D&D 5E The October D&D Book is Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons

As revealed by Nerd Immersion by deciphering computer code from D&D Beyond!

Spoiler

Fizban the Fabulous is, of course, the accident-prone, befuddled alter-ego of Dragonlance’s god of good dragons, Paladine, the platinum dragon (Dragonlance’s version of Bahamut).

Which makes my guess earlier this year spot on!

UPDATE -- the book now has a description!

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury: The Dragon Book Now Has A Description... And A Feat

Courtesy of Amazon, we now have a description for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the October D&D hardcover. The book introduces gem dragons, dragon-themed player options, and plenty of draconic lore! This joins September's The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and November's Strixhaven: Curriculum of...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - My guess for the other D&D book this year... Draconomicon!

We know the fifth major product this year will be James Wyatt‘s as-yet unannounced project, and we know it will be coming out this year between Witchlight and Strixhaven. Wyatt co-wrote the Draconomicon for 3E. There have been two recent dragon-themed Unearthed Arcanas — dragon-themed...

www.enworld.org

Fizban the Fabulous by Vera Gentinetta

 

[Dire Bare]

Remember the good old days when this thread was actually about Fizban's Treasury of Dragons? Good times!

Threads drift. Welcome to internet discussion. Besides, what else is there to discuss about Fizban's until we get some more info?

 

[JEB]

You might be surprised by the number of people who take alignment as an absolute ruling.

That was a problem with those people, not alignment. The 5E Monster Manual itself says that alignment can differ. And that particular issue could have been addressed by rolling back to 3E's qualifiers ("always", "often", etc.) and providing multiple cultures for creatures. Instead, they threw out the label entirely... and (based on the gem dragons and other 2021 monsters thus far) didn't really change anything else about their approach to describing monster personalities. It's almost as if they went for the easiest, most superficial "fix".

As D&D has distanced itself from alignment, the game has improved and become more deep and interesting . . . both the official products and at the game table.

The distancing is only four months old, and the actual removal is only two months old. There haven't been any official polls that asked about this question. And there don't appear to be any new character or monster options in 2021 that couldn't have existed under alignment. So with all due respect, any improvement you're seeing is purely your opinion.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The distancing is only four months old, and the actual removal is only two months old.

No, while specific cases have gotten the attention in recent months the de-emphasis on alignment started with the publication of 5E in 2014.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think it's probably diverged enough. I mean, Mormonism doesn't have 21 gods, dragons, magic, elves, etc.

Speaking as a former Mormon . . . how much are you willing to bet on that?

 

[Faolyn]

That was a problem with those people, not alignment. The 5E Monster Manual itself says that alignment can differ. And that particular issue could have been addressed by rolling back to 3E's qualifiers ("always", "often", etc.) and providing multiple cultures for creatures. Instead, they threw out the label entirely... and (based on the gem dragons and other 2021 monsters thus far) didn't really change anything else about their approach to describing monster personalities. It's almost as if they went for the easiest, most superficial "fix".

(A) Do you think lots of people really read or care about that section of the MM that says alignment can differ?

(B) Do you really think that saying a race is only "often" evil is actually better in some way? It's still saying that the race is evil, just with exceptions. "Brog is one of the good orcs." (And no, it's not better when the race is "often good.") There's too much of that nonsense in the real world without including it in the game as well.

(C) One of the arguments I keep seeing about why alignment is good is because it provides a "quick way to determine how the monster will act." What that actually means is that people aren't trying to determine motivations or any actual reason for the creature to be evil. They may decide that since Brog is good, there was a reason for him to be good, but they aren't stopping to think of why the other orcs are the default evil. (And the reasons why Brog is good may be very sketchy, such as with Volo's saying that orcs can be "domesticated" if raised by non-orcs.)

(D) It's still early days (as you say, it's been only about 2-4 months) and they're only just escaping the grapple of biological essentialism that's so prevalent in the game. If they keep with not having alignments, by next edition, or even by later in this edition, they'll be much better at describing monsters in ways that show how they can be good or evil.

 

[JEB]

No, while specific cases have gotten the attention in recent months the de-emphasis on alignment started with the publication of 5E in 2014.

By that standard, the de-emphasis on alignment goes way further back than 2014. 4E didn't have many (if any) mechanical impacts for alignment and even condensed the options to five. 3E loosened alignment restrictions and explicitly endorsed qualifiers for monsters. Etc.

