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.
I'm not accusing you of anything, that was a general "you." Mentally swap with "anyone" if that helps.
And the "sterile and bland" judgement/complaint is indeed something I was addressing, so my advice stands. Anyone who wants edgier/traditional orcs and goliaths can do so. The design team don't.
As for the lore stuff, I prefer they excise the lore in setting agnostic books. I do not really want that fluff in the DMG, PHB, and MM. It is not helpful for homebrew campaigns, mixing lore and mechanics contributes to the disorganized information mess, and I do not want to lug around extra pages I do not need in case I fancy carrying the physical book with me.
I do want fat stacks of lore, but I want it to be confined to setting books and campaign books, so books like SCAG and COS. I also want fat stacks of lore that is organized and easily searchable. I do not want to dig through the DMG to find information on the planes when that information should have been in P:AITM. How information is distributed and organized right now is absolutely mind boggling stupid. I am a GM, I buy everything, and I use the digital books, so the disorganization is just a minor convenience to me. However, imagine a new player getting into D&D and they prefer to do things pen and paper, and they are reading about Planescape but want more information on the planes. Who the hell would think that it is reasonable to expect a new player to buy and crank open the DMG to find more of that info?
For themed books like FTOD and anthology books like CM, I prefer they use less lore so it is easier to slot throw them into any campaign, but the amount of lore they currently have is fine.
I think they do need some form of baseline lore in the PHB, otherwise you’re telling a new DM they either need to buy more material or build a whole setting from scratch. Doesn’t need to be the size of MToF entries, but some prompts on potential cultures and characteristics will probably help people new to the game hit the ground running. And, as I’ve said in other threads, I don’t hate the format of Monsters of the Multiverse in and of itself, the issue is that when it came out what amounted to two setting books of additional lore went off the market. If that material had been recompiled into another book, it would have been a non-issue, but it wasn’t. This is why I don’t like the current push for “setting agnostic”; it seems to be coming at the expense of lore rather than just at a separation.
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.
Yes, but that's information that there's just no reason to include outside of a setting book.
I think they do need some form of baseline lore in the PHB, otherwise you’re telling a new DM they either need to buy more material or build a whole setting from scratch.
I think they do need some form of baseline lore in the PHB, otherwise you’re telling a new DM they either need to buy more material or build a whole setting from scratch.
No, they need a sample setting in the DMG.
That’s largely “six of one, half dozen of the other”, and providing some prompts for players designing their first character who want them to feel like an elf or dwarf instead of just themselves with pointy ears or a bushy beard won’t hurt anything. The PHB provides tools for character creation, and that’s all that prompts are.
That’s largely “six of one, half dozen of the other”, and providing some prompts for players designing their first character who want them to feel like an elf or dwarf instead of just themselves with pointy ears or a bushy beard won’t hurt anything.
It will make it more difficult to run a game in which the stereotypes are not true.
In practice it doesn't actually matter very much because most people don't read the wall of text describing the species in the PHB to start with.
Every editions of D&D ended up publishing products of various quality or interest over their final years of lifespan and 5E is 10 years old so i'm not surprised of what we see.
I think WoTC makes the right decision for their IP and a revision of the core rules is a good way to update a popular system without killing it. I like what i saw of OneD&D thus far and believe it will be successful.
That’s largely “six of one, half dozen of the other”, and providing some prompts for players designing their first character who want them to feel like an elf or dwarf instead of just themselves with pointy ears or a bushy beard won’t hurt anything.
It will make it more difficult to run a game in which the stereotypes are not true.
In practice it doesn't actually matter very much because most people don't read the wall of text describing the species in the PHB to start with.
You realize you’re kinda contradicting yourself here, right. If it won’t matter, it shouldn’t make things any harder on people if it’s included.
You realize you’re kinda contradicting yourself here, right. If it won’t matter, it shouldn’t make things any harder on people if it’s included.
For the majority of people it doesn't matter. For the minority of people where it does matter, it's probably more harmful than helpful, because it's just giving them wrong information. The culture of elves, or dwarves, or whatever, is whatever the DM (or the setting, if published), says it is, or if the DM doesn't care, it's whatever the player thinks is cool and can get the DM to buy in on.
You realize you’re kinda contradicting yourself here, right. If it won’t matter, it shouldn’t make things any harder on people if it’s included.
