Preview PC Gamer reveals first NWN 2 details

[Spazmo]

Novels are not official WotC history. They are in no way canonic.

Sure they are. Check the 3E FRCS. All the big events from the various novel series are in official FR continuity. Continually saying they aren't won't make it so, I'm afraid.

 

[AlanC9]

WotC says that anything with an FR logo on it is canon. Conflicts are resolved by sourcebooks trumping novels, and novels trumping computer games.

The NWN OC, for instance, is not canon, since several characters killed in it are still alive in novels and sourcebooks.

 

[Volourn]

"The NWN OC, for instance, is not canon, since several characters killed in it are still alive in novels and sourcebooks."

That's an illogical reason to say the OC is not canon. Named chaarcters from the Fr could die in BG series yet peop;le here are arguing its canon.

I would hazard a guess that WOTC just picks and chooses what's canon on a whim.

 

[Spazmo]

The BG games aren't canon. The novelizations of the games are. I suspect important characters completely fail to die in the novels.

 

[Kotario]

The BG games aren't canon. The novelizations of the games are. I suspect important characters completely fail to die in the novels.

The novelization of Baldur's Gate is something I wish I never even knew existed, but I couldn't resist after someone championed it as the worst thing ever published (not true by far, but doesn't mean it is anything good). If I remember correctly, Khalid dies halfway through, so the main character can have a love affair with Jaheira, before she dies at the hands of Sarevok. I don't believe Imoen even gets a mention. I might be wrong, but that is how I remember it.

Which doesn't set up things well for the book based of the sequel, though I never looked at it.

 

[Atrokkus]

The BG games aren't canon. The novelizations of the games are. I suspect important characters completely fail to die in the novels.

I don't know, maybe for some DnDers those novels are canon, but most of hardcore DMs I know consider canonical only the official WoTC material, ignoring all those salvatores and the like.

 

[Spazmo]

Well, that's tremendous for them, but WOTC considers the novels canon, and WOTC then puts out sourcebooks that mention novelized events (for example, that Shade trilogy from a few years ago was all in FRCS), so regardless of what "hardcore DMs" think, the novels are official FR canon.

 

[AlanC9]

"The NWN OC, for instance, is not canon, since several characters killed in it are still alive in novels and sourcebooks."

That's an illogical reason to say the OC is not canon. Named chaarcters from the Fr could die in BG series yet people here are arguing its canon.

I would hazard a guess that WOTC just picks and chooses what's canon on a whim.

Well, that's possible too. But there is a distinction betwen the BG series and the NWN series. You can complete BG without a sourcebook continuity violation, but it's utterly impossible to complete NWN without a continuity violation like killing Klauth.

Anyway, if novels are canon, the BG novels trump the BG games.

 

[Volourn]

You don't have to kill Klauth. Instead, you can kill the gold dragon for him to get what you need.

 

[Sammael]

Officially, for FR, it goes like this:

1. Most recent books (regardless whether they are sourcebooks or novels) trump older sources.

2. Whatever Greenwood says trumps everything else published up to that point.

Personally, I don't give a flying fuck as to what is canon in the FR. I tried to argue against novels and Greenwood's softcore porn posts (made through intermediaries, no less) on candlekeep.com forums trumping published sourcebooks, but I was proven wrong.

NWN is not canon because (thankfully) the NWN novel never got published. BG1 and BG2 novels are canon. IWD1 and IWD2 aren't canon (although they screw with FR continuity far less than the aforementioned games). Torment is canon for Planescape (shoudl WotC ever choose to resurrect that setting), because of the idiotic published novel.

 

[AlanC9]

You don't have to kill Klauth. Instead, you can kill the gold dragon for him to get what you need.

Heh. You got me. I was about to say that WotC doesn't allow evil quest resolutions by the protagonist, but then I remembered that the official BG continuity is that the Bhallspawn sided with Bodhi.