Maybe there could have been better guidelines on how to do so, or perhaps a side box with common variants such as 'Fiend Cultist- Priestess of Lolth',
Its just really a shame to take iconic baddies like the Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels, and have to reduced it to a generic stat block that captures none of the essence.
You know where I expect to see them?
In the upcoming Forgotten Realms sourcebooks.
That Drow culture is entirely a FR thing. Greyhawk Drow are at least a little different. Eberron Drow are a lot different. Drow in my campaign are different along a different axis. Etc.
Do you really want to buy another book to get monsters that should been in the monster manual in the first place? Do most DM's care about a stat block specific to a campaign world they are not using? I get the reasoning use the 2014 monsters, but that's a reason not to upgrade to 2024 and that's what I've been doing so far.
Most DM's use their own worlds to make it easier to bring in outside content and maps. I'm not buying a Forgotten Realms book to get a monster stat, when I'm not going to use the lore. Bad design decisions are bad design decisions and should be called out and addressed.
The monster manual was more likely on my buy list (it would have been the first WotC product bought in 4 years), but there are enough changes to the book in monster stats that it is going to be a significant pain to rework in VTT to make them usable. Requiring me to copy and recreate them with humanoid as their type and its missing complete stat blocks for orcs (since 0E) and Drow (1E Fiend Folio+) in VTT doesn't save me time. The line of reasoning just take this stat block and reskin it is "sameness". It would be like Chevrolet releasing a new car now without air conditioning as standard or an option with the same price and not expect declining sales of said car.
Maybe there could have been better guidelines on how to do so, or perhaps a side box with common variants such as 'Fiend Cultist- Priestess of Lolth',
Its just really a shame to take iconic baddies like the Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels, and have to reduced it to a generic stat block that captures none of the essence.
You know where I expect to see them?
In the upcoming Forgotten Realms sourcebooks.
That Drow culture is entirely a FR thing. Greyhawk Drow are at least a little different. Eberron Drow are a lot different. Drow in my campaign are different along a different axis. Etc.
If they did a whole chapter with FR Drow and updated stats for the priestesses, Jeraxle, Gromph, etc. That would be amazing, would totally buy it.
You do know that Menzoberranzan, House Baenre, Lolth and all it's chaotic and evil greatness does still exist right? Just because they are finally acknowledging that not all Drow are inherently evil biologicaly doesn't mean that evil Drow doesn't exist. For Drow society, the majority still worship Lolth and Vhaerun. All WotC did was acknowledge that biology doesn't automatically make you evil.
And yes. This is coming from someone who has loved and played Drow ever since they came into the scene back when they were originally created for Greyhawk.
There's some value to adding having advice for adding templates (species and culture) to NPCs; the problem with just adding a template without further rules is that it can produce quite large difficulty changes (for example, having your fire giant goliath warrior infantry hitting for an extra 1d10 fire damage is a great way to produce a TPK). I started putting together some templates over in house rules but it's something that should really have a bit more DM assistance.
As far as orcs and drow go, you can safely add the drow species template to most NPCs, adding dancing lights isn't going to break the power budget, but adding adrenaline rush and relentless endurance to CR 1/8 mooks puts them pretty close to CR 1/4.
Maybe there could have been better guidelines on how to do so, or perhaps a side box with common variants such as 'Fiend Cultist- Priestess of Lolth',
Its just really a shame to take iconic baddies like the Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels, and have to reduced it to a generic stat block that captures none of the essence.
Honestly the 2024 Monster Manual is unusable without the 2014 content.
I really hope they do a lot better with the 2030 version.
Beyond this, I'm going to make a really bold and/or controversial statement with this: The whole evil society is what made Drow interesting as a race.
Because now they're just... elves with a different skin tone and innate magic.
Once again, you are confusing society for biology.
You can still have an evil society of Drow. They are evil because their society has made them that way. What has been changed: They are now evil because of their society, not evil because they are biologically evil.
This actually leads to better stories - you can now explore why their society evolved in a way that would be considered “evil,” as opposed to the eugenicist belief that “some races are just inherently evil because it is baked into their DNA.”
We already had those though. Like there were plenty of them to the point where I'd almost argue that the Menzoberranzan drow were the minority.
Also this whole thing with drow kind of falls apart when you consider that they double revered with goblins now being literal manifestations of evil.
Maybe there could have been better guidelines on how to do so, or perhaps a side box with common variants such as 'Fiend Cultist- Priestess of Lolth',
Its just really a shame to take iconic baddies like the Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels, and have to reduced it to a generic stat block that captures none of the essence.
