No one is forced to do anything, but having fantastic creatures associated with certain qualities, behaviors, etc is one way to provide an actual roleplay experience as opposed to just dropping various pieces of meat in front of the party. If you’re not going to meaningfully diversify dragons, then you might as well just cut it down to one entry for each stage of life and wildcard the damage type. If you want to use good chromatics and evil metallics, the presence of text in a book does not stop you.
I was speaking about WotC’s approach, not the opinions of anyone in the forum. And all of our past experience to date has been that “liberating” DMs and players from text they can already quite easily ignore if it doesn’t suit them results in extremely bare bones content. I compared the initial class descriptions between 2014 and 2024 a little while ago and 24 literally only has something like a quarter of the word count. That’s not just trimming off allegedly “restrictive” bits of fluff, that’s carving away sizable portions of content and potential inspiration, and that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence that the entries for the new MM will be any more substantial.
I know you have been part of discussions already about how text is not so easy to ignore in practice. Official text presents guardrails and sets expectations at the table, which very much can create problems for DMs wanting to ignore lore that doesn't suit them. It also limits players who want to engage monsters in other, creative ways with restrictive DMs who hold, rigidly, to every letter in print. If people can just ignore text that doesn't suit them, why can't DMs just insert lore that does?
Monster lore is exactly why I still encounter new players at my table who insist on addressing orcs as knuckle-dragging, murderous morons, despite the fact that this has never been the lore at my table. At my table, orcs do not have a culture bound to their entire species. There is no alignment that is associated with an entire people and no printed lore on orcs is used at my table. Each orc is an individual and part of one or more of many different cultures among the species or within multispecies societies, none of which are the traditionally used orc culture. Nevertheless, any time we have a new player, it is always a conversation that I have to have because of lore from, say, the 2014 MM book that is assumed to apply universally. I shouldn't have to have that conversation every time and if lore is not part of a general book, one day I won't have to.
I know that the 2024 direction is, in general, not one you like, and I am sorry that is the case. I am sure we can find common ground in concerns about rules, but this, I'm afraid, I don't agree with at all.
Okay, since we’re getting into the heavy rhetoric which is rather off-topic I’m going to break this down in the most straightforward narrative terms. At the end of the day, you need antagonistic beings to play out D&D the way the vast majority of the playerbase wants to play the game. A common trope in fantasy narratives is that certain beings are going to be inherently antagonistic, rather than requiring a specific explanation of why they’re the bad guys. This is not an inherently bad thing in regards to writing a spec fic narrative. One of the appeals of speculative fiction as a genre is exploring mindsets besides the human “born a blank slate” one we deal with every day. Yes, people have used this as a vehicle for fallacious allegories to real life issues, but that doesn’t irrevocably taint the trope of exploring the theoretical spectrum of axiomatic mindsets.
Assigning certain common personality traits (red dragons like to dominate, green dragons like to manipulate, etc) is a way to present different flavors of antagonism as options while keeping the presentation streamlined. Thus the various flavors presented as subsets of broader categories- it provides a broad selection of options broken down into digestible pieces rather making one giant wall of text that new DMs would need to parse when they’re looking for inspiration. Note that anymore WotC has been putting a “typically” in front of the alignment on pretty much every creature block that isn’t for a single specific being, so they’re being very clear that all this is a suggestion, not doctrine.
Note that anymore WotC has been putting a “typically” in front of the alignment on pretty much every creature block that isn’t for a single specific being, so they’re being very clear that all this is a suggestion, not doctrine.
I agree with the heart of what you're saying that it's useful for gameplay to have races/etc that are by and large evil. It helps make things smoother IMO if you can be like, "Okay we found a goblin base. They must be raiding the land. Time to fight!" rather than needing to get into moral philosophy and such.
Though I do want to offer a minor factual correction. While Monsters of the Multiverse and other publications used the Typically X-Alignment, it seems WotC is dropping that in the 5.5 books.
The imp from the Free Rules has a Lawful Evil alignment as opposed to Typically LE. The blink dog from Uni and the Hunt for the Lost Horn has Lawful Good not Typically LG. And the fire elemental from Scions of Elemental Evil has Neutral instead of Typically N.
I mean, the "typically" was somewhat pointless when you slap it on nearly everything in any case, it's just restating what the entry on alignment in the MM already says. And you're really over-generalizing the player base if you think everyone is locked into only being able to accept the AD&D paradigm for everything. Heck, the whole reason orcs are in the PHB race section now is because people have been moving away from the Tolkien iteration of them for decades. I've seen plenty of the popular streamed campaigns subvert the paradigms too. So, in all, I really don't see that this bogeyman of carrying forward paradigms like chromatic and metallic dragons is going to encourage toxic mindsets. I do expect the orc, drow, goblin, etc. entries to get pulled from the MM, which is a bit disappointing since it was a good basis for more thematically specialized NPCs without getting into the rabbit hole of using PC classes as the foundation, and they could easily be reskinned as whatever humanoid is appropriate to a given setting/circumstance.
