@Yurei1453: I definitely agree with everything you said and would like to add that I have heard that some of the legacy races that people have been talking about get straight up banned at some tables. I know that my old DM (who is not running a game and plays at my table) flat out refuses to allow legacy aarakocra and satyrs at his table for the reasons you listed. I allow them, but none of my players are interested in them. What good are these legacy races anyway if they create such problems that they wind up DM-blocked half the time?
Lore - making all races have no bad traits makes them all vanilla. Choices basically don't matter and apparently there are no bad guys anymore. The happy hobgoblin? Seriously?
The implication from the logic is that humans in real life live in some sort of strife free utopia simply because they are not designated as evil. Doesn't a lack of 'bad guy' tags make in character choices matter more? Plus there is nothing preventing any DM from making evil, or at least tyrannical individuals, lands, regimes, etc. The DM having more choice is not a reduction of choice either, but an expansion.
And! Eberron exists. Exandria exists. Hobgoblins can be good in both settings. Ravnica has chaotic neutral Goblins, too.
The alignment and versions of the races are dependent on the setting. There are more official settings in 5e that have "Goblinoids/Orcs/Drow can be good" than official settings that have "Goblinoids/Orcs/Drow are almost always evil".
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Lore - making all races have no bad traits makes them all vanilla. Choices basically don't matter and apparently there are no bad guys anymore. The happy hobgoblin? Seriously?
The implication from the logic is that humans in real life live in some sort of strife free utopia simply because they are not designated as evil. Doesn't a lack of 'bad guy' tags make in character choices matter more? Plus there is nothing preventing any DM from making evil, or at least tyrannical individuals, lands, regimes, etc. The DM having more choice is not a reduction of choice either, but an expansion.
And! Eberron exists. Exandria exists. Hobgoblins can be good in both settings. Ravnica has chaotic neutral Goblins, too.
The alignment and versions of the races are dependent on the setting. There are more official settings in 5e that have "Goblinoids/Orcs/Drow can be good" than official settings that have "Goblinoids/Orcs/Drow are almost always evil".
The lore of Eberron is exactly what I was thinking about. The goblinoids in that setting have a wonderfully rich background complete with both good and bad options for players and DMs. Removing all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good is, for me, just as bad as the reverse. Watering down the descriptions for every race just kills all flavor. Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
... Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
'Why not have stereotypes' is possibly one of the most questionable questions I've ever seen on this board. So questionable I'm not going to answer it here, because hundreds of pages of vicious forum fire infighting have already been written about it. But seriously, Slaine. Seriously. Think about that phrase for a moment. "Why not have some stereotypes?" I'm certain that if you think about it, you'll come up with an ever increasing number of reasons why not.
The lore of Eberron is exactly what I was thinking about. The goblinoids in that setting have a wonderfully rich background complete with both good and bad options for players and DMs. Removing all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good is, for me, just as bad as the reverse. Watering down the descriptions for every race just kills all flavor. Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
When did they "remove all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good"? The new version makes it abundantly clear that Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and Goblins can all be any alignment. That doesn't automatically make them "good". It just makes them as morally diverse as humans. And, in fact, they do mention that many goblinoids are still evil and have evil origins, with the Goblins having served the Queen of Air and Darkness before being conquered by Maglubiyet, the hobgoblin legions on multiple worlds, and the fact that Bugbears are trying to spread across the world. What more do you want? They do give a starting place for DMs and players. Read the flavor text for the races in Monsters of the Multiverse. They clearly give at least a few ideas to start with for every race.
And if making all of the race morally diverse is "watering them down and killing all flavor" . . . good. Having whole races be evil all/almost all of the time is boring and has had been executed quite badly/offensively in D&D's past (Mystara's Orcs of Thar, the fact that the main dark skinned race in D&D is matriarchal and evil, the fact that hobgoblins are evil and wear Japanese-style outfits, et cetera).
The new style gives just enough to inspire DMs and players while keeping the lore setting-agnostic and avoiding all of the questionable choices from D&D's history.
... Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
'Why not have stereotypes' is possibly one of the most questionable questions I've ever seen on this board. So questionable I'm not going to answer it here, because hundreds of pages of vicious forum fire infighting have already been written about it. But seriously, Slaine. Seriously. Think about that phrase for a moment. "Why not have some stereotypes?" I'm certain that if you think about it, you'll come up with an ever increasing number of reasons why not.
Let's take a breath here. Me suggesting that I enjoy the stereotype of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears being evil monsters that live in the darker parts of the game world waiting to eat players has NOTHING to do with any real world biases or politics. I am strictly speaking of a fantasy game, in a fantasy world with fantasy monsters. Anyone who might suggest otherwise is banging their own drum and not reflecting anything I say.
The lore of Eberron is exactly what I was thinking about. The goblinoids in that setting have a wonderfully rich background complete with both good and bad options for players and DMs. Removing all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good is, for me, just as bad as the reverse. Watering down the descriptions for every race just kills all flavor. Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
When did they "remove all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good"? The new version makes it abundantly clear that Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and Goblins can all be any alignment. That doesn't automatically make them "good". It just makes them as morally diverse as humans. And, in fact, they do mention that many goblinoids are still evil and have evil origins, with the Goblins having served the Queen of Air and Darkness before being conquered by Maglubiyet, the hobgoblin legions on multiple worlds, and the fact that Bugbears are trying to spread across the world. What more do you want? They do give a starting place for DMs and players. Read the flavor text for the races in Monsters of the Multiverse. They clearly give at least a few ideas to start with for every race.
