D&D 5E 2