Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Not going to make a sales pitch here, but it should be pretty obvious I myself think there's a real scarcity of the two within D&D 5e as stands (along the lines of finding water in Death Valley). BUT that's my opinion and I'm curious what the rest of ths community feels.
Personally loved D&D 3rd Edition for both, and 4th Edition was a surprising breath of fresh air that expanded on what was there in clever and creative ways which I retain for my own games, because how could I not steal it? The war between the Gods and the Primordials was wonderful, to have enemies of the Gods themselves, as well as tree roots that snaked down to show where all the Races and Monsters came from (like Titans and Giants being the province of the Primordials)
I really don't understand why you can't have slavers in Official D&D. The only concerns I can see are 1. The implication of racism, and 2. Somehow suggesting slavery wasn't that bad.
Slavery in the wider historical sense did not have to be about Race, especially since most reference Rome rather than pre-Civil War America / Abolitionism. For two, yeah, there are some repulsive people that somehow believe "slavery wasn't good or evil, it just was," but that's why you just say explicitly that slavery is Evil. It's not "Typically Evil," it is just Evil.
I feel you. Any number of monsters like that get fixed for my own games. Exactly how a Mind Flayer Colony can be supported by dominated slaves when they can only dominate once per day with concentration is beyond me. I personally changed the Mind Flayers ability to Enslave and gave it an extended duration, while Elder Brains were given the ability to make the Domination Permanent over time, though permanent in much the same way as True Polymorph is permanent, as well as using other mind affecting effects to cure the enchantment, etc.
I think the simple answer is that creatures can do more than just what their stat block says. Stat blocks describe what a creature does when in combat with PCs and are not meant to be the end-all-be-all of a creature's abilities. I imagine that controlling thralls that have been dominated for months or years would be much easier than besting the will of a hostile hero.
While I do really appreciate a "default" set of lore - I too preferred the baseline worldbuilding in the 4e PHB to what we got in 5e, but then I've never been much of a fan of Forgotten Realms - I have to wonder how much I'd actually use at this point. Probably my favorite thing about Dark Sun is the way they throw all the default lore away and get weird with it, and I tend to do the same thing with my own settings.
Sure official D&D lore can be great for inspiration, but so can literally all other media. I dunno, maybe it's the lack of lore that has driven my habit of "outsourcing" for ideas, but at this point I don't ever feel like I'm hurting for inspiration. I mean the Strixhaven book has tons of flavor in it, but at the same time I kinda feel like I'd almost rather do my own adaptation of Harry Potter that could be more tailored to my preferences.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
The problem is that without World-Building Lore, everything just becomes a set of stat blocks. That's not fun and it's never been D&D.
What's all this about "censored"? Chainging things is not the same as censoring things.
I like how you referenced "censored" in a quote that you edited down to "stuff."
This is actually a common way of visibly replying to a comment (you'll see that if you click the black arrow next to the quote users name, it takes you directly to said comment) without disruptively padding out comments.
Also editing a reply to avoid it being disruptively long is not censoring. As they pointed out, changing things is not the same as censoring things. The fact they did a quote means that the original message is highlighted and more accessible.
Let's try and avoid casting aspersions of censorship on each other, especially when nothing is being censored (quite the opposite, Lostwhilefishing used the quote function to highlight the original comment, rather than just using the reply option)
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I was referencing "Censored" from the post Lostwhilefishing quoted, which can be found in the original by Portential "Reading the censored 5e ... " No aspersions were made.
Again, changing things is not censoring. But OK, they changed things and now they suck. Is that a fair summation of your qualms?
I've only ever played 5e so I obviously don't know what I'm missing, but it seems like the solution to all of this is simply to home-brew the missing information.
They changed it, so now by definition it sucks.
The more lore and worldbuilding Wizards crams down players' throats, the less room there is for players to play D&D. If Wizards plunks down lore for a given creature and says "This is what [X] is. if you run [X] at your table any differently from this at all? You're an absolutely horrible person, you're ruining your D&D game, neither your players nor your ancestors willl ever forgive you, and Gary Gygax will send shades from the afterlife to haunt your nightmares", then guess what? Anybody who dislikes that lore gets to find a new game, even if they otherwise mostly like this one. Even the second post in this thread was demanding a 'Loremaster's' forum that allowed them to continue perpetuating decades-old lore nobody can find, access, or study anymore so that people could be barred from the game for not knowing fifty years of inaccessible, contradictory Faerunian lore that eliminates all reason and purpose for going out to Adventure in the first place.