And if making all of the race morally diverse is "watering them down and killing all flavor" . . . good. Having whole races be evil all/almost all of the time is boring and has had been executed quite badly/offensively in D&D's past (Mystara's Orcs of Thar, the fact that the main dark skinned race in D&D is matriarchal and evil, the fact that hobgoblins are evil and wear Japanese-style outfits, et cetera).
The new style gives just enough to inspire DMs and players while keeping the lore setting-agnostic and not avoiding all of the questionable choices from D&D's history.
You are making a lot of hay commenting on one beef I have out of several listed. I have said that I want some LORE. Sure I like my goblins as evil monsters the players can kill without moral quandaries but more importantly I would have liked some actual lore about goblins. Again, goblins in Eberron are a perfect example of what I am talking about. They can be good or evil but that also have an interesting society. They are broken up into different groups with different perspectives.
None of that is in ANY of the revised races. I find that boring and disappointing.
Edit: The 'happy hobgoblin' jib is from the art of the hobgoblin which I find completely ridiculous.
Again, goblins in Eberron are a perfect example of what I am talking about. They can be good or evil but that also have an interesting society. They are broken up into different groups with different perspectives.
None of that is in ANY of the revised races. I find that boring and disappointing.
Addressing this point, At this stage they seem to be doing setting agnostic content with little to no lore (like the new book) and actual setting books that are heavy on lore and background like Ebberon, Theros, and i assume spelljammer, ect. My feeling is that if you are playing home-brew its uneeded fluff, if you disagree there's almost 50 years of lore to pick your favorite period available on assorted wikis as well as setting books old and new (the amount of flavor I have pulled from 3.5 far outweighs what i get out of the 5e books).
... Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
'Why not have stereotypes' is possibly one of the most questionable questions I've ever seen on this board. So questionable I'm not going to answer it here, because hundreds of pages of vicious forum fire infighting have already been written about it. But seriously, Slaine. Seriously. Think about that phrase for a moment. "Why not have some stereotypes?" I'm certain that if you think about it, you'll come up with an ever increasing number of reasons why not.
Let's take a breath here. Me suggesting that I enjoy the stereotype of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears being evil monsters that live in the darker parts of the game world waiting to eat players has NOTHING to do with any real world biases or politics. I am strictly speaking of a fantasy game, in a fantasy world with fantasy monsters. Anyone who might suggest otherwise is banging their own drum and not reflecting anything I say.
The problem is whether or not you personally enjoy the stereotype is not relevant to whether or not the stereotype is a problem. Wizards of the Coast is not producing customized sourcebooks to appeal to each gamer's individual tastes.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You are making a lot of hay commenting on one beef I have out of several listed. I have said that I want some LORE. Sure I like my goblins as evil monsters the players can kill without moral quandaries but more importantly I would have liked some actual lore about goblins. Again, goblins in Eberron are a perfect example of what I am talking about. They can be good or evil but that also have an interesting society. They are broken up into different groups with different perspectives.
None of that is in ANY of the revised races. I find that boring and disappointing.
Edit: The 'happy hobgoblin' jib is from the art of the hobgoblin which I find completely ridiculous.
You're making a lot of hay over one complaint that isn't even accurate. You said you want "some lore". Which you did get. Some of it is new. Before now, it had never been said that Goblins used to serve the Queen of Air and Darkness before being conquered by Maglubiyet. In fact, all of the lore about Goblinoids coming from the Feywild is new. The feywild's "Rule of Reciprocity" that Hobgoblins channel is new lore. All of that's lore. You're just pretending that the new lore isn't there.
And there's a reason they couldn't go as in-depth with the lore of these races in this book as Eberron's setting book does. Because this book isn't intended to be setting specific. This book is supposed to be setting agnostic (a goal I think they overall failed at, but it's still what they were going for). They couldn't mention Dhakaan or Darguun or any setting-specific locations/versions of Goblinoid lore because that would violate the core premise of the book (that it's only talking about the core versions of these races that are possible to use in any part of the D&D multiverse).
And if you're fine with hobgoblins being morally diverse like in Eberron . . . you should have no problem with that Hobgoblin Bard art. And if you want goblins to be always-evil monsters that players can kill without moral quandry . . . that's directly contradictory to the core premise of Eberron's Goblins, which you claim you like.
You are making a lot of hay commenting on one beef I have out of several listed. I have said that I want some LORE. Sure I like my goblins as evil monsters the players can kill without moral quandaries but more importantly I would have liked some actual lore about goblins. Again, goblins in Eberron are a perfect example of what I am talking about. They can be good or evil but that also have an interesting society. They are broken up into different groups with different perspectives.
None of that is in ANY of the revised races. I find that boring and disappointing.
Edit: The 'happy hobgoblin' jib is from the art of the hobgoblin which I find completely ridiculous.
