"As the digital age just keeps ramping up, most people are going to be sticking with digital and screw the physical." Yes and they will have to accept that they do not own the content and the license holder can do whatever it wants with it (including revoking the license/shutting down the service).
"I'm not paying monthly subscription fees for a library of books that just keep getting swapped out." one time payment/subscription doesn't really change anything and yes technically, you are:
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The concern about editing for racial or religious (etc.) respect is certainly nothing I have an issue with akd is obviously the advantage of digital to clean up in the moment rather than leave it like a festering wound. My concern was more about the more general idea. Also, while I agree that a new edition really isn't anything to worry about normally, in this upcoming edition it's a little more tense of only due to the suggestion lf backwards compatibility. My concern is that more editing of stats and even rules in service of retconning may occur, and I haven't been able to shake it. Anyway, I've really replied more on this than I meant to, with apologies. Intended to just give my opinion and *get* but apparently that was a light switch that needed a mord forceful click.
Also, the nervous feeling as we shift to a new edition will fade. Feeling trepidation about a new edition is a rite of passage that everyone goes through when their first, beloved edition is in its twilight and a new edition is announced.
I've been with the game since 1994 so it's far from being my first time, ;) Though I have to say the prior editions came with more hope and even surprised happiness (4e being hope with more initial happiness followed by depression (great edition for lore and worldbuilding though)). Pretty much jumped ship to Pathfinder a year after 4e's release.
Honetly, I'm less concerned with the editing of books for specific content then I am in them whole sale removing content in it's entirety; I purchased both Volo's and Mord's and the incredibly thoughtful and detailed information in those books regarding their associated races was wonderful. And then it got obliterated so that the constituents could be replaced with far more bland and generic versions of them that in some cases felt wildly off base.
Like take the Kobolds for example; the race option and lore clearly depicted a race that favored trickerery and teamwork over raw power and this was consistent with the lore that we had of them going back decades. They got replaced by something that is just... I don't even know what to make of the nubolds other then it being like a bizzare inverse that has more to do with not being cowardly and instead intimidating which just completely misses the mark. Then We have Lizardfolk who's flavor was all about a combination of lizard brain and survivalist; they didn't expierience emotions like other races and regarded everything around them as a potential resource (not just food but a source of weapons and tools) and that was really, really cool from a roleplaying perspective... and then it just went away so they could be as generic and bland as possible, along with the rest of the 33 races in Multiverse.
As both a consumer and Lore enthusiast I find this pattern of behavior extremely disturbing since it calls into question what the hell is even canon and whether or not anything I purchase will still be valid within the same edition.
As both a consumer and Lore enthusiast I find this pattern of behavior extremely disturbing since it calls into question what the hell is even canon and whether or not anything I purchase will still be valid within the same edition.
The canon is the same it has been since first edition - whatever the DM says it is. The reason everything got simplified in MMM was the fact a large number of players glorified “Th Official Lore™” at the expense of DMs being allowed to create their own lore.
Additionally, Wizards realises something the “but my lore is taken away!” crowd does not - we live in the 21st century. If you want “official lore” you can find a better summary on the Forgotten Realms wiki than anything that will ever be posted in a D&D book - Wizards realised that there is so much out there to help folks who want lore, they do not need to spend all that much time in the book itself. Giving a simplified version of the lore in the book allows them to cut out paragraphs of unnecessary content, and do things like have 33 different sets of racial mechanics in a book that also has over 200 monsters.
It is probably also worth pointing out that your post is non responsive to the thread - this is about errata, not new versions of legacy content, and Wizards did not actually remove any content from any products in their MMM update.
As both a consumer and Lore enthusiast I find this pattern of behavior extremely disturbing since it calls into question what the hell is even canon and whether or not anything I purchase will still be valid within the same edition.
The canon is the same it has been since first edition - whatever the DM says it is. The reason everything got simplified in MMM was the fact a large number of players glorified “Th Official Lore™” at the expense of DMs being allowed to create their own lore.