Honestly the 2024 Monster Manual is unusable without the 2014 content.
I really hope they do a lot better with the 2030 version.
Beyond this, I'm going to make a really bold and/or controversial statement with this: The whole evil society is what made Drow interesting as a race.
Because now they're just... elves with a different skin tone and innate magic.
Once again, you are confusing society for biology.
You can still have an evil society of Drow. They are evil because their society has made them that way. What has been changed: They are now evil because of their society, not evil because they are biologically evil.
This actually leads to better stories - you can now explore why their society evolved in a way that would be considered “evil,” as opposed to the eugenicist belief that “some races are just inherently evil because it is baked into their DNA.”
We already had those though. Like there were plenty of them to the point where I'd almost argue that the Menzoberranzan drow were the minority.
Also this whole thing with drow kind of falls apart when you consider that they double revered with goblins now being literal manifestations of evil.
Goblins are now officially no longer evil, they are Chaotic Neutral (mostly, sometimes, depends on whatever faction has control at WotC now).
Its just really a shame to take iconic baddies like the Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels, and have to reduced it to a generic stat block that captures none of the essence.
You know where I expect to see them?
In the upcoming Forgotten Realms sourcebooks.
That Drow culture is entirely a FR thing. Greyhawk Drow are at least a little different. Eberron Drow are a lot different. Drow in my campaign are different along a different axis. Etc.
Do you really want to buy another book to get monsters that should been in the monster manual in the first place?
If I want the "Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels", then yes.
That's a FR-specific foe. It belongs in a FR-specific book. I don't insist on the Dullahan be imported from Ravenloft, or the Ironscale Hydra from Theros, etc. Why must this one be different?
You can't have every possible monster in the book. Better to use the space on the ones that aren't inherently tied to a setting.
Most DM's use their own worlds to make it easier to bring in outside content and maps. I'm not buying a Forgotten Realms book to get a monster stat, when I'm not going to use the lore.
If you're not using the lore, why do you even have dark elf priestesses of Lolth, much less those specific ones? By using it, you import the lore.
Beyond this, I'm going to make a really bold and/or controversial statement with this: The whole evil society is what made Drow interesting as a race.
Because now they're just... elves with a different skin tone and innate magic.
If you find "all Drow are innately evil" to be "interesting," by all means reinstate it at your table. Plenty of us didn't, including WotC themselves.
A prominent Drow society like Menzoberranzan can still be quite evil, and it can even be the source of the reputation that even surface Drow who are not participants in that society have to rail against (or embrace, as they choose), without introducing thorny concepts like biologically destined morality to the printed game's official products.
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't because it actually offers a lot of opportunity for inspiration and such for both players and GMs; it's frankly my biggest problem with the player options from both mord's and the 2024 PHB: if you strip away any references to physical characteristics they're pretty much entirely interchangable with how they're described.
I get that this isn't a popular take around here and that WotC keeps screaming "setting agnostic" at the top of it's lungs whenever issues like this get pointed out but they're also consistently going back to established settings when releasing materials and also setting themselves up for a ton of work when it comes to establish the extent settings and the races/cultures therein.
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't because it actually offers a lot of opportunity for inspiration and such for both players and GMs; it's frankly my biggest problem with the player options from both mord's and the 2024 PHB: if you strip away any references to physical characteristics they're pretty much entirely interchangable with how they're described.
I get that this isn't a popular take around here and that WotC keeps screaming "setting agnostic" at the top of it's lungs whenever issues like this get pointed out but they're also consistently going back to established settings when releasing materials and also setting themselves up for a ton of work when it comes to establish the extent settings and the races/cultures therein.
What you may find interesting, others find to be harmful and this game is meant to be enjoyed by everyone. If you want that stuff in your game, no one is going to kick down your door and make you stop, but others should have the opportunity to play without having to be reminded of the game's controversial and painful roots.
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't
These two things are not the same.
Cultures should absolutely have a strong identity. It's what makes them a Culture.
(Well, that or hyperintelligent starships with whimsical names.)
Races/species with the same sort of strong identity are weird. The idea that every single member of this species, regardless of how separated the populations are, belongs to the same culture, breaks verisimilitude hard. It requires an explanation, and those explanations typically range from unsatisfying to downright creepy.
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't because it actually offers a lot of opportunity for inspiration and such for both players and GMs; it's frankly my biggest problem with the player options from both mord's and the 2024 PHB: if you strip away any references to physical characteristics they're pretty much entirely interchangable with how they're described.
1) If you consider one-dimensionally evil Drow to be "strong identity" then you and I have very different definitions of that term.
