Paul Farquhar
Legend
I don’t believe he was keen on the Irish either. Are you familiar with Yeat’s attempt to collect folk tales around the 1920s, and just how utterly different they are to anything Tolkien?
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)
- Thread starter Morrus
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Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Settings aren't stories, they are a place to facilitate interesting stories. And the way settings are built to facilitate these stories needs to depend on which medium the setting is being made for. TTRPG settings need to be built to facilitate stories in game for the players. Just like how the mechanics of a game should be built to make the game fun to play, the lore of a world should be built to provide interesting races, characters, and story situations to craft an interesting story for the players at the table. It's a playground with problems for the players to resolve, not for fictional characters in some novels that progress a metaplot. If there is a really interesting villain in the setting (Erandis Vol, Lord of Blades, Kalak, Vecna, Xanathar, Lord Soth, Asmodeus) that gets killed off-screen by some NPCs in a novel which changes fundamental aspects of the TTRPG setting in future products, that is a mistake in TTRPG worldbuilding. It is not fun for the players sitting at the table when they learn that all the cool adventures were done off screen and the villains they were looking forward to fighting are now dead.
If 5e ever gets a Dark Sun book, Kalak better be alive so my players can kill him. If Eberron ever gets a new novel that reveals what caused the Mourning, that better not be canon to future Eberron setting books. If Sigil is destroyed in a future Planescape game/novel, it better still exist in the next setting book. If Acererak was permanently killed at Chris Perkin's table during Tomb of Annihilation, that should not prevent him from appearing in future D&D products. Baldur's Gate 4 should resolve the endings of Baldur's Gate 3, not the next Forgotten Realms setting book. What happens in D&D companion novels and video games should have just as much effect on future official D&D books as my table's campaigns do.
That's effectively what metaplot is. It's someone else's D&D group or headcanon interfering with how the setting works at other people's tables. Sorry, a half-dwarf in a fictional novel killed Dark Sun's big bad 3 decades ago, we're not allowed to publish his stats in 5e Dark Sun according to @Micah Sweet. Sorry, it is now 1098 YK in Eberron (100 years later), and everyone knows what caused the Mourning and all the interesting characters are dead. Sorry, Halaster Blackcloak was killed in a Forgotten Realms novel, Undermountain can't appear in future D&D adventures. Sorry, Frodo permanently defeated Sauron in the Lord of the Rings, now our Middle Earth campaign setting book has to take place after all the big problems were solved.
When you read a book or watch a show/movie/play, you feel enjoyment when problems are solved and villains are defeated because you saw it happen. In a game, you feel enjoyment by solving the problems and defeating the villains. If Darth Vader was killed off screen between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, that would have been bad writing for telling a good story in a movie series, a sin of filmmaking (show, don't tell). When Emperor Palpatine came back off screen in between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker in a freaking Fortnite announcement, that was a filmmaking sin and fundamentally awful storytelling. If a TTRPG metaplot in any way gets rid of a villain, answers an intentional mystery, or resolves other problems the players were intended to engage with, that is a TTRPG sin and bad worldbuilding. The players should do the cool stuff. The world should be designed around having cool stuff the players can do. Cool villains to kill, cool mysteries to solve, cool locations to explore, and interesting NPCs to interact with. There is no point in doing all of that worldbuilding just to toss it in the trash every time the timeline moves forward.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I understand where you're coming from but you and I are just not going to agree on this.
You don't want people to see your setting as an ongoing story? Don't present it as one. Far too late for that IMO for everything but Eberron.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
From just a bit of googling, it seems that Tolkien generally didn't like the Gaelic languages (Scots Gaelic and Irish). But he liked the country and Irish mythology had some influence on his writing.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Big fan of Finnish as well.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
No, it isn't "far too late." Your argument is "D&D has done worldbuilding wrong for decades, so they have to keep doing it that way forever, except for the one setting that got it right." Like I mentioned, steps can and have been taken to prevent this "setting is story" nonsense. Rewind Dark Sun to before Kalak was killed, so future players get to kill him too. Stop advancing the timeline in the Forgotten Realms and treat side novels and games as in their own homebrew version of that setting that doesn't affect the TTRPG books. Choose the point in time on the "metaplot" that best facilitates adventures and make that the permanent starting point for all future TTRPG books. Do what they did with 5e Ravenloft and 4e Dark Sun. They can and should go back to what made the settings interesting adventure locations in the first place.
