Forgotten Realms Wiki talk:Canon

Hmmm...interesting. If any of you users out there are having trouble with figuring out if something is canon or not, you may want to see this page. One man saying that "canon is what you make of it" or something like that... well, doesn't quite make sense. My example: Klickjax the Tunafish Sandwich (not a real person, but a name you can give a character in an RPG) didn't really fight say... Klickjax-hater the Rat (if that rodent existed). Or, say Ukiuklayla, if that is your character's name (say it is) in a game of FR D&D is battling Kyu the Troll. You know this did not happen in the books, which is what Wizards of the Coast acknowledges as "canon." Agame of D&D is not canon. Maybe a pregenerated adventure, but not something a DM makes up. Cell4 01:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * So if Canon is only stuff in print from WotC.....then is all that stuff on the WtoC web site just fluff? Or does web site stuff get to be cannon too.  When they make Dragon and Dungeon PDF's are they still cannon?  Do novels count as cannon, or only D&D game books?


 * Don't forget to sign your posts on talk pages with the four tildes ( ~ )! Thanks! Fluff and crunch are not the same thing as canon and non-canon. You can have canon or non-canon fluff, and canon or non-canon crunch too. The sourcebooks are canon. The novels are canon. The website is canon. Stuff like forum posts on the web site is not canon, even if the post was made by a FR author (like Eric L. Boyd). There are some canon forum posts at Candlekeep, found in such collections as "So Sayeth Ed". The computer games are not canon, although certain elements might be, but shouldn't be relied upon. Fw190a8 01:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * To add to that, it shouldn't matter if you make a mistake as to whether your source is canon, because in an ideal world, all statements on the wiki are sourced. See House Dlardrageth for a "well-sourced" article. If someone else notices that a non-canon source has been used, they'll come along and mark it as such. That's the advantage of a wiki! The worst thing you could do (beyond totally vandalizing the place) is making a controversial or non-canonical statement with no reference! Fw190a8 01:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, is there an actual source that explicitly states that video games are not canon? "Any published source relating to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" is not limited to sales in paper form, unless stated otherwise. Thanks. Antinate 13:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note that there are published novels based on the Baldurs Gate series. They contradict parts of the  video games.  So now we have conflict, and we must decide which one is official.  I'd say preference should generally be given to novels.  Normally when we are presented with conflicting facts, we only keep the one that is most accurate.  However, I think it would be a real shame to lose all the articles we have on the Baldur's Gate series, even though they are not canon.  So I think keeping the articles and listing them as "non canon" is a good idea.  15:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's interesting, but I have never actually seen anything from Wizards of the Coast that explicitly states "video games are not canon". This might exist somewhere, I'm really not sure. It's one of those things that is generally accepted by Realms fans though, for sure. Perhaps the better question might be: "are video games considered canon on this wiki?" and the answer to that is "no!" Some aspects of the games are canon, for sure. In Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, the player visits Athkatla. To suggest that Athkatla is non-canon would be silly. However, other aspects are more murky. For example, each player has a slightly different experience in the game as they play through it. Suppose one player goes to location X, then location Y, but another player does this in the opposite order. These two series of events cannot both be canon! There is an interesting discussion on this matter at Candlekeep.com. The bottom line is that canon is what you make of it, but in a practical sense, the wiki must draw the lines in a place that everyone generally agrees upon. Fw190a8 20:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)