You're making a lot of hay over one complaint that isn't even accurate. You said you want "some lore". Which you did get. Some of it is new. Before now, it had never been said that Goblins used to serve the Queen of Air and Darkness before being conquered by Maglubiyet. In fact, all of the lore about Goblinoids coming from the Feywild is new. The feywild's "Rule of Reciprocity" that Hobgoblins channel is new lore. All of that's lore. You're just pretending that the new lore isn't there.
And there's a reason they couldn't go as in-depth with the lore of these races in this book as Eberron's setting book does. Because this book isn't intended to be setting specific. This book is supposed to be setting agnostic (a goal I think they overall failed at, but it's still what they were going for). They couldn't mention Dhakaan or Darguun or any setting-specific locations/versions of Goblinoid lore because that would violate the core premise of the book (that it's only talking about the core versions of these races that are possible to use in any part of the D&D multiverse).
And if you're fine with hobgoblins being morally diverse like in Eberron . . . you should have no problem with that Hobgoblin Bard art. And if you want goblins to be always-evil monsters that players can kill without moral quandry . . . that's directly contradictory to the core premise of Eberron's Goblins, which you claim you like.
I disagree that the few sentences in the Hobgoblin description count as lore but let me revise myself and say 'enough lore'.
I also understand that the point of the book is to make all the races setting agnostic. I dislike that approach for a variety of reasons and I would hope the 'powers that be' don't continue along that path. I don't think a huge list of races with generic descriptions is particularly useful. For newish DMs and Players they have to 'make it up as they go' without a place to start. That is asking a lot from some folk. For us seasoned players it's boring to read, IMHO. Sure, I can pick up a book of my favorite setting and go with the descriptions in that but...what if they don't have anything about the race I want to play? Back to making it up I guess. That is maybe not a horrible thing. Especially for the very imaginative. But for some of us it can be a downer.
As for liking Eberron goblins. I love a lot about Eberron but one of the main reasons is that the author set out to have everything make some sense. There are reasons for all types of races to have all types of moralities. Reading about it is interesting and fun. If you play a hobgoblin in Eberron you can feel assured that there is a place for you regardless of how you want to play it. I would not feel the same about playing a hobgoblin in Forgotten Realms. Likewise, I would feel uncomfortable if I showed up to some DM's homebrewed world unless that DM did some extraordinary extra work. All this does not change the fact that in my own homebrew I prefer goblins as evil creatures. You can see some examples of the goblins I created in my sig. They make sacrifices to black gods and despoil the land around them. My goblins serve dark lords and oppose the forces of good. As I said, I like my stereotypes. My personal preference is a more darker theme with fewer racial options but that is just me. It doesn't mean I can't like something like Eberron that has rich lore and flavor. And it doesn't mean I can't dislike a goofy artistic choice.
I disagree that the few sentences in the Hobgoblin description count as lore but let me revise myself and say 'enough lore'.
Lore is lore, no matter how short the description of the lore is. "Goblinoids are from the Feywild, but were conquered by Maglubiyet" is lore. Sure, it's not a ton of lore (and the book does go a tiny bit more in depth than that), but it is lore.
And what counts as "enough" is subjective. For some people, no lore would be enough to properly run the creatures, because they have a solid idea already of what Goblins are. For others, they're completely new to the races, so they need more lore. I think that this amount is pretty sufficient for the goal they were trying to accomplish. However, if you don't think it's enough lore for you to like the book, that is a subjective opinion that is completely valid to have. But it's also valid for others to say that they think it's enough lore.
I also understand that the point of the book is to make all the races setting agnostic. I dislike that approach for a variety of reasons and I would hope the 'powers that be' don't continue along that path. I don't think a huge list of races with generic descriptions is particularly useful. For newish DMs and Players they have to 'make it up as they go' without a place to start. That is asking a lot from some folk. For us seasoned players it's boring to read, IMHO. Sure, I can pick up a book of my favorite setting and go with the descriptions in that but...what if they don't have anything about the race I want to play? Back to making it up I guess. That is maybe not a horrible thing. Especially for the very imaginative. But for some of us it can be a downer.
That's what I think WotC is going for. I think they're moving towards the idea that in order to play D&D, you need the 3 core rulebooks for the mechanics of the game and an additional book for the world you want to play in (unless you homebrew your own setting). A "3 + 1 Books required to play the game" sort of thing.
They don't want to print information that might contradict the lore of the setting book they want you to buy, so they're going for a "less is more" route for how to handle the lore of D&D's base descriptions of its playable races. In my opinion, their thought process is that if they keep the lore of the base versions of the races vague enough, then they get to do more interesting setting-specific takes on those races in different worlds without lore-purists and grognards going "BuT tHaT's NoT wHaT oRcS aRe SuPpOsEd To Be LiKe!" And it also helps introduce the idea that different settings have different versions of the races to newer players instead of being more like the 5e PHB's version which was mostly "Oh, and all Dwarves are Moradin-worshipping, elf-hating traditionalists that know everything there is to know about Stone and Smithing" which could confuse players really new to the game that think all settings have the same versions of different races.
