D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Morons and Salads

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Exactly, I was under impression 4E was a clear lesson in therms of what can and cannot be changed in lore.

Given how many things changed in 4E, I think it'd be hard to say its failure came from just one change or another. I think a lot of people ended up quite liking the 4E cosmology, which more closely aligns with real world and non-D&D-inspired fantasy fiction cosmologies. The 5E Manual of the Planes really ought to offer both models, IMO.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What do you mean? It's right here.

Weird; I could have sworn I went looking for it before and couldn't find it. Maybe I was just thinking of the later, never-published, entries in the series.

Happy to be wrong: Just added it to my RPG Now wishlist for later.

 

[Hussar]

On the Slaad redesign. To be honest, I think this illustrates exactly the uphill battle WOTC has. 2:1 respondents want to redesign the Slaad. That's a pretty clear winner there. And note, 3:1 consider them to be aberrations and not outsiders at all.

So, what should WOTC do? Listen to the purists who want Planescape Slaad which are a pretty clear, but extremely vocal minority? Or go with the majority which appears to be pretty quiet?

It's the gnome effect all over again. People never seem to be able to look at something and think, "Well, I like it this way, but, I'm pretty much an island all on my own here, so, let's maybe back off a bit and realize that my corner case tastes aren't perhaps in everyone's interests".

 

[GSHamster]

So, what should WOTC do? Listen to the purists who want Planescape Slaad which are a pretty clear, but extremely vocal minority? Or go with the majority which appears to be pretty quiet?

I think the problem is that they are polling for options without discussing the costs. For example, what if the poll had been: "Do you want us to redesign the slaadi, or create a new chaotic aberrant monster?"

I think that, when the question is phrased like that, the majority would go for the new monster. But when presented with a simple "redesign the slaad or not?", the majority who are not enthusiastic about the slaad will vote for the redesign, if only to have something new to look at.

 

[Hussar]

I think the problem is that they are polling for options without discussing the costs. For example, what if the poll had been: "Do you want us to redesign the slaadi, or create a new chaotic aberrant monster?"

I think that, when the question is phrased like that, the majority would go for the new monster. But when presented with a simple "redesign the slaad or not?", the majority who are not enthusiastic about the slaad will vote for the redesign, if only to have something new to look at.

Fair enough. But, OTOH, if they asked the same question about, say, orcs - "Should we keep orcs the way they are or redesign them as fey?" I'm thinking you'd get a pretty strong vote for keeping them the same. The fact that Slaad don't get a strong vote for staying the same I think speaks pretty loudly that the monster as it stands, just isn't getting enough traction in the larger audience.

 

[Cyberen]

I'm getting fed up with Planescape fans arguing they are the true Keepers of Extraplanar Awesomeness. Modrons and Slaad existed a long time before 2E, and 2E refluffed many outsiders in its storytelling-oriented way. IMHO it did a good job of creating a conflict-ridden setting actually engaging the players rather out of the Great Wheel cosmology (quite awesome on its own, but not really engaging).
Planescape is a good EXAMPLE of what a setting can be. Its particular hooks should not appear all over the place in a MM. Monsters should be a statblock and various hooks, not a mini-setting (ditto for Gith-guys).

 

[Shemeska]

I'm getting fed up with Planescape fans arguing they are the true Keepers of Extraplanar Awesomeness. Modrons and Slaad existed a long time before 2E, and 2E refluffed many outsiders in its storytelling-oriented way.

But they had little to no real detail prior to 2e. Plus the 2e expansion didn't totally redesign either of them, it took the 1e baseline and added in additional ecology, society, etc material. And what 2e added in was largely (albeit in less detail) continued in 3e, and on a case by case basis continued in 4e (often a hodgepodge of faithful to the past and radical random redesign). Given how long that those 2e details have been in place, they've become effectively (IMO) iconic elements to D&D itself, not just Planescape as a setting.

And I've written a lot for other cosmologies, so I can very well understand that Planescape isn't the be-all-end-all of extraplanar awesomeness. Just in the case of mainline D&D, it's IMO what should be considered the baseline (though not absolutely must it be the only example to provide).

