D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)

[Micah Sweet]

Not always.

There is sitll no excepted explanation why the 8th Doctor described himself as half-human in the TV movie that fits in cannon. Its a major plot point to the movie and it's utterly ignored after that. In fact, it's mocked in the 9th Doctor's finale. It really doesn't fit after they retconned the Doctor to being the Timeless Child and advised there are Doctor's prior to the First Doctor. That, of course, doesn't explain why the 15th Doctor is really the 17th (or later) Doctor. Or why the Richard Grant Shalka Doctor appeared in a montage of faces the Doctor has had (despite being a non-cannon 9th Doctor prior to the revival).

You know what the explanation they finally gave was? The Celestial Toymaker (a powerful Godlike being) "Made a Jigsaw of his timeline" and all canon before can be waved away as an Unreliable Narrators. What is the Doctor's continuity? Whatever you want it to be. They're all valid now. It all happened, but it didn't happen in any sort of chronological order to him or anyone else.

Seriously, Doctor Who continuity makes D&D continuity look like child's play.

Again, whether you like the explanation is a separate issue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When 4e first came out and changed the Dragonmarks from tied to a specific race to being something anyone can take (with incorrect species/mark combos being aberrant) I was aghast. I was very happy 5e changed it back. But looking back on it, I don't think its a bad an idea as I did. It made a lot of sense when those races were the 3e PHB races and needed something to spice them up when shapeshifters, living golems and werewolf-people on the menu. It doesn't make sense when the PHB only has five of those races and introduced five new ones. Further, there is nothing that requires any given mark to be tied to specific species except tradition.

If a future Eberron book opts for a 4e style feat dragonmark that anyone can take (and honestly feats are a brilliant way to do it now that origin feats can represent minor marks and regular feats greater marks) I don't think I'll be as upset as was in 2009. If they leave tied to specific species, I won't be angry either. The notion of magical marks denoting certain peoples to monopolize certain industries isn't inherently needed to be tied to species and I think it would make the Houses more interesting (Anyone can be a Turanni spy, for example).

As I said before, I'm too old and I've seen too many changes to concern myself with the details as long as it FEELS right...

VRGtR definitely didn't feel right to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And it doesn't to me.

I don't see where either of our desires are more important than the other.

They aren't of course. None of this really matters to anyone but ourselves.

 

[Demetrios1453]

D&D lore has the consistency and purity of a random harlot table. Most media properties that are 40 years old or older do. Holding them to a standard of consistency in their lore is a fools errand.

I rolled, and apparently my lore is a Saucy Tart!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I never said everyone has to use the lore in their games. Play what you want. My concern is about changing the story without explanation, because the story of D&D was something I was emotionally invested in, like Star Wars or Star Trek. They literally just ended it and said it doesn't matter anymore. That happened in the 5e era, not 4e.

Your way is anti-creativity. If metaplot is required to justify any changes to the setting than a) if your setting has a perfect starting scenario (Eberron), then you have to abandon that perfect starting date and explain what else changes as time progresses (technology, politics, new NPCs) and b) work backwards from the changes you want to make to the justifications you have to make to implement that change.

Like, for an example of why I think metaplot is a plague on D&D settings, the Dragonborn. In 4e WotC wanted to add Dragonborn as one of the core races of D&D. Which in a roleplaying game called "Dungeons and Dragons," anthropomorphic dragon people being a major player option just makes sense. However, they didn't want to have all Dragonborn be created by Bahamut (like they were in 3.5e) and needed a justification for why there's suddenly all these Dragon people walking around the Forgotten Realms now. Ideally, they should have just snapped their fingers and said "Dragonborn exist now, they've always existed." In which case, most people would judge the new race based on how interesting they were.

But, because the Forgotten Realms has this terrible tradition of using metaplot to change the setting in extreme ways, they came up with the idea that Dragonborn come from a continent on a parallel universe that was shunted onto Toril because the God of Lies murdered the Goddess of Magic (which is like the 3rd time she has died). And that's where Dragonborn come from, kids. Which is unbelievably stupid. Technically it's "justified/allowed" according to your guidelines for what makes a good "retcon," but that doesn't make it good. And a lot of people hated this justification, and dismissed the race as being terrible because WotC's lore for where they came from was terrible.

So, Goliaths are a core player race in the 2024 Player's Handbook, but they don't really have a big role in Eberron. There have been minor references to them before and Keith has proposed a few ways you could include them in your Eberron, but they are not a core Eberron race. Let's assume that WotC comes out with a new Eberron book in a year or two, and decide that all of the core races of the PHB need to have a major role on Eberron, but also assume your approach to worldbuilding, so they say "100 years have passed since the original Eberron starting date, and in that time a continent from an alternate universe has teleported to the setting and it's inhabited by Goliaths," I would think that's idiotic and proof WotC didn't understand the setting. I wouldn't buy that book and if any of my players asked to play a Goliath, I'd come up with literally any other justification for why they exist in the setting. Because the way Dragonborn were introduced to Eberron was infinitely better than this. But progressing the timeline in order to introduce a new race is stupid and ruins the feel of the world.

