While much of the lore in both of those books was problematic (though not, in my view, too bad), will we get any new lore? I am a big fan of official Lore and dislike having to make up things I don't wish to bother with too much. I agree that having an official product that says "all of these races (species) are evil by design" is bad for the hobby which has spread far and wide from its white male roots (mostly, there were women playing D&D even in the early days, by some accounts), I still want WotC to at least give me a couple of options. My human nations are unique, because that is where my interest in worldbuilding is, but I was relying on WotC for the non-humans. The Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Gnome stuff was great, some of the things from Volo were good (Hags, Mind flayers, etc.), but now it's all semi-officially gone. Again, I don't mind so much that it is gone, but I mind very much that there is nothing to replace it.
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DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
Wizards is changing how they deliver lore. Previously, lore in places like Volo’s was heavily based in Forgotten Realms—those books were supposed to be treasuries of lots of monsters folks could use in any campaign, but the addition of Forgotten Realms lore inadvertently made folks believe that was the “official lore”, reducing the likelihood of deviation and causing confusion when the Volo’s version differed from a plane-specific “official lore”.
So, moving forward, books like MMM are going to be setting agnostic - they will provide the basics of the creature, but not lore specific to any given plane. That information will be presented in premade campaigns and setting-specific sourcebooks (like Van Richten’s) - things that are dedicated to exploring a specific plane and fleshing out the lore of that plane.
Given that their focus (aside from the current legal upheaval) is on refining the rules for the next edition of the game, my guess is that updated lore is fairly far down their priority list, especially when you consider they'll have to make sure anything new they print about races species will need very in-depth review by their sensitivity monitors.
That's the bad news. But the good news is, you don't have to wait for them either - there's plenty of licensed material available for purchase on DM's Guild, including from prior editions, if you're not wanting to wait. Find whichever lore sparks your imagination best and go for it.
Given that their focus (aside from the current legal upheaval) is on refining the rules for the next edition of the game, my guess is that updated lore is fairly far down their priority list, especially when you consider they'll have to make sure anything new they print about races species will need very in-depth review by their sensitivity monitors.
That's the bad news. But the good news is, you don't have to wait for them either - there's plenty of licensed material available for purchase on DM's Guild, including from prior editions, if you're not wanting to wait. Find whichever lore sparks your imagination best and go for it.
Yeah I figured as much myself, but wanted to get some second opinions. The DM's Guild will definitely be where I will go for lore until WotC gets something new out.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
Wizards is changing how they deliver lore. Previously, lore in places like Volo’s was heavily based in Forgotten Realms—those books were supposed to be treasuries of lots of monsters folks could use in any campaign, but the addition of Forgotten Realms lore inadvertently made folks believe that was the “official lore”, reducing the likelihood of deviation and causing confusion when the Volo’s version differed from a plane-specific “official lore”.
So, moving forward, books like MMM are going to be setting agnostic - they will provide the basics of the creature, but not lore specific to any given plane. That information will be presented in premade campaigns and setting-specific sourcebooks (like Van Richten’s) - things that are dedicated to exploring a specific plane and fleshing out the lore of that plane.
Interesting. I didn't realize Volo's had such an effect.
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DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
The prevailing theory is that future setting guides or adventure paths will include the lore, and expansion material simply won't, or will include the bare minimum in order to make sense ("genasi are related to genies").
Honestly I’m a little worried they’re going to commit too hard to “melting pot” type settings going forward. To be clear, I have absolutely no issues with the trope in principle; love a good fantasy New York-style metropolis. But it’s a bit dull for me if every single settlement in the setting is like that and no one ever bats an eye at the Genasi or firbolg or suchlike. It’s the safe option for them, sure, but I feel like you lose a significant roleplay element if the species you play doesn’t inform your social interactions at all.