Additionally, Wizards realises something the “but my lore is taken away!” crowd does not - we live in the 21st century. If you want “official lore” you can find a better summary on the Forgotten Realms wiki than anything that will ever be posted in a D&D book - Wizards realised that there is so much out there to help folks who want lore, they do not need to spend all that much time in the book itself. Giving a simplified version of the lore in the book allows them to cut out paragraphs of unnecessary content, and do things like have 33 different sets of racial mechanics in a book that also has over 200 monsters.
I disagree with most of what you said. The lore posted in official D&D books does matter. It holds more weight than any other online source, even a wiki that compiles older versions of lore. The lore still printed into the official books of 5e does mean something, otherwise they wouldn't have stuffed so much of it into the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, Eberron Rising from the Last War, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, Strixhaven a Curriculum of Chaos, as well as Volo's Guide to Monsters. Do we have access to google, sure. Anyone who has access to dndbeyond has access to google, but you're missing the point that MANY people find lore to be important, and even moreso to be in an official capacity, such as published books. While I recognize it may not be for everyone, which seems to include you, to ignore that completely by saying 'go to this wiki' is disingenuous to one of the things that has made so many people fall in love with d&d beyond rolling the dice.
As both a consumer and Lore enthusiast I find this pattern of behavior extremely disturbing since it calls into question what the hell is even canon and whether or not anything I purchase will still be valid within the same edition.
The canon is the same it has been since first edition - whatever the DM says it is. The reason everything got simplified in MMM was the fact a large number of players glorified “Th Official Lore™” at the expense of DMs being allowed to create their own lore.
Additionally, Wizards realises something the “but my lore is taken away!” crowd does not - we live in the 21st century. If you want “official lore” you can find a better summary on the Forgotten Realms wiki than anything that will ever be posted in a D&D book - Wizards realised that there is so much out there to help folks who want lore, they do not need to spend all that much time in the book itself. Giving a simplified version of the lore in the book allows them to cut out paragraphs of unnecessary content, and do things like have 33 different sets of racial mechanics in a book that also has over 200 monsters.
I disagree with most of what you said. The lore posted in official D&D books does matter. It holds more weight than any other online source, even a wiki that compiles older versions of lore. The lore still printed into the official books of 5e does mean something, otherwise they wouldn't have stuffed so much of it into the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, Eberron Rising from the Last War, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, Strixhaven a Curriculum of Chaos, as well as Volo's Guide to Monsters. Do we have access to google, sure. Anyone who has access to dndbeyond has access to google, but you're missing the point that MANY people find lore to be important, and even moreso to be in an official capacity, such as published books. While I recognize it may not be for everyone, which seems to include you, to ignore that completely by saying 'go to this wiki' is disingenuous to one of the things that has made so many people fall in love with d&d beyond rolling the dice.
With the exception of Volo’s, each of your examples is distinguishable from MMM, the product being discussed. GMGTR, Eberron, etc. are all books tied to a specific plane - the lore itself is part of the product being sold, and is clearly delineated as “this is the lore for this particular setting.”
The problem Volo’s, the Monster Manual, etc. had - they were generalised books intended for every campaign, but passed off Forgotten Realms lore as The Official Lore for their contents. This created problems - it meant lore in planar specific sourcebooks might contradict the most purchased version of the most utilised books; it meant you had DMs homebrewing fielding the “but the Monster Manual says X” complaints.
Wizards realised that generalised books do not need lore - that could be found in other places, avoiding some of the significant problems of having books intended to be generalised content, but instead containing planar-specific information.
Official Lore is not going to go away from every source - just from generalised products like MMM where it takes up space, adds little that cannot be found elsewhere, can cause headaches due to bad, sycophantic players, and simply is not necessary for the product’s goal of providing as much mechanical content as possible.