However, it's only in the last year that they officially declared they were changing their approach to alignment, and only this year that it became noticeable in their sourcebooks (Tasha's lack of alignment for monsters could be rationalized, as all the creatures were sidekicks or "pets").

 

[JEB]

(A) Do you think lots of people really read or care about that section of the MM that says alignment can differ?

If some folks misread the instructions before assembling a chair, and they build the chair wrong... the solution is to end the chair's entire product line, for everyone?

(B) Do you really think that saying a race is only "often" evil is actually better in some way? It's still saying that the race is evil, just with exceptions.

The mistake is in reading the alignment listing as stating it's the race itself that's inherently "always" or "often" evil, rather than the default culture as presented in the book. This is something they could have (should have) clarified, without eliminating alignment completely.

As noted, this could also be improved by having multiple default cultures, or explaining more clearly when the one listed is merely an example, not a fundamental characteristic. Instead, they went for the superficial "fix", without actually addressing the issue.

(C) One of the arguments I keep seeing about why alignment is good is because it provides a "quick way to determine how the monster will act." What that actually means is that people aren't trying to determine motivations or any actual reason for the creature to be evil.

Yes, some folks want to play D&D like a video game, with just enough behavior to guide the monster's "AI". And there's nothing wrong with that. Simple "beer and pretzels" gaming is as legitimate as deep, story-focused gaming.

My guess as to what those folks will do, now that alignment is gone and nothing similarly simple has replaced it? Most will just drop "lawful" and "chaotic" and "neutral", and treat all their good guys as "good" and their bad guys as "evil". Nine imperfectly detailed shades of behavior will become a mere two. If some thought those folks were playing "wrong" before, what about now?

(D) It's still early days (as you say, it's been only about 2-4 months) and they're only just escaping the grapple of biological essentialism that's so prevalent in the game. If they keep with not having alignments, by next edition, or even by later in this edition, they'll be much better at describing monsters in ways that show how they can be good or evil.

If they give monsters default behaviors of any stripe, isn't that biological essentialism? When we say a sapphire dragon is warlike, isn't that essentialism?

If the answer is always yes, then I suppose the logical next step is to delete default behaviors - and perhaps all creature lore - entirely. Leave DMs to fill in the gaps. Makes for a very dry core game, but it does fix the problem, I suppose.

If, however, there's room for describing possible defaults without it being essentialism, such as what I described above... they didn't have to delete alignment to do it, unnecessarily taking away a tool some found useful. That they did so raises doubts as to whether they really understand the issue...

 

[cbwjm]

That removing alignment has changed things.

Two problems, as I see it, with alignment in the game.

1. Associating alignment with specific races (mortal, sentient races) like orcs or drow. Orcs are always evil is problematic ethically, and shoddy world-building.
2. Using alignment as a personality type for creatures, and to put them in boxes of stereotyped reactions. Even a chaotic evil halfling, played traditionally, is problematic as people are deeper and more complicated than good or evil (and the whole law vs. chaos thing only exists in fiction). Not that evil doesn't exist, but it shouldn't define most beings, with the possible exception of extraplanar spirits (demons, devils).

Removing alignment from the game opens up your characters (PCs and NPCs) to a wider range of possibility, personality, and how they react to the adventure at hand. As D&D has distanced itself from alignment, the game has improved and become more deep and interesting . . . both the official products and at the game table.

I gonna disagree since I don't really see that. Opening up alignment does nothing for PCs and NPCs unless, as Faolyn suggested, people read a creature's alignment as gospel. It should be noted that even before this change, official settings didn't adhere to alignment for specific races. In sure that some people will see this as an "Oh, I didn't realise they could be different alignments!" moment, but for a lot of us, this changes nothing because it never affected us in the first place. I'm not against them removing alignment, but the change isn't going to have any real impact on my games because myself, and the people I play with, were never straitjacketed into alignment suggestions anyway.

 

[Maxperson]

This alignment conversation has me a bit bummed. If they don't have alignment in Fizban's for the monsters, I'm not going to buy it. And I doubt that it will be there.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The same difference between allying with an evil person when you have shared goals, and allying with a good person who happens to be a halfling.

so it is just do not trust the evil one and the good one is work with them as normal?