2) The only way you could consider every species in those books to be "entirely interchangeable" is by throwing out not just their physical characteristics, but their game mechanics and narrative descriptions as well. Which to me reads like saying "if I take this cake recipe they gave me and remove all the flour, eggs, milk, and sugar from it, I can't make a cake anymore! Why would WotC do this?"
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't because it actually offers a lot of opportunity for inspiration and such for both players and GMs; it's frankly my biggest problem with the player options from both mord's and the 2024 PHB: if you strip away any references to physical characteristics they're pretty much entirely interchangable with how they're described.
I get that this isn't a popular take around here and that WotC keeps screaming "setting agnostic" at the top of it's lungs whenever issues like this get pointed out but they're also consistently going back to established settings when releasing materials and also setting themselves up for a ton of work when it comes to establish the extent settings and the races/cultures therein.
What you may find interesting, others find to be harmful and this game is meant to be enjoyed by everyone. If you want that stuff in your game, no one is going to kick down your door and make you stop, but others should have the opportunity to play without having to be reminded of the game's controversial and painful roots.
Oddly there is really only one person that continues to bring up the controversial and painful roots of the game at every given chance, why is Hitler part of the discussion what does how sexy he may have been to someone have to do with this thread, or even D&D?
It is odd that Gygax is even still discussed as wotc has distanced themselves from him, you'd think they would prefer it was a sleeping dog that people would just let die.
Thankfully, Wizards is finally doing something about that - and ignoring all the grognards who confuse “remove the immoral politics of Gygax” with “adding politics to the game.”
Wizards is only doing something about it because the younger generations keep, rightfully, complaining about it. The game should evolve as our society does. Wizards, however, aren't the good guys in this. They only did something about because they were called out on it. They then moved to "All farmers are tough" - presumably because they don't think farmers can play music or would learn Druid spells unless the DM thinks they would. They moved from race to profession because they don't really care about it unless they think it creates an image problem for them.
Oddly there is really only one person that continues to bring up the controversial and painful roots of the game at every given chance, why is Hitler part of the discussion what does how sexy he may have been to someone have to do with this thread, or even D&D?
It is odd that Gygax is even still discussed as wotc has distanced themselves from him, you'd think they would prefer it was a sleeping dog that people would just let die.
Where did i say I didn't care, continually dredging up the past is not a path to healing. It is a path to division and alienation which is not good for the game.
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't because it actually offers a lot of opportunity for inspiration and such for both players and GMs; it's frankly my biggest problem with the player options from both mord's and the 2024 PHB: if you strip away any references to physical characteristics they're pretty much entirely interchangable with how they're described.
I get that this isn't a popular take around here and that WotC keeps screaming "setting agnostic" at the top of it's lungs whenever issues like this get pointed out but they're also consistently going back to established settings when releasing materials and also setting themselves up for a ton of work when it comes to establish the extent settings and the races/cultures therein.
What you may find interesting, others find to be harmful and this game is meant to be enjoyed by everyone. If you want that stuff in your game, no one is going to kick down your door and make you stop, but others should have the opportunity to play without having to be reminded of the game's controversial and painful roots.
And what you find harmful and to be enjoyed what you consider meant to be enjoyed by everyone, isn't to everyone you are finding that out in this thread. There is no monolith on this and it gets worse when you are dealing with people familiar with the content and have played with those designers. You need to have villain's and foils in the game. And having various drow, orcs, goblins etc being evil fits that role. Don't get me wrong, the current writing direction by D&D is aimed at 8 year old and above in my opinion so trying to be samey with everything could be useful when playing with children, which is how I adjust lore when DM'ing for kids. As to take up to the 8yr and up content, so far less than 4M characters have been built in D&D Beyond for 2024 and that is very low. I'm running 5E games at conventions and online, and generally have a wait list. I'm running Age of Worms (3.5E content) and I have 5 people waiting to get in the main group. No complaints on using original lore, they ask to bring their friends. Typically half of the new players become DM's using older content as well. This is anecdotal, but it is what it is.
If you really want to make a plea to authority (essentially WotC agrees with me - really dude?), then I suggest you look at Dungeon Magazine and Dragon magazine and you'll see a lot of current high level designers at Paizo and WotC and read their content, it doesn't agree with your statement you'll find a diversity of opinions. What you are seeing is an official company line from the marketing department - not from all of the designers, not by a long shot. Look up Dungeon Magazine 124 for Age of Worms, and look at the designer names on the adventure path and read it the village of Diamond Back. You can understand a persons views based on what they create. The town alone is incredibly well made and would make a small group of people clutch their pearls at gambling, brothel's and drugs oh my. Plenty of factions, adventure seeds and a good town to take you to level 20. WotC hasn't written a real town like that for 5E+.