For the majority of people it doesn't matter. For the minority of people where it does matter, it's probably more harmful than helpful, because it's just giving them wrong information. The culture of elves, or dwarves, or whatever, is whatever the DM (or the setting, if published), says it is, or if the DM doesn't care, it's whatever the player thinks is cool and can get the DM to buy in on.
And there’s no chance of even an equally small segment who will find it useful, based on your extensive and objective analysis of the population?
And there’s no chance of even an equally small segment who will find it useful, based on your extensive and objective analysis of the population?
The 'small segment' is people who care at all; by definition people who don't care won't find it useful. An actually useful segment would be to delete all the page space wasted on those wall-o-texts and have a segment on "how to write a good backstory", including cultural features that might be interesting to RP or lead to plots, along with some cautions about stuff that can cause problems (for example, you can include the Kender as a worked example of "this will probably make the other players want to kill you, don't create a culture like this").
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
I don't need any of them, but if they are going to publish them they could give some lore to help DM's and players get more value out of the books they want to sell. The current trend of publishing what essentially is new monsters, player options and a very rough outline of an adventure and calling it an adventure is getting old. The setting books that are cookie cutter bland versions of the adventures without the rough outline, or an even rougher outline. Throw in some lore, flesh out the adventure focus on the story and build that setting not focus on the options that can be used in any setting.
These are first party books we are talking about, but they seem like pirated bootleg knockoffs as of late. I would rather they publish half as much and it be good than what we have been offered the last few years.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Frankly, a lot of the issues folks have here could be accomplished through D&D Beyond’s articles… if the articles were in any way organized and useful to read.
Consider earlier editions of D&D - a lot of the best lore did not come from the adventures or sourcebooks, but from Dragon or Dungeon magazine. These supplements were often lore-heavy, mechanically light, providing plenty of information without taking up space in an actual book.
Beyond could fill that role very easily—it already is increasingly running “here is how to run aspects of the game” articles; lore dumps would not be that much harder—especially since a lot of it already has been written and could just be repackaged into a modern article form.
But, for that to be helpful as a tool, Beyond would need to get a whole lot better in its search tools and organization. The site is a bit of a mess, vastly outclassed in a lot of regards by the 4e digital tools.
This will likely not be well received but my opinion is that the real struggle WoTC needs to overcome is how to successfully monetize D&D going forward. I wasn’t here for 2e but neither were the endless free online resources. You want maps? They’re free just Google it. You want adventures or even just encounters and one shots (even including official WoTC content)? It’s free if you Google it and are willing to download a file from someone’s drop box account. Yes, it’s piracy and yes it’s illegal but it can also be found in about 2 minutes searching online which is a huge threat to WoTC and might make them think twice about how much money they want to pour in.. Don’t forget we’re only a few years out from WoTC beating back shareholders that wanted to see D&D spun off and sold. They’re still on rocky footing and most of their tools to market subscriptions are in alpha or beta with not a tremendous amount of progress visible for how long some have been in development. I think the real problem is that D&D is under monetized and there isn’t a great way to drive more monetization. That’s going to make it harder for the D&D folks making the budget pitches to get more resources from WoTC.
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.
Yes, but that's information that there's just no reason to include outside of a setting book.
Exactly. Craggy Mountain Goliath lore belongs in whichever setting contains the Craggy Mountains, not in a book like MotM or even the PHB.
You realize you’re kinda contradicting yourself here, right. If it won’t matter, it shouldn’t make things any harder on people if it’s included.
Book space isn't free, especially the space in the setting-agnostic books. Spending that space on lore that isn't actually setting-agnostic, nor even region-agnostic within a specific setting, is counterproductive.
Book space isn't free, especially the space in the setting-agnostic books. Spending that space on lore that isn't actually setting-agnostic, nor even region-agnostic within a specific setting, is counterproductive.
I think "setting agnostic" is a big part of the problem with things post Tasha's. It is what is driving a lot of the issues as of late. Trying to make everything work everywhere anytime is a problem and it is taking more from the game than it is helping. It is a lot easier to make exceptions to place thing in the "wrong" setting on occasion than it is to make everything work anywhere.
I see the "setting agnostic" trend leading to another "sundering" soon as it is painting the game into a corner that will only leave that level of retconning as a way out.
I am not saying the new books are of no value (I just bought a physical copy of Dragonlance which I will never use beyond inspiration, but I bought it for $15 shipped new) they do, but not as much value as they could have if the books were better all around lore or no lore.