"They should put more lore in the D&D books! If you don't wanna use it, you can just change it for your table!" "That's a whole lot of work I shouldn't have to do...but fine. Gimme a minute." A minute passes "Okay, here. This is the lore I put together for my game/homebrew world. As you can see, it's - " "OH MY F@#$ING GAWD YOU CHANGED IT WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT THIS ISN'T EVEN D&D ANYMORE I QUIT YOU'RE A HORRIBLE PERSON AND I HOPE YOUR HOUSE BURNS DOWN" "..................why do I bother, again?"
Lorehounds insist that those of us who like to tweak and adjust and modify, and in many cases to throw out the old bad Forgotten Realms crap entirely in favor of something without nearly fifty years of baggage, can just change the lore ourselves if we want to. And then when we do that, we get intense and often ugly pushback from lorehounds for daring to change it instead of running our games 100% strictly true to the words of a dead man written forty years ago - or seventy years ago, in the case of the ur Example. If a DM wants the kobolds in their world to not be craven little shits who cower and grovel and wallow in their own filth and are only ever forgettable tier 1 villains in thrall to something bigger than they are, they're not allowed to make that change. Even if the idea of what amounts to a 'dragon terrier', i.e. a draconic creature of small stature but exceptionally fierce and fearless temperament all out of proportion to their size, is honestly kinda awesome and could be great fun to explore in a non-Forgotten Realms setting.
But at the same time, Let ebberon be eberon. Let Dark Sun be Dark sun. Let Forgotten Realms be Forgotten realms.
Also with Nubolds: if you're going to fundamentally change it that much then you should just go ahead and make a whole new races since they've got nothing in common with the source material.
Which one do you actually want WotC to do? Because those are mutually exclusive positions.
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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.
It's really not; Those settings all have their own lore and clarify what it is when it deviates from the default position.
The default position is "no lore" so I'm not sure what you're objecting to.
I mean, the default position was "yes lore" up until fairly recently.
But hey if you want to see what a lore free setting looks like, go ahead and look at spelljammer, which has... nothing. No nations, no factions, no organizations, no goals, no threats, just.... nothing beyond one half baked module (which could probably have been really great but as it is it's just full of damn near every flaw you'd expect to hear people complain about over on reddit in the RPG horror stories section). Just nothing to inspire the imagination or act as touchstone or even justify the setting's existance given that space has nothing in it but monsters.
I mean, the default position was "yes lore" up until fairly recently.
The default was "we're going to give you the lore for a single setting as universal lore". Now, they've recognized that setting lore belongs in a setting.
I mean, the default position was "yes lore" up until fairly recently.
The default was "we're going to give you the lore for a single setting as universal lore". Now, they've recognized that setting lore belongs in a setting.
There are a few issues with this.
First off, FR has been more or less the base line setting of D&D since about the turn of the millenium (before that it would have likely been greyhawk which generally shared monster/race characteristics with FR) and as such there wasn't a need to have a more agnostic interpretation of them; other settings clarified the differences within their materials (IE how orcs are in Ebberon).
Second, While I don't have a problem by default with them clarifying specific races and/or monsters on a setting by setting basis, I will point out that that is a hell of a lot of work and based on the efforts put forward by the team in their most recent setting guide I am wholly unconvinced that they have either the ability or the will to do so.
I mean, the default position was "yes lore" up until fairly recently.
The default was "we're going to give you the lore for a single setting as universal lore". Now, they've recognized that setting lore belongs in a setting.
There are a few issues with this.
First off, FR has been more or less the base line setting of D&D since about the turn of the millenium (before that it would have likely been greyhawk which generally shared monster/race characteristics with FR) and as such there wasn't a need to have a more agnostic interpretation of them; other settings clarified the differences within their materials (IE how orcs are in Ebberon).
Which is a problem. The Forgotten Realms should not be the "base setting" of D&D because a) 90% of the Forgotten Realms is absolute crap and b) D&D should not have a base setting. Every setting should be supported with the base game's mechanics and lore. And if it is going to have a base setting, it shouldn't be the Forgotten Realms.