I do expect the orc, drow, goblin, etc. entries to get pulled from the MM,
Out of curiosity is this based on your feelings of how WotC has been proceeding? Or were there statements to that effect? (I haven't kept up with all the various chatter.)
In the video one of the things Crawford mentioned about creature type changes was making goblins fey. So that would make me decently hopeful that goblin statblocks would still be in there.
I do expect the orc, drow, goblin, etc. entries to get pulled from the MM,
Out of curiosity is this based on your feelings of how WotC has been proceeding? Or were there statements to that effect? (I haven't kept up with all the various chatter.)
In the video one of the things Crawford mentioned about creature type changes was making goblins fey. So that would make me decently hopeful that goblin statblocks would still be in there.
It's just speculation. They've been pushing away from much categorizing of PC races, so I doubt they're going to say "and here's the orc version of a warrior with some specific bells and whistles" and suchlike.
They've specifically said they've not only got goblins but more types of goblins so I think your speculation is a bit wide of the mark
It is much easier to speak doom and gloom if you ignore the actual information provided in favor of what you want to believe.
Forgive me if the absolute dearth of characterization material in the PHB doesn’t give me confidence we’ll see many signature statblocks for subgroups if humanoids or other PC races in the MM.
They've specifically said they've not only got goblins but more types of goblins so I think your speculation is a bit wide of the mark
It is much easier to speak doom and gloom if you ignore the actual information provided in favor of what you want to believe.
Forgive me if the absolute dearth of characterization material in the PHB doesn’t give me confidence we’ll see many signature statblocks for subgroups if humanoids or other PC races in the MM.
I know y'all have seen it already, but things were so busy I forgot to drop the video about Dragons in here yesterday, so bloop; I'll also edit the first post w/ a link to it:
As to the topic of specific species statblocks in the MM, the 2024 core rulebooks feel (to me, personally, my opinion, i'm not speaking for any of you) like they're taking a shift towards putting more tools in player and DM hands, so I wouldn't be surprised if the MM feels like that to many players (e.g. statblocks for a specific flavor of enemy—mage, warrior, blah blah—which you can then add a species spin to). To me that feels a bit more freeing than only having two drow NPC statblocks when you need a different kind of enemy.
But again, my extreme list of caveats that this is how I feel about the books is there for ya. You're free to feel otherwise :)
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We already have an example of a PC Species stat block with the Bugbear Warrior and the video they posted talks about multiple goblin stat blocks which we know they are also a playable species. I guess they could have removed some of them, but we really don't have any evidence of that.
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Kobolds, another playable species, are also mentioned in the Dragon video.
I would be a bit surprised if they removed statblocks, as many of the published adventures refer to them: removal would impair the backward compatibility.
No one is forced to do anything, but having fantastic creatures associated with certain qualities, behaviors, etc is one way to provide an actual roleplay experience as opposed to just dropping various pieces of meat in front of the party. If you’re not going to meaningfully diversify dragons, then you might as well just cut it down to one entry for each stage of life and wildcard the damage type. If you want to use good chromatics and evil metallics, the presence of text in a book does not stop you.
I know you have been part of discussions already about how text is not so easy to ignore in practice. Official text presents guardrails and sets expectations at the table, which very much can create problems for DMs wanting to ignore lore that doesn't suit them. It also limits players who want to engage monsters in other, creative ways with restrictive DMs who hold, rigidly, to every letter in print. If people can just ignore text that doesn't suit them, why can't DMs just insert lore that does?
Monster lore is exactly why I still encounter new players at my table who insist on addressing orcs as knuckle-dragging, murderous morons, despite the fact that this has never been the lore at my table. At my table, orcs do not have a culture bound to their entire species. There is no alignment that is associated with an entire people and no printed lore on orcs is used at my table. Each orc is an individual and part of one or more of many different cultures among the species or within multispecies societies, none of which are the traditionally used orc culture. Nevertheless, any time we have a new player, it is always a conversation that I have to have because of lore from, say, the 2014 MM book that is assumed to apply universally. I shouldn't have to have that conversation every time and if lore is not part of a general book, one day I won't have to.
I know that the 2024 direction is, in general, not one you like, and I am sorry that is the case. I am sure we can find common ground in concerns about rules, but this, I'm afraid, I don't agree with at all.
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Okay, since we’re getting into the heavy rhetoric which is rather off-topic I’m going to break this down in the most straightforward narrative terms. At the end of the day, you need antagonistic beings to play out D&D the way the vast majority of the playerbase wants to play the game. A common trope in fantasy narratives is that certain beings are going to be inherently antagonistic, rather than requiring a specific explanation of why they’re the bad guys. This is not an inherently bad thing in regards to writing a spec fic narrative. One of the appeals of speculative fiction as a genre is exploring mindsets besides the human “born a blank slate” one we deal with every day. Yes, people have used this as a vehicle for fallacious allegories to real life issues, but that doesn’t irrevocably taint the trope of exploring the theoretical spectrum of axiomatic mindsets.