Just look at the books from previous editions that still sell for a premium and are in "reprint" on the DMsGuild. how many 5e books do you think will be top sellers in the next 50 years?
I get not all of the previous edition books sell like that, but which 5e books do you think will have that staying power? To me it will be the core rules XGtE, Volo's and LMoP, CoS, and Tyranny. A few of those were not all WotC.
I have no fear of D&D dying, I am getting ready for it to hibernate for a while by buying physical books at a huge discount from MSRP as WotC is creating that market. I really should be buying 2 copies so I can sell the extra copies at a tidy profit in a few years.
I really hope the VTT is profitable enough to allow the course correction I feel needs to be made to keep the game mainstream, even though I have no interest in the VVT personally.
TSR couldn't kill D&D, WizBro won't either.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I guess I just don't see the point in doom-and-glooming until they make some kind of statement of intent that we're not getting more setting books. Spelljammer and Planescape are multiversal settings by their very nature, so those are more 'agnostic; than most, but with those out of the way we've got plenty of reason for them to revisit the more specific things like FR. And oh look, FR just had a wildly successful video game adaptation that was absolutely filled to the brim with setting-specific lore. The smart thing for them to do after the new core has landed would be to put out a new Forgotten Realm's setting book, and then work on their next video game adaptation in 2026, which will also be full of lore.
It's not about settings books, it is about lore, but settings books is where lore belongs an to wait until they "make some kind of statement of intent that we're not getting more setting books" is an odd argument; almost as odd as : to get the lore I have to spend money on everything it takes to play those video games.
I am not a player of video games, and have no desire to become one. Which leads to why buy a book that requires other purchases I have no use for to be able to use enjoyably, hold on while I go load up my save game for this bit of lore that could be in the book. Not saying there couldn't be lore in the video game, but if they can put it in the video game they can put it in the book.
A much better solution and very easy to monetize through a subscription, as much as I loth subscriptions, is Caerwyn's post above
"Frankly, a lot of the issues folks have here could be accomplished through D&D Beyond’s articles… if the articles were in any way organized and useful to read.
Consider earlier editions of D&D - a lot of the best lore did not come from the adventures or sourcebooks, but from Dragon or Dungeon magazine. These supplements were often lore-heavy, mechanically light, providing plenty of information without taking up space in an actual book.
Beyond could fill that role very easily—it already is increasingly running “here is how to run aspects of the game” articles; lore dumps would not be that much harder—especially since a lot of it already has been written and could just be repackaged into a modern article form.
But, for that to be helpful as a tool, Beyond would need to get a whole lot better in its search tools and organization. The site is a bit of a mess, vastly outclassed in a lot of regards by the 4e digital tools."
No Doom and Gloom here just a few opinions and a some observations.
I'm not saying you have to buy a video game, I'm saying you have to be patient for more books. Whether you follow that advice or thrash and froth is up to you.
I don't think we're in danger of losing lore altogether, I just think it will better serve to help new players if they're given some roleplay prompts and lore to go with their character creation options rather than telling them to figure everything out themselves or try to parse through extensive and possibly contradictory wikis and forums on the subject. Plus, in terms of page space, they're cutting out backgrounds as they were in 2014, why not earmark some of that space for other roleplay material?
Edit: And also they need to make some new FR lore book to reconsolidate the material on the various races from VGtM and MToF that stopped being available for purchase here with MotM. There's a lot of useful materials on histories and pantheons that can be referenced and tinkered with, even if you don't want to do a full on FR campaign. Fiends should maybe be reconsolidated into another book with Celestials, flesh the Celestials out a bit more.
I'm not accusing you of anything, that was a general "you." Mentally swap with "anyone" if that helps.
And the "sterile and bland" judgement/complaint is indeed something I was addressing, so my advice stands. Anyone who wants edgier/traditional orcs and goliaths can do so. The design team don't.
As for the lore stuff, I prefer they excise the lore in setting agnostic books. I do not really want that fluff in the DMG, PHB, and MM. It is not helpful for homebrew campaigns, mixing lore and mechanics contributes to the disorganized information mess, and I do not want to lug around extra pages I do not need in case I fancy carrying the physical book with me.