As for liking Eberron goblins. I love a lot about Eberron but one of the main reasons is that the author set out to have everything make some sense. There are reasons for all types of races to have all types of moralities. Reading about it is interesting and fun. If you play a hobgoblin in Eberron you can feel assured that there is a place for you regardless of how you want to play it. I would not feel the same about playing a hobgoblin in Forgotten Realms. Likewise, I would feel uncomfortable if I showed up to some DM's homebrewed world unless that DM did some extraordinary extra work. All this does not change the fact that in my own homebrew I prefer goblins as evil creatures. You can see some examples of the goblins I created in my sig. They make sacrifices to black gods and despoil the land around them. My goblins serve dark lords and oppose the forces of good. As I said, I like my stereotypes. My personal preference is a more darker theme with fewer racial options but that is just me. It doesn't mean I can't like something like Eberron that has rich lore and flavor. And it doesn't mean I can't dislike a goofy artistic choice.
But! The point of this new release is that WotC is trying to transition away from "the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are the base setting of D&D 5e's races and we're going to have the lore for the races be centered around those settings' lore" and more into the "hey, all of these races are different depending on the settings they're in. Here's a base understanding of how most versions of this races are across the D&D Multiverse, but it does differ from world to world, especially with culture/religion". Yes, it's going to make the base lore more bland and lackluster, but it's also going to open up the door for a more diverse amount of takes on these races in future settings. There can be settings where Lizardfolk were created when an ancient T-Rex-looking demon lord's blood mixed with the mud of a swamp and thus Lizardfolk are almost always evil in that setting, but there's also room for Ravnica's version of the race (Viashino), which are descended from Dragons and frequently serve Niv Mizzet, the wizard-dragon-inventor that runs the Izzet Guild. And neither version contradicts the base lore of Lizardfolk in the game anymore.
... Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
'Why not have stereotypes' is possibly one of the most questionable questions I've ever seen on this board. So questionable I'm not going to answer it here, because hundreds of pages of vicious forum fire infighting have already been written about it. But seriously, Slaine. Seriously. Think about that phrase for a moment. "Why not have some stereotypes?" I'm certain that if you think about it, you'll come up with an ever increasing number of reasons why not.
Let's take a breath here. Me suggesting that I enjoy the stereotype of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears being evil monsters that live in the darker parts of the game world waiting to eat players has NOTHING to do with any real world biases or politics. I am strictly speaking of a fantasy game, in a fantasy world with fantasy monsters. Anyone who might suggest otherwise is banging their own drum and not reflecting anything I say.
See, the problem with your post is you are simply wrong. The depictions of races in the "fantasy world" of D&D are irrevocably tainted by real world biases and politics because their creator--Gary Gygax, Ernest Gygax, and others in D&D's early days very clearly exhibited real world biases against certain people. That is a pretty well documented fact--Gary spoke about "biological determinism" in a way to degrade women and other races; Ernest is presentlytrying to make a tabletop RPG with racial and gender bias in it because he is upset about the fact Wizards of the Coast is removing the bias he and his father put into the game (which he has acknowledged and even bragged about). Take a look at any early sourcebook and you'll see extremely problematic views on race permeating the views on Orcs, Goblins, any non-Anglo Saxon human, and others--many of which continued in the game long, long after the Gygaxs were removed from creative control.
Wizards has spent a lot of time trying to scrub the racism from the game, but was not really super successful. Taking a mulligan on the default rules, removing all the stereotypes, and allowing them to start over, building from the ground up and working in worlds untouched by Gygax (which is likely why they have not touched Greyhawk yet), gives them a much better footing to finally right wrongs dating to the game's very founding.
I disagree that the few sentences in the Hobgoblin description count as lore but let me revise myself and say 'enough lore'.
Lore is lore, no matter how short the description of the lore is. "Goblinoids are from the Feywild, but were conquered by Maglubiyet" is lore. Sure, it's not a ton of lore (and the book does go a tiny bit more in depth than that), but it is lore.
And what counts as "enough" is subjective. For some people, no lore would be enough to properly run the creatures, because they have a solid idea already of what Goblins are. For others, they're completely new to the races, so they need more lore. I think that this amount is pretty sufficient for the goal they were trying to accomplish. However, if you don't think it's enough lore for you to like the book, that is a subjective opinion that is completely valid to have. But it's also valid for others to say that they think it's enough lore.
I also understand that the point of the book is to make all the races setting agnostic. I dislike that approach for a variety of reasons and I would hope the 'powers that be' don't continue along that path. I don't think a huge list of races with generic descriptions is particularly useful. For newish DMs and Players they have to 'make it up as they go' without a place to start. That is asking a lot from some folk. For us seasoned players it's boring to read, IMHO. Sure, I can pick up a book of my favorite setting and go with the descriptions in that but...what if they don't have anything about the race I want to play? Back to making it up I guess. That is maybe not a horrible thing. Especially for the very imaginative. But for some of us it can be a downer.
That's what I think WotC is going for. I think they're moving towards the idea that in order to play D&D, you need the 3 core rulebooks for the mechanics of the game and an additional book for the world you want to play in (unless you homebrew your own setting). A "3 + 1 Books required to play the game" sort of thing.
