This game canon?

mistriosu · March 2014

Is this game considered canon as far as Forgotten Realms goes? I don't know who's writing the story so idk.

I feel if it is, I'm probably gonna have to play every single quest and do every dungeon, etc so I can know it all!

If it isn't then phew, I don't have to spend this whole year on this!

ambisinisterr · March 2014

It was long ago decided no video games are never D&D Canon.

They will use Canon events, lore and characters at times but no video games are Canon.
Don't play any video game if all you care about is if they are Canon. Not even the great Baldurs Gate is Canon.

hustin1 · March 2014

Thank goodness. My P&P group still uses 2E D&D (and some 1E), and the FR events in Neverwinter just seem...blasphemous, especially after having read a bunch of the books.

mistriosu · March 2014

Thanks! I just wanted to know if it was following 100% canon or taking creative license. I'm still gonna play, just not with the kind of addiction I would if it were canon and I needed the story haha

ambisinisterr · March 2014

Um, the concepts very much are Canon...

The Dread Ring is Canon.
Knox and Neverember are Canon.
Valindra and her plans to try to take over Neverwinter is Canon.
A lot of things in the game are Canon. The game itself is not.

Just because the game is not Canon does not mean you should be blaming the 'blasphemy' on the developers.

dardove · March 2014

A lot of the stuff in Neverwinter is from the Neverwinter campaign setting. Some interesting stuff about the Mad Dragon in that book for example.

And mod 3 is a follow-up to the Legacy of the Crystal Shard adventure.

hustin1 · March 2014

Ah...I suddenly feel old...

ambisinisterr · March 2014

Thanks for supplying the links Dardove. I was going to look those up but you beat me to it.

There are many events in Dungeons and Dragons video games which are Canon however those are Canon because they exist in literature or settings outside of the video game. You can't cite something as being Canon because it is in a video game but that does not mean the story is not Canon.

Think of it this way: the game counts as if you are playing pen and paper.
You can play a completely Canon story but the events of your campaign are not Canon, only the base story that was released by WotC.

And Hustin1, I have played D&D for 15 years and still play second edition when I play Pen and Paper.

hustin1 · March 2014

Memories...

One of our DM's most memorable lines:

"You hear, thump, thump, boom -- no, wait, BOOM! Thump! Thump!"

Moral of the story: when you enter a wizard's lab and the idiot fighter next to you tries to turn one of the Bunsen burners off, STOP HIM!

zebular · March 2014

. . . Let me try to explain what Ambi means, in a different manner.

. . . The events of history, the lore of the game and the defining official events (modules) that take place are indeed based upon actual canon events, history, and lore. The actions of the players within the world however, are not canon. Because of this latter element, Neverwinter cannot ever be truly considered canon. Despite that however, the lore and history provided is still directly translated from actual canon lore and history.

silverquick · March 2014

ambisinisterr wrote: »

It was long ago decided no video games are never D&D Canon.

They will use Canon events, lore and characters at times but no video games are Canon.
Don't play any video game if all you care about is if they are Canon. Not even the great Baldurs Gate is Canon.

Actually I think they may have made this exception for Neverwinter Nights.

There are several events and characters in there that have made their way into the lore, even if not in totality.

As for this game? Well who knows.

ambisinisterr · March 2014

silverquick wrote: »

Actually I think they may have made this exception for Neverwinter Nights.

There are several events and characters in there that have made their way into the lore, even if not in totality.

As for this game? Well who knows.

No, not really. That is the case of video games becoming Canon by elements being published by an official source at a later time. Neverwinter Nights itself is not Canon.

Here is the information according to the Forgotten Realms Wiki:

"Canon", according to Ed Greenwood, is any published source relating to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. This means that if it is for sale in paper (or digital) form then it is official Realmslore. Editors at this wiki have pointed out that this would technically make video games canon, which would cause inherent problems, such as contradictions in the lore and, for example, the outcome of a decision by a player to potentially kill Drizzt Do'Urden in the course of gameplay in the Baldur's Gate video game.