I do want fat stacks of lore, but I want it to be confined to setting books and campaign books, so books like SCAG and COS. I also want fat stacks of lore that is organized and easily searchable. I do not want to dig through the DMG to find information on the planes when that information should have been in P:AITM. How information is distributed and organized right now is absolutely mind boggling stupid. I am a GM, I buy everything, and I use the digital books, so the disorganization is just a minor convenience to me. However, imagine a new player getting into D&D and they prefer to do things pen and paper, and they are reading about Planescape but want more information on the planes. Who the hell would think that it is reasonable to expect a new player to buy and crank open the DMG to find more of that info?
For themed books like FTOD and anthology books like CM, I prefer they use less lore so it is easier to slot throw them into any campaign, but the amount of lore they currently have is fine.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I think they do need some form of baseline lore in the PHB, otherwise you’re telling a new DM they either need to buy more material or build a whole setting from scratch. Doesn’t need to be the size of MToF entries, but some prompts on potential cultures and characteristics will probably help people new to the game hit the ground running. And, as I’ve said in other threads, I don’t hate the format of Monsters of the Multiverse in and of itself, the issue is that when it came out what amounted to two setting books of additional lore went off the market. If that material had been recompiled into another book, it would have been a non-issue, but it wasn’t. This is why I don’t like the current push for “setting agnostic”; it seems to be coming at the expense of lore rather than just at a separation.
Yes, but that's information that there's just no reason to include outside of a setting book.
No, they need a sample setting in the DMG.
That’s largely “six of one, half dozen of the other”, and providing some prompts for players designing their first character who want them to feel like an elf or dwarf instead of just themselves with pointy ears or a bushy beard won’t hurt anything. The PHB provides tools for character creation, and that’s all that prompts are.
It will make it more difficult to run a game in which the stereotypes are not true.
In practice it doesn't actually matter very much because most people don't read the wall of text describing the species in the PHB to start with.
Every editions of D&D ended up publishing products of various quality or interest over their final years of lifespan and 5E is 10 years old so i'm not surprised of what we see.
I think WoTC makes the right decision for their IP and a revision of the core rules is a good way to update a popular system without killing it. I like what i saw of OneD&D thus far and believe it will be successful.
You realize you’re kinda contradicting yourself here, right. If it won’t matter, it shouldn’t make things any harder on people if it’s included.
For the majority of people it doesn't matter. For the minority of people where it does matter, it's probably more harmful than helpful, because it's just giving them wrong information. The culture of elves, or dwarves, or whatever, is whatever the DM (or the setting, if published), says it is, or if the DM doesn't care, it's whatever the player thinks is cool and can get the DM to buy in on.
And there’s no chance of even an equally small segment who will find it useful, based on your extensive and objective analysis of the population?
The 'small segment' is people who care at all; by definition people who don't care won't find it useful. An actually useful segment would be to delete all the page space wasted on those wall-o-texts and have a segment on "how to write a good backstory", including cultural features that might be interesting to RP or lead to plots, along with some cautions about stuff that can cause problems (for example, you can include the Kender as a worked example of "this will probably make the other players want to kill you, don't create a culture like this").
I don't need any of them, but if they are going to publish them they could give some lore to help DM's and players get more value out of the books they want to sell. The current trend of publishing what essentially is new monsters, player options and a very rough outline of an adventure and calling it an adventure is getting old. The setting books that are cookie cutter bland versions of the adventures without the rough outline, or an even rougher outline. Throw in some lore, flesh out the adventure focus on the story and build that setting not focus on the options that can be used in any setting.
These are first party books we are talking about, but they seem like pirated bootleg knockoffs as of late. I would rather they publish half as much and it be good than what we have been offered the last few years.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Frankly, a lot of the issues folks have here could be accomplished through D&D Beyond’s articles… if the articles were in any way organized and useful to read.
Consider earlier editions of D&D - a lot of the best lore did not come from the adventures or sourcebooks, but from Dragon or Dungeon magazine. These supplements were often lore-heavy, mechanically light, providing plenty of information without taking up space in an actual book.
Beyond could fill that role very easily—it already is increasingly running “here is how to run aspects of the game” articles; lore dumps would not be that much harder—especially since a lot of it already has been written and could just be repackaged into a modern article form.
But, for that to be helpful as a tool, Beyond would need to get a whole lot better in its search tools and organization. The site is a bit of a mess, vastly outclassed in a lot of regards by the 4e digital tools.
