I can’t say “dwindling” so much as “dwindled.” I’ve all but completely stopped paying attention to 1DD and am just waiting for the finished R5e to come out just to see what the heck kinda melange it’s gonna be when it’s done. They haven’t published anything I’ve wanted to purchase since pre-Tasha’s, the little I have gotten since then was either to keep up with the market or was gifted to me. The R5e PHB will be much the same kind of market maintenance purchase that Tasha’s and Mordenkeinen’s were. Until that trend turns around, it’s hard to be very excited about the way D&D is going, and the companies who run it.
We're getting more detailed lore books, just not through the typical channels. The Domains of Delight book about the Feywild is loaded with lore, and so is the Chains of Asmodeus book about the Nine Hells. I expect we'll get more of that once the main book teams aren't tied up with the new PHB, DMG and MM.
We're getting more detailed lore books, just not through the typical channels. The Domains of Delight book about the Feywild is loaded with lore, and so is the Chains of Asmodeus book about the Nine Hells. I expect we'll get more of that once the main book teams aren't tied up with the new PHB, DMG and MM.
I want lore in the setting books, and monster books. I do not want to have to chase it down from other places.
I don't need a ton of it, just enough to have a little info to share with the players. If I have further interest then I will chase it down.
Setting lore is the last thing I need, and frankly, I don't think WOTC does it very well. For my settings, I'd rather go to a third party, even if that third party is Ed Greenwood for forgotten realms. I need wotc to provide me rules and crunch, and they are pretty good with that. I prefer they stick to what they are pretty good at.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I agree with you 100%. I just wish Ed Greenwood could produce and distribute forgotten realms material. They took it from him and warped it to work with the edition they're producing at the time. I would have loved to play in the world Ed invisioned and not the world greed made.
He's put out a few products on DM guild that may be worth checking out. There's a book on Thay and a book on the Border Kingdoms which are pretty good.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
We're getting more detailed lore books, just not through the typical channels. The Domains of Delight book about the Feywild is loaded with lore, and so is the Chains of Asmodeus book about the Nine Hells. I expect we'll get more of that once the main book teams aren't tied up with the new PHB, DMG and MM.
I want lore in the setting books, and monster books. I do not want to have to chase it down from other places.
I don't need a ton of it, just enough to have a little info to share with the players. If I have further interest then I will chase it down.
Silly question, but how many settings do you need? Plus third parties publish settings, too
How many different settings would you like to have a campaign in over a lifetime? Even if you don’t use the setting itself, its lore can be a great source of inspiration. Plus sometimes it’s just fun to read through the material.
I agree with you 100%. I just wish Ed Greenwood could produce and distribute forgotten realms material. They took it from him and warped it to work with the edition they're producing at the time. I would have loved to play in the world Ed invisioned and not the world greed made.
You need to look at first and second edition Advanced Dungeons Dragons on DrivethruRPG and the secondary market(ebay, amazon etc...)
The idea that lore is going away is a bit of a myth. Let’s look at the claim that monsters are being stripped of their lore.
Monsters of the Multiverse seems to be the first book in the new style of release. Using a random number generator to select some MMM monsters and compare them to their original “Legacy” versions, we discover:
Chokers – Old: 309 words of lore; New 230 words. No actual lore loss—just more efficient writing.
Firenewt Warriors – Old: 484; New 105. Seems like a big loss, right? It actually is not. Both entries cover the same material—relationships with giant striders, military theocracy that reveres Imix, and the necessity of them living in moist, hot areas. The military theocracy thing is fleshed out a bit more in the old entry, but the words “military theocracy” alone are descriptive enough for people to understand the basics of their culture.
Oblex Spawn – Old 226; New 213. Again, no actual lore loss—just some better organized writing.
Duergar Kavalrachni – Old 295; New 298. Same information, just slightly less efficient writing.
Sibriex – Old 347; New 278. The older version has some more flowery language about them amassing lost lore, but this flowery language does not really add anything to the thirty-five words on collecting lore the new version condenses things to.
Ulitharid – Old 290; New 255. Once again, same lore, slightly more efficient writing.
Chitine – Old 835; New 390. Some of this is more efficient writing, a lot of it is streamlining elements of drow culture. The basic elements remain in the new version, but the details are a bit thin.
Drow House Captain – Old 55; New 102 – The new version expands drow lore and culture in this entry, giving a bit more detail about how someone is chosen to be a Drow House Captain.
Kobold Inventor – Old 156; New 69. The new version changes 94 words talking about how their weapons sometimes break to 28 words which say the same thing. No substantive lore loss.