5e books don't need millions of words of exhaustively (and I do meaning exhausting) laid out lore that chokes off all possibility of mystery, exploration, or adventure. They need enough words to get the DM's juices going so the DM can present the players with a situation worth Adventuring in. I don't need a five-page dossier on the precise societal mechanisms of neogi slavery and why it's just the coolest thing to do that, and I'd argue nobody ever really did. A line stating "Slavery and hierarchical dominance are built into a neogi's brain in ways that would nauseate most humanoids" is really all I need to know the intention, i.e. 'these things' minds don't work like humanoid minds and they're real big on slavery'.
Besides...it's Spelljammer. "Explore the unknown reaches of Wildspace!" is the entire point. Why do we need to know absolutely everything there is to know about it before playing our first session. Where the hell's the fun in that?
Please do not contact or message me.
What are you talking about? The new stat blocks have the following:
"Typically Lawful Evil"
"Because adult neogi have the power to control minds, they consider doing so to be entirely appropriate."
"They left their home world long ago to conquer and devour creatures in other realms. During this era, they dominated umber hulks and used them to build sleek, spidery ships capable of traversing the multiverse."
Sure, the description has far less lore in it than before, but what is left definitely indicates evil.
A company changing their product is not censorship, it a company making changes to their product. They own it, they can do what they want with it. The government telling a company to change their product is censorship.
Not to be a Lorraine apologist, but there was a lot going on in the world when 2e was out beyond her personal beliefs. The changes were much more in response to the satanic panic and suburban parents scared by ginned up stories than anything to do with her. She made lots of bad choices, and really screwed the pooch with the whole Buck Rogers deal, but removing the words devils and demons was a business decision.
And as others have said lack of lore lets you make your own. Contrary to earlier statements, making your own lore has actually been the core of the game since the beginning. Gary and Co. we’re shocked that other people wanted to pay for a world to play in. They assumed everyone had the time and creativity to homebrew an entire multiverse just as they did.
I get that you’re not into that, and it certainly makes sense. But to assert that the game was founded around spoon feeding lore to everyone is simply wrong.
I for one would appreciate more lore in their books like before. It was interesting, but ignorable if you wanted to be different.
I'll certainly say the current trend leaves me suspicious and even depressed about the likely design of sixth edition, let about any upcoming books. I never liked Dragonlance beyond tbe first 3 fiction books by Weiss and Hickman, so that was a non-starter from the get go. If Planescape should release, I doubt I'll buy it till a sale like Cyber Monday. And I will probably pass on 6e, praying it passes as quickly as 4th Edition did
Just to clarify, I liked old school Spelljammer. 5e is terrible. I'll check out the link for sure amd keep my eyes peeled for 3rd Party resources. Just wish it hadn't come to this.
Yes it does. Mind Control is inherently evil. It's more morally problematic than necromancy. You're taking away the bodily autonomy of other creatures, which probably aren't consenting. Mind control is inherently evil, and creatures that use it also are inherently evil.
I see you're not vegan, then ;)
This is up for debate and has been for awhile now. Quite a few people would say that eating meat while having available alternatives is, indeed, an evil act.
Neogi are still (mostly) evil, okay. So your example is a bad one. They probably cut the rest of the lore because a) it's up to the individual DM on how to use it b) to leave room for the occasional non-evil Neogi that doesn't enslave people (just like there are the occasional good Mind Flayer or Beholder), and c) to make room for other monsters in a limited amount of pages for the book.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I mean this in the most respectful manner... why are you here then? It seems you don't like 5e and have already decided you don't like 6e despite absolutely no plans to develop it yet, so why even hang out on 5e boards? It seems like your time might be much better spent in a forum on your preferred edition rather than just coming here to tear down the current one.
I feel like there's a looot of subtext in this thread. As third pointed out, Neogi are still described as being reprehensible. Likening "conquer and devour other creatures" to eating a hamburger is completely ignoring the connotation of those words in order to twist things to fit a predetermined conclusion. It also clearly describes them enslaving umber hulks, OP just seems to be upset they don't explicitly use the word "slavery." This is not censorship, it's just showing instead of telling. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, do they need to tell you it's a duck?
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Again, changing things isn't censoring. They didn't "remove" anything from the Multiverse since it was never there to begin with. No-one has censored anything in Mordenkainen's or Volo's. Those books still exist but they are different books than MoM. You do realize this, right?