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List of All 33 Races in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse
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<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8514131" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p><img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="🤷♂️" title="Man shrugging :man_shrugging:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937-2642.png" data-shortname=":man_shrugging:" /></p><p></p><p>In my mind, there are two scenarios that are about equally better than the current version of how WotC treats crunch-books like Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. These are the two options:</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">From now on, all crunch-books have basically no setting-specific lore at all. There can be some about how the genetic identities of certain creatures/races would influence their behavior (Harengon are twitchy herbivores like Rabbits, people dislike/distrust Dhampir because they drink blood, Tabaxi are every stereotype of cats ever rolled up into an intelligent humanoid race, etc), but nothing specific, like the gods that created the various races, the lands that they come from in specific settings, or their religion/specific culture. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">From now on, when a book like Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes presents information about the specific culture of any player race from any setting that contains that race, it has to do the same for every other (or, at least, <em>most</em> other) variant version of that race's culture in an official D&D 5e book, and maybe even some others that the writers feel like including (like how Fizban's Treasury of Dragons mentions how the dragons act on different worlds, like Eberron, Dragonlance, and Tarkir). </li> </ol><p>Option 1 is what I'd prefer, because I think it's more realistic and feasible. Crunch books are for crunch, setting and adventure books are for fluff. </p><p></p><p>Option 2 could work, but it would probably increase the page-count of all crunch books in D&D 5e a ton. It makes all of the settings have roughly equal representation in the books, and also avoids the problem of having a base setting, but it's less realistic. </p><p></p><p>So, in this hypothetical, I'm supposed to worry that there are players that don't want to make their own setting, but also don't want to buy an existing setting book, or learn about the existing settings online . . . and I'm supposed to feel sympathetic for them? </p><p></p><p>I'm not worried about those hypothetical people. I'm 100% onboard with removing all setting-specific fluff text from the crunch books. If people want to learn about an existing setting, they have to buy a setting book or read one of the wikis about one of the existing D&D settings. </p><p></p><p>I don't know anyone that buys the crunch books like Volo's and Mordenkainen's primarily for the lore. </p><p></p><p>I know that 5e has this whole "you only need the core rulebooks to play the game" thing going, and I think it's great for the hobby, but I think that "you need to buy the 3 core rulebooks and a setting book if you want to play in an existing setting" is already pretty accurate, and that it wouldn't be that difficult to shift towards that style of game design. </p><p></p><p>I've been told this several times. I honestly wish that I had gotten into the game when 4e was still going, because I would have loved using the online character creator that they had in my campaigns. I might try it some time . . . but my group has fun with 5e, and we wouldn't want to change things just to change them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8514131, member: 7023887"] 🤷♂️ In my mind, there are two scenarios that are about equally better than the current version of how WotC treats crunch-books like Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. These are the two options: [LIST=1] [*]From now on, all crunch-books have basically no setting-specific lore at all. There can be some about how the genetic identities of certain creatures/races would influence their behavior (Harengon are twitchy herbivores like Rabbits, people dislike/distrust Dhampir because they drink blood, Tabaxi are every stereotype of cats ever rolled up into an intelligent humanoid race, etc), but nothing specific, like the gods that created the various races, the lands that they come from in specific settings, or their religion/specific culture. [*]From now on, when a book like Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes presents information about the specific culture of any player race from any setting that contains that race, it has to do the same for every other (or, at least, [I]most[/I] other) variant version of that race's culture in an official D&D 5e book, and maybe even some others that the writers feel like including (like how Fizban's Treasury of Dragons mentions how the dragons act on different worlds, like Eberron, Dragonlance, and Tarkir). [/LIST] Option 1 is what I'd prefer, because I think it's more realistic and feasible. Crunch books are for crunch, setting and adventure books are for fluff. Option 2 could work, but it would probably increase the page-count of all crunch books in D&D 5e a ton. It makes all of the settings have roughly equal representation in the books, and also avoids the problem of having a base setting, but it's less realistic. So, in this hypothetical, I'm supposed to worry that there are players that don't want to make their own setting, but also don't want to buy an existing setting book, or learn about the existing settings online . . . and I'm supposed to feel sympathetic for them? I'm not worried about those hypothetical people. I'm 100% onboard with removing all setting-specific fluff text from the crunch books. If people want to learn about an existing setting, they have to buy a setting book or read one of the wikis about one of the existing D&D settings. I don't know anyone that buys the crunch books like Volo's and Mordenkainen's primarily for the lore. I know that 5e has this whole "you only need the core rulebooks to play the game" thing going, and I think it's great for the hobby, but I think that "you need to buy the 3 core rulebooks and a setting book if you want to play in an existing setting" is already pretty accurate, and that it wouldn't be that difficult to shift towards that style of game design. I've been told this several times. I honestly wish that I had gotten into the game when 4e was still going, because I would have loved using the online character creator that they had in my campaigns. I might try it some time . . . but my group has fun with 5e, and we wouldn't want to change things just to change them. [/QUOTE]
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List of All 33 Races in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse
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