I'm a fan of the change as well, and I think it was a design choice just as much as a cultural one. Even if you did want to run orcs as villains (which is totally fine - everyone should be able to tell their own stories), what were the chances that the handful of orc stat blocks were going to meet your needs? Now, you can use Warrior, Tough and Berserker and none of them would feel out of place at all. And each of them does different things and present different challenges to the players.
But maybe in your game orcs aren't like that - maybe they're pirates in your game. Or knights. Or maybe the elves are the berserkers. Or maybe you don't want species to be a central theme at all and all of your humanoid enemies are a mix of various species.
It just gives a lot more flexibility and raises the chances that more of these stat blocks are actually useful to more DMs.
Do you really want to buy another book to get monsters that should been in the monster manual in the first place? Do most DM's care about a stat block specific to a campaign world they are not using? I get the reasoning use the 2014 monsters, but that's a reason not to upgrade to 2024 and that's what I've been doing so far.
Most DM's use their own worlds to make it easier to bring in outside content and maps. I'm not buying a Forgotten Realms book to get a monster stat, when I'm not going to use the lore. Bad design decisions are bad design decisions and should be called out and addressed.
The monster manual was more likely on my buy list (it would have been the first WotC product bought in 4 years), but there are enough changes to the book in monster stats that it is going to be a significant pain to rework in VTT to make them usable. Requiring me to copy and recreate them with humanoid as their type and its missing complete stat blocks for orcs (since 0E) and Drow (1E Fiend Folio+) in VTT doesn't save me time. The line of reasoning just take this stat block and reskin it is "sameness". It would be like Chevrolet releasing a new car now without air conditioning as standard or an option with the same price and not expect declining sales of said car.
If they did a whole chapter with FR Drow and updated stats for the priestesses, Jeraxle, Gromph, etc.
That would be amazing, would totally buy it.
You do know that Menzoberranzan, House Baenre, Lolth and all it's chaotic and evil greatness does still exist right? Just because they are finally acknowledging that not all Drow are inherently evil biologicaly doesn't mean that evil Drow doesn't exist. For Drow society, the majority still worship Lolth and Vhaerun. All WotC did was acknowledge that biology doesn't automatically make you evil.
And yes. This is coming from someone who has loved and played Drow ever since they came into the scene back when they were originally created for Greyhawk.
There's some value to adding having advice for adding templates (species and culture) to NPCs; the problem with just adding a template without further rules is that it can produce quite large difficulty changes (for example, having your fire giant goliath warrior infantry hitting for an extra 1d10 fire damage is a great way to produce a TPK). I started putting together some templates over in house rules but it's something that should really have a bit more DM assistance.
As far as orcs and drow go, you can safely add the drow species template to most NPCs, adding dancing lights isn't going to break the power budget, but adding adrenaline rush and relentless endurance to CR 1/8 mooks puts them pretty close to CR 1/4.
We already had those though. Like there were plenty of them to the point where I'd almost argue that the Menzoberranzan drow were the minority.
Also this whole thing with drow kind of falls apart when you consider that they double revered with goblins now being literal manifestations of evil.
Goblins are now officially no longer evil, they are Chaotic Neutral (mostly, sometimes, depends on whatever faction has control at WotC now).
If I want the "Priestess of Lolth, immortalized in the Drizzt novels", then yes.
That's a FR-specific foe. It belongs in a FR-specific book. I don't insist on the Dullahan be imported from Ravenloft, or the Ironscale Hydra from Theros, etc. Why must this one be different?
You can't have every possible monster in the book. Better to use the space on the ones that aren't inherently tied to a setting.
If you're not using the lore, why do you even have dark elf priestesses of Lolth, much less those specific ones? By using it, you import the lore.
If you find "all Drow are innately evil" to be "interesting," by all means reinstate it at your table. Plenty of us didn't, including WotC themselves.
A prominent Drow society like Menzoberranzan can still be quite evil, and it can even be the source of the reputation that even surface Drow who are not participants in that society have to rail against (or embrace, as they choose), without introducing thorny concepts like biologically destined morality to the printed game's official products.
I think having races and cultures with a strong identity (even one which I dont agree with or find objectionable) is more inherently interesting then ones that don't because it actually offers a lot of opportunity for inspiration and such for both players and GMs; it's frankly my biggest problem with the player options from both mord's and the 2024 PHB: if you strip away any references to physical characteristics they're pretty much entirely interchangable with how they're described.