Kraken Priest – Old 169; New 109. The new version cuts out a paragraph that says the Kraken can make itself known to the kraken priests. Some lore loss in that (though arguable that follows from the nature of priesthood in D&D).
Overall, from our randomly generated entries (3.6% of the monsters in the new book), we have three entries with various degrees of lore loss—though, for two of those, it is arguable the new lore implies what the old lore said. One entry where there was a substantive lore gain. Six entries where the lore was substantively the same, just written a bit more concisely.
That is hardly the “this is a disaster, lore is going away!” situation folks are trying to paint the 2024 revision as. I think it is pretty clear lore is going to remain a part of the books; and, based on MMM, it looks like Wizards is going to treat lore about the same in 2024 as it did in 2014.
And, of course, even if the lore was even more streamlined in 2024 than it was in MMM, it is not like lore goes away. Wizards is very good about ensuring their older edition content remains available—you can get PDFs of older editions and all their lore on DriveThru RPG. Or you can just go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki and find way more lore than Wizards could ever fit into a sourcebook… in a better organized way that also hyperlinks to other pages.
These are incredible loaded and biased poll questions, just FYI. If someone presented me data collected in this fashion for any project at work or elsewhere I would throw it out for that reason alone.
Now we can hope to find hope in the new One Dnd content. Hopefully it comes as a sort of refresh, wiping away the shortfalls of 5e.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When in doubt throw the naked, fingerless, thief that you’ve been keeping in a sack and feeding rotten squirrels to into the fireworks tent hoping that it causes an explosion.
The idea that lore is going away is a bit of a myth. Let’s look at the claim that monsters are being stripped of their lore.
Monsters of the Multiverse seems to be the first book in the new style of release. Using a random number generator to select some MMM monsters and compare them to their original “Legacy” versions, we discover:
Chokers – Old: 309 words of lore; New 230 words. No actual lore loss—just more efficient writing.
Firenewt Warriors – Old: 484; New 105. Seems like a big loss, right? It actually is not. Both entries cover the same material—relationships with giant striders, military theocracy that reveres Imix, and the necessity of them living in moist, hot areas. The military theocracy thing is fleshed out a bit more in the old entry, but the words “military theocracy” alone are descriptive enough for people to understand the basics of their culture.
Oblex Spawn – Old 226; New 213. Again, no actual lore loss—just some better organized writing.
Duergar Kavalrachni – Old 295; New 298. Same information, just slightly less efficient writing.
Sibriex – Old 347; New 278. The older version has some more flowery language about them amassing lost lore, but this flowery language does not really add anything to the thirty-five words on collecting lore the new version condenses things to.
Ulitharid – Old 290; New 255. Once again, same lore, slightly more efficient writing.
Chitine – Old 835; New 390. Some of this is more efficient writing, a lot of it is streamlining elements of drow culture. The basic elements remain in the new version, but the details are a bit thin.
Drow House Captain – Old 55; New 102 – The new version expands drow lore and culture in this entry, giving a bit more detail about how someone is chosen to be a Drow House Captain.
Kobold Inventor – Old 156; New 69. The new version changes 94 words talking about how their weapons sometimes break to 28 words which say the same thing. No substantive lore loss.
Kraken Priest – Old 169; New 109. The new version cuts out a paragraph that says the Kraken can make itself known to the kraken priests. Some lore loss in that (though arguable that follows from the nature of priesthood in D&D).
Overall, from our randomly generated entries (3.6% of the monsters in the new book), we have three entries with various degrees of lore loss—though, for two of those, it is arguable the new lore implies what the old lore said. One entry where there was a substantive lore gain. Six entries where the lore was substantively the same, just written a bit more concisely.
That is hardly the “this is a disaster, lore is going away!” situation folks are trying to paint the 2024 revision as. I think it is pretty clear lore is going to remain a part of the books; and, based on MMM, it looks like Wizards is going to treat lore about the same in 2024 as it did in 2014.
And, of course, even if the lore was even more streamlined in 2024 than it was in MMM, it is not like lore goes away. Wizards is very good about ensuring their older edition content remains available—you can get PDFs of older editions and all their lore on DriveThru RPG. Or you can just go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki and find way more lore than Wizards could ever fit into a sourcebook… in a better organized way that also hyperlinks to other pages.
The thing about comparing MotM to MToF or VGtM is that with the latter two, in addition to the material printed with the blocks you had several chapters of lore on various races or entities, including story prompts and encounter tables to use as reference points for campaign design. The former only gives the stat blocks, so yes there is a massive net loss of lore being available there. This alone isn’t a strike against the book- it’s got far more races and stat blocks than either of the earlier books did and is more meant to serve as a compendium for them, not a lore book like Fizban’s or Bigby’s. But they also stopped selling access to the former two, which does indeed significantly impact the accessibility of lore and design tools going forward. It’s not the end of the world, but I wish they’d made a lore compendium to go alongside the stats one or otherwise done something more productive than taking so much material off the table going forward.