They don't want to print information that might contradict the lore of the setting book they want you to buy, so they're going for a "less is more" route for how to handle the lore of D&D's base descriptions of its playable races. In my opinion, their thought process is that if they keep the lore of the base versions of the races vague enough, then they get to do more interesting setting-specific takes on those races in different worlds without lore-purists and grognards going "BuT tHaT's NoT wHaT oRcS aRe SuPpOsEd To Be LiKe!" And it also helps introduce the idea that different settings have different versions of the races to newer players instead of being more like the 5e PHB's version which was mostly "Oh, and all Dwarves are Moradin-worshipping, elf-hating traditionalists that know everything there is to know about Stone and Smithing" which could confuse players really new to the game that think all settings have the same versions of different races.
And this is my issue. There are plenty of games that have stripped down the core rules to flavorless rules crunch. It never goes over well. A better approach would be to base each edition loosely on a different setting with follow up campaign settings. It's fine to say that x race does not have the same culture in y setting. Heck, that is certainly the case in EVERY home brew. It's not going to suddenly upturn your table at home. But it will give people a place to start. Are all goblins evil in the setting? Are they good? Somewhere in between? Most early adventures involve clearing out goblin dens. Should the players have to worry about the poor goblins and the social economic factors that forced them to a life of demon worshipping and raiding villages? Or just clear the dungeon and take their crap? Someone has to be the antagonist for the players to take on. In my opinion, a generic D&D system will kill the interest in the game. It certainly will for me.
*To all you Goblin Liberation Front fighters...keep banging those drums
I disagree that the few sentences in the Hobgoblin description count as lore but let me revise myself and say 'enough lore'.
Lore is lore, no matter how short the description of the lore is. "Goblinoids are from the Feywild, but were conquered by Maglubiyet" is lore. Sure, it's not a ton of lore (and the book does go a tiny bit more in depth than that), but it is lore.
And what counts as "enough" is subjective. For some people, no lore would be enough to properly run the creatures, because they have a solid idea already of what Goblins are. For others, they're completely new to the races, so they need more lore. I think that this amount is pretty sufficient for the goal they were trying to accomplish. However, if you don't think it's enough lore for you to like the book, that is a subjective opinion that is completely valid to have. But it's also valid for others to say that they think it's enough lore.
I also understand that the point of the book is to make all the races setting agnostic. I dislike that approach for a variety of reasons and I would hope the 'powers that be' don't continue along that path. I don't think a huge list of races with generic descriptions is particularly useful. For newish DMs and Players they have to 'make it up as they go' without a place to start. That is asking a lot from some folk. For us seasoned players it's boring to read, IMHO. Sure, I can pick up a book of my favorite setting and go with the descriptions in that but...what if they don't have anything about the race I want to play? Back to making it up I guess. That is maybe not a horrible thing. Especially for the very imaginative. But for some of us it can be a downer.
That's what I think WotC is going for. I think they're moving towards the idea that in order to play D&D, you need the 3 core rulebooks for the mechanics of the game and an additional book for the world you want to play in (unless you homebrew your own setting). A "3 + 1 Books required to play the game" sort of thing.
They don't want to print information that might contradict the lore of the setting book they want you to buy, so they're going for a "less is more" route for how to handle the lore of D&D's base descriptions of its playable races. In my opinion, their thought process is that if they keep the lore of the base versions of the races vague enough, then they get to do more interesting setting-specific takes on those races in different worlds without lore-purists and grognards going "BuT tHaT's NoT wHaT oRcS aRe SuPpOsEd To Be LiKe!" And it also helps introduce the idea that different settings have different versions of the races to newer players instead of being more like the 5e PHB's version which was mostly "Oh, and all Dwarves are Moradin-worshipping, elf-hating traditionalists that know everything there is to know about Stone and Smithing" which could confuse players really new to the game that think all settings have the same versions of different races.
And this is my issue. There are plenty of games that have stripped down the core rules to flavorless rules crunch. It never goes over well. A better approach would be to base each edition loosely on a different setting with follow up campaign settings. It's fine to say that x race does not have the same culture in y setting. Heck, that is certainly the case in EVERY home brew. It's not going to suddenly upturn your table at home. But it will give people a place to start. Are all goblins evil in the setting? Are they good? Somewhere in between? Most early adventures involve clearing out goblin dens. Should the players have to worry about the poor goblins and the social economic factors that forced them to a life of demon worshipping and raiding villages? Or just clear the dungeon and take their crap? Someone has to be the antagonist for the players to take on. In my opinion, a generic D&D system will kill the interest in the game. It certainly will for me.
*To all you Goblin Liberation Front fighters...keep banging those drums
But at the same time, by default D&D takes place in a massive multiverse. The fact that things could be completely different on one side of the Astral Plane to the other is part of the flavor and lore, an important one in my opinion that should be leaned into. Making one world the default implies that is is the most common set of rules a world can have and the others are the anomaly.
Also, take a look at the new monsters Journey Through the Radiant Citadel brings. We got plague-bearing owl demons, masses of grasping limbs, and Lovecraft-y faceless dudes. One writer in an interview about one of the worlds described talks about using undead and demons as the remnants of war that still trouble the countryside. So the latest product hasn’t gone into “hyoooman’s are the real monsteeeeers!” territory, nor do Wizards look to be preparing to go down that road.
