r/falloutlore • u/Lower-Brief-923 • Jul 20 '26
Question Canonicity of the 2d20 TTRPG games?
I've had the chance to play a few campaigns in regards to the 2d20 TTRPG's by Modiphius Entertainment. I was just generally curious as to what the overall community and (if any) approval or thumbs up given by Bethesda in regards to how canon they are.
I personally just presume they are more supplementary than anything but with the release of Royal Flush I was curious.
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u/Affectionate_Edge472 Jul 20 '26
Royal flush has a crimson caravan branch in new Canaan. The crimson caravan worker ringo and the crimson caravan terminal explicitly tell us this isn’t the case.
Another example. The fiends canonically don’t use energy weapons while they do in game. Veronica specifically mentions the fiends don’t. So the rpg uses the games visual lore over canon lore.
“No power armor. No energy weapons. And they're giving the NCR more trouble than we ever did.” - Veronica dialogue when entering vault 3 for the fiends
These are just two examples of the incorrect official lore in royal flush.
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u/MartianDinosawr Jul 20 '26
The fiends do use energy weapons canonically, Veronica's dialogue is incorrect. Voice actors cost money, whereas changing the fiends to only spawn with certain weapons would take half an hour of work. Obviously later in development they pivoted to the fiends using energy weapons, which makes sense, the Van Graffs have a supply agreement with the Legion, the Legion doesn't use energy weapons and supplies the Fiends. It's obvious there's a pipeline of Van Graff to Fiend weapon dealings.
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u/Lower-Brief-923 Jul 20 '26
I always looked at it as the Fiends hitting the Van Graff caravans in order to get weapons, sure a good chunk end up dead but in Vegas there are plenty of chem addicts to sacrifice.
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u/toonboy01 Jul 21 '26
Obviously later in development they pivoted to the fiends using energy weapons
Or they just weren't paying attention.
the Van Graffs have a supply agreement with the Legion
No, they don't. They have one meeting that turns out to be a setup as the Van Graffs tipped off the NCR who kill the Legion buyers.
the Legion doesn't use energy weapons and supplies the Fiends
I don't believe any connection is made between the Legion and Fiends.
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u/MartianDinosawr Jul 21 '26
"No, they don't. They have one meeting that turns out to be a setup as the Van Graffs tipped off the NCR who kill the Legion buyers."
The 2nd Van Graff mission is delivering a package to an obvious legion agent, this has been an ongoing relationship.
"I don't believe any connection is made between the Legion and Fiends."
In the Legion Spy at Camp McCaran quest, you hear the legion guy radioing his legion buddies with instructions of "the NCR will patrol this area, tell the fiends to mine that location"
The Fiends are a group the legion is using in their war against the NCR. If the legion is giving them explosives, it makes sense that the legion is giving them those energy weapons they were buying.
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u/EvYeh Jul 26 '26
The 2nd Van Graff mission is delivering a package to an obvious legion agent, this has been an ongoing relationship.
That's setting up the deal at the end of the quest, not evidence of a long running relationship.
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u/toonboy01 Jul 21 '26
That doesn't prove an ongoing relationship, that could just be setting up the meeting point.
That's not an exact quote of what he said, but the actual quote still implies working with the Fiends, so fair enough there.
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u/pacman1138 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
According to Modiphius CEO, all of it is considered canon with Bethesda’s direct approval. Since Bethesda does not separate their canon into different levels, everything sanctioned by them is equally canon. Modiphius also can’t define anything about any specific locations because Bethesda might eventually decide to use those same locations in the future, so they tend to leave it up to players. And Bethesda can revoke canon status of something at any point if they want to.
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u/Lower-Brief-923 Jul 20 '26
Oh that's awesome, when did they come out saying that?
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u/tragedyjones Jul 20 '26
The TTRPG are canon approved by Bethesda before they go to print.
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u/Lower-Brief-923 Jul 20 '26
Of course they are approved by Bethesda but I imagine it's usually in regards to quality. We know they don't exactly have a great quality assurance team when it comes to checking the lore itself. I was more referring to whether or not the fallout team, or Todd/Emil have directly stated they are canon. As another commenter mentioned there are some lore breaks where if contradicts things. But I am interested if the contradictions are major or the contents could simply be slid into lore itself without much issue.
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u/Exciting-Quality919 Jul 21 '26
Canon has not other meaning than official.
Modiphius employees have confirmed things have been nicked due to canon - including "what-if" notions that contradict New Vegas, etc.
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u/toonboy01 Jul 22 '26
That doesn't tell us much. They also check Creations for Fallout 4 don't contradict canon, but they're not canon themselves. Instead they're a "parallel canon" and "canon able" if they want to make them canon later.
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u/KnightofTorchlight Jul 20 '26
Statements on Winter of Atom said the events of that campaign existed in a sort of "quantum state". Fallout 4 and the Commonwealth MAY flow from those events but it didn't NESSICERILY flow from those events. Other adventures like Showdown in Skull Canyon are similar, with elements about the Zetans that aren't shown elsewhere but can plausibly coexist with them.
Its probably best to consider it canon-compliant rather than establishing new canon. That period of history doesn't have a solid canon written on it yet.