The idea that lore is going away is a bit of a myth. Let’s look at the claim that monsters are being stripped of their lore.
Monsters of the Multiverse seems to be the first book in the new style of release. Using a random number generator to select some MMM monsters and compare them to their original “Legacy” versions, we discover:
Chokers – Old: 309 words of lore; New 230 words. No actual lore loss—just more efficient writing.
Firenewt Warriors – Old: 484; New 105. Seems like a big loss, right? It actually is not. Both entries cover the same material—relationships with giant striders, military theocracy that reveres Imix, and the necessity of them living in moist, hot areas. The military theocracy thing is fleshed out a bit more in the old entry, but the words “military theocracy” alone are descriptive enough for people to understand the basics of their culture.
Oblex Spawn – Old 226; New 213. Again, no actual lore loss—just some better organized writing.
Duergar Kavalrachni – Old 295; New 298. Same information, just slightly less efficient writing.
Sibriex – Old 347; New 278. The older version has some more flowery language about them amassing lost lore, but this flowery language does not really add anything to the thirty-five words on collecting lore the new version condenses things to.
Ulitharid – Old 290; New 255. Once again, same lore, slightly more efficient writing.
Chitine – Old 835; New 390. Some of this is more efficient writing, a lot of it is streamlining elements of drow culture. The basic elements remain in the new version, but the details are a bit thin.
Drow House Captain – Old 55; New 102 – The new version expands drow lore and culture in this entry, giving a bit more detail about how someone is chosen to be a Drow House Captain.
Kobold Inventor – Old 156; New 69. The new version changes 94 words talking about how their weapons sometimes break to 28 words which say the same thing. No substantive lore loss.
Kraken Priest – Old 169; New 109. The new version cuts out a paragraph that says the Kraken can make itself known to the kraken priests. Some lore loss in that (though arguable that follows from the nature of priesthood in D&D).
Overall, from our randomly generated entries (3.6% of the monsters in the new book), we have three entries with various degrees of lore loss—though, for two of those, it is arguable the new lore implies what the old lore said. One entry where there was a substantive lore gain. Six entries where the lore was substantively the same, just written a bit more concisely.
That is hardly the “this is a disaster, lore is going away!” situation folks are trying to paint the 2024 revision as. I think it is pretty clear lore is going to remain a part of the books; and, based on MMM, it looks like Wizards is going to treat lore about the same in 2024 as it did in 2014.
And, of course, even if the lore was even more streamlined in 2024 than it was in MMM, it is not like lore goes away. Wizards is very good about ensuring their older edition content remains available—you can get PDFs of older editions and all their lore on DriveThru RPG. Or you can just go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki and find way more lore than Wizards could ever fit into a sourcebook… in a better organized way that also hyperlinks to other pages.
The thing about comparing MotM to MToF or VGtM is that with the latter two, in addition to the material printed with the blocks you had several chapters of lore on various races or entities, including story prompts and encounter tables to use as reference points for campaign design. The former only gives the stat blocks, so yes there is a massive net loss of lore being available there. This alone isn’t a strike against the book- it’s got far more races and stat blocks than either of the earlier books did and is more meant to serve as a compendium for them, not a lore book like Fizban’s or Bigby’s. But they also stopped selling access to the former two, which does indeed significantly impact the accessibility of lore and design tools going forward. It’s not the end of the world, but I wish they’d made a lore compendium to go alongside the stats one or otherwise done something more productive than taking so much material off the table going forward.
Considering the most popular campaign settings are "homebrew" (by a large margin) and "hombrewed version of official settings" (at a much lesser rate), the most important part of the book is not all the filler lore--it is the lore that shows up on the monster's page. That is the lore most folks want and use (it gives them the basis for how to use that specific monster in their homebew), not the walls of text specific to Wizards' version of particular worlds. That is why comparing statblock to statblock is useful--it shows that Wizards understands how folks actually use monsters and that they are not going to change the fundamental method in which they deliver those monsters' lore.
And, sure, some of that campaign-specific filler lore will no longer be available in the core books. But that filler has no place in those types of book anyway--it is dead space that represents only a small fraction of how players actually run the game. And, of course, it is all available elsewhere--be it the internet, secondary market, or official content like adventure books (which retread a lot of that cultural and location information that would otherwise be found in Volo's) or other lore-specific books.