Frankly I'm with Slaine for the simple fact that WOTC seems to have no intention of giving more recent detailed villain's that last beyond the module they're introduced. Like they've stopped painting in broad strokes which is good, but their not really painting in small ones either, at least not from what I can see. So now where just left with large swaths of empty canvas and a sign pointing to rule 0 as an excuse.
Frankly I'm with Slaine for the simple fact that WOTC seems to have no intention of giving more recent detailed villain's that last beyond the module they're introduced. Like they've stopped painting in broad strokes which is good, but their not really painting in small ones either, at least not from what I can see. So now where just left with large swaths of empty canvas and a sign pointing to rule 0 as an excuse.
[citation needed]
Let’s look at facts, not speculation. The simple reality is we have not seen a single setting-specific sourcebook published since MMM. We know the two setting-specific sourcebooks (not counting Strixhaven, which even Wizards can’t remember that it is a sourcebook, not an adventure) immediately proceeding MMM both contained monsters that could be end bosses of campaigns and some specific lore related to those creatures—clearly showing some small brushwork. Even within MMM there are some lore components for things like demon lords—things that would be a long-term enemy.
Spelljammer will be the first test of what a setting-specific monster manual will look like post MMM, so, at this time, we have quite literally no data to speculate on. The only real information we have is Wizards saying sourcebooks for settings might have more lore content, but we have not seen that yet. Even Spelljammer is going to be a poor first test - it is not a simple setting book with a monster table, it is a set of three mini books presented in a way akin to core rules. It will be the best and only evidence we have for setting-specific post-MMM sourcebooks, but the unusual nature in how it will be presented might mean it does not comport with future design standards.
Ultimately, we will have to wait until a couple weeks from now (at time of posting) to see what is going to happen post MMM, and it seems rather frivolous to speculate when there is no data in either direction, other than some vague statements from Wizards about their design goals.
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@Yurei1453: I definitely agree with everything you said and would like to add that I have heard that some of the legacy races that people have been talking about get straight up banned at some tables. I know that my old DM (who is not running a game and plays at my table) flat out refuses to allow legacy aarakocra and satyrs at his table for the reasons you listed. I allow them, but none of my players are interested in them. What good are these legacy races anyway if they create such problems that they wind up DM-blocked half the time?
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And! Eberron exists. Exandria exists. Hobgoblins can be good in both settings. Ravnica has chaotic neutral Goblins, too.
The alignment and versions of the races are dependent on the setting. There are more official settings in 5e that have "Goblinoids/Orcs/Drow can be good" than official settings that have "Goblinoids/Orcs/Drow are almost always evil".
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I can't disagree about them being 'better'...
Still a bummer to only have core spells for racials, I quite liked that Water Genasi got Shape Water as a free cantrip instead of acid splash.
The lore of Eberron is exactly what I was thinking about. The goblinoids in that setting have a wonderfully rich background complete with both good and bad options for players and DMs. Removing all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good is, for me, just as bad as the reverse. Watering down the descriptions for every race just kills all flavor. Why not have some stereotypes? At least give players and DMs a place to start.
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'Why not have stereotypes' is possibly one of the most questionable questions I've ever seen on this board. So questionable I'm not going to answer it here, because hundreds of pages of vicious forum fire infighting have already been written about it. But seriously, Slaine. Seriously. Think about that phrase for a moment. "Why not have some stereotypes?" I'm certain that if you think about it, you'll come up with an ever increasing number of reasons why not.
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When did they "remove all but a hint that hobgoblins might be evil and not good"? The new version makes it abundantly clear that Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and Goblins can all be any alignment. That doesn't automatically make them "good". It just makes them as morally diverse as humans. And, in fact, they do mention that many goblinoids are still evil and have evil origins, with the Goblins having served the Queen of Air and Darkness before being conquered by Maglubiyet, the hobgoblin legions on multiple worlds, and the fact that Bugbears are trying to spread across the world. What more do you want? They do give a starting place for DMs and players. Read the flavor text for the races in Monsters of the Multiverse. They clearly give at least a few ideas to start with for every race.
And if making all of the race morally diverse is "watering them down and killing all flavor" . . . good. Having whole races be evil all/almost all of the time is boring and has had been executed quite badly/offensively in D&D's past (Mystara's Orcs of Thar, the fact that the main dark skinned race in D&D is matriarchal and evil, the fact that hobgoblins are evil and wear Japanese-style outfits, et cetera).
The new style gives just enough to inspire DMs and players while keeping the lore setting-agnostic and avoiding all of the questionable choices from D&D's history.
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Let's take a breath here. Me suggesting that I enjoy the stereotype of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears being evil monsters that live in the darker parts of the game world waiting to eat players has NOTHING to do with any real world biases or politics. I am strictly speaking of a fantasy game, in a fantasy world with fantasy monsters. Anyone who might suggest otherwise is banging their own drum and not reflecting anything I say.
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You are making a lot of hay commenting on one beef I have out of several listed. I have said that I want some LORE. Sure I like my goblins as evil monsters the players can kill without moral quandaries but more importantly I would have liked some actual lore about goblins. Again, goblins in Eberron are a perfect example of what I am talking about. They can be good or evil but that also have an interesting society. They are broken up into different groups with different perspectives.