Honestly I’m a little worried they’re going to commit too hard to “melting pot” type settings going forward. To be clear, I have absolutely no issues with the trope in principle; love a good fantasy New York-style metropolis. But it’s a bit dull for me if every single settlement in the setting is like that and no one ever bats an eye at the Genasi or firbolg or suchlike. It’s the safe option for them, sure, but I feel like you lose a significant roleplay element if the species you play doesn’t inform your social interactions at all.
I guess my question is, why would you need WotC to enforce that? If you want NPCs from {area} to gawk or grab the nearest pitchfork if a fire genasi walks into town, do that. Just make sure your players know that will happen ahead of time, preferably during session 0.
Honestly I’m a little worried they’re going to commit too hard to “melting pot” type settings going forward. To be clear, I have absolutely no issues with the trope in principle; love a good fantasy New York-style metropolis. But it’s a bit dull for me if every single settlement in the setting is like that and no one ever bats an eye at the Genasi or firbolg or suchlike. It’s the safe option for them, sure, but I feel like you lose a significant roleplay element if the species you play doesn’t inform your social interactions at all.
I guess my question is, why would you need WotC to enforce that? If you want NPCs from {area} to gawk or grab the nearest pitchfork if a fire genasi walks into town, do that. Just make sure your players know that will happen ahead of time, preferably during session 0.
I know it’s not all on WotC, but I worry that completely leaving the dynamic out of future works will still cool its prevalence since a lot of people do try to start D&D using official products
Edit PS: To be clear, I’m not saying they need to make a point of doing it in every setting/adventure book, but I’m worried they’re going to do the opposite and make a point of not raising the issue.
Part of the problem is that there actually may not be ANY generalized official lore. A case can be made that it’s all setting specific lore. When I started (1979) the non homebrew setting was Mystara so the original MM etc lore can be considered to be Mystara lore. Shortly after that the Dragonlance setting arrived with significant differences and fairly soon Forgotten Realms showed up with a ton of lore from Greenwood. Then , with that we got the far eastern FR and the pseudo Arabic FR, then Dark sun, Strahd, etc. Heck there was even an adventure into Looney Tunes Land. Then we got spelljammer to move between worlds and planeScape as well. Now we critical role, Strixhaven, the Feywild, magic the gathering and more each with different takes on different monsters and character species. At 8 years an edition they dont even have time to do a lore book for each official world anymore so I’m not sure just how much lore is likely to appear in the future. Especially if half + of all adventuring worlds are homebrew with nothing really linking them to one of the dozen? + existing official worlds. If you want lore for a world your best bet is probably a wiki for that world as a starting (and maybe ending) place.
I know it’s not all on WotC, but I worry that completely leaving the dynamic out of future works will still cool its prevalence since a lot of people do try to start D&D using official products
The official products' job is to be as inclusive as possible. That includes writing sidebars like "People From Beyond" in Dragonlance so that you know WotC aren't ab initio keeping you from using any other books you purchased with that material. However, the DM still has the right to impose whatever restrictions they want. PHB pg.6:
"Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world."
I know it’s not all on WotC, but I worry that completely leaving the dynamic out of future works will still cool its prevalence since a lot of people do try to start D&D using official products
The official products' job is to be as inclusive as possible. That includes writing sidebars like "People From Beyond" in Dragonlance so that you know WotC aren't ab initio keeping you from using any other books you purchased with that material. However, the DM still has the right to impose whatever restrictions they want. PHB pg.6:
"Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world."
I know, I just worry the books aren't really going to include any prompts to help give a feel for it. I dunno, maybe I'm just turning into one of those "back in my day" people. It's a soft worry, not something I'm gonna lobby or boycott over.