For the overwhelming majority of players, they will not see any lore loss in the new books--at least not any substantial lore loss in the areas of the books they actually use. For the remaining players, they will not see any lore loss unless they lack basic skills like "using the internet" or "going to the library" (or, more likely, they have those skills, but just want to complain about Wizards for whatever reason)--and I do not think Wizards needs to cater to that particular demographic in their releases.
We're getting more detailed lore books, just not through the typical channels. The Domains of Delight book about the Feywild is loaded with lore, and so is the Chains of Asmodeus book about the Nine Hells. I expect we'll get more of that once the main book teams aren't tied up with the new PHB, DMG and MM.
I want lore in the setting books, and monster books. I do not want to have to chase it down from other places.
I don't need a ton of it, just enough to have a little info to share with the players. If I have further interest then I will chase it down.
I want more lore in the setting books and monster books too. But I want lore they don't have to recant later because it was full of poorly-thought out exclusionary ableist etc nonsense. If that means waiting a bit longer for their sensitivity reviews then I'm okay with that.
The new PHB, DMG and MM are getting the bulk of their attention right now. I'm expecting much more fleshed out lore entries than we've gotten in the likes of MPMM. Give it time.
We're getting more detailed lore books, just not through the typical channels. The Domains of Delight book about the Feywild is loaded with lore, and so is the Chains of Asmodeus book about the Nine Hells. I expect we'll get more of that once the main book teams aren't tied up with the new PHB, DMG and MM.
I want lore in the setting books, and monster books. I do not want to have to chase it down from other places.
I don't need a ton of it, just enough to have a little info to share with the players. If I have further interest then I will chase it down.
I want more lore in the setting books and monster books too. But I want lore they don't have to recant later because it was full of poorly-thought out exclusionary ableist etc nonsense. If that means waiting a bit longer for their sensitivity reviews then I'm okay with that.
Imo from a narrative/setting design perspective, cultures holding negative values is not an objectively bad design choice. If goliaths in X setting mostly live in a harsh and demanding environment, the need for everyone in a community to “pull their own weight” is not exactly unprecedented, and its inclusion does not automatically mean anything here than it would in any other piece of fiction. Now, that’s not to say they haven’t hit some other legitimate sour notes: Hadozee were probably the biggest, Kenku were interesting in the abstract but a bit too demanding for role play on a few levels, and Orcs have still been a bit too closely wedded to the “savage tribals” trope for a while, to name a few. But I don’t think overcorrecting to the point of stripping anything that might be taken negatively or reflects negative but real aspects of past cultures is a good solution. Saying Orcs have a strong martial tradition and have clashed with or raided their neighbors in the past is not exactly all nice and antiseptic, but they do have traits that lend themselves to fighting as martials and historically quite a few cultures have had this kind of foreign policy without being overt evil tribesmen or empires. And that can just be one element; maybe they also have a strong tradition of animal husbandry or crafting or arts on the domestic front. I just think nuance and depth is a better area to work towards than something so carefully tailored to avoid negative traits that it feels sterile and bland.
The idea that lore is going away is a bit of a myth. Let’s look at the claim that monsters are being stripped of their lore.
Monsters of the Multiverse seems to be the first book in the new style of release. Using a random number generator to select some MMM monsters and compare them to their original “Legacy” versions, we discover:
Chokers – Old: 309 words of lore; New 230 words. No actual lore loss—just more efficient writing.
Firenewt Warriors – Old: 484; New 105. Seems like a big loss, right? It actually is not. Both entries cover the same material—relationships with giant striders, military theocracy that reveres Imix, and the necessity of them living in moist, hot areas. The military theocracy thing is fleshed out a bit more in the old entry, but the words “military theocracy” alone are descriptive enough for people to understand the basics of their culture.
Oblex Spawn – Old 226; New 213. Again, no actual lore loss—just some better organized writing.
Duergar Kavalrachni – Old 295; New 298. Same information, just slightly less efficient writing.
Sibriex – Old 347; New 278. The older version has some more flowery language about them amassing lost lore, but this flowery language does not really add anything to the thirty-five words on collecting lore the new version condenses things to.
Ulitharid – Old 290; New 255. Once again, same lore, slightly more efficient writing.
Chitine – Old 835; New 390. Some of this is more efficient writing, a lot of it is streamlining elements of drow culture. The basic elements remain in the new version, but the details are a bit thin.
Drow House Captain – Old 55; New 102 – The new version expands drow lore and culture in this entry, giving a bit more detail about how someone is chosen to be a Drow House Captain.
Kobold Inventor – Old 156; New 69. The new version changes 94 words talking about how their weapons sometimes break to 28 words which say the same thing. No substantive lore loss.
