WotC: Novels and Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I am mostly with the canon-followers, but I changed many things for my own game. When I wrote Blaustein, I added an exception to Bluebeard that he can leave his domain for a short period of time, because it was IMHO the way to handle his leave-the-bride-in-the-castle-alone-so-she-will-open-the-forbidden-door. Yes, it contradicts canon lore, but heck, what are the rules if not to be brocken !

Good thing you did that for Bluebeard, I really liked that article on Blaustein and the whole inspired from the Republic of Pirates in Nassau concept. My only objection would be the map, although I like the idea of the pirate town I would prefer the island a bit bigger like the following I 've found, that gives more options for adventure, other than the pirate urban kind or "trip" to the castle.

https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/308707749427304518/

On the other hand the island as a fortified pirate town is interesting, though it lacks as I wrote previously the other adventure themes.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

It's one thing if people want to just have a basic self-contained campaign that doesn't really reach into anything else. But lore enriches campaigns. And canon is the basis for that lore. Players and DMs can do such wonderful things with pre-established lore if they just take the time to look through it and work with it. It's a powerful tool, and one I wish fewer people were all too happy to shove aside.

I agree with this view that canon is essential in stimulating creativity, there are many stories that come up just by trying to keep up with a timeline or a characters story that trying to connect the dots I have ended up with new stories and developments in NPC's.

...

Also the difference in canon between the new edition and the old ones I also believe is going to create confusion if not a rift between the Ravenloft community in a decade or so as mentioned before.

[alhoon]

Strong words here... I would like to say that while WotC threw the baby out with the bathwater and then set fire to the house, the bath and the baby, nothing stops us from the 'table canon' Jester spoke about.

Sure, it makes it a bit harder if you try to merge new players and old players but 95% of the people could probably adjust.
It has the downside of "losing" some things you loved but it has the upside of approaching the DM's world as it is something new.

For 5e:Ravenloft players walking to the Core and finding a Barovia with ~60K people would be new. For Gaz-era players, walking South of Lamordia and finding Saidra's domain of poseurs & illusions instead of Dominic's domain of manipulators and illusions would be something new. Again, for 5e:Players just walking south of the border to find another domain is new too.

This material didn't just disappear. The Gazetteers are a product of love. Many of the novels are excellent. Some were already... hard to reconcile with the view other products presented of the world. For example, I don't remember the name, but the novel with the caliban and the cursed bells with the werepanther Kargat agent had Azalin engange in physical expressions of intimacy with a living creature (?!?). It had animated cooked chickens walking on a table to set themselves on the plates of the guests. It had a tower that got up from the ground and started walking. That's not the Darkon I picture. In my games, Azalin doesn't have carnal passions nor he engages to the Kargat in that way. Magic isn't visible in everyday life and necromancy would send people screaming instead of eating zombie chickens.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

This material didn't just disappear. The Gazetteers are a product of love. Many of the novels are excellent. Some were already... hard to reconcile with the view other products presented of the world. For example, I don't remember the name, but the novel with the caliban and the cursed bells with the werepanther Kargat agent had Azalin engange in physical expressions of intimacy with a living creature (?!?). It had animated cooked chickens walking on a table to set themselves on the plates of the guests. It had a tower that got up from the ground and started walking. That's not the Darkon I picture. In my games, Azalin doesn't have carnal passions nor he engages to the Kargat in that way. Magic isn't visible in everyday life and necromancy would send people screaming instead of eating zombie chickens.

That was Tower of Doom not the best Ravenloft novel out there, one of the weakest in my opinion, although the idea of an annual ball in Castle Avernus was made canon in 3e which was a nice addition...(yes without the zombie chickens) but I believe in Darkon magic is accepted and used, with only Hazlan following after the GC and maybe Vechor. The false history of Darkon is full of wizards and the domain is closer to Tolkien's Middle Earth (there is even a Balor in the fracture that connects the Shadow Rift and the Mountains of Misery, exiting through a goblin lair.)

[onmyoji]

I don't think WotC is making decisions with Mistipedia in mind. But regardless, the purpose of Mistipedia is to document what exists. Victor Mordenheim exists (in 2nd and 3rd Edition books). Viktra Mordenheim exists (in the 5e book, and likely any going forward that might exist). So Mistipedia should document both. We try to label canon levels so that people know what they are getting, but it's not a passing of judgement, just a label of the source.

Of course it does. My question was more rhetorical, though, the point being that if canon doesn't exist, then what is all this we're protecting and fighting for? And I mean that for canon of all editions... including the stuff I don't personally care for in VRGtR. It's published, so it counts as canon, and is just as worth protecting as anything else on Mistipedia. The underlying point meaning that—at least to me—the view that canon just doesn't exist is futile and puerile.