Implying any morality is intrinsic to a particular mortal species is not a good look, particularly in this day and age. My thought is rather than simply declaring "drow are evil", you say "in this setting the drow leadership promotes a culture that incorporates evil values such as slavery, racial superiority, and blood sports". It allows for the same result of what will likely be an antagonistic culture within the setting, but it delineates from "this is every single drow's inherent nature" to "this is the cultural standard that informs the average drow's outlook". There have historically been cultures that were big on some or all of those three points- although you do still want to watch how much you code any fantasy culture to resemble a real-world one, especially if you're just using off the top of your head ideas about it- but it doesn't paint them as a single monolithic society so that players can in good conscience pre-judge every drow they meet. Having an evil patron can of course affect how much influence the leadership has, but overall mortal species are still free agents, so assigning a fixed or until proven otherwise morality to them is just not a good fit at all.
You can fight bad guys without declaring an entire ethnic bloc to be objectively Evil and thus always acceptable targets until proven otherwise. Beings like celestials and fiends operate on a different system, but any humanoid species or player species operates on the same free agency principle we do. If you want to run your table differently or make your own game, that's your prerogative, but it's not how WotC runs it and I'm with them on that point.
I always love how Forgotten Realms people are perfectly okay with forcing everyone to play in the Forgotten Realms and use Forgotten Realms lore just so they can keep getting their lore spoon-fed to them to the active and malicious exclusion of everybody else.
The Realms need a proper setting book like Eberron or Wildemount, to be sure. But I'm okay with setting-agnostic resources actually being setting agnostic, instead of yet more gas belched up from the bloated rotting corpse of the Forgotten Realms.
As for the other thing? No. We're not ******* having that conversation on these forums. Not again. You're wrong, you've always been wrong, you'll always be wrong, and if you don't care to read the literally multiple hundreds of pages on why it is no longer our job to inform you. Stuff it. Make everything but humans free genocide bait at your own table where the rest of us don't have to put up with it, that shit never belonged in the official books.
3) There seem to be a nonsense idea spreading that orcs represent black people or something like this. This is pure nonsense. Humans represent humans. If orcs represent black people, then who actual black people in FR represent? See how flawed this thinking is? If one believes orcs represent some group of people, then they should ask themselves whether they are racist for believing that these people are similar to such creatures in the first place.
It is a dog whistle, and people here use it all the time. People say certain things that seem innocent on the surface, but when put into context, it is meant to be hurtful and cause pain, but also tries not to be too obvious even though it is. If you have not experienced racism against you, you would not get it.
4) You Americans seem to be thinking 99% time about racism. Like you are literally breathing it like air. Get a life. There are many countries that are multi-racial, like Singapore and they live happily in harmony. If you only think how everything is racist 24h/day 7 days/week then no wonder you are frustrated, angry and offended all the time. There is and was no need for introducing totalitarian like censorship and banning books like Volo's guide. This is just madness.
Yeah. You definitely do not sound like you understand America from the perspective of our minorities. Singapore also is not as racially harmonious as you think it is, racism is still prevalent.
There is a difference between a government banning books and a company/individual discontinuing its own books/works. A company or person choosing to discontinue their own work is part of their right to free expression. Just you have the right to say "orcs are not racist representations of people", Wizards have the right to say "orcs are a racist representation of people", and they have the right to change or eliminate their own works to reflect that view.
Implying any morality is intrinsic to a particular mortal species is not a good look, particularly in this day and age. My thought is rather than simply declaring "drow are evil", you say "in this setting the drow leadership promotes a culture that incorporates evil values such as slavery, racial superiority, and blood sports". It allows for the same result of what will likely be an antagonistic culture within the setting, but it delineates from "this is every single drow's inherent nature" to "this is the cultural standard that informs the average drow's outlook". There have historically been cultures that were big on some or all of those three points- although you do still want to watch how much you code any fantasy culture to resemble a real-world one, especially if you're just using off the top of your head ideas about it- but it doesn't paint them as a single monolithic society so that players can in good conscience pre-judge every drow they meet. Having an evil patron can of course affect how much influence the leadership has, but overall mortal species are still free agents, so assigning a fixed or until proven otherwise morality to them is just not a good fit at all.