Kraken Priest – Old 169; New 109. The new version cuts out a paragraph that says the Kraken can make itself known to the kraken priests. Some lore loss in that (though arguable that follows from the nature of priesthood in D&D).
Overall, from our randomly generated entries (3.6% of the monsters in the new book), we have three entries with various degrees of lore loss—though, for two of those, it is arguable the new lore implies what the old lore said. One entry where there was a substantive lore gain. Six entries where the lore was substantively the same, just written a bit more concisely.
That is hardly the “this is a disaster, lore is going away!” situation folks are trying to paint the 2024 revision as. I think it is pretty clear lore is going to remain a part of the books; and, based on MMM, it looks like Wizards is going to treat lore about the same in 2024 as it did in 2014.
And, of course, even if the lore was even more streamlined in 2024 than it was in MMM, it is not like lore goes away. Wizards is very good about ensuring their older edition content remains available—you can get PDFs of older editions and all their lore on DriveThru RPG. Or you can just go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki and find way more lore than Wizards could ever fit into a sourcebook… in a better organized way that also hyperlinks to other pages.
The thing about comparing MotM to MToF or VGtM is that with the latter two, in addition to the material printed with the blocks you had several chapters of lore on various races or entities, including story prompts and encounter tables to use as reference points for campaign design. The former only gives the stat blocks, so yes there is a massive net loss of lore being available there. This alone isn’t a strike against the book- it’s got far more races and stat blocks than either of the earlier books did and is more meant to serve as a compendium for them, not a lore book like Fizban’s or Bigby’s. But they also stopped selling access to the former two, which does indeed significantly impact the accessibility of lore and design tools going forward. It’s not the end of the world, but I wish they’d made a lore compendium to go alongside the stats one or otherwise done something more productive than taking so much material off the table going forward.
Considering the most popular campaign settings are "homebrew" (by a large margin) and "hombrewed version of official settings" (at a much lesser rate), the most important part of the book is not all the filler lore--it is the lore that shows up on the monster's page. That is the lore most folks want and use (it gives them the basis for how to use that specific monster in their homebew), not the walls of text specific to Wizards' version of particular worlds. That is why comparing statblock to statblock is useful--it shows that Wizards understands how folks actually use monsters and that they are not going to change the fundamental method in which they deliver those monsters' lore.
And, sure, some of that campaign-specific filler lore will no longer be available in the core books. But that filler has no place in those types of book anyway--it is dead space that represents only a small fraction of how players actually run the game. And, of course, it is all available elsewhere--be it the internet, secondary market, or official content like adventure books (which retread a lot of that cultural and location information that would otherwise be found in Volo's) or other lore-specific books.
For the overwhelming majority of players, they will not see any lore loss in the new books--at least not any substantial lore loss in the areas of the books they actually use. For the remaining players, they will not see any lore loss unless they lack basic skills like "using the internet" or "going to the library" (or, more likely, they have those skills, but just want to complain about Wizards for whatever reason)--and I do not think Wizards needs to cater to that particular demographic in their releases.
honestly, i have to agree that i can't point my finger at a time when i've used "wall of text" lore in a campaign. however, i very much enjoy reading those recreationally. i came late to 5th edition after purchasing some books even without any intention of joining a game group at the time. i would devour a 5e book of Faerun kingdoms and nobility that was written even as generally as Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (thinking of The Blood War stuff here). i think it's not always the case that people don't want this lore but rather that the existing lore is so scattered as to be useless. some DMs want a garrisoned town RIGHT HERE whether or not some map says there's supposed to be a lake or mountain or hole to hell in that spot for which the lore is only a burden, while some other DMs want to look for an 'existing' spot nearby (with history of orc incursions, fallen wizard towers, halfling furniture factory outlets, elections and pressured nobles, etc) they can change the name of. the more i dig into wikis of old adventures, the more i appreciate the interaction between 'existing' towns. was sword coast adventure guide supposed to scratch that itch? because it very much did not.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
Imo from a narrative/setting design perspective, cultures holding negative values is not an objectively bad design choice. If goliaths in X setting mostly live in a harsh and demanding environment, the need for everyone in a community to “pull their own weight” is not exactly unprecedented, and its inclusion does not automatically mean anything here than it would in any other piece of fiction.
The problem is that 'Goliath' is not a culture. Anything widespread enough to be included in a general purpose monster book, rather than one-offs for an adventure or fairly small setting, will have multiple cultures.
