Todd Kenreck: One of the most important things about the D&D multiverse and its mythology is not necessarily the how things work but rather why, and that's what one Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes really delves into.
Mike Mearls: Yeah, and we're basically building a mythology of D&D. We're going back and saying, "Why are things the way they are?" And I use mythology very specifically. We think of these things as the foundational building blocks of the D&D cosmos. Why do dwarves act the way they act? That's the question we're asking. And we're then taking that and saying, given what we know about dwarves, if they act this way and now we know why they act this way, what does this say about how they might act in the future? So it's all about giving you as a dungeon master a framework within ... which you can work and both lay out, here's the pass of my campaign, but here's where I think my campaign might go. I know that dwarves are essentially homebodies. They don't like to leave their fortresses. They like stability. They like reliability. So now when I'm portraying a dwarf that have these big truths in mind, I can make up any dwarf I want, but what is hopefully interesting is you then contrast that dwarf to dwarf culture. If I have a dwarf who's chaotic neutral, how did they end up that way? What does it mean in this character's relationship to other dwarves and what does it mean for how they might act in the future? If I have a lawful evil elf, what does that mean?
And instead of saying here's all these very specific points - dwarves have six toes and dwarves always put their beards and braids to look like this - we focus a lot instead on giving you the bigger, more far-reaching truths, like dwarves like stability, because I think, my hope is as a dungeon master or writer or whoever's working on the game, you can take that truism and think about how it affects a specific character. So we don't wanna tell you what each specific dwarf is like. We wanna tell you in the generalities of dwarves backed up with mythology that says, here's their mythology and that explains why they are this way. Because D&D is a mythic universe. The gods exist, they're there. You could meet the person who made all the dwarves. Morden exists.
So mythology is incredibly important and it's very vivid. Basically D&D doesn't have history, it has mythology. And then once you know that, you have a framework which a lens you can use to understand things, and then start changing it. You can make now, I know what dwarves are in general, now I'm gonna make a specific dwarf with that knowledge and then I can play a contrast, I can lead into that, I can do one tweak, things like that. So one of the things that falls out of this is dwarves really like toil. They like to work. They generally enjoy working. You can imagine a red dragon somehow taking over a dwarf stronghold and the dwarves actually growing to like the dragon. What if the dragon gave them security and gave them purpose? Sure, you can obey all your customs. I just ... you can imagine a very clever dragon doing this. Just think of me as the king of this clan now. And I will now owe you everything that a king owes to you, but you will owe me everything that is owed to the king in turn. And you can imagine dwarves who happily serve the dragon. The dragon protects them and keeps their enemies away, so now they have stability. The dragon's very smart. The dragon makes good decisions. The clan is prospering.
What does that look like in your world? You've made something which might be really interesting to play with in your campaign, and you can see why it's this kind of warped arc of dwarves, but you can see how it fits in. You can imagine in a human kingdom, the elf character, the elves, who live next door to the human kingdom, might support the Robin Hood-esque figure who's trying to lead an insurrection against the king. Cause the elves just believe everyone should be free and happy. Why do you need this king who's collecting taxes? That's just wrong. And then the elves end up with the human kingdom over that. You're supporting the insurrection. Of course they would. That's just elves ... and even within that elven society, some elves might say, "We should help these humans," other elves like, "No we shouldn't," and then you start seeing that friction evolve. It's all about building mythology that asks more questions than it provides answers.
The only guideline we have is we will tell you about the mythic past. We will try to do it in a place that isn't judgmental. Because actually someone online got kind of fussy about it. The mind flare entry in Bolos. Oh, this is [inaudible 00:04:28] mind flare is the good guy. No. We're not saying anything. We don't say there are good guys or bad guys. We'll throw in a line in on people, say lawful good, lawful evil. But we try not to be judgmental because we tell you the mythic past, but the future is yours to write.
So that's why we try to do things like rather than say, "Dwarves are good. They love puppies and they help old ladies cross ... because they're good." No no no. We say dwarves are lawful good. Dwarves are nice to each other and they are nice in general to the world, but really what they like is stability. That's what they want. So that's how you end up with a dwarf clan ruled by a dragon, because they like stability and the dragon's offering stability. And that, to me, is why ... and why do they like stability? And you then trace it back. Here's the mythology. Here's the mythic foundation of dwarves in their society. And that's, I think, a big change for D&D. It was really funny. I never thought about it this way until we started doing a lot of research. D&D used to have this very scientific approach to world building. You'd ask, how do things work? How does this work? How does a dragon fly? Physically, how does that happen? How does a dragon's breath weapon work? What glands does it have, its organs? And now we ask why. Why do dragons fly? Why don't they just crawl or burrow? Why do dwarves live in mountains by themselves? Why haven't the elves just taken over every world in D&D? They live the longest. They're the eldest and they have powerful magic.
So we ask a lot of why, and invariably it's because here's the myth. Here's what happened. And that's what set these people on the course. So rather than look at biology, we look at culture. There's a thing, orcs act the way they are because that's the culture because there's a god Gruumsh who literally lives in the outer plains who tells them what to do and he has a plan. And then lurking behind Gruumsh is Uluthik, who she has a smarter plan. But if you took an orc and raised it in human society, it would just be like a human. Obviously it would be orc biologically, but it would just ... there's no reason why an orc couldn't be raised by ... but in an orc society and be like a dwarf. I just like toil and I like work and this is what I was taught. Because then you're talking about something which is much more morphible. You just say dwarves are Good no matter what, oh, these dwarves are ruled by a dragon. Must be a silver dragon. No, it's a blue dragon. Well how does that work? That's impossible. No, but instead you focus on that mythic layer. You focus on cultures and societies and asking lots of questions. I like to think we ask a lot of questions and we provide just enough of the answers that you can answer the rest of the question yourself.