This will likely not be well received but my opinion is that the real struggle WoTC needs to overcome is how to successfully monetize D&D going forward. I wasn’t here for 2e but neither were the endless free online resources. You want maps? They’re free just Google it. You want adventures or even just encounters and one shots (even including official WoTC content)? It’s free if you Google it and are willing to download a file from someone’s drop box account. Yes, it’s piracy and yes it’s illegal but it can also be found in about 2 minutes searching online which is a huge threat to WoTC and might make them think twice about how much money they want to pour in.. Don’t forget we’re only a few years out from WoTC beating back shareholders that wanted to see D&D spun off and sold. They’re still on rocky footing and most of their tools to market subscriptions are in alpha or beta with not a tremendous amount of progress visible for how long some have been in development. I think the real problem is that D&D is under monetized and there isn’t a great way to drive more monetization. That’s going to make it harder for the D&D folks making the budget pitches to get more resources from WoTC.
Book space isn't free, especially the space in the setting-agnostic books. Spending that space on lore that isn't actually setting-agnostic, nor even region-agnostic within a specific setting, is counterproductive.
I think "setting agnostic" is a big part of the problem with things post Tasha's. It is what is driving a lot of the issues as of late. Trying to make everything work everywhere anytime is a problem and it is taking more from the game than it is helping. It is a lot easier to make exceptions to place thing in the "wrong" setting on occasion than it is to make everything work anywhere.
I see the "setting agnostic" trend leading to another "sundering" soon as it is painting the game into a corner that will only leave that level of retconning as a way out.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I guess I just don't see the point in doom-and-glooming until they make some kind of statement of intent that we're not getting more setting books. Spelljammer and Planescape are multiversal settings by their very nature, so those are more 'agnostic; than most, but with those out of the way we've got plenty of reason for them to revisit the more specific things like FR. And oh look, FR just had a wildly successful video game adaptation that was absolutely filled to the brim with setting-specific lore. The smart thing for them to do after the new core has landed would be to put out a new Forgotten Realm's setting book, and then work on their next video game adaptation in 2026, which will also be full of lore.
It's not about settings books, it is about lore, but settings books is where lore belongs an to wait until they "make some kind of statement of intent that we're not getting more setting books" is an odd argument; almost as odd as : to get the lore I have to spend money on everything it takes to play those video games.
I am not a player of video games, and have no desire to become one. Which leads to why buy a book that requires other purchases I have no use for to be able to use enjoyably, hold on while I go load up my save game for this bit of lore that could be in the book. Not saying there couldn't be lore in the video game, but if they can put it in the video game they can put it in the book.
A much better solution and very easy to monetize through a subscription, as much as I loth subscriptions, is Caerwyn's post above
"Frankly, a lot of the issues folks have here could be accomplished through D&D Beyond’s articles… if the articles were in any way organized and useful to read.
Consider earlier editions of D&D - a lot of the best lore did not come from the adventures or sourcebooks, but from Dragon or Dungeon magazine. These supplements were often lore-heavy, mechanically light, providing plenty of information without taking up space in an actual book.
Beyond could fill that role very easily—it already is increasingly running “here is how to run aspects of the game” articles; lore dumps would not be that much harder—especially since a lot of it already has been written and could just be repackaged into a modern article form.
But, for that to be helpful as a tool, Beyond would need to get a whole lot better in its search tools and organization. The site is a bit of a mess, vastly outclassed in a lot of regards by the 4e digital tools."
No Doom and Gloom here just a few opinions and a some observations.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I'm not saying you have to buy a video game, I'm saying you have to be patient for more books. Whether you follow that advice or thrash and froth is up to you.
I don't think we're in danger of losing lore altogether, I just think it will better serve to help new players if they're given some roleplay prompts and lore to go with their character creation options rather than telling them to figure everything out themselves or try to parse through extensive and possibly contradictory wikis and forums on the subject. Plus, in terms of page space, they're cutting out backgrounds as they were in 2014, why not earmark some of that space for other roleplay material?
Edit: And also they need to make some new FR lore book to reconsolidate the material on the various races from VGtM and MToF that stopped being available for purchase here with MotM. There's a lot of useful materials on histories and pantheons that can be referenced and tinkered with, even if you don't want to do a full on FR campaign. Fiends should maybe be reconsolidated into another book with Celestials, flesh the Celestials out a bit more.