Imo from a narrative/setting design perspective, cultures holding negative values is not an objectively bad design choice. If goliaths in X setting mostly live in a harsh and demanding environment, the need for everyone in a community to “pull their own weight” is not exactly unprecedented, and its inclusion does not automatically mean anything here than it would in any other piece of fiction. Now, that’s not to say they haven’t hit some other legitimate sour notes: Hadozee were probably the biggest, Kenku were interesting in the abstract but a bit too demanding for role play on a few levels, and Orcs have still been a bit too closely wedded to the “savage tribals” trope for a while, to name a few. But I don’t think overcorrecting to the point of stripping anything that might be taken negatively or reflects negative but real aspects of past cultures is a good solution. Saying Orcs have a strong martial tradition and have clashed with or raided their neighbors in the past is not exactly all nice and antiseptic, but they do have traits that lend themselves to fighting as martials and historically quite a few cultures have had this kind of foreign policy without being overt evil tribesmen or empires. And that can just be one element; maybe they also have a strong tradition of animal husbandry or crafting or arts on the domestic front. I just think nuance and depth is a better area to work towards than something so carefully tailored to avoid negative traits that it feels sterile and bland.
I never said it was "an objectively bad design choice" - but it's not something that their default printed game, which is intentionally aiming for maximum inclusivity, needs to perpetuate either. You have all the tools you need to make your own setting where all orcs are savage and tribal and all goliaths are ableist, but that doesn't mean the textbook mass-market version of the game needs to do that. And if avoiding that means extra proofreading on their part due to how engrained some of these tropes are, so be it, they're allowed to take their time.
If you feel their goal is "sterile and bland" you have every right to feel that way and spend your money on authors that are aiming to be edgier.
Imo from a narrative/setting design perspective, cultures holding negative values is not an objectively bad design choice. If goliaths in X setting mostly live in a harsh and demanding environment, the need for everyone in a community to “pull their own weight” is not exactly unprecedented, and its inclusion does not automatically mean anything here than it would in any other piece of fiction.
The problem is that 'Goliath' is not a culture. Anything widespread enough to be included in a general purpose monster book, rather than one-offs for an adventure or fairly small setting, will have multiple cultures.
True to a point, but the underlying concept that negative traits being associated with even just one subgroup of a race’s culture (if you choose to break some cultures down along those lines in the setting; doing otherwise is equally viable, but in order to have meaningful race lore/roleplay prompts, they do need to have some degree of shared background) is not automatically bad writing and negative representation, it’s just realistic worldbuilding. Again, this doesn’t mean there’s no wrong options, but to mollify your point, if one specifically said the Goliath communities that live in the high tundra of the Craggy Mountains have the element I described as a prevalent component of their culture, that’s just considering how environment will influence culture, not the “genetic determinism” that sometimes gets brought up as the reason in-depth racial lore is a bad thing.
Imo from a narrative/setting design perspective, cultures holding negative values is not an objectively bad design choice. If goliaths in X setting mostly live in a harsh and demanding environment, the need for everyone in a community to “pull their own weight” is not exactly unprecedented, and its inclusion does not automatically mean anything here than it would in any other piece of fiction. Now, that’s not to say they haven’t hit some other legitimate sour notes: Hadozee were probably the biggest, Kenku were interesting in the abstract but a bit too demanding for role play on a few levels, and Orcs have still been a bit too closely wedded to the “savage tribals” trope for a while, to name a few. But I don’t think overcorrecting to the point of stripping anything that might be taken negatively or reflects negative but real aspects of past cultures is a good solution. Saying Orcs have a strong martial tradition and have clashed with or raided their neighbors in the past is not exactly all nice and antiseptic, but they do have traits that lend themselves to fighting as martials and historically quite a few cultures have had this kind of foreign policy without being overt evil tribesmen or empires. And that can just be one element; maybe they also have a strong tradition of animal husbandry or crafting or arts on the domestic front. I just think nuance and depth is a better area to work towards than something so carefully tailored to avoid negative traits that it feels sterile and bland.
I never said it was "an objectively bad design choice" - but it's not something that their default printed game, which is intentionally aiming for maximum inclusivity, needs to perpetuate either. You have all the tools you need to make your own setting where all orcs are savage and tribal and all goliaths are ableist, but that doesn't mean the textbook mass-market version of the game needs to do that. And if avoiding that means extra proofreading on their part due to how engrained some of these tropes are, so be it, they're allowed to take their time.
If you feel their goal is "sterile and bland" you have every right to feel that way and spend your money on authors that are aiming to be edgier.
Could you please not indirectly accuse me of wanting to promote negative stereotyping, particularly when I was very clearly saying that overemphasizing such traits was something in the current lore that needs to be addressed? Thank you.