Second, While I don't have a problem by default with them clarifying specific races and/or monsters on a setting by setting basis, I will point out that that is a hell of a lot of work and based on the efforts put forward by the team in their most recent setting guide I am wholly unconvinced that they have either the ability or the will to do so.
Spelljammer is different from the other settings. Technically, it is basically every other setting in D&D (at least, it's every one that takes place on the Material Plane and isn't shielded from the rest of the Multiverse, like Dark Sun and Eberron are), so a Spelljammer book has to support the lore of every setting . . . which means that it really can't have much setting-specific lore in it, unless it covers a lot of possible locations (just read Boo's Astral Menagerie and you'll see that most of the monsters are unique to the Astral Sea or Wildspace, not any specific world).
Spelljammer not having much lore is kind of understandable for the setting. It's not preferable, but their other fairly recent actual setting books (Theros, Wildemount, Ravenloft) did have a lot of lore and they were good books. Ravenloft didn't give different lore for the base races because it is also like Spelljammer in that any setting has a place in it, but it had lore for its new races. I don't like the Theros setting much as a D&D world that much and it's definitely low on my list of "official settings I want to play/DM in", but the book is a really, really good setting book for Theros. And Wildemount is definitely the 2nd best setting book in all of 5e, just behind Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Theros, Wildemount, and Eberron all had setting-specific lore for the races that appeared in those settings. And it was good lore, for the most part. They clearly have the ability to make good setting lore for 5e settings. The "will" is a different question, but they have shown the will to do that in the past.
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I mean, the default position was "yes lore" up until fairly recently.
The default was "we're going to give you the lore for a single setting as universal lore". Now, they've recognized that setting lore belongs in a setting.
There are a few issues with this.
First off, FR has been more or less the base line setting of D&D since about the turn of the millenium (before that it would have likely been greyhawk which generally shared monster/race characteristics with FR) and as such there wasn't a need to have a more agnostic interpretation of them; other settings clarified the differences within their materials (IE how orcs are in Ebberon).
Which is a problem. The Forgotten Realms should not be the "base setting" of D&D because a) 90% of the Forgotten Realms is absolute crap and b) D&D should not have a base setting. Every setting should be supported with the base game's mechanics and lore. And if it is going to have a base setting, it shouldn't be the Forgotten Realms.
Second, While I don't have a problem by default with them clarifying specific races and/or monsters on a setting by setting basis, I will point out that that is a hell of a lot of work and based on the efforts put forward by the team in their most recent setting guide I am wholly unconvinced that they have either the ability or the will to do so.
Spelljammer is different from the other settings. Technically, it is basically every other setting in D&D (at least, it's every one that takes place on the Material Plane and isn't shielded from the rest of the Multiverse, like Dark Sun and Eberron are), so a Spelljammer book has to support the lore of every setting . . . which means that it really can't have much setting-specific lore in it, unless it covers a lot of possible locations (just read Boo's Astral Menagerie and you'll see that most of the monsters are unique to the Astral Sea or Wildspace, not any specific world).
Spelljammer not having much lore is kind of understandable for the setting. It's not preferable, but their other fairly recent actual setting books (Theros, Wildemount, Ravenloft) did have a lot of lore and they were good books. Ravenloft didn't give different lore for the base races because it is also like Spelljammer in that any setting has a place in it, but it had lore for its new races. I don't like the Theros setting much as a D&D world that much and it's definitely low on my list of "official settings I want to play/DM in", but the book is a really, really good setting book for Theros. And Wildemount is definitely the 2nd best setting book in all of 5e, just behind Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Theros, Wildemount, and Eberron all had setting-specific lore for the races that appeared in those settings. And it was good lore, for the most part. They clearly have the ability to make good setting lore for 5e settings. The "will" is a different question, but they have shown the will to do that in the past.
Agreed completely. Wizards settings(except for FR) are pretty good, I would say. They really feel unique and different from any other world, unlike Forgotten Realms.