 

[Cyberen]

With all due respect, Shemeska, I disagree.
I never actually played Planescape, but I acknowledge, among other qualities, it was a breakthrough concerning player involvement, intrigue-based D&D and planar playability.
Nevertheless, I have a major gripe with it : those elements of intrigue became baked in all the setting elements : in the Monstrous Compendium, all Tanari, Baatezu and Yugoloth entries referenced the Bloody Blood War (which is the dumbest concept ever when you don't specifically play Planescape, as it cheapens what happens in the Prime material plane, aka actual play). Another example of this too-much-integrated design can be seen in the Gith thread and its spoilers war ! I still resent this design, because it was a refluff of ADD my campaign wouldn't follow. (the EXACT SAME THING 4e did, actually)
Planescape might be awesome, but its clever and intricate design doesn't lend itself well to inclusiveness. The plot elements of each and every faction shouldn't be baked in the MM entries, imho.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Planescape might be awesome, but its clever and intricate design doesn't lend itself well to inclusiveness. The plot elements of each and every faction shouldn't be baked in the MM entries, imho.

That just shows you know absolutely nothing about Planescape as nothing about any factions were ever in any MM entries, except for the most campaign specific monsters in the 3rd Planescape Monstrous Compendium, which by then were almost all original monsters.

 

[Celebrim]

Fair enough. But, OTOH, if they asked the same question about, say, orcs - "Should we keep orcs the way they are or redesign them as fey?" I'm thinking you'd get a pretty strong vote for keeping them the same.

Well sure. There is no existing contriversy over orcs as fey creatures and no argument advanced for that, so peoples immediate reaction is going to be 'Blegh'. So all you've created there is a straw man. You could however restate the question in a more analogous way, something like: "Do you think that orcs should be a playable PC race balanced with other PC races, or should they be inherently inferior and unattractive as a PC race?" Now, you have something to argue about, especially when you start extending the frame of the question to cover all sentient humanoids: "Do you think that bugbears should be a playable PC race balanced with other PC rares, or should they be inherently superior and dangerous as a PC foil?"

But even your straw man can be reframed into a powerful contiversy with just some slight rewording a building a bit of an argument. Suppose I made the following argument:

a) Goblins and orcs are generally too similar and occupy the same design space of evil ugly humanoids. Goblins originally existed mainly to be a weaker orc for lower level parties to fight, but we don't really need that separation any more.
b) The term goblin historically refers to an evil fairy creature.
c) What if we kept the concept of 'orc' as a Tolkien inspired evil, ugly, humanoid but made goblins evil fey creatures to make them more distinctive?

I'm not sure that there wouldn't be strong advocates on both sides. For my own part, Trolls long ago made a move from being grotesque regenerating giants, to large ugly fairy creatures precisely because the historical usage of the word 'troll' fits more closely with this later idea and equally because it makes trolls far more interesting as NPCs especially in a game like mine where I feel Grimm's fairy tales are a significant influence. It's hard to imagine a D&D troll playing a violin, or engaging in a game of riddles with the party. But if you make trolls fey...

The fact that Slaad don't get a strong vote for staying the same I think speaks pretty loudly that the monster as it stands, just isn't getting enough traction in the larger audience.

Yes, but I'd suggest that part of the reason for this is that they just aren't presented very often compared to orcs or fiends - either as foils, friends, or allies. Rightly or wrongly they are a fairly obscure monster outside of Planescape. It's not necessarily clear that if you designed or replaced them with anything that they'd immediately get traction and become an equally popular monster to orcs, giants, dragons, or demons. It could be that regardless of form they are pretty niche, and I think it is fairly obvious to me that a lot of the answers are simply people picking what they think is the best of the options presented. For example, I'm strongly on the side of, "Slaad are great, they just need someone to build on their lore." and "The worst thing that could happen would be to make Slaad merely another horrorific monstrousity.", but I also would have voted for 'Aberration' simply because that's the best of the available terms. Likewise, I'm also a proponent of Modrons, but would have also voted for 'Construct' as the best of the available terms. Neither vote indicates that I think they monsters need a complete rewrite, just a bit of elaboration and depth.