needed for any number of reasons. This whole thread is a different issue though.

 

[dave2008]

They're taking all the old lore and disposing of it in a giant pit.

That is not correct. They are using it for inspiration (and in most cases just straight up using it), but they are not beholden to it. It is not at all like disposing of it in a pit, not even 4e did that.

 

[TheSword]

Sometimes retcons are needed for any number of reasons. This whole thread is a different issue though.

So the canon isn’t that hard at all then? Or rather it’s hard, until it isn’t. Helpful.

 

[a.everett1287]

Sorry, I should have been more clear that I was being facetious, and gently (or not so gently) mocking the posters who do feel that way. I definitely agree with you and Umbran that they're not wholesale ditching previous lore and continuity

That is not correct. They are using it for inspiration (and in most cases just straight up using it), but the are not beholden to it. It is not at all like disposing of it in a pit, not even 4e did that.

 

[a.everett1287]

Canon is immutable, until it does something I don't like, and then I can shelve it and decide what is Canon... Which is different then what is happening here because.... Stuff.

So the canon isn’t that hard at all then? Or rather it’s hard, until it isn’t. Helpful.

 

[Mirtek]

It is, if hard cannon makes writers tie themselves up in knots, or stretch suspension of disbelief to breaking point. The sad tale of 30 years of Myth Drannor story ends ups with

Spoiler: FR Spoiler

Its Mythal being destroyed and then the city of Shade being dropped on it. Destroying both Thultanthar and Myth Drannor.

Thanks very much hard cannon. If I want the rich, wondrous and interesting multi-factional Ruin of Myth Drannor in my campaign… and to stay on canon, it’s now screwed. Cheers!

Actually dropping Thultanthar on Myth Drannor returns exactly that. Before Myth Drannor was reclaimed by the elven crusade and no longer an interesting multi-factional ruin but a driving city with public services, watchen, burocrats, shopping districts, etc.

Now you once again have your interesting ruin of New Myth Drannor, mixed up with the stuff from the ruin of Thultanthar and even some leftover from ruined Myth Drannor that new Myth Drannor had sealed and pacified and that now again became an untamed part of the new ruin mix

Sometimes retcons are needed for any number of reasons. This whole thread is a different issue though.

Also a matter of taste. I also like the ruins of MD better than the city of New MD, but I disagree that it needed to have been restored (least of all through a retcon).

An important part of a moving metaplot is that plotlines get resolved. New stuff comes up to replace it. Even if I personally like the new stuff less than the old (cough spell plague) I would hate it even more if nothing ever happened. Nothing would move forward, nothing would be resolved.

During the end of 4e there was a lively discussion on whether 4e should be resolved with a retcon vs. resolving 4e by moving forward. I was vehemently for the later and glad that was what happened.

I like Cyric very much. If Cyric were to be killed off in canon I would be upset/sad, but I would just have to get used with an FR continuing without Cyric, made hope for him to be resurrected like many dead deities do, but I would have if 3 years later that would be retconned, even though it would restore an element I used to like


The MD thing is actually a good example of how to undo a progress that they later thought they maybe shouldn't have done. Instead of declaring all events of Last Mythal not canon and retconning the whole thing they restored it through further progression of the setting.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

For you maybe, for others it's one of the if not the reasons for chosing a setting.

My interested in Eberron died the moment I learned that it's a "dead" setting that will never move, never resolve the current issues in favor or progress and new issues, etc.

I know. Everyone tells me to watch Firefly, but there was only one season and a movie, so it's basically dead with no chance of expansion so I'm not going to waste my time.

What

I've never heard of this mentality. Are you saying that a long running series is automatically better than a standalone work, simply on the virtue of being longer? Because I can name quite a few books, movies, and single season TV shows that were good even though they were short or never received any follow-up, and a lot of bad long running book series, movie franchises, and TV shows that really should have quit while they were ahead but are currently stuck in sequel hell.