Or do new players not get to experience killing Kalak, in the name of preserving your sacred metaplot? (Or should the DM for every table that want to kill Kalak have to be forced to homebrew rules for it?)
And do you have nothing to say about my premise of "players should do the cool stuff." How, on earth, could it possibly be fun for a new player to learn about a cool villain from a TTRPG setting just to be told that an NPC they'd never heard of before killed them? Or to have a cool location that was obliterated because of a metaplot so you can no longer have adventures there? Because that's precisely what your preferred method has lead to in several settings for decades (Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms again, Planescape).
Or my point on how lore justification for slight changes can just be pure stupid? You liked the origin of Dragonborn in 4e Forgotten Realms? You liked the Spellplague and think the Goddess of Magic getting murdered for the 3rd time is fine? The Mark of Asmodeus from the SCAG was okay?
So, for context, the SCAG for some reason felt the need to explain why all Tieflings are connected to Asmodeus now in this bit of lore.
During the Spellplague, Asmodeus consumed the divine spark of Azuth and thereby achieved godhood. Subsequently, Asmodeus and a coven of warlocks, the Toril Thirteen, performed a rite wherein the archdevil claimed all tieflings in the world as his own, cursing them to bear “the blood of Asmodeus.” This act marked all tieflings as “descendants” of the Lord of the Nine Hells, regardless of their true heritage, and changed them into creatures that resembled their supposed progenitor. The other folk of Faerûn, unnerved by the appearance of these devil-beings, became suspicious of all tieflings and occasionally hostile to them.
In spite of what some people believe, however, Asmodeus exerts no power over his “children,” and tieflings today are as free-willed — and willful — as they ever have been. Some do choose to serve the Lord of the Nine Hells and his schemes, while others align themselves with different fiendish factions, or none at all, doing their best to stay out of infernal politics.
Since the ritual that spread the curse of Asmodeus a century ago, tieflings have been born on Faerûn that belong to other infernal bloodlines, but those that bear the mark of the archdevil (and their descendants) remain the most numerous examples of their kind by far.
Tieflings in Faerûn generally have the racial traits of tieflings in the Player’s Handbook, except that those not descended from Asmodeus might exhibit different qualities; see the “Tiefling Variants” sidebar.
In spite of what some people believe, however, Asmodeus exerts no power over his “children,” and tieflings today are as free-willed — and willful — as they ever have been. Some do choose to serve the Lord of the Nine Hells and his schemes, while others align themselves with different fiendish factions, or none at all, doing their best to stay out of infernal politics.
Since the ritual that spread the curse of Asmodeus a century ago, tieflings have been born on Faerûn that belong to other infernal bloodlines, but those that bear the mark of the archdevil (and their descendants) remain the most numerous examples of their kind by far.
Tieflings in Faerûn generally have the racial traits of tieflings in the Player’s Handbook, except that those not descended from Asmodeus might exhibit different qualities; see the “Tiefling Variants” sidebar.
Why don't you agree to disagree with WotC, instead of publicly complaining about their approach to lore in dozens of threads for over three and a half years? Because every thread about a new book gets derailed by you complaining about canon and metaplots not being a thing anymore. You say you see where I'm coming from through my posts, and I believe you, but I can't say the same because you don't support your arguments with anything. I cannot construct a coherent approach to worldbuilding from "retcons bad, metaplot good."
I understand if you don't respond to this post. I get that my posts are long and rambling. That's just because I'm passionate about this subject and want to understand your perspective. It intrigues, confuses, and annoys me so I want to finally make sense of it after all these years of talking with you.
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mamba
Legend
Yes, see the 2024 PHB and its new races.
It also is less of a change than dropping them all over the realms and adding some other change to explain how they got there…
Paul Farquhar
Legend
According to the Monster Manual there are hundreds of different sentient species in the Forgotten Realms. It's easy for some to pass unnoticed.
JEB
Legend
Weren't the new 2024 PHB races already in the Realms, with Realms lore for them in earlier 5e books? Unless you're referring to the lore changes they received. In which case, we haven't seen how the 2025 Realms books will treat the new versions. (Or how the 2025 Realms books will treat the setting's long history in general.)
Crimson Longinus
Legend
I think someone already said it, but what I would like to see is simplified representations of each class for each tier in monster statblock form. That would be very useful to me. There are some statblocks that are like that, but not for all classes and there is no consistency. They of course could not have everything an actual PC has, but should have signature abilities of the class; sneak attack for rogues, rage for barbarians, wildshape for druids etc.
