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Neverwinter Nights Non-Canon?

DabusDabus Member Posts: 27
in Off-Topic
Hope this is the right place to post this....

So according to articles on the Forgotten Realms wiki, NWN and its two expansions are non-canon? I'm curious why this is but Baldur's Gate and even the old SSI Gold Box D&D games are considered canon (especially considering the weirdness of Pools of Darkness which has Chaotic Evil demons and powers working for Lawful Evil powers). Besides the player's choices, what exactly makes NWN less canon than BG or SSI D&D games?

Comments

  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    Canon is what the almighty overlords of WotC say is canon. Nothing else. There is no other unifying criterium, it literally is "this: yes; that: no".
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    Well the thing about Dungeons and Dragons is the whole multi-verse theory. Everything can be canon or not, depending on how that particular world is built.

    Build up your world around the events of Neverwinter Nights? Sure, you're still in the Forgotten Realms, but you're in YOUR version of the Forgotten Realms, where what you say is canon is canon.
  • artificial_sunlightartificial_sunlight Member Posts: 601
    The Baldur's gate main plot is descibed in The Grand History Of The Realms, it had Novels, and an D&D Next Adventure. Do its all cannons blazing.

    I don 't think NWN and IWD are in The Grand History. But i'm nowere near my copy for the next 2 months.
  • DabusDabus Member Posts: 27
    artificial_sunlight said:

    The Baldur's gate main plot is descibed in The Grand History Of The Realms, it had Novels, and an D&D Next Adventure. Do its all cannons blazing.

    I don 't think NWN and IWD are in The Grand History. But i'm nowere near my copy for the next 2 months.

    Yeah, that's weird. You'd think that would have been included.
  • BladeDancerBladeDancer Member Posts: 477
    edited April 2016
    The Wailing Death overwhelming Neverwinter is the only thing from Neverwinter Nights that is canon. Nothing else from NWN is because of breach of certain rules, like characters mentioned in sourcebooks can be, or have been killed off. For example, you can kill the infamous powerful red dragon Klauth, and he canonically is not supposed to die by the NWN protagonist's hand, not even Obould Many-Arrows himself, and all but two of the High Captains of Luskan have been killed off, and the remaining two can be killed by the NWN protagonist to gain entry into the Hosttower of the Arcane, but all the High Captains canonically lived through the year NWN is set in.

    I can point out there is a good reason only the Wailing Death is the only thing from NWN that is mentioned in The Grand History. Because it was an event that shook Neverwinter to its core, canon or not, and by the end of NWN, the heroics of the protagonist have been intentionally forgotten, omitted from The Grand History of the Realms because he/she had a falling out with Nasher Alagondar over executing Aribeth instead of understanding why she betrayed the city.

    And as for the D&D Next adventure Murder in Baldur's Gate, it just simply shoehorns Abdel as a canon character even though in the ToB novel he gave up his divine essence and therefore should not have lived to be in the year Murder in Baldur's Gate is set in.
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    edited April 2016
    Video games are usually not considered canon by WotC. As a general rule, only books and official pnp material define canon. It's not the BG video games that are canon, it's the BG novels that are.


    BladeDancer said:

    And as for the D&D Next adventure Murder in Baldur's Gate, it just simply shoehorns Abdel as a canon character even though in the ToB novel he gave up his divine essence and therefore should not have lived to be in the year Murder in Baldur's Gate is set in.

    Or, if one want to be generous, one can see it as an subtle move towards retconning the novels' story out of relevance.
  • DabusDabus Member Posts: 27
    BladeDancer said:

    The Wailing Death overwhelming Neverwinter is the only thing from Neverwinter Nights that is canon. Nothing else from NWN is because of breach of certain rules, like characters mentioned in sourcebooks can be, or have been killed off. For example, you can kill the infamous powerful red dragon Klauth, and he canonically is not supposed to die by the NWN protagonist's hand, not even Obould Many-Arrows himself, and all but two of the High Captains of Luskan have been killed off, and the remaining two can be killed by the NWN protagonist to gain entry into the Hosttower of the Arcane, but all the High Captains canonically lived through the year NWN is set in.

    I can point out there is a good reason only the Wailing Death is the only thing from NWN that is mentioned in The Grand History. Because it was an event that shook Neverwinter to its core, canon or not, and by the end of NWN, the heroics of the protagonist have been intentionally forgotten, omitted from The Grand History of the Realms because he/she had a falling out with Nasher Alagondar over executing Aribeth instead of understanding why she betrayed the city.

    And as for the D&D Next adventure Murder in Baldur's Gate, it just simply shoehorns Abdel as a canon character even though in the ToB novel he gave up his divine essence and therefore should not have lived to be in the year Murder in Baldur's Gate is set in.

    Hi and thank you for the response but weren't there all sorts of conflicting events, etc. in the Baldur's Gate games? Besides the idea that Drizzt could be killed in the game IIRC, they gave one of Bhaal's domains the Abyss which conflicts with lore since he's Lawful Evil and his home plane is Gehenna. Off the bat it's one of the many things in BG that conflict with Forgotten Realms lore but BG is considered canon. The SSI Gold Box games had terrible conflicting ideas, again with Lawful Evil gods having Chaotic Evil servants, etc and the Pools of Radiance series are also considered canon.

    So, NWN indeed does conflict with lore (the Ancient Baatorians were not good) but not much more than other games that are considered canon.
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    The BG games are not canon. The BG books are canon (even if preferably ignored).
  • DabusDabus Member Posts: 27
    scriver said:

    The BG games are not canon. The BG books are canon (even if preferably ignored).

    Yeah, I hear ya and I know what you mean. Certain events (those that players can change) wouldn't be but weren't the books based off the games? I do know Baldur's Gate is brought up in the Grand History of the Realms lore book. But yeah, there's a lot of conflicting information.

    I just wish NVN was canon. I'm not too crazy on their take of the Ancient Baatorians. I like the idea that they were evil as well and ruled over by the entity, Zargon, that came before Asmodeus. As mentioned, even the games contradict one another - Bhaal's domain being in Hell then being in the Abyss, Belhifet being a Demon than a Devil - sometimes makes you wonder if the original BG writers were lacking in some area of AD&D lore and cosmology.
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