Not at all true. Strip away the names and lore and no one would mistake a Mind Flayer for a dragon, nor a beholder for a giant. One of the most common complaints about the 5e MM is how bland the monsters are, and you could craft a finely made novel spanning the history of the species, their culture, and their origins, but if that monster has a basic multiattack and nothing else it’s still bland and uninteresting, in my opinion.
On the flipside, a mechanically interesting creature can be interesting without regards to how much or how little you know about it. Plus, I would hazard a guess that it’s easier for people to think up fluff for things than it is to create comprehensive or smooth rules, so I’m firmly in the camp that less fluff and more crunch is the way to go. I can’t get too mad at Volo’s for this since it’s being sort of marketed on fluff as well, but with the anemic release schedule of 5e I feel for people pain when they want more.
Not really. You can describe a monster however you want. You could describe a Mind Flayer as a hideous insectoid creature with a jagged chitinous barb that punctures the head and sucks out brains. Really, D&D could just have a 4-8 generic statblocks that work for all monsters and just lists of unique powers that you can mix-and-match to create whatever you want. The
Monster Manual could be 32-pages long and cover everything with that method.
Fluff defines a monster.
Unless we end up with 50 good ones, 50 stinkers, and fluff for both. I feel quite certain there will be content in this book that is lacking, as is the case for most products. The reduced page count doesn’t help with this, either.
OMG, what if they released an actual MM2 and there were only 50 good ones?! Or NO good ones!!
I don't think that's likely though. When you're doing 100 monsters you have time to make them all count. When you have 300, you're going to slack off with a few. Picking the best 100 monsters for Volo should make it easy to really have some great foes.
Definitely disagree. In other threads on what people want in MM2, users have posted hundreds of ideas they’d like to see. It’s also a great way for wizards to expand into new territory, since as you said, MM1 is pretty much reserved for the icons of the game. I harped on this earlier as well, but in terms of better math there’s definitely a subset of people on this very board who would like more dynamic encounters/monsters and better high-level threats, which are also great for a 2nd MM.
I participated in a few of those threads. It was hard to list more than a couple hundred monsters, not enough to fill a MM2, even a 256-page one.
More high level threats would also be good.
I would also charge that this book is actually less likely to improve the game than a hypothetical MM2. With Volo’s, you not only have fewer creatures, but now you have a bunch of fluff pages you’ll have to re-write if you don’t play FR. It’s simultaneously more niche and less content heavy.
Except you can enjoy the
Volo's Guide when not actually playing just by reading the entries. And the fluff might give you ideas for adventures or suggest how to use adventures. And it will be a book that is usable for longer, since fluff doesn't expire during an edition change.
Plus there are races. So it will have that impact.
Also, with the DMsGuild and OGL, I don't see as much need for another "big book of monsters". Any monster you could want has probably been updated a couple times. And with stuff like the
Tome of Beasts out there we don't *need* new monsters.
