D&D 5E Latest D&D Errata: Drow, Alignment, & More

Sage Advice is a series of articles in which Jeremy Crawford, one of the D&D Studio’s game design architects, talks about the design of the game’s rules and answers questions about them.

Book Updates | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice provides updates and errata for a number of books, as well as answers to rules questions.

dnd.wizards.com

D&D books occasionally receive corrections and other updates to their rules and story. This Sage Advice installment presents updates to several books. I then answer a handful of rules questions, focusing on queries related to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons and Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos.

Official errata has been published for the following books:

• Curse of Strahd
• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Player’s Handbook
• Storm King’s Thunder
• Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
• Tales from the Yawning Portal
• Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
• Tomb of Annihilation
• Volo’s Guide to Monsters

Here's some of the highlights.

• Alignment is removed from the Racial Traits section of races.
• Drow have undergone lore changes which reflect the different types of drow. The 'darkness of the drow' sidebar which portrays them as only evil has been removed.
• Storm King's Thunder alters references to 'Savage Frontier' and 'barbarians'; Curse of Strahd alters references to the Vistani.
• The controversial Silvery Barbs spell has been clarified.

As a drow, you are infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. You are at home in shadows and, thanks to your innate magic, learn to con- jure forth both light and darkness. Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.

The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has cor- rupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now. Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.

 

[cowpie]

Do you expect D&D to crater soon, then? If I'm reading you correctly, you're predicting that WotC should fail hard in the next few years, as new gamers realize D&D is not what they want, and either discover/move to other systems, or abandon the hobby entirely.
Is that a fair prediction, based on your reasoning?

I hope not, as I love the game, and love the hobby. But yeah, they could see sales drop. People also play games to relax and have fun, and some of the changes come across as a little politicized and preachy sometimes. This can suck the fun right out of a game for a lot of people. Most people don't care about using their valuable free time to play a game that is a "vehicle for social reform"--they just want to play a game.

Some people do, so if you want the game to be about these things, more power to you. It's fine to house rule a campaign about it, but I think a good business strategy is to appeal to the widest audience you can. Don't make the core rules about this--and let the players add it if they want.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Personally I prefer much more the Drow as free spirit being who have fall under the corruption, plot and bullying of Lolth.
Inherent evil avoid the continual entrapment Loth operate over Drow people.
Errata made the Drow universe much more interesting now.

There were good Drow before the new lore. WotC seems to have forgotten the Elistree worshipers when they made 2 whole new surface Drow societies.

 

[FormerLurker]

Do you expect D&D to crater soon, then? If I'm reading you correctly, you're predicting that WotC should fail hard in the next few years, as new gamers realize D&D is not what they want, and either discover/move to other systems, or abandon the hobby entirely.
Is that a fair prediction, based on your reasoning?

There's a finite number of new players. Sales should plateau eventually. Especially as people decide they have enough books.

6e will be a hard sell for many, who might still be enjoying 5e and feel less need to switch for minor mechanical tweaks: no edition has a 100% conversion rate.
Especially the older players who might feel less targeted by new products and the new edition, as WotC increasingly focuses on the army of gamers half their age.
(I know I feel disenfranchised by WotC of late and have probably purchased my last D&D book. I'm glad the game is successful and attracting so many new players, but it's bittersweet.)

I don't want D&D to crater. A sick part of the back of my mind kinda wants the game to stumble slightly for burning the old school fans. Like what happened with 4e. But I doubt that will happen this time. And I also know the 4e crater almost killed the game and hurt the industry, and I'd rather they never make another D&D book I want to buy but succeed rather than have that happen again.

 

[cowpie]

There's a finite number of new players. Sales should plateau eventually. Especially as people decide they have enough books.

6e will be a hard sell for many, who might still be enjoying 5e and feel less need to switch for minor mechanical tweaks: no edition has a 100% conversion rate.
Especially the older players who might feel less targeted by new products and the new edition, as WotC increasingly focuses on the army of gamers half their age.
(I know I feel disenfranchised by WotC of late and have probably purchased my last D&D book. I'm glad the game is successful and attracting so many new players, but it's bittersweet.)

I don't want D&D to crater. A sick part of the back of my mind kinda wants the game to stumble slightly for burning the old school fans. Like what happened with 4e. But I doubt that will happen this time. And I also know the 4e crater almost killed the game and hurt the industry, and I'd rather they never make another D&D book I want to buy but succeed rather than have that happen again.

Yeah, and another thing to think about with the older players, is that 5e wasn't just catering to nostalgia. They did a lot of playtesting and market research to find out how gamers wanted the game to play. They ended up fusing ideas from 1st & 2nd edition, with the best bits of 3rd and 4th to make an easy, gateway version of D&D, that's pretty flexible. The game appealed to old school fans, and new players alike.