Do humans have a default description of their alignment, religion, and social structure that applies to all campaign settings unless otherwise noted? If not, why should orcs?
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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.
Which is a problem. The Forgotten Realms should not be the "base setting" of D&D because a) 90% of the Forgotten Realms is absolute crap and b) D&D should not have a base setting. Every setting should be supported with the base game's mechanics and lore. And if it is going to have a base setting, it shouldn't be the Forgotten Realms.
Spelljammer is different from the other settings. Technically, it is basically every other setting in D&D (at least, it's every one that takes place on the Material Plane and isn't shielded from the rest of the Multiverse, like Dark Sun and Eberron are), so a Spelljammer book has to support the lore of every setting . . . which means that it really can't have much setting-specific lore in it, unless it covers a lot of possible locations (just read Boo's Astral Menagerie and you'll see that most of the monsters are unique to the Astral Sea or Wildspace, not any specific world).
Spelljammer not having much lore is kind of understandable for the setting. It's not preferable, but their other fairly recent actual setting books (Theros, Wildemount, Ravenloft) did have a lot of lore and they were good books. Ravenloft didn't give different lore for the base races because it is also like Spelljammer in that any setting has a place in it, but it had lore for its new races. I don't like the Theros setting much as a D&D world that much and it's definitely low on my list of "official settings I want to play/DM in", but the book is a really, really good setting book for Theros. And Wildemount is definitely the 2nd best setting book in all of 5e, just behind Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Theros, Wildemount, and Eberron all had setting-specific lore for the races that appeared in those settings. And it was good lore, for the most part. They clearly have the ability to make good setting lore for 5e settings. The "will" is a different question, but they have shown the will to do that in the past.
While I don't disagree with you about D&D not needing a base setting, every edition has had a base setting, and behind the base setting has always been the cosmology of D&D which has always been included into a few different settings.
Greyhawk- was the original base setting, and where the basic framework of the cosmology was first worked out.
Spelljammer - Framework setting, based strongly on the background and structure of all worlds.
Planescape - the other main framework setting
Forgotten Realms - Primary setting post Gary Gygax. As Ed Greenwood wasn't a (bleep)
Do humans have a default description of their alignment, religion, and social structure that applies to all campaign settings unless otherwise noted? If not, why should orcs?
When orcs were pigheaded monsters of low intelligence and tasty meat (yes it was once a source of replenishing supplies), them being an evil aligned monster made sense. But thanks to Warcraft and other Orc as hero stories, they allowed them to be player characters first as a part of the list of monsters that could be converted into player characters, and then in 3rd edition as half-Orc player characters, and WarCraft RPG as full Orcs. Once they did that they should have removed the alignment from Orcs. But even now looking at many player races that are included as monsters they have a base alignment. Which is just as wrong, as you said, basic NPC humans have always been listed without an alignment.
At my table, I refuse to use Alignment for any monsters, as that is a character choice not a racial background. I have evil gold dragons and good red dragons. Because fudge it, I like good red dragons.
While I don't disagree with you about D&D not needing a base setting, every edition has had a base setting, and behind the base setting has always been the cosmology of D&D which has always been included into a few different settings.
Greyhawk- was the original base setting, and where the basic framework of the cosmology was first worked out.
Spelljammer - Framework setting, based strongly on the background and structure of all worlds.
Planescape - the other main framework setting
Forgotten Realms - Primary setting post Gary Gygax. As Ed Greenwood wasn't a (bleep)
That . . . that isn't an argument for keeping "base settings" in D&D. If anything, it's an argument against it. Tradition is a terrible justification for not fixing a problem that has been a part of the game for longer than I've been alive.
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While I don't disagree with you about D&D not needing a base setting, every edition has had a base setting, and behind the base setting has always been the cosmology of D&D which has always been included into a few different settings.
Greyhawk- was the original base setting, and where the basic framework of the cosmology was first worked out.
Spelljammer - Framework setting, based strongly on the background and structure of all worlds.
