Recently, I’ve noticed (and participated in) a lot of threads about Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (henceforth called M3). People (such as me) have various reasons to dislike elements of the book and/or what happened due to its release.

To people who don’t know most of the reasons why this book is unpopular, it may be quite confusing to hear people complaining about the book. It’s just like any other, right?

Well, no. There are several reasons people are not happy about it, here, I’ll present and explain some of the most prominent of them.

Note: Some of the more major points are explained in less words, and some of the more minor ones longer, this is mostly because some take longer to explain than others, and certainly not because they are less important.

Major reasons (in no particular order):

1. Content: Most of the content (such as the races and monsters) is just a modified collection stuff from other books, mainlyVolo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. This has caused many people to complain about whether or not this was really “new.” 
2. Delisting Volo’s and Mordenkainen’s: The two books that I just mentioned content being reused from, were both ‘delisted’ due to M3’s release. They are no longer available for purchase on DnD Beyond, the cool lore (such as more info on the blood war, and lore on goblins and kobolds) from them is no longer ‘canon’, and new players will not as easily have access to the books. 
3. Bundle: Many would say that this is not a hugely important reason, but M3 was first sold in a massive bundle with Tashas Cauldron of Everything and Xanathars Guide to Everything as well as a DM Screen. This would not have been a problem had there been an alternative to the bundle. But as it was, paying $135-$170 (depending on where you were buying it from) was the only way to get the book. This was quite annoying to people like me who already had the other content in the bundle. Fortunately, you can now buy M3 outside of the bundle.

Minor reasons:

1. Organizational issues: Physical book: In the physical book, the main organizational problem is that they have some groups (such as clockworks, drow, and starspawn) grouped together, while others (demons, devils, giants) are not. This makes it quite hard to find certain groups of monsters. Fortunately, there is a table of content that helps you find where the monsters are, but these weird groupings still bring a lot of unnecessary confusion.

On DDB: Here on DnD Beyond, the biggest organizational issue is that (in my opinion), since there are different versions of the same monsters, they show up right next to each other when building encounters or viewing the compendium of monsters. This can cause you to get and use the wrong version if you own multiple of those books, or it can just cause more confusion in general.

My biggest issue is the delisting of VGtM and MToF. Not because of losing old stat blocks, that I'm 90% fine with. But I hate that new players lost access to lore about the blood war and the cultures of monstrous races (like how"booyahg" is the goblin term for all things magic).

Quote from DxJxC >>

My biggest issue is the delisting of VGtM and MToF. Not because of losing old stat blocks, that I'm 90% fine with. But I hate that new players lost access to lore about the blood war and the cultures of monstrous races (like how"booyahg" is the goblin term for all things magic).

 Yeah, the lore was really cool and it's sad to see it gone.

To me, it's more the attitude. I'm very much of the opinion that everyone should be free to play the game they want, and WotC should be trying to support that. That doesn't mean that WotC should be selling unprofitable books, but if it's not costing them anything and is still profitable, then resources should be made available (even if they get a "no longer canon" label attached to it).

It stinks that they're trying to force their vision through by delisting those books. It costs virtually nothing for them to have them for sale on DDB (the costs were almost entirely either incurred by uploading the books or are inherently to the website running anyway), but they're trying to force those changes through. That's their legal right, but I think it's wrong to do.

If they maintained the other books...I'd be fine with it. I have MotM, and I don't regret buying it. I just want WotC to facilitate people playing D&D, not tell them what they are and are not allowed to do.

Incidentally, where did you hear they're discontinuing in print as well? I hears about DDB, but not physical print.

the only reason people should be unhappy about, is the delisting of old books and saying they are deprecated because the lore is bullshit...
honestly thats the only reason...

now let's go over why this was a good move on their part...
you have to remember that there is a big rule in adventurers league gameplay.
the rule is simple... you can only take the players handbook +1 book of your choice to make your character. that rule alone makes this move a great one.
because now everyone has only a single book to have a choice of all races.

the way they did this, was to give DMs and Players mopre options in adventurers league and get all the information in one single place instead of having it separated in multiple books. To everyone who complains that seems like a minor inconvenience because they use this site regularly... but in reality... you are just forcing everyone to buy more books and more books, when you could simply have a single book cover them all.

this whole argument falls short when you think of those who will buy the books in the future.
those people will be more then happy to have access to so many monsters in one single books instead of having to buy 2.
this book also consolidated more then those two books. for it also added all the extra life books in the volume. meaning you no longer need to buy or get those extra life supplement.

funny how they did the same with the elemental evil companion book and added it into another books, yet nobody mentionned that.
its not the first time they do this... its like the 4th time. but yet people picked this one because it was the biggest one.

to me, the pros outdo the cons here !
again the only thing i dislike about this whole move, was the hype given to it, ands the fact that they removed the other two. they had big lores there and saying they are deprecated is a bullshit move... they are not deprecated at all.

but again, lore wise... WotC didn't give anything in 5E. mostly because the lore is already in novels and in other edition books.
as in my friend and i have a big 3E collection of books and when we want lore, we just go there !
as an exemple, you want lore on other worlds... get the manual of the planes from 3E, it has them all.

why would you buy a fifth edition one when you have the 1e,2e,3e,4e books that already retell you the same shit over and over ?
its a wise decision from WotC to stop retelling the same shit over and over. if you want lore, go to the older editions, theres over thousands of books on those matters. want demons, 4e demonomicon is for you. want planes, 3E manuals of the planes is for you. want to know more about faerun, the faerun campaign setting is for you from 3E.

Quote from Linklite >>

Incidentally, where did you hear they're discontinuing in print as well? I hears about DDB, but not physical print.

 Actually, I think I'm wrong about that: this post just says they're no longer selling it online, but doesn't say whether or not physical print is being discontinued. So I've edited the original post to correct it.

Quote from BoringBard >>

Quote from Linklite >>

Incidentally, where did you hear they're discontinuing in print as well? I hears about DDB, but not physical print.

 Actually, I think I'm wrong about that: this post just says they're no longer selling it online, but doesn't say whether or not physical print is being discontinued. So I've edited the original post to correct it.

 from WotC retail site... both books are still in prints and can be bought !
heres the link to it !

https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/volos-guide-to-monsters

Quote from DnDPaladin >>
you have to remember that there is a big rule in adventurers league gameplay.
the rule is simple... you can only take the players handbook +1 book of your choice to make your character. 

 

 Not anymore. They dropped that rule a year ago.