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I can’t say “dwindling” so much as “dwindled.” I’ve all but completely stopped paying attention to 1DD and am just waiting for the finished R5e to come out just to see what the heck kinda melange it’s gonna be when it’s done. They haven’t published anything I’ve wanted to purchase since pre-Tasha’s, the little I have gotten since then was either to keep up with the market or was gifted to me. The R5e PHB will be much the same kind of market maintenance purchase that Tasha’s and Mordenkeinen’s were. Until that trend turns around, it’s hard to be very excited about the way D&D is going, and the companies who run it.
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We're getting more detailed lore books, just not through the typical channels. The Domains of Delight book about the Feywild is loaded with lore, and so is the Chains of Asmodeus book about the Nine Hells. I expect we'll get more of that once the main book teams aren't tied up with the new PHB, DMG and MM.
I want lore in the setting books, and monster books. I do not want to have to chase it down from other places.
I don't need a ton of it, just enough to have a little info to share with the players. If I have further interest then I will chase it down.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Setting lore is the last thing I need, and frankly, I don't think WOTC does it very well. For my settings, I'd rather go to a third party, even if that third party is Ed Greenwood for forgotten realms. I need wotc to provide me rules and crunch, and they are pretty good with that. I prefer they stick to what they are pretty good at.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I agree with you 100%. I just wish Ed Greenwood could produce and distribute forgotten realms material. They took it from him and warped it to work with the edition they're producing at the time. I would have loved to play in the world Ed invisioned and not the world greed made.
He's put out a few products on DM guild that may be worth checking out. There's a book on Thay and a book on the Border Kingdoms which are pretty good.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
How many different settings would you like to have a campaign in over a lifetime? Even if you don’t use the setting itself, its lore can be a great source of inspiration. Plus sometimes it’s just fun to read through the material.
You need to look at first and second edition Advanced Dungeons Dragons on DrivethruRPG and the secondary market(ebay, amazon etc...)
The idea that lore is going away is a bit of a myth. Let’s look at the claim that monsters are being stripped of their lore.
Monsters of the Multiverse seems to be the first book in the new style of release. Using a random number generator to select some MMM monsters and compare them to their original “Legacy” versions, we discover:
Overall, from our randomly generated entries (3.6% of the monsters in the new book), we have three entries with various degrees of lore loss—though, for two of those, it is arguable the new lore implies what the old lore said. One entry where there was a substantive lore gain. Six entries where the lore was substantively the same, just written a bit more concisely.
That is hardly the “this is a disaster, lore is going away!” situation folks are trying to paint the 2024 revision as. I think it is pretty clear lore is going to remain a part of the books; and, based on MMM, it looks like Wizards is going to treat lore about the same in 2024 as it did in 2014.
And, of course, even if the lore was even more streamlined in 2024 than it was in MMM, it is not like lore goes away. Wizards is very good about ensuring their older edition content remains available—you can get PDFs of older editions and all their lore on DriveThru RPG. Or you can just go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki and find way more lore than Wizards could ever fit into a sourcebook… in a better organized way that also hyperlinks to other pages.
These are incredible loaded and biased poll questions, just FYI. If someone presented me data collected in this fashion for any project at work or elsewhere I would throw it out for that reason alone.
DnD is fine. The sky isn't falling.
Now we can hope to find hope in the new One Dnd content. Hopefully it comes as a sort of refresh, wiping away the shortfalls of 5e.
When in doubt throw the naked, fingerless, thief that you’ve been keeping in a sack and feeding rotten squirrels to into the fireworks tent hoping that it causes an explosion.
The thing about comparing MotM to MToF or VGtM is that with the latter two, in addition to the material printed with the blocks you had several chapters of lore on various races or entities, including story prompts and encounter tables to use as reference points for campaign design. The former only gives the stat blocks, so yes there is a massive net loss of lore being available there. This alone isn’t a strike against the book- it’s got far more races and stat blocks than either of the earlier books did and is more meant to serve as a compendium for them, not a lore book like Fizban’s or Bigby’s. But they also stopped selling access to the former two, which does indeed significantly impact the accessibility of lore and design tools going forward. It’s not the end of the world, but I wish they’d made a lore compendium to go alongside the stats one or otherwise done something more productive than taking so much material off the table going forward.
Considering the most popular campaign settings are "homebrew" (by a large margin) and "hombrewed version of official settings" (at a much lesser rate), the most important part of the book is not all the filler lore--it is the lore that shows up on the monster's page. That is the lore most folks want and use (it gives them the basis for how to use that specific monster in their homebew), not the walls of text specific to Wizards' version of particular worlds. That is why comparing statblock to statblock is useful--it shows that Wizards understands how folks actually use monsters and that they are not going to change the fundamental method in which they deliver those monsters' lore.