So yeah...
Ed Greenwood is about as close to official as you will get but the logical fallacy of considering video games Canon is...obvious.

As such anything published with a WotC Label on it is safely Canon however video games are only Canon in the sense that they use Canon Elements in their game. The specifics are not Canon. Can not be Canon regardless of the bad definition Ed gave.

Think of this logically, it is not Canon to kill Fulminorax an infinite amount of times by an infinite amount of people.

Video Games deserve an honorable mention but if you try to say it is Canon that your character killed Fulminorax ten times even Ed Greenwood is going to gawk at that.

silverquick · March 2014

ambisinisterr wrote: »

No, not really. That is the case of video games becoming Canon by elements being published by an official source at a later time. Neverwinter Nights itself is not Canon.

Well no, that's not what I said,

What I said was, certain characters, and names and even portions of events, from that game found their way into WOTCs cannon for D&D.

So did things like... Pool of Radiance the game. The events, while not directly related to players and what they did In that game, were directly incorporated into the Cannon and timeline of Forgotten Realms.

So yes its possible for the actual events in a game to later be incorporated into general FR cannon and timeline. Even though the specific player related events are not.

ambisinisterr · March 2014

Which is what I said.
The game is not Canon. The later publications are.

Those publications can be inspired by the game just as the game can be inspired by the publications but you are never safe in saying something is Canon because it happened in the game. Chances are it is contradicted in the publicised Canon and that is the Canon which actually matters.

Publications with a stamp are always Canon.
Video games may be Canon in some regards but are not Canon unless it is in a publication as there are thousands of examples I could list which would completely contradict publication Canon and those are direct sources of Canon.

As dardove linked, the general storylines in Neverwinter are Canon because they exist in Campaign Settings which are Canon. However this only aspects which line up with the Official Campaign Setting (storyline) and Modules can truly be Canon.

pitshade · March 2014

My mind boggles at the idea of canon in an RPG, DnD or otherwise. The sole arbiter of what is real is the GM/DM/Ref.

ironzerg79 · March 2014

What happens in YOUR story is YOUR story, just like any D&D game. Is it Canon that a group of adventurer's foiled Valindra's plot to raise an army of Dracoliches in the Dread Ring. Probably.

Is is Canon that it was Stabs McStabber and his guild, <Shank Yo Buttz> that did it. No.

kiralyn · March 2014

pitshade wrote: »

My mind boggles at the idea of canon in an RPG, DnD or otherwise. The sole arbiter of what is real is the GM/DM/Ref.

Yeah, when I played tabletop D&D, we used the published modules as a source of adventures, but we never really paid attention to the overall campaign settings. Of course, that was back in 1st/2nd ed.

azahron · March 2014

ambisinisterr wrote: »

And Hustin1, I have played D&D for 15 years and still play second edition when I play Pen and Paper.

So do my friends and I. Though it's been a while since we've played now.

shiralac · March 2014

I don't know Ambisinister.

I beleive the distruction of the Wall of the Faithless was from Neverwinter nights 2 Mask of the betrayer. And the spells that the thayans use in the Dread Ring areas, resemble a much weaker version of the curse of the batrayer mask.

Then again i have not read any books to see if these were done before hte game was made or not, so i could be worng or misunderstood you.

EDIT: Didnt get much slep last night so im groggy

mistriosu · March 2014

shiralac wrote: »

I don't know Ambisinister.

I beleive the distruction of the Wall of the Faithless was from Neverwinter nights 2 Mask of the betrayer. And the spells that the thayans use in the Dread Ring areas, resemble a much weaker version of the curse of the batrayer mask.

Then again i have not read any books to see if these were done before hte game was made or not, so i could be worng or misunderstood you.

EDIT: Didnt get much slep last night so im groggy

The wall of the Faithless was removed by Kelemvor during the Avatar series of books. During the Time of Troubles Kelemvor took over from Mrykull and totally reorganized the underworld.

This game canon?

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