Drow are not a species. They are Elves with a particular cultural outlook. They are not an analog for a human ethnic group.
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While much of the lore in both of those books was problematic (though not, in my view, too bad), will we get any new lore? I am a big fan of official Lore and dislike having to make up things I don't wish to bother with too much. I agree that having an official product that says "all of these races (species) are evil by design" is bad for the hobby which has spread far and wide from its white male roots (mostly, there were women playing D&D even in the early days, by some accounts), I still want WotC to at least give me a couple of options. My human nations are unique, because that is where my interest in worldbuilding is, but I was relying on WotC for the non-humans. The Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Gnome stuff was great, some of the things from Volo were good (Hags, Mind flayers, etc.), but now it's all semi-officially gone. Again, I don't mind so much that it is gone, but I mind very much that there is nothing to replace it.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
Sort of.
Wizards is changing how they deliver lore. Previously, lore in places like Volo’s was heavily based in Forgotten Realms—those books were supposed to be treasuries of lots of monsters folks could use in any campaign, but the addition of Forgotten Realms lore inadvertently made folks believe that was the “official lore”, reducing the likelihood of deviation and causing confusion when the Volo’s version differed from a plane-specific “official lore”.
So, moving forward, books like MMM are going to be setting agnostic - they will provide the basics of the creature, but not lore specific to any given plane. That information will be presented in premade campaigns and setting-specific sourcebooks (like Van Richten’s) - things that are dedicated to exploring a specific plane and fleshing out the lore of that plane.
Given that their focus (aside from the current legal upheaval) is on refining the rules for the next edition of the game, my guess is that updated lore is fairly far down their priority list, especially when you consider they'll have to make sure anything new they print about
racesspecies will need very in-depth review by their sensitivity monitors.That's the bad news. But the good news is, you don't have to wait for them either - there's plenty of licensed material available for purchase on DM's Guild, including from prior editions, if you're not wanting to wait. Find whichever lore sparks your imagination best and go for it.
Yeah I figured as much myself, but wanted to get some second opinions. The DM's Guild will definitely be where I will go for lore until WotC gets something new out.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
Interesting. I didn't realize Volo's had such an effect.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
The prevailing theory is that future setting guides or adventure paths will include the lore, and expansion material simply won't, or will include the bare minimum in order to make sense ("genasi are related to genies").
But there's nothing super specific to go on yet.
Honestly I’m a little worried they’re going to commit too hard to “melting pot” type settings going forward. To be clear, I have absolutely no issues with the trope in principle; love a good fantasy New York-style metropolis. But it’s a bit dull for me if every single settlement in the setting is like that and no one ever bats an eye at the Genasi or firbolg or suchlike. It’s the safe option for them, sure, but I feel like you lose a significant roleplay element if the species you play doesn’t inform your social interactions at all.
I guess my question is, why would you need WotC to enforce that? If you want NPCs from {area} to gawk or grab the nearest pitchfork if a fire genasi walks into town, do that. Just make sure your players know that will happen ahead of time, preferably during session 0.
I know it’s not all on WotC, but I worry that completely leaving the dynamic out of future works will still cool its prevalence since a lot of people do try to start D&D using official products
Edit PS: To be clear, I’m not saying they need to make a point of doing it in every setting/adventure book, but I’m worried they’re going to do the opposite and make a point of not raising the issue.