And, sure, some of that campaign-specific filler lore will no longer be available in the core books. But that filler has no place in those types of book anyway--it is dead space that represents only a small fraction of how players actually run the game. And, of course, it is all available elsewhere--be it the internet, secondary market, or official content like adventure books (which retread a lot of that cultural and location information that would otherwise be found in Volo's) or other lore-specific books.
For the overwhelming majority of players, they will not see any lore loss in the new books--at least not any substantial lore loss in the areas of the books they actually use. For the remaining players, they will not see any lore loss unless they lack basic skills like "using the internet" or "going to the library" (or, more likely, they have those skills, but just want to complain about Wizards for whatever reason)--and I do not think Wizards needs to cater to that particular demographic in their releases.
I want more lore in the setting books and monster books too. But I want lore they don't have to recant later because it was full of poorly-thought out exclusionary ableist etc nonsense. If that means waiting a bit longer for their sensitivity reviews then I'm okay with that.
The new PHB, DMG and MM are getting the bulk of their attention right now. I'm expecting much more fleshed out lore entries than we've gotten in the likes of MPMM. Give it time.
Imo from a narrative/setting design perspective, cultures holding negative values is not an objectively bad design choice. If goliaths in X setting mostly live in a harsh and demanding environment, the need for everyone in a community to “pull their own weight” is not exactly unprecedented, and its inclusion does not automatically mean anything here than it would in any other piece of fiction. Now, that’s not to say they haven’t hit some other legitimate sour notes: Hadozee were probably the biggest, Kenku were interesting in the abstract but a bit too demanding for role play on a few levels, and Orcs have still been a bit too closely wedded to the “savage tribals” trope for a while, to name a few. But I don’t think overcorrecting to the point of stripping anything that might be taken negatively or reflects negative but real aspects of past cultures is a good solution. Saying Orcs have a strong martial tradition and have clashed with or raided their neighbors in the past is not exactly all nice and antiseptic, but they do have traits that lend themselves to fighting as martials and historically quite a few cultures have had this kind of foreign policy without being overt evil tribesmen or empires. And that can just be one element; maybe they also have a strong tradition of animal husbandry or crafting or arts on the domestic front. I just think nuance and depth is a better area to work towards than something so carefully tailored to avoid negative traits that it feels sterile and bland.
honestly, i have to agree that i can't point my finger at a time when i've used "wall of text" lore in a campaign. however, i very much enjoy reading those recreationally. i came late to 5th edition after purchasing some books even without any intention of joining a game group at the time. i would devour a 5e book of Faerun kingdoms and nobility that was written even as generally as Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (thinking of The Blood War stuff here). i think it's not always the case that people don't want this lore but rather that the existing lore is so scattered as to be useless. some DMs want a garrisoned town RIGHT HERE whether or not some map says there's supposed to be a lake or mountain or hole to hell in that spot for which the lore is only a burden, while some other DMs want to look for an 'existing' spot nearby (with history of orc incursions, fallen wizard towers, halfling furniture factory outlets, elections and pressured nobles, etc) they can change the name of. the more i dig into wikis of old adventures, the more i appreciate the interaction between 'existing' towns. was sword coast adventure guide supposed to scratch that itch? because it very much did not.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
The problem is that 'Goliath' is not a culture. Anything widespread enough to be included in a general purpose monster book, rather than one-offs for an adventure or fairly small setting, will have multiple cultures.
I never said it was "an objectively bad design choice" - but it's not something that their default printed game, which is intentionally aiming for maximum inclusivity, needs to perpetuate either. You have all the tools you need to make your own setting where all orcs are savage and tribal and all goliaths are ableist, but that doesn't mean the textbook mass-market version of the game needs to do that. And if avoiding that means extra proofreading on their part due to how engrained some of these tropes are, so be it, they're allowed to take their time.
If you feel their goal is "sterile and bland" you have every right to feel that way and spend your money on authors that are aiming to be edgier.
True to a point, but the underlying concept that negative traits being associated with even just one subgroup of a race’s culture (if you choose to break some cultures down along those lines in the setting; doing otherwise is equally viable, but in order to have meaningful race lore/roleplay prompts, they do need to have some degree of shared background) is not automatically bad writing and negative representation, it’s just realistic worldbuilding. Again, this doesn’t mean there’s no wrong options, but to mollify your point, if one specifically said the Goliath communities that live in the high tundra of the Craggy Mountains have the element I described as a prevalent component of their culture, that’s just considering how environment will influence culture, not the “genetic determinism” that sometimes gets brought up as the reason in-depth racial lore is a bad thing.
Could you please not indirectly accuse me of wanting to promote negative stereotyping, particularly when I was very clearly saying that overemphasizing such traits was something in the current lore that needs to be addressed? Thank you.