Continuity is for the hard-core fan (self included). The average newcomer doesn't care. (I know you do, onmyoji, but you're above average. ) Even the average person who looks back with nostalgia doesn't remember all the details of a setting or other fictional world. It's a matter of priorities. Spend time and energy catering to the mega-fan, for little gain, or ride the nostalgia wave and bring in the new customers? D&D isn't the first to go through this. Which is canon? Jeff Goldblum's The Fly or Vincent Price's? Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes or Robert Downey Jr.'s or Basil Rathbone's? (See also comics, assorted sci-fi and fantasy franchises, etc. etc.)

Aw, thanks for the compliment! Though with the different Fly's and Holmeses, I'd argue that each is canonical. Maybe not in the same universe, but if all of those revisions were part of Ravenloft, they would all be worth documenting in Mistipedia and protecting here. It doesn't mean future writers have to read the old canon before writing (as they rarely if ever do), or that they have to do anything with long-time fans in mind (they don't). I just mean that everything they produce is still validly "canon," and the idea that "canon" just doesn't exist is just problematic. Not that anyone has to stick with canon. DMs change what exists and make their own canon all the time, which becomes their own canon. But there is still a baseline, however hopelessly complicated to sort through it may be.

Hope that helps clarify my point.

— onmyoji

[onmyoji]

Even when writing in the same edition, if you want to keep expanding a world, once in a while you need to reshape / modify what was written before. Otherwise, things are frozen and that limits creativity. I know his comment was about Forgotten Realms, but it applies to RL too.

While I do agree with this on paper, I just want to point out that things being frozen doesn't necessarily limit creativity. In working on the Ravenloft campaign I plan to run in the upcoming years, I've been trying to stick with published (pre-VRGtR) canon as best as possible. I've only ever changed something when it either blatantly doesn't fit, or otherwise is completely absurd. And that taught me a wonderful skill. When two events or things don't seem to operate well together, the first notion to come to mind is to alter something so they do. However, the skill I learned is to instead ask myself, "How is this true?"

For example, Jander Sunstar plays a major part in that campaign. In pre-5E canon, he is still stuck in Ravenloft, which is how he came to importance initially. Then WotC stuck him into Descent into Avernus for no reason whatsoever. How could he be in two places at once (before the VRGtR nonsense of him being cloned anyway)? Well, he can't. Most DM's might've just decided to ignore Avernus since it's unrelated to the campaign. But I thought it might not be a bad idea to try to find a way that both things could be true. So I found reason for him to escape Ravenloft only to be bound back into it after the Avernus events occur. And it made the story I want to tell so much more powerful because of how that had to happen.

And processes like this has happened multiple times as I've worked with the story I want to tell. Another one is that the Raven Queen and who she really is plays a huge part in the campaign. So I didn't want anyone to be directly related to her. But one of my players wanted to be a shadar-kai who received orders from her directly. How can this be true? Not gonna spoil it here, but suffice it to say that wrestling with that for a few weeks allowed me some solid inspiration that not only made it possible for him to be a shadar-kai, but also helped me reconcile the problem of the different origin stories for the Raven Queen in a nice narratively deep and fulfilling way. Nothing just got edited out because I didn't like it.

My point being that sometimes sticking with a fixed canon and trying to move around it creatively forces one to think outside the box more and can often lead to far richer/deeper storytelling/worldbuilding. It's well worth it if one has the time.

— onmyoji

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Canon in an RPG setting is like the base timeline, the default everyone’s game branches off. It’s important because it means new products can be slotted in to the story and people can take or leave them, but it builds the internal logic of the setting and creates the agreed default that anyone can refer to.

Ignoring it, like VRGR or going back further to CoD, creates inconsistencies in the default which means it becomes hard to reconcile with everyone’s games. Getting rid of the default makes it harder to incorporate new things.

Spoilers for Loki ahead;

VIEW CONTENT:

Think of everything from the Black Box to Legacies of the Blood as the “Sacred Timeline” and all of our personal campaigns are the variants. My Van Richten isn’t your Van Richten, Alhoon’s Living Brain isnt’t Joel’s Living Brain, etc, but they all are recognisable variants of the “Sacred Timeline” versions of the character. It means when we talk about these character we all have a recognisable base from where they come from.

VRGR, by ignoring the past, is less a variant of the ST, it’s more a complete rewrite. Now when someone talks about a character, they’ll have to clarify how that character fits into the world because there is no baseline for them. There’s no continuous “Sacred Timeline”’for people to be familiar with. It gets rid of the continuity, it gets rid of the baseline for characters and removing they removes the soul from the game. It removes the idea that these are living, breathing characters and reduces them to caricatures.