None of that is in ANY of the revised races. I find that boring and disappointing.
Edit: The 'happy hobgoblin' jib is from the art of the hobgoblin which I find completely ridiculous.
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Addressing this point, At this stage they seem to be doing setting agnostic content with little to no lore (like the new book) and actual setting books that are heavy on lore and background like Ebberon, Theros, and i assume spelljammer, ect. My feeling is that if you are playing home-brew its uneeded fluff, if you disagree there's almost 50 years of lore to pick your favorite period available on assorted wikis as well as setting books old and new (the amount of flavor I have pulled from 3.5 far outweighs what i get out of the 5e books).
The problem is whether or not you personally enjoy the stereotype is not relevant to whether or not the stereotype is a problem. Wizards of the Coast is not producing customized sourcebooks to appeal to each gamer's individual tastes.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You're making a lot of hay over one complaint that isn't even accurate. You said you want "some lore". Which you did get. Some of it is new. Before now, it had never been said that Goblins used to serve the Queen of Air and Darkness before being conquered by Maglubiyet. In fact, all of the lore about Goblinoids coming from the Feywild is new. The feywild's "Rule of Reciprocity" that Hobgoblins channel is new lore. All of that's lore. You're just pretending that the new lore isn't there.
And there's a reason they couldn't go as in-depth with the lore of these races in this book as Eberron's setting book does. Because this book isn't intended to be setting specific. This book is supposed to be setting agnostic (a goal I think they overall failed at, but it's still what they were going for). They couldn't mention Dhakaan or Darguun or any setting-specific locations/versions of Goblinoid lore because that would violate the core premise of the book (that it's only talking about the core versions of these races that are possible to use in any part of the D&D multiverse).
And if you're fine with hobgoblins being morally diverse like in Eberron . . . you should have no problem with that Hobgoblin Bard art. And if you want goblins to be always-evil monsters that players can kill without moral quandry . . . that's directly contradictory to the core premise of Eberron's Goblins, which you claim you like.
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I disagree that the few sentences in the Hobgoblin description count as lore but let me revise myself and say 'enough lore'.
I also understand that the point of the book is to make all the races setting agnostic. I dislike that approach for a variety of reasons and I would hope the 'powers that be' don't continue along that path. I don't think a huge list of races with generic descriptions is particularly useful. For newish DMs and Players they have to 'make it up as they go' without a place to start. That is asking a lot from some folk. For us seasoned players it's boring to read, IMHO. Sure, I can pick up a book of my favorite setting and go with the descriptions in that but...what if they don't have anything about the race I want to play? Back to making it up I guess. That is maybe not a horrible thing. Especially for the very imaginative. But for some of us it can be a downer.
As for liking Eberron goblins. I love a lot about Eberron but one of the main reasons is that the author set out to have everything make some sense. There are reasons for all types of races to have all types of moralities. Reading about it is interesting and fun. If you play a hobgoblin in Eberron you can feel assured that there is a place for you regardless of how you want to play it. I would not feel the same about playing a hobgoblin in Forgotten Realms. Likewise, I would feel uncomfortable if I showed up to some DM's homebrewed world unless that DM did some extraordinary extra work. All this does not change the fact that in my own homebrew I prefer goblins as evil creatures. You can see some examples of the goblins I created in my sig. They make sacrifices to black gods and despoil the land around them. My goblins serve dark lords and oppose the forces of good. As I said, I like my stereotypes. My personal preference is a more darker theme with fewer racial options but that is just me. It doesn't mean I can't like something like Eberron that has rich lore and flavor. And it doesn't mean I can't dislike a goofy artistic choice.
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Lore is lore, no matter how short the description of the lore is. "Goblinoids are from the Feywild, but were conquered by Maglubiyet" is lore. Sure, it's not a ton of lore (and the book does go a tiny bit more in depth than that), but it is lore.
And what counts as "enough" is subjective. For some people, no lore would be enough to properly run the creatures, because they have a solid idea already of what Goblins are. For others, they're completely new to the races, so they need more lore. I think that this amount is pretty sufficient for the goal they were trying to accomplish. However, if you don't think it's enough lore for you to like the book, that is a subjective opinion that is completely valid to have. But it's also valid for others to say that they think it's enough lore.
That's what I think WotC is going for. I think they're moving towards the idea that in order to play D&D, you need the 3 core rulebooks for the mechanics of the game and an additional book for the world you want to play in (unless you homebrew your own setting). A "3 + 1 Books required to play the game" sort of thing.
They don't want to print information that might contradict the lore of the setting book they want you to buy, so they're going for a "less is more" route for how to handle the lore of D&D's base descriptions of its playable races. In my opinion, their thought process is that if they keep the lore of the base versions of the races vague enough, then they get to do more interesting setting-specific takes on those races in different worlds without lore-purists and grognards going "BuT tHaT's NoT wHaT oRcS aRe SuPpOsEd To Be LiKe!" And it also helps introduce the idea that different settings have different versions of the races to newer players instead of being more like the 5e PHB's version which was mostly "Oh, and all Dwarves are Moradin-worshipping, elf-hating traditionalists that know everything there is to know about Stone and Smithing" which could confuse players really new to the game that think all settings have the same versions of different races.
