New "Lore On Giants" Preview from Volo's Guide to Monsters

There's a new preview of the upcoming Volo's Guide to Monsters available from WotC. This one-page preview contains traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws for NPC giants. This joins the previous preview, which features the book's preface from Volo. The 224-page hardcover book lists stores on November 15th (and, presumably, preferred stores 11 days earlier on November 4th).

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[I'm A Banana]

Statblocks are wildly overrated.

This one page gives me at least a half-dozen adventure ideas, and that stuff's golden.

360 or so more pages like this, and I'm a happy camper.

 

[flametitan]

Statblocks are wildly overrated.

This one page gives me at least a half-dozen adventure ideas, and that stuff's golden.

360 or so more pages like this, and I'm a happy camper.

I'm personally more interested in the fact that apparently maps were confirmed. You can never have too many maps to repurpose for homebrew.

 

[werecorpse]

Agree with secondhander.
Makes you really appreciate the AD&D 1st edition MM, MM2 and FF.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Fluff is more useful then stats. Take out all the fluff from a monster and it's just a set of numbers, with no identity. The fluff makes the monster what it is. Not the stats.


There is a ton of fluff in the monster manual and this book was clearly going to have quite a bit of fluff. While I don't want to be mean I kinda look down on the people who claim to like this game yet are saying they hate this page as it's far more important then the stat block for any giants. (Don't get me wrong the stat blocks are useful, but are pointless without the actual story.)

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Agree with secondhander.
Makes you really appreciate the AD&D 1st edition MM, MM2 and FF.

Were they put far more effort into the fluff and the only difference statwise between an Orc and a goblin was a couple hit die and nothing else. The stat blocks were not what made the monsters interesting.

It feels niche. Like their most recent adventure.

Which is OK, someone will like it, I am sure. But a more straight-forward MMII would probably appeal to a broader audience.

This is far more useful I would say as it helps with actually playing monsters and making them more interesting by this page on giants.

It's also going to have player options along with around 100 monsters. The fact that people are complaining about this is baffling to me. Also the fact that it's going to have player options means it's going to appeal to a broader audience then an MM2 as one of those is only really useful to DM's while this is useful for both.

Edit:Also no matter what I do Terra Dave's quote block splits itself in two.

 

[werecorpse]

Were they put far more effort into the fluff and the only difference statwise between an Orc and a goblin was a couple hit die and nothing else. The stat blocks were not what made the monsters interesting.




This is far more useful I would say as it helps with actually playing monsters and making them more interesting by this page on giants.

It's also going to have player options along with around 100 monsters. The fact that people are complaining about this is baffling to me.

My recollection of the 1e monster books is that they had stats for lots of monsters, each one also had a few paragraphs of fluff and the rest was up to the GM. I like a couple of paragraphs of fluff. I dont need or want pages of material on how I might play a cloud giant. I agree that the 5e MM had plenty of fluff but it also had plenty of mechanics, it's probably my favourite 5e book. Another book like that I would love.

 

[Jester David]

Oh lordy. Can't we just get a normal Monster Manual 2 without all this nonsense hold-me-by-the-hand fluff?

The problem with every Monster Manual 2 is that you end up with 200 good must-have excellent monsters and 100 stinkers that are there to fill space or test out some new ideas. Adding other content instead makes sense.

 

[ad_hoc]

The problem with every Monster Manual 2 is that you end up with 200 good must-have excellent monsters and 100 stinkers that are there to fill space or test out some new ideas. Adding other content instead makes sense.

This.

The thing is, if the monsters were great they would be in the first Monster Manual.

Each iteration is less appealing to me. I would be hesitant to pick up a MM2 but I am eager for this book.

The only thing I would really want out of an MM2 would be expanded NPC templates. And then it would only be useful to me if it was posted as a free supplement online so future adventures could use it.

 

[Prakriti]

Were they put far more effort into the fluff and the only difference statwise between an Orc and a goblin was a couple hit die and nothing else. The stat blocks were not what made the monsters interesting.

But we don't need that information in a book. It's already ingrained in our culture. Whether they've read Tolkien or played Warcraft, everyone knows how to roleplay an orc.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Everything.

I'm pretty sure I'll like the section where they actually give stats for new monsters that were not in the first monster manual, so at least there's that.

From what it looks like so far, it looks like we'll have stat blocks for variants of the "in-depth" creatures in this chapter (Chapter 1) as well...