D&D (2024) The future of edition changes and revisions

[DarkCrisis]

What do you mean Lolth is the same as always from what I know.

Goblin's are largely the same they just have different origins now. It helps differ them from Orcs more now who were created by a god. The Goblins instead were conquered by a god.

According the lastest Drizzt books: In Faerun Lolth was good. The Drow acting evil corrupted her. Currently she's turned her back on it all and her demons secretly run things in her name. She still grants spells if a priestess asks but inst requiring prayers and sacrfices etc because she just doesnt care one way or the other.

This is what is about to cause the big civil war in Menzo as the head priestess now know the real history of the drow and her demons run things in her name since she cant be bothered to care, and if this info gets out well.... big changes for the Drow.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ha ha.

She's less incompetent simply not answering her followers than she is micromanaging them to mutual destruction.

 

[Parmandur]

I remember reacting pretty strongly to the passage about alignment in the 5e PHB. Specifically: "The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc god, Gruumsh. and are thus inelined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life. (Even half-orcs feel the lingering pull of the orc god's influence.)"

Fortunately, this bit has been memory holed in more recent printings as well as on D&D Beyond.

Yeah, that aged poorly.

 

[Parmandur]

What do you mean Lolth is the same as always from what I know.

Goblin's are largely the same they just have different origins now. It helps differ them from Orcs more now who were created by a god. The Goblins instead were conquered by a god.

Yeah, the new lore is largely additive. The not necessarily evil Duergar are less a change from MToF, and more "MToF is the standard Dwarves racist views about their deep underground cousins." Evil Duergar tyrants are still doable, but their people are more complex moral agents.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

According the lastest Drizzt books: In Faerun Lolth was good. The Drow acting evil corrupted her. Currently she's turned her back on it all and her demons secretly run things in her name. She still grants spells if a priestess asks but inst requiring prayers and sacrfices etc because she just doesnt care one way or the other.

This is what is about to cause the big civil war in Menzo as the head priestess now know the real history of the drow and her demons run things in her name since she cant be bothered to care, and if this info gets out well.... big changes for the Drow.

Hmm interesting. Will look into this.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, contradicting material within the edition is a bit of a bigger deal. It makes it harder to compartmentalize (which is my primary way of dealing with changes in the game I don't care for, and which has been increasingly more difficult in the last few years). Of course, being surrounded online by people who apparently love everything WotC's doing doesn't make it any easier.

But that's a bit unreasonable don't you think considering that in the space of 5e, previously, we'd had two or even three editions pass. Not expecting changes to lore within an edition is a bit trickier when your edition is going to last more than 10 years - if you consider the update an update and not a new edition (which I'm SURE will become a thing to argue about for the next decade) - then it might be insisting that lore be frozen in place for 20 years? That's not reasonable.

 

[Hussar]

But, this whole goblin thing really does sort of line up with what I said before.

Does anyone actually care about the origins of monsters? I mean, sure, you might like to read about it or whatnot, but, does anyone actually care? Are goblins suddenly not usable in Lost Mines of Phandelver because now they have a Fae origin? Does anyone have to rewrite the module in any way, shape or form? Would I suddenly need to rewrite Caves of Chaos because goblins are, many, many generations ago, descended from Fae?

This is my point about tempest in a teacup. Frankly, who cares? It's not going to make the slightest difference in anyone's game. You can run exactly the same modules, in exactly the same way before and after. It's just a nifty bit of flavor text that might lead to more stuff down the line. I imagine that if they release new modules featuring goblins, they might play up the Fae aspect. But, again, there's a million different ways to do that.

It's really funny to me. Paizo completely rewrites goblins and gets nothing but a huge pat on the back for it. WotC does far, far less to change goblins and they are abandoning fans.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's really funny to me. Paizo completely rewrites goblins and gets nothing but a huge pat on the back for it.

You were clearly not hanging around PF-centric spaces when this happened.

 

[SakanaSensei]

The number of people I've seen praise A5E that has orcs driven by passion, celestial tieflings, halflings with claws and a burrowing speed, and so many more things (it's a really creative take on a lot of fantasy races, highly recommend even if you don't want all that crunch) and simultaneously be mad at floating ASIs and adjustments to monster lore is higher than expected, I'm similarly perplexed. Is it just because it's made by the site and gets a pass on Old Guard sensibilities because it's an in-crowd product?

Is it because they're just ignoring the lore for the crunch they want, which is the exact thing they could be doing with WotC product but aren't because... reasons?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well, I'm glad WotC has managed to capture the zeitgeist of the majority of ENworld posters.

And ENWorld is a lot more conservative than D&D posters as a whole. Largely because we're a lot older.