Part of the problem is that there actually may not be ANY generalized official lore. A case can be made that it’s all setting specific lore. When I started (1979) the non homebrew setting was Mystara so the original MM etc lore can be considered to be Mystara lore. Shortly after that the Dragonlance setting arrived with significant differences and fairly soon Forgotten Realms showed up with a ton of lore from Greenwood. Then , with that we got the far eastern FR and the pseudo Arabic FR, then Dark sun, Strahd, etc. Heck there was even an adventure into Looney Tunes Land. Then we got spelljammer to move between worlds and planeScape as well. Now we critical role, Strixhaven, the Feywild, magic the gathering and more each with different takes on different monsters and character species. At 8 years an edition they dont even have time to do a lore book for each official world anymore so I’m not sure just how much lore is likely to appear in the future. Especially if half + of all adventuring worlds are homebrew with nothing really linking them to one of the dozen? + existing official worlds. If you want lore for a world your best bet is probably a wiki for that world as a starting (and maybe ending) place.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Greyhawk came out in 1980. "Mystara" was sort of a snapshot, certainly not fleshed out for quite some time.
The official products' job is to be as inclusive as possible. That includes writing sidebars like "People From Beyond" in Dragonlance so that you know WotC aren't ab initio keeping you from using any other books you purchased with that material. However, the DM still has the right to impose whatever restrictions they want. PHB pg.6:
"Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world."
I know, I just worry the books aren't really going to include any prompts to help give a feel for it. I dunno, maybe I'm just turning into one of those "back in my day" people. It's a soft worry, not something I'm gonna lobby or boycott over.
Implying any morality is intrinsic to a particular mortal species is not a good look, particularly in this day and age. My thought is rather than simply declaring "drow are evil", you say "in this setting the drow leadership promotes a culture that incorporates evil values such as slavery, racial superiority, and blood sports". It allows for the same result of what will likely be an antagonistic culture within the setting, but it delineates from "this is every single drow's inherent nature" to "this is the cultural standard that informs the average drow's outlook". There have historically been cultures that were big on some or all of those three points- although you do still want to watch how much you code any fantasy culture to resemble a real-world one, especially if you're just using off the top of your head ideas about it- but it doesn't paint them as a single monolithic society so that players can in good conscience pre-judge every drow they meet. Having an evil patron can of course affect how much influence the leadership has, but overall mortal species are still free agents, so assigning a fixed or until proven otherwise morality to them is just not a good fit at all.
You can fight bad guys without declaring an entire ethnic bloc to be objectively Evil and thus always acceptable targets until proven otherwise. Beings like celestials and fiends operate on a different system, but any humanoid species or player species operates on the same free agency principle we do. If you want to run your table differently or make your own game, that's your prerogative, but it's not how WotC runs it and I'm with them on that point.
This has gotten pretty off-topic.
Yes
I always love how Forgotten Realms people are perfectly okay with forcing everyone to play in the Forgotten Realms and use Forgotten Realms lore just so they can keep getting their lore spoon-fed to them to the active and malicious exclusion of everybody else.
The Realms need a proper setting book like Eberron or Wildemount, to be sure. But I'm okay with setting-agnostic resources actually being setting agnostic, instead of yet more gas belched up from the bloated rotting corpse of the Forgotten Realms.
As for the other thing? No. We're not ******* having that conversation on these forums. Not again. You're wrong, you've always been wrong, you'll always be wrong, and if you don't care to read the literally multiple hundreds of pages on why it is no longer our job to inform you. Stuff it. Make everything but humans free genocide bait at your own table where the rest of us don't have to put up with it, that shit never belonged in the official books.
Please do not contact or message me.
It is a dog whistle, and people here use it all the time. People say certain things that seem innocent on the surface, but when put into context, it is meant to be hurtful and cause pain, but also tries not to be too obvious even though it is. If you have not experienced racism against you, you would not get it.
Yeah. You definitely do not sound like you understand America from the perspective of our minorities. Singapore also is not as racially harmonious as you think it is, racism is still prevalent.
There is a difference between a government banning books and a company/individual discontinuing its own books/works. A company or person choosing to discontinue their own work is part of their right to free expression. Just you have the right to say "orcs are not racist representations of people", Wizards have the right to say "orcs are a racist representation of people", and they have the right to change or eliminate their own works to reflect that view.
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Drow are not a species. They are Elves with a particular cultural outlook. They are not an analog for a human ethnic group.