D&D can be a daunting hobby to get into.
To the outside viewer, it looks like a behemoth of a game, with hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of popular live plays to watch, huge rulebooks to read, and countless novels/video games/other accessory entertainment to tackle.
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And that’s just for someone who wants to play the game, let alone feel comfortable enough with their understanding of the rules and worlds and lore to actually run a game.
But a recent blog post from Wizards of the Coast actually puts some of those fears to rest (I hope).
I’ve always been a big advocate for easy D&D — the kind of gaming experience that allows for siblings, and significant others, and hesitant friends to try out the game without having to get too deep into all crunchy stuff. So when Chris Perkins, one of D&D Studio’s principal game architects, published a blog titled D&D Canon, I was happy to see it.
The blog basically breaks down into 5 parts, which I’ll briefly TL;DR for you here:
Every expression of D&D has it’s own canon: Which is basically to say that canon will not transfer over between the actual game itself and novels, comic books, video games, etc.
Why not adopt canon from earlier editions? Perkins writes that they don’t want to burden DMs with having to know 5 editions worth of lore in order to properly keep up with their veteran players. “DMs and players should be able to use our content without having to keep up on some metaplot that stretches across novels, comics, and video games.”
As a lazy DM, I say amen to that.
5th Edition canon begins with the core rulebooks: The Players Handbook, the Dungeon Masters Guide, and the Monster Manual are basically trump cards over any other canon/lore that may have come before it (as long as you’re playing 5ht Edition, that is).
Canon is less about player enjoyment and more about WotC being internally consistent: The makers of the game don’t really care whether or not you stick to strict canon in your own game — they just make sure that they do in their books (to the extent noted above) so that things don’t get ridiculously confusing.
“Whether or not a piece of art or lore is canonical in fifth edition should have little or no bearing on how most people interact with the game. If I told you that Markham Southwell is canonically the sheriff of Bryn Shander circa 1492 DR, would that really impact your experience running or playing Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden?”
WotC developers are aware of the game’s long history: Even still, they make the judgement calls about what should stay the same (such as the number of a Beholder’s eyes) and what should be changed (like the name of Waterdeep’s “Slut Street”).
Conclusion
What I take away from this may be a little bias, but as someone who has always been of the ideology that D&D should be played to maximize fun for everyone, there should not be any sort of barrier to entry regarding the amount of D&D lore that anyone knows for them to get to enjoy the game just as much as anyone else.
I was glad to see Perkins write up this little post, and it made me wonder what prompted it. That D&D can be an overly gatekept hobby is no secret, and I like to think that he potentially wrote this up to take some of the ammunition away from the kinds of players who think that someone has to have 100+ hours of D&D lore under their belt to deserve a place at their table.
And to that I say kudos.