But! The point of this new release is that WotC is trying to transition away from "the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are the base setting of D&D 5e's races and we're going to have the lore for the races be centered around those settings' lore" and more into the "hey, all of these races are different depending on the settings they're in. Here's a base understanding of how most versions of this races are across the D&D Multiverse, but it does differ from world to world, especially with culture/religion". Yes, it's going to make the base lore more bland and lackluster, but it's also going to open up the door for a more diverse amount of takes on these races in future settings. There can be settings where Lizardfolk were created when an ancient T-Rex-looking demon lord's blood mixed with the mud of a swamp and thus Lizardfolk are almost always evil in that setting, but there's also room for Ravnica's version of the race (Viashino), which are descended from Dragons and frequently serve Niv Mizzet, the wizard-dragon-inventor that runs the Izzet Guild. And neither version contradicts the base lore of Lizardfolk in the game anymore.
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See, the problem with your post is you are simply wrong. The depictions of races in the "fantasy world" of D&D are irrevocably tainted by real world biases and politics because their creator--Gary Gygax, Ernest Gygax, and others in D&D's early days very clearly exhibited real world biases against certain people. That is a pretty well documented fact--Gary spoke about "biological determinism" in a way to degrade women and other races; Ernest is presently trying to make a tabletop RPG with racial and gender bias in it because he is upset about the fact Wizards of the Coast is removing the bias he and his father put into the game (which he has acknowledged and even bragged about). Take a look at any early sourcebook and you'll see extremely problematic views on race permeating the views on Orcs, Goblins, any non-Anglo Saxon human, and others--many of which continued in the game long, long after the Gygaxs were removed from creative control.
Wizards has spent a lot of time trying to scrub the racism from the game, but was not really super successful. Taking a mulligan on the default rules, removing all the stereotypes, and allowing them to start over, building from the ground up and working in worlds untouched by Gygax (which is likely why they have not touched Greyhawk yet), gives them a much better footing to finally right wrongs dating to the game's very founding.
And this is my issue. There are plenty of games that have stripped down the core rules to flavorless rules crunch. It never goes over well. A better approach would be to base each edition loosely on a different setting with follow up campaign settings. It's fine to say that x race does not have the same culture in y setting. Heck, that is certainly the case in EVERY home brew. It's not going to suddenly upturn your table at home. But it will give people a place to start. Are all goblins evil in the setting? Are they good? Somewhere in between? Most early adventures involve clearing out goblin dens. Should the players have to worry about the poor goblins and the social economic factors that forced them to a life of demon worshipping and raiding villages? Or just clear the dungeon and take their crap? Someone has to be the antagonist for the players to take on. In my opinion, a generic D&D system will kill the interest in the game. It certainly will for me.
*To all you Goblin Liberation Front fighters...keep banging those drums
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But at the same time, by default D&D takes place in a massive multiverse. The fact that things could be completely different on one side of the Astral Plane to the other is part of the flavor and lore, an important one in my opinion that should be leaned into. Making one world the default implies that is is the most common set of rules a world can have and the others are the anomaly.
Also, take a look at the new monsters Journey Through the Radiant Citadel brings. We got plague-bearing owl demons, masses of grasping limbs, and Lovecraft-y faceless dudes. One writer in an interview about one of the worlds described talks about using undead and demons as the remnants of war that still trouble the countryside. So the latest product hasn’t gone into “hyoooman’s are the real monsteeeeers!” territory, nor do Wizards look to be preparing to go down that road.
I like parts of both.
Frankly I'm with Slaine for the simple fact that WOTC seems to have no intention of giving more recent detailed villain's that last beyond the module they're introduced. Like they've stopped painting in broad strokes which is good, but their not really painting in small ones either, at least not from what I can see. So now where just left with large swaths of empty canvas and a sign pointing to rule 0 as an excuse.
[citation needed]
Let’s look at facts, not speculation. The simple reality is we have not seen a single setting-specific sourcebook published since MMM. We know the two setting-specific sourcebooks (not counting Strixhaven, which even Wizards can’t remember that it is a sourcebook, not an adventure) immediately proceeding MMM both contained monsters that could be end bosses of campaigns and some specific lore related to those creatures—clearly showing some small brushwork. Even within MMM there are some lore components for things like demon lords—things that would be a long-term enemy.
Spelljammer will be the first test of what a setting-specific monster manual will look like post MMM, so, at this time, we have quite literally no data to speculate on. The only real information we have is Wizards saying sourcebooks for settings might have more lore content, but we have not seen that yet. Even Spelljammer is going to be a poor first test - it is not a simple setting book with a monster table, it is a set of three mini books presented in a way akin to core rules. It will be the best and only evidence we have for setting-specific post-MMM sourcebooks, but the unusual nature in how it will be presented might mean it does not comport with future design standards.
Ultimately, we will have to wait until a couple weeks from now (at time of posting) to see what is going to happen post MMM, and it seems rather frivolous to speculate when there is no data in either direction, other than some vague statements from Wizards about their design goals.