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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[Zarithar]

I'm looking forward to this book... and as mentioned before there are already a couple of great 3rd party monster books out there (5th Edition Foes and Tome of Beasts). As for fluff concerning orcs, goblins, etc. there is this... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nordgames/ultimate-bestiary-revenge-of-the-horde-new-5e-mons

Someone mentioned Orogs earlier. Aren't they already in the 5th edition MM or am I thinking of something else?

 

[happyhermit]

...

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.

The amount of people who's games would be improved by 200 monsters but not at all by 100 seems exceedingly small, and as already mentioned there are hundreds of professionally crafted monsters produced for 5e, they just spent an episode of their official podcast on ToBs.

As to the second part, that is a strange way to look at it. Nothing is forcing anyone to re-write all the fluff if they don't play FR. If it is useful to someone but doesn't fit their setting then it might behoove them to makes some changes to the tables for instance, but why in the world would they rewrite fluff they already have ie; if the fluff on giants doesn't match their setting in a way that is significant it would be pointless to rewrite it, they will just not use it all. On the other hand, for many GM's working in a homebrew setting they can simply use this stuff when and where they want to. Most settings aren't defined by the fluff of every particular monster. The majority of these monsters can be plopped into other "official" settings, all the fluff intact, and work great.

 

[Curmudjinn]

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.

Who is this everyone you speak of? Remember that 'everyone' has different knowledge, likes and opinions. Tolkien orcs are only similar to D&D orcs and I've never played WoW.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

In Out of the Abyss the appendix had a section on Duergar where a number of the new ones were covered by saying "take the Duergar from the MM and make these changes." While the cross-referencing is annoying, it was a very space efficient way of delivering new content. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see the same type of thing here for the humanoid monsters such as orcs and goblins.

Also I love the fluff in the 5e MM. When I dm'd a couple of one shots for 4e, I was a total D&D noob and knew nothing about most of the creatures and even the base assumptions of the world. So when I was flipping through the 4e MM I still had no idea what most of the creatures presented were and how they fit into the world. To me they all just seemed like sacks of mechanics with no soul. But the 5e MM actually explained what the monsters were, how they lived and other interesting tidbits that could be used to creature adventures with them.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

There is still a Monster Manual. It has an entry on orcs.

Looks like we just obviated the need for an orc entry in Volo's Guide.

Not quite, since in the 5th edition era owning the Monster Manual isn't actually a necessity, even with it having been out a few years. Someone could be picking up the game from the Starter Set in a few months, find they want more monsters, but also more tips on how to portray them, and choose Volo's Guide instead of the Monster Manual.

 

[Parmandur]

The amount of people who's games would be improved by 200 monsters but not at all by 100 seems exceedingly small, and as already mentioned there are hundreds of professionally crafted monsters produced for 5e, they just spent an episode of their official podcast on ToBs.

As to the second part, that is a strange way to look at it. Nothing is forcing anyone to re-write all the fluff if they don't play FR. If it is useful to someone but doesn't fit their setting then it might behoove them to makes some changes to the tables for instance, but why in the world would they rewrite fluff they already have ie; if the fluff on giants doesn't match their setting in a way that is significant it would be pointless to rewrite it, they will just not use it all. On the other hand, for many GM's working in a homebrew setting they can simply use this stuff when and where they want to. Most settings aren't defined by the fluff of every particular monster. The majority of these monsters can be plopped into other "official" settings, all the fluff intact, and work great.

It's worth noting that there are two main customer groupings that WotC has said form a majority of players, whom they are catering to:

- Realms players
-Homebrewers who like taking pieces from the Realms like Buffett options

That's who they are making books for, to meet their numbers.

 

[Istbor]

I am pretty pumped yet for this book. Anticipation! ...Great, now that is stuck in my head.

 

[Azzy]

I think I'll reserve judgment until I see the actual book in its totality.

Personally, I think the 5e MM had the correct proportion of fluff to crunch. I also want to see more creatures from previous editions (especially 1e, BXCMI, & Greyhawk-specific) make their return (I LOATHE converting creatures myself), so I'm more interested in a MM2-style book than this kind of hybrid. Still, I'll wait and see if the do a good job with Volo's, and hope there will be more monster books in the future.

 

[machineelf]

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.

To be clear, I like fluff when it comes to the introduction of monsters before the stat blocks are given. I want to see fluff the the new monsters in this book that were not in the first Monster Manual. But what I don't like is the random rolls to create personalities and backgrounds of monsters. I know people are different in how they create adventures, but I don't need that. I can come up with backgrounds and personalities for creatures on my on. And It seems forced to me to just go by what a random roll says. Even then, I think the 10 or 20 or so options is still too limiting if you were going to just accept a random roll. To me, being a DM is creating a world and a story, not just accepting some random roll and going with it.

But again, I know people differ in what they want. I'm just saying that in my opinion, this is wasted space, and the rehashing of monsters that we already got in the first MM is also wasted space for me. I would be happy with a book filled with nothing but new monsters, and yes some introductory fluff for each one like they did in the first MM.

 

[machineelf]

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.

Then in that case, give me a smaller book with 200 new monsters and leave out the 100 stinkers, and charge me a little less for the smaller book. Or, what I'd really love to see, is introduce another campaign setting into 5th edition, like Eberron or Dark Sun, and make the new monster manual focus on the creatures that specifically inhabit that world. I tend to believe that a lot of other people would be like me and really get excited for that.