Assigning certain common personality traits (red dragons like to dominate, green dragons like to manipulate, etc) is a way to present different flavors of antagonism as options while keeping the presentation streamlined. Thus the various flavors presented as subsets of broader categories- it provides a broad selection of options broken down into digestible pieces rather making one giant wall of text that new DMs would need to parse when they’re looking for inspiration. Note that anymore WotC has been putting a “typically” in front of the alignment on pretty much every creature block that isn’t for a single specific being, so they’re being very clear that all this is a suggestion, not doctrine.
I agree with the heart of what you're saying that it's useful for gameplay to have races/etc that are by and large evil. It helps make things smoother IMO if you can be like, "Okay we found a goblin base. They must be raiding the land. Time to fight!" rather than needing to get into moral philosophy and such.
Though I do want to offer a minor factual correction. While Monsters of the Multiverse and other publications used the Typically X-Alignment, it seems WotC is dropping that in the 5.5 books.
The imp from the Free Rules has a Lawful Evil alignment as opposed to Typically LE. The blink dog from Uni and the Hunt for the Lost Horn has Lawful Good not Typically LG. And the fire elemental from Scions of Elemental Evil has Neutral instead of Typically N.
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I mean, the "typically" was somewhat pointless when you slap it on nearly everything in any case, it's just restating what the entry on alignment in the MM already says. And you're really over-generalizing the player base if you think everyone is locked into only being able to accept the AD&D paradigm for everything. Heck, the whole reason orcs are in the PHB race section now is because people have been moving away from the Tolkien iteration of them for decades. I've seen plenty of the popular streamed campaigns subvert the paradigms too. So, in all, I really don't see that this bogeyman of carrying forward paradigms like chromatic and metallic dragons is going to encourage toxic mindsets. I do expect the orc, drow, goblin, etc. entries to get pulled from the MM, which is a bit disappointing since it was a good basis for more thematically specialized NPCs without getting into the rabbit hole of using PC classes as the foundation, and they could easily be reskinned as whatever humanoid is appropriate to a given setting/circumstance.
Out of curiosity is this based on your feelings of how WotC has been proceeding? Or were there statements to that effect? (I haven't kept up with all the various chatter.)
In the video one of the things Crawford mentioned about creature type changes was making goblins fey. So that would make me decently hopeful that goblin statblocks would still be in there.
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It's just speculation. They've been pushing away from much categorizing of PC races, so I doubt they're going to say "and here's the orc version of a warrior with some specific bells and whistles" and suchlike.
They've specifically said they've not only got goblins but more types of goblins so I think your speculation is a bit wide of the mark
It is much easier to speak doom and gloom if you ignore the actual information provided in favor of what you want to believe.
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Forgive me if the absolute dearth of characterization material in the PHB doesn’t give me confidence we’ll see many signature statblocks for subgroups if humanoids or other PC races in the MM.
Have you watch the video in the OP at all?
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D&D Staffheylooooo~
I know y'all have seen it already, but things were so busy I forgot to drop the video about Dragons in here yesterday, so bloop; I'll also edit the first post w/ a link to it:
As to the topic of specific species statblocks in the MM, the 2024 core rulebooks feel (to me, personally, my opinion, i'm not speaking for any of you) like they're taking a shift towards putting more tools in player and DM hands, so I wouldn't be surprised if the MM feels like that to many players (e.g. statblocks for a specific flavor of enemy—mage, warrior, blah blah—which you can then add a species spin to). To me that feels a bit more freeing than only having two drow NPC statblocks when you need a different kind of enemy.
But again, my extreme list of caveats that this is how I feel about the books is there for ya. You're free to feel otherwise :)
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WotC Youtube Short about Goblin Hexer and several other goblins in the MM.
We already have an example of a PC Species stat block with the Bugbear Warrior and the video they posted talks about multiple goblin stat blocks which we know they are also a playable species. I guess they could have removed some of them, but we really don't have any evidence of that.
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Kobolds, another playable species, are also mentioned in the Dragon video.
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D&D StaffAdded another creator sneak peek to the list as well; Diana of the Rose got to show off one of my FAVORITE new monsters AHH
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That is so DOPE!!!!
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That is actually pretty neat!
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D&D StaffHaunted houses are some of my favorite favorite horror things in existence. Makes me wanna run Death House and turn the house into a Haunting Revenant while the characters are trying to leave >:)
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I would be a bit surprised if they removed statblocks, as many of the published adventures refer to them: removal would impair the backward compatibility.
thanks very much for posting this with the links to the review.
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