I think it's a bad idea to turn away the old players, because they love the game, and they have...the most monies! Who's going to buy the most products, a starving college student, or a 40+ player who's been saving up cash their adult life? WOTC should not be separating their customers into groups, and then rejecting the ones with disposable income. They should be encouraging the groups to co-exist, even if individuals have disagreements, because there are plenty of other games and competitors out there, and no one has to buy a D&D book.

 

[Scribe]

They neither did or did not do market research?

No, I just dont think the options are sufficient to describe the behavior's of the company.

 

[Malmuria]

Yeah, and another thing to think about with the older players, is that 5e wasn't just catering to nostalgia. They did a lot of playtesting and market research to find out how gamers wanted the game to play. They ended up fusing ideas from 1st & 2nd edition, with the best bits of 3rd and 4th to make an easy, gateway version of D&D, that's pretty flexible. The game appealed to old school fans, and new players alike.

I think it's a bad idea to turn away the old players, because they love the game, and they have...the most monies! Who's going to buy the most products, a starving college student, or a 40+ player who's been saving up cash their adult life? WOTC should not be separating their customers into groups, and then rejecting the ones with disposable income. They should be encouraging the groups to co-exist, even if individuals have disagreements, because there are plenty of other games and competitors out there, and no one has to buy a D&D book.

Why do you think that older players care about these changes or perceive them negatively? And have you noticed at WOTC is making money hand over fist with their products, including their new products, and own the vast majority of ttrpg market share? Why do they need your business advice?

 

[JEB]

And the end result of that "think of the children" period was the near-demise of the game.

Trying to market D&D to kids, while perhaps good for sales, IMO doesn't make the game any better at all.

Indeed. Let's hope the repeat pattern doesn't continue much longer, though, else we'll be into mid-90's TSR flounderings all over again and I think we can all do without that.

Making 2E kid-friendly wasn't what nearly killed D&D, though - it was business decisions like introducing and supporting too many campaign settings and sourcebooks, and over-investing in efforts to compete with MTG (most notably with Dragon Dice). And 2E's kid-friendliness hardly discouraged me from getting into the game as a 14-year-old...

I'm more concerned about the possibility of a de-emphasis on inspirational lore generally (spun as a "make up whatever you want" boon, but actually evading the real issue and leaving novice DMs flailing) and an attempt to market books more and more on new player-focused mechanical options. Because the two shortest-lived editions of the game are the ones that took that path...

 

[cowpie]

Why do you think that older players care about these changes or perceive them negatively? And have you noticed at WOTC is making money hand over fist with their products, including their new products, and own the vast majority of ttrpg market share? Why do they need your business advice?

The changes seem to be driven by some kind of moral obligation to take a public stand vis a vis contemporary politics, which tends to cause arguments and conflicts. This stance seems to be appealing to a minority of very vocal new players who seem to be picking fights with the old players, who eventually respond in kind.

Long term, this will be perceived negatively, because if you're in the entertainment industry, the last thing you want is to encourage fighting instead of entertaining people. If you hold an event that supposed to be fun in your valuable free time, and it devolves into fighting, then most people will say "buh-bye" and walk out the door. Who needs the grief or wasted time? WOTC has competition from other games, but more importantly, other hobbies. Nobody needs to play D&D. They could just leave and take up knitting, or skiing, or fly-fishing or whatever.

I'm no genius, and I would hope they don't need my advice, because it's pretty basic stuff. To make the most money and keep market share: don't alienate customers, make products that appeal to the most people, and limit the amount of controversial topics in the product (for the same reasons we avoid discussing them at Thanksgiving dinner), Just stay out of it, and let the players hash things out on their own.

I don't know if they're making money hand over fist, but if they're not, then they should be striving to maximize their sales and keeping their existing market share--again, basic stuff.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're not wrong. But the corollary to your conclusion is that races can never feature any ability we wouldn't want a 1st level character to have - full flight, size Large, etc.

Well, actually, you're kinda wrong. We already see this in a number of races that give advanced spellcasting at higher levels. So this is already acceptable as a minor practice, but nothing that scales large.

So, how do we combine what already exists and is therefore already proven to be acceptable, with the ability to give races even more meaningful features that shouldn't be handed out until higher levels? If you don't accept expanding the already existing system, how can we do it and still meet your requirements?

There are plenty of things in the game that already exist that have recently become unacceptable.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You could argue that the act of problematizing, critiquing, disrupting and dismantling D&D (and the claim that these actions are always good and virtuous) is the methodology of a new quasi-religion attempting to clean up D&D.

Mod Note:

Why use so many words when you could just say “woke”? Oh, that’s right! You’re trying to circumvent the rules!

Didn‘t work.

Won‘t work in the future, either.

Don’t go there again. Just…don’t.