Planescape - the other main framework setting
Forgotten Realms - Primary setting post Gary Gygax. As Ed Greenwood wasn't a (bleep)
That . . . that isn't an argument for keeping "base settings" in D&D. If anything, it's an argument against it. Tradition is a terrible justification for not fixing a problem that has been a part of the game for longer than I've been alive.
Not arguing to keep a base setting, only pointed out that is what they have been doing since the game started. If anything One D&D is them breaking from that tradition, and hopefully from now on they keep rules and settings separate. (I doubt they will though, even if they say that's the plan)
"As the digital age just keeps ramping up, most people are going to be sticking with digital and screw the physical." Yes and they will have to accept that they do not own the content and the license holder can do whatever it wants with it (including revoking the license/shutting down the service).
"I'm not paying monthly subscription fees for a library of books that just keep getting swapped out." one time payment/subscription doesn't really change anything and yes technically, you are:
The concern about editing for racial or religious (etc.) respect is certainly nothing I have an issue with akd is obviously the advantage of digital to clean up in the moment rather than leave it like a festering wound. My concern was more about the more general idea. Also, while I agree that a new edition really isn't anything to worry about normally, in this upcoming edition it's a little more tense of only due to the suggestion lf backwards compatibility. My concern is that more editing of stats and even rules in service of retconning may occur, and I haven't been able to shake it. Anyway, I've really replied more on this than I meant to, with apologies. Intended to just give my opinion and *get* but apparently that was a light switch that needed a mord forceful click.
I've been with the game since 1994 so it's far from being my first time, ;) Though I have to say the prior editions came with more hope and even surprised happiness (4e being hope with more initial happiness followed by depression (great edition for lore and worldbuilding though)). Pretty much jumped ship to Pathfinder a year after 4e's release.
Honetly, I'm less concerned with the editing of books for specific content then I am in them whole sale removing content in it's entirety; I purchased both Volo's and Mord's and the incredibly thoughtful and detailed information in those books regarding their associated races was wonderful. And then it got obliterated so that the constituents could be replaced with far more bland and generic versions of them that in some cases felt wildly off base.
Like take the Kobolds for example; the race option and lore clearly depicted a race that favored trickerery and teamwork over raw power and this was consistent with the lore that we had of them going back decades. They got replaced by something that is just... I don't even know what to make of the nubolds other then it being like a bizzare inverse that has more to do with not being cowardly and instead intimidating which just completely misses the mark. Then We have Lizardfolk who's flavor was all about a combination of lizard brain and survivalist; they didn't expierience emotions like other races and regarded everything around them as a potential resource (not just food but a source of weapons and tools) and that was really, really cool from a roleplaying perspective... and then it just went away so they could be as generic and bland as possible, along with the rest of the 33 races in Multiverse.
As both a consumer and Lore enthusiast I find this pattern of behavior extremely disturbing since it calls into question what the hell is even canon and whether or not anything I purchase will still be valid within the same edition.
The canon is the same it has been since first edition - whatever the DM says it is. The reason everything got simplified in MMM was the fact a large number of players glorified “Th Official Lore™” at the expense of DMs being allowed to create their own lore.
Additionally, Wizards realises something the “but my lore is taken away!” crowd does not - we live in the 21st century. If you want “official lore” you can find a better summary on the Forgotten Realms wiki than anything that will ever be posted in a D&D book - Wizards realised that there is so much out there to help folks who want lore, they do not need to spend all that much time in the book itself. Giving a simplified version of the lore in the book allows them to cut out paragraphs of unnecessary content, and do things like have 33 different sets of racial mechanics in a book that also has over 200 monsters.
It is probably also worth pointing out that your post is non responsive to the thread - this is about errata, not new versions of legacy content, and Wizards did not actually remove any content from any products in their MMM update.