[TwiceBorn Reborn]

WotC's Chris Perkins has just published a blog post going into the subject in a bit more detail: https://dnd.wizards.com/dndstudioblog/dnd-canon

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

WotC's Chris Perkins has just published a blog post going into the subject in a bit more detail: https://dnd.wizards.com/dndstudioblog/dnd-canon

That is the most blatant example of damage control I’ve read in a long time.

[kourkenko]

Canon in an RPG setting is like the base timeline, the default everyone’s game branches off. It’s important because it means new products can be slotted in to the story and people can take or leave them, but it builds the internal logic of the setting and creates the agreed default that anyone can refer to.

Ignoring it, like VRGR or going back further to CoD, creates inconsistencies in the default which means it becomes hard to reconcile with everyone’s games. Getting rid of the default makes it harder to incorporate new things.

Spoilers for Loki ahead;

VIEW CONTENT:

Think of everything from the Black Box to Legacies of the Blood as the “Sacred Timeline” and all of our personal campaigns are the variants. My Van Richten isn’t your Van Richten, Alhoon’s Living Brain isnt’t Joel’s Living Brain, etc, but they all are recognisable variants of the “Sacred Timeline” versions of the character. It means when we talk about these character we all have a recognisable base from where they come from.

VRGR, by ignoring the past, is less a variant of the ST, it’s more a complete rewrite. Now when someone talks about a character, they’ll have to clarify how that character fits into the world because there is no baseline for them. There’s no continuous “Sacred Timeline”’for people to be familiar with. It gets rid of the continuity, it gets rid of the baseline for characters and removing they removes the soul from the game. It removes the idea that these are living, breathing characters and reduces them to caricatures.

It was my main grip with the 5th edition Ravenloft, it deconstruct 20 years of history and replace it with nothing. It is stricly the same problem with Start trek, Star wars and Doctor Who, they deconstructed the story and replaced it with nothing relevant to the IP itself. It is like writers are bankrupt regarding stories, they rehashe but in a bad way.

It is why i choosed to support dm guild products, several already choosing to keep the old timeleine, it's just my choice but the 5th edition is not for me.

[alhoon]

A lot of negativity here... I don't 100% agree with Chris, but he has his perspectives.

[Zilfer]

I think the subject's a bit of a double edged sword no matter which way you cut it. I am defintely a fan of don't take canon as gospel at your table, and players who try to correct DM's about things at their table can be a problem. "Drizzt would never do that, or he can't be here because it's the other side of the world!" or anything similar to that. I'll often change just as much when setting up a game to be played. Hell my Shadowdale campaign as a different Lord of Shadowdale due to my players actions, Forlorn doesn't exist due to playing through a game that started off here on this forum and I continue that canon forward from what we did. (We took Tristen as a baby from his domain).

There is definitely a push in 5e to keep a lot of things vague and give the DM Wiggle room in their stories though on the opposing side it's also nice to have specific concrete things laid out. That being said doesn't mean I won't change it if I don't like it, but there are those who because it is written in the book will force themselves to conform to what was written, a mind set I have struggled with in the past to be honest before eventually coming to where I am now where if I like what's presented I'll try to stick close. CoS for example turns Strahd's backstory into that he conquered Barovia rather than winning it back from the Tergs that stole his family's homeland. When running it I still keep it to the older lore, but I do appreciate seeing a new take. This is why I usually will end up reading other people's games to see how they ran it. I've read Gonzoron's campaign journals which has influenced a bit of my own campaigns, along with another campaign that linked Godefroy to one of the artifacts that brings ghosts back to life that I thought was genius.

I'm sure DMsguild content is also on their mind of allowing a bit of wiggle room there for people either to bring back older content / lore and make some money off of it, or reinvent off some of the newer stuff, or making their own complete canon of something.

So either way I cut it, whether they continue the letting wiggle room, or change to hyper specifying canon that really wouldn't change my process much, I'd still find myself cutting and pasting things for my game either way.

[alhoon]

Mistipedia cannon: I think we need something called 5e-canon, Athaus-canon and TSR-canon. For example, Soth is and should remain that darklord of Sithicus. 3e-canon was not always consistent with TSR-canon.

[Zilfer]

There are usually always changes between editions. I remember being very pissed off about Kelemvor being killed off by the Raven Queen early 4e but with 5e and a little ways into 4e I believe he was back. Didn't end up playing much of 4e though so, could be a bit skewed on a few of the lore differences between editions. I do like the effort put forth on seperating netbook canon on the pages. Good job to those still editing the wiki.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Mistipedia cannon: I think we need something called 5e-canon, Athaus-canon and TSR-canon. For example, Soth is and should remain that darklord of Sithicus. 3e-canon was not always consistent with TSR-canon.

Soth left Sithicus at the tail end of TSR. The Black Rose was the place holder name that they used when they couldn't name him.