Which is why I think your approach to lore, where every change to a setting has to be justified with metaplot, is really bad. Just an awful approach to worldbuilding that would ruin so many of the settings that I love because you don't like retcons. It's way better to wave your hand and change the setting to how you want it to be. If the change is good, great! Future books in that setting can keep using it. But if the change sucks, they can just wave their hand again in the next book and ignore that it ever happened.

You consider consistency to be more important than quality. I consider quality to be more important than consistency.

 

[Clint_L]

I definitely prefer my monster descriptions to be as setting and lore agnostic as possible. I'm good with specific monster lore in specific setting guides, but in the basic MM I just want the stats and a general description. I'll figure out where they fit into my setting. I think the 1e MM handled descriptions well.

 

[JEB]

Your way is anti-creativity.

That's a pretty harsh judgment to make about all those creators who put time into justifying lore changes, both within official D&D and across a wide variety of other long-running media (Marvel Comics being one of the most significant examples). I don't think such creators were being anti-creative at all - what you describe actually sounds very creative, if not to your personal tastes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Your way is anti-creativity. If metaplot is required to justify any changes to the setting than a) if your setting has a perfect starting scenario (Eberron), then you have to abandon that perfect starting date and explain what else changes as time progresses (technology, politics, new NPCs) and b) work backwards from the changes you want to make to the justifications you have to make to implement that change.

Like, for an example of why I think metaplot is a plague on D&D settings, the Dragonborn. In 4e WotC wanted to add Dragonborn as one of the core races of D&D. Which in a roleplaying game called "Dungeons and Dragons," anthropomorphic dragon people being a major player option just makes sense. However, they didn't want to have all Dragonborn be created by Bahamut (like they were in 3.5e) and needed a justification for why there's suddenly all these Dragon people walking around the Forgotten Realms now. Ideally, they should have just snapped their fingers and said "Dragonborn exist now, they've always existed." In which case, most people would judge the new race based on how interesting they were.

But, because the Forgotten Realms has this terrible tradition of using metaplot to change the setting in extreme ways, they came up with the idea that Dragonborn come from a continent on a parallel universe that was shunted onto Toril because the God of Lies murdered the Goddess of Magic (which is like the 3rd time she has died). And that's where Dragonborn come from, kids. Which is unbelievably stupid. Technically it's "justified/allowed" according to your guidelines for what makes a good "retcon," but that doesn't make it good. And a lot of people hated this justification, and dismissed the race as being terrible because WotC's lore for where they came from was terrible.

So, Goliaths are a core player race in the 2024 Player's Handbook, but they don't really have a big role in Eberron. There have been minor references to them before and Keith has proposed a few ways you could include them in your Eberron, but they are not a core Eberron race. Let's assume that WotC comes out with a new Eberron book in a year or two, and decide that all of the core races of the PHB need to have a major role on Eberron, but also assume your approach to worldbuilding, so they say "100 years have passed since the original Eberron starting date, and in that time a continent from an alternate universe has teleported to the setting and it's inhabited by Goliaths," I would think that's idiotic and proof WotC didn't understand the setting. I wouldn't buy that book and if any of my players asked to play a Goliath, I'd come up with literally any other justification for why they exist in the setting. Because the way Dragonborn were introduced to Eberron was infinitely better than this. But progressing the timeline in order to introduce a new race is stupid and ruins the feel of the world.

Which is why I think your approach to lore, where every change to a setting has to be justified with metaplot, is really bad. Just an awful approach to worldbuilding that would ruin so many of the settings that I love because you don't like retcons. It's way better to wave your hand and change the setting to how you want it to be. If the change is good, great! Future books in that setting can keep using it. But if the change sucks, they can just wave their hand again in the next book and ignore that it ever happened.

You consider consistency to be more important than quality. I consider quality to be more important than consistency.

You really think if WotC had just dropped dragonborn all over the Realms with no explanation people would have just shrugged and accepted it?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That's a pretty harsh judgment to make about all those creators who put time into justifying lore changes, both within official D&D and across a wide variety of other long-running media (Marvel Comics being one of the most significant examples). I don't think such creators were being anti-creative at all - what you describe actually sounds very creative, if not to your personal tastes.

I'm not calling the act of writing metaplots anti-creative. I'm calling the absolutist position that all lore changes must be justified by a metaplot or they're automatically bad uncreative.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You really think if WotC had just dropped dragonborn all over the Realms with no explanation people would have just shrugged and accepted it?

Sure. Eberron fans did for Dragonborn. The issue is the quality of the addition. Not whether a metaplot was used to justify it. Because, clearly, a lot of Forgotten Realms fans did not accept the Spellplague and all of its changes, which is why WotC had to walk it back with yet another metaplot in 5e.