I disagree with most of what you said. The lore posted in official D&D books does matter. It holds more weight than any other online source, even a wiki that compiles older versions of lore. The lore still printed into the official books of 5e does mean something, otherwise they wouldn't have stuffed so much of it into the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, Eberron Rising from the Last War, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, Strixhaven a Curriculum of Chaos, as well as Volo's Guide to Monsters. Do we have access to google, sure. Anyone who has access to dndbeyond has access to google, but you're missing the point that MANY people find lore to be important, and even moreso to be in an official capacity, such as published books. While I recognize it may not be for everyone, which seems to include you, to ignore that completely by saying 'go to this wiki' is disingenuous to one of the things that has made so many people fall in love with d&d beyond rolling the dice.
Published Subclasses
With the exception of Volo’s, each of your examples is distinguishable from MMM, the product being discussed. GMGTR, Eberron, etc. are all books tied to a specific plane - the lore itself is part of the product being sold, and is clearly delineated as “this is the lore for this particular setting.”
The problem Volo’s, the Monster Manual, etc. had - they were generalised books intended for every campaign, but passed off Forgotten Realms lore as The Official Lore for their contents. This created problems - it meant lore in planar specific sourcebooks might contradict the most purchased version of the most utilised books; it meant you had DMs homebrewing fielding the “but the Monster Manual says X” complaints.
Wizards realised that generalised books do not need lore - that could be found in other places, avoiding some of the significant problems of having books intended to be generalised content, but instead containing planar-specific information.
Official Lore is not going to go away from every source - just from generalised products like MMM where it takes up space, adds little that cannot be found elsewhere, can cause headaches due to bad, sycophantic players, and simply is not necessary for the product’s goal of providing as much mechanical content as possible.
That's an argument as old as D&D, Squigs.
"They should put more lore in the D&D books! If you don't wanna use it, you can just change it for your table!"
"That's a whole lot of work I shouldn't have to do...but fine. Gimme a minute."
A minute passes
"Okay, here. This is the lore I put together for my game/homebrew world. As you can see, it's - "
"OH MY F@#$ING GAWD YOU CHANGED IT WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT THIS ISN'T EVEN D&D ANYMORE I QUIT YOU'RE A HORRIBLE PERSON AND I HOPE YOUR HOUSE BURNS DOWN"
"..................why do I bother, again?"
Lorehounds insist that those of us who like to tweak and adjust and modify, and in many cases to throw out the old bad Forgotten Realms crap entirely in favor of something without nearly fifty years of baggage, can just change the lore ourselves if we want to. And then when we do that, we get intense and often ugly pushback from lorehounds for daring to change it instead of running our games 100% strictly true to the words of a dead man written forty years ago - or seventy years ago, in the case of the ur Example. If a DM wants the kobolds in their world to not be craven little shits who cower and grovel and wallow in their own filth and are only ever forgettable tier 1 villains in thrall to something bigger than they are, they're not allowed to make that change. Even if the idea of what amounts to a 'dragon terrier', i.e. a draconic creature of small stature but exceptionally fierce and fearless temperament all out of proportion to their size, is honestly kinda awesome and could be great fun to explore in a non-Forgotten Realms setting.
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Which one do you actually want WotC to do? Because those are mutually exclusive positions.
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.
It's really not; Those settings all have their own lore and clarify what it is when it deviates from the default position.
The default position is "no lore" so I'm not sure what you're objecting to.
I mean, the default position was "yes lore" up until fairly recently.
But hey if you want to see what a lore free setting looks like, go ahead and look at spelljammer, which has... nothing. No nations, no factions, no organizations, no goals, no threats, just.... nothing beyond one half baked module (which could probably have been really great but as it is it's just full of damn near every flaw you'd expect to hear people complain about over on reddit in the RPG horror stories section). Just nothing to inspire the imagination or act as touchstone or even justify the setting's existance given that space has nothing in it but monsters.
The default was "we're going to give you the lore for a single setting as universal lore". Now, they've recognized that setting lore belongs in a setting.
There are a few issues with this.