Asking why is a good question. But with monsters in particular having the detail of the biology is important because it doesn't stop consider why it does what it does. So something like a witcheresque study of chimera's is pretty cool.
Also you can't deny the mind flayer on the operating table of Volo's Guide to Monsters is pretty cool.
Important question:
DO Dwarves have 6 toes?!
I add to my campaign the idea that the gods are fallible, in the sense of being less than omnipotent. Moradin may have wanted all dwarves to be LG - but he did not succeed in implanting that essence so deeply that it never changes. The same story holds for Gruumsh and orcs, and so on.
my dwarves dont like stable. They're chaotic good. I remember when D&D use to be biology, so we could craft the myths. But, I get why they're doing it. It still is a fun read even if I dont use any of it.
Isn't it more they desire stability so they are lawful good?
If Dwarves are so committed to stability but not committed to good, why are they not Lawful Neutral?
On top of this, there should be a framework for one to say "Ok, but my dwarves aren't lawful good generally, they're generally neutral in this kingdom and more chaotic in that kingdom." and build it up from there.
I do love how you are going about monsters in this edition of D&D,, as you mentioned it feels like you are going back to D&D roots and legends started way back in 1st ed days.
I do wonder tho, seeing as how you did mention dwarves, etc,,, will we be seeing entries for just plain generic dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc as usable monsters? You guys included all the "dark" brothers of the races like Drow, Svirfneblin, Duergar, etc. But it would be nice to have stat blocks for the light dwellers of the races as well for "say" a group of not so friendly dwarves or gnomes or elves that are not really fighters or whatever, but just kinda generic. All other editions included these stats, but it seems they have gotten passed by in 5th and it sure would be nice to have them :) Just a thought :)
there already is that. you can flip everything on its head if you want. if your the dm, you make the decisions. dwarves can be evil. humans can be a slave race for the dragonborn who are otherwise all lawful good but see humans as little more than children that need guidance and control, drow can be chaotic good with their underground cities a haven for freedom of expresion. and the highelves are all lawful evil controlling a vast society of jingoistic patriotism with a strict militaristic class system with grunts on the bottom and a council of lich generals controling the empire for a few thousand years. gnomes can all be insane geniuses that cant form their ow society but live on the fringes of others, halflings could be barbarian tribes roaming the mountains and hills. hell.. throw a dozen different worlds and cultures and give them spelljaming tech and now its dnd in space.
your not beholden to the classic story telling. there are an infinate number of worlds.. each as seperate or together as you want.
oh, I do understand all that,, but I believe you misunderstand what I was getting at.... believe me, I've run campaigns with hordes of evil little rock gnomes infesting a cavern much like the infamous Tucker's Kobolds...... what I mean are stat block entries for just plain old generic gnomes, elves, dwarves etc. Not really special in any way like being a fighter or thief or something like that. Just a plain Jane monster, but of the PC race variety. They somewhat did this for humans in the back of the MM with the Commoner entry,, and I suppose that could be used for any of the PC races,, but I would like to think Common dwarves or elves or whatever, would have different stats depending on race.
well, they do.. just use the stats found int he PHB. a commoner woudl basically be a level one of whatever race without attributing the bonuses of being a specific class. your average town guards in the city might be level 1 or 2 fighter. merchants could be a level 1 mage or bard, gettign higher levels in whatever class is appropriate as they gain importance to the economy or world at a whole but mostly topping out at around 3 or so unless they are particularly important. for their stats you can apply an average stat block. or specifically chose a deliberatley weaker one. maybe eople in a large city are slightly better off but people in a small village on average have fewer stats. so you could make a few different stat arrays with point buy of 17 or 18 points instead of 21 for commoners. and then 21 for more competent npcs. then when you make a random commoner npc. jsut role to assing its stas based on that premade list. maybe you have a 12 differnt stat potentials for commoners so roll a d12 and assign wichever stats you get. and now every throwway npc your pc's run into is now is mroe fleshed out with hardly any work on your part.
yeah,, it can be done like that,, but seeing as how i could need a generic whatever on the spur of the moment, and i can be a bit lazy at times :p :) AND these would not really be NPC types, but rather monster types, it would be nice to just pop open a book to the appropriate stat block like i do for every other monster :)
Couldn’t you simply use Duergar stats for regular dwarves?
I want to say I understand what you’re getting at with the question, but I can’t imagine it being much more difficult than taking a Drow’s stats and using it for a regular elf. I mean, racial bonuses are already outlined in the PHB.
4:28 is not inaudible he is saying oh, this is D&D saying mind flayers are the good guy. also script typo just before the "inaudible"... he does say Volos not Bolos
Thank you for going light on the Biology. As a biologist the science in D&D hurts me. Science is interdependent and often the biology of a monster is taken outside the context of ecology. In a world where Giants can stand we don't need physics on how solid boned dragons can fly, or that dragons aren't ectotherms, or boobs on dragon born.
Mind flare?
Edit Commoner using this as a guide: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/dungeon-masters-workshop#NPCStatBlocks.