I get that this isn't a popular take around here and that WotC keeps screaming "setting agnostic" at the top of it's lungs whenever issues like this get pointed out but they're also consistently going back to established settings when releasing materials and also setting themselves up for a ton of work when it comes to establish the extent settings and the races/cultures therein.
What you may find interesting, others find to be harmful and this game is meant to be enjoyed by everyone. If you want that stuff in your game, no one is going to kick down your door and make you stop, but others should have the opportunity to play without having to be reminded of the game's controversial and painful roots.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
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These two things are not the same.
Cultures should absolutely have a strong identity. It's what makes them a Culture.
(Well, that or hyperintelligent starships with whimsical names.)
Races/species with the same sort of strong identity are weird. The idea that every single member of this species, regardless of how separated the populations are, belongs to the same culture, breaks verisimilitude hard. It requires an explanation, and those explanations typically range from unsatisfying to downright creepy.
1) If you consider one-dimensionally evil Drow to be "strong identity" then you and I have very different definitions of that term.
2) The only way you could consider every species in those books to be "entirely interchangeable" is by throwing out not just their physical characteristics, but their game mechanics and narrative descriptions as well. Which to me reads like saying "if I take this cake recipe they gave me and remove all the flour, eggs, milk, and sugar from it, I can't make a cake anymore! Why would WotC do this?"
Oddly there is really only one person that continues to bring up the controversial and painful roots of the game at every given chance, why is Hitler part of the discussion what does how sexy he may have been to someone have to do with this thread, or even D&D?
It is odd that Gygax is even still discussed as wotc has distanced themselves from him, you'd think they would prefer it was a sleeping dog that people would just let die.
Wizards is only doing something about it because the younger generations keep, rightfully, complaining about it. The game should evolve as our society does. Wizards, however, aren't the good guys in this. They only did something about because they were called out on it. They then moved to "All farmers are tough" - presumably because they don't think farmers can play music or would learn Druid spells unless the DM thinks they would. They moved from race to profession because they don't really care about it unless they think it creates an image problem for them.
How many voices would it take for you to care?
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
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Check out my life-changing
Where did i say I didn't care, continually dredging up the past is not a path to healing. It is a path to division and alienation which is not good for the game.
I can only speak for myself, but I don't care about Gygax or the game's roots. I care about what they're doing now and why.
Same.
And what you find harmful and to be enjoyed what you consider meant to be enjoyed by everyone, isn't to everyone you are finding that out in this thread. There is no monolith on this and it gets worse when you are dealing with people familiar with the content and have played with those designers. You need to have villain's and foils in the game. And having various drow, orcs, goblins etc being evil fits that role. Don't get me wrong, the current writing direction by D&D is aimed at 8 year old and above in my opinion so trying to be samey with everything could be useful when playing with children, which is how I adjust lore when DM'ing for kids. As to take up to the 8yr and up content, so far less than 4M characters have been built in D&D Beyond for 2024 and that is very low. I'm running 5E games at conventions and online, and generally have a wait list. I'm running Age of Worms (3.5E content) and I have 5 people waiting to get in the main group. No complaints on using original lore, they ask to bring their friends. Typically half of the new players become DM's using older content as well. This is anecdotal, but it is what it is.
If you really want to make a plea to authority (essentially WotC agrees with me - really dude?), then I suggest you look at Dungeon Magazine and Dragon magazine and you'll see a lot of current high level designers at Paizo and WotC and read their content, it doesn't agree with your statement you'll find a diversity of opinions. What you are seeing is an official company line from the marketing department - not from all of the designers, not by a long shot. Look up Dungeon Magazine 124 for Age of Worms, and look at the designer names on the adventure path and read it the village of Diamond Back. You can understand a persons views based on what they create. The town alone is incredibly well made and would make a small group of people clutch their pearls at gambling, brothel's and drugs oh my. Plenty of factions, adventure seeds and a good town to take you to level 20. WotC hasn't written a real town like that for 5E+.
I'm a fan of the change as well, and I think it was a design choice just as much as a cultural one. Even if you did want to run orcs as villains (which is totally fine - everyone should be able to tell their own stories), what were the chances that the handful of orc stat blocks were going to meet your needs? Now, you can use Warrior, Tough and Berserker and none of them would feel out of place at all. And each of them does different things and present different challenges to the players.
But maybe in your game orcs aren't like that - maybe they're pirates in your game. Or knights. Or maybe the elves are the berserkers. Or maybe you don't want species to be a central theme at all and all of your humanoid enemies are a mix of various species.
It just gives a lot more flexibility and raises the chances that more of these stat blocks are actually useful to more DMs.