First off, FR has been more or less the base line setting of D&D since about the turn of the millenium (before that it would have likely been greyhawk which generally shared monster/race characteristics with FR) and as such there wasn't a need to have a more agnostic interpretation of them; other settings clarified the differences within their materials (IE how orcs are in Ebberon).
Second, While I don't have a problem by default with them clarifying specific races and/or monsters on a setting by setting basis, I will point out that that is a hell of a lot of work and based on the efforts put forward by the team in their most recent setting guide I am wholly unconvinced that they have either the ability or the will to do so.
Which is a problem. The Forgotten Realms should not be the "base setting" of D&D because a) 90% of the Forgotten Realms is absolute crap and b) D&D should not have a base setting. Every setting should be supported with the base game's mechanics and lore. And if it is going to have a base setting, it shouldn't be the Forgotten Realms.
Spelljammer is different from the other settings. Technically, it is basically every other setting in D&D (at least, it's every one that takes place on the Material Plane and isn't shielded from the rest of the Multiverse, like Dark Sun and Eberron are), so a Spelljammer book has to support the lore of every setting . . . which means that it really can't have much setting-specific lore in it, unless it covers a lot of possible locations (just read Boo's Astral Menagerie and you'll see that most of the monsters are unique to the Astral Sea or Wildspace, not any specific world).
Spelljammer not having much lore is kind of understandable for the setting. It's not preferable, but their other fairly recent actual setting books (Theros, Wildemount, Ravenloft) did have a lot of lore and they were good books. Ravenloft didn't give different lore for the base races because it is also like Spelljammer in that any setting has a place in it, but it had lore for its new races. I don't like the Theros setting much as a D&D world that much and it's definitely low on my list of "official settings I want to play/DM in", but the book is a really, really good setting book for Theros. And Wildemount is definitely the 2nd best setting book in all of 5e, just behind Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Theros, Wildemount, and Eberron all had setting-specific lore for the races that appeared in those settings. And it was good lore, for the most part. They clearly have the ability to make good setting lore for 5e settings. The "will" is a different question, but they have shown the will to do that in the past.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Agreed completely. Wizards settings(except for FR) are pretty good, I would say. They really feel unique and different from any other world, unlike Forgotten Realms.
N/A
Do humans have a default description of their alignment, religion, and social structure that applies to all campaign settings unless otherwise noted? If not, why should orcs?
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.
While I don't disagree with you about D&D not needing a base setting, every edition has had a base setting, and behind the base setting has always been the cosmology of D&D which has always been included into a few different settings.
Greyhawk- was the original base setting, and where the basic framework of the cosmology was first worked out.
Spelljammer - Framework setting, based strongly on the background and structure of all worlds.
Planescape - the other main framework setting
Forgotten Realms - Primary setting post Gary Gygax. As Ed Greenwood wasn't a (bleep)
When orcs were pigheaded monsters of low intelligence and tasty meat (yes it was once a source of replenishing supplies), them being an evil aligned monster made sense. But thanks to Warcraft and other Orc as hero stories, they allowed them to be player characters first as a part of the list of monsters that could be converted into player characters, and then in 3rd edition as half-Orc player characters, and WarCraft RPG as full Orcs. Once they did that they should have removed the alignment from Orcs. But even now looking at many player races that are included as monsters they have a base alignment. Which is just as wrong, as you said, basic NPC humans have always been listed without an alignment.
At my table, I refuse to use Alignment for any monsters, as that is a character choice not a racial background. I have evil gold dragons and good red dragons. Because fudge it, I like good red dragons.
Early Orcs:
That . . . that isn't an argument for keeping "base settings" in D&D. If anything, it's an argument against it. Tradition is a terrible justification for not fixing a problem that has been a part of the game for longer than I've been alive.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Not arguing to keep a base setting, only pointed out that is what they have been doing since the game started. If anything One D&D is them breaking from that tradition, and hopefully from now on they keep rules and settings separate. (I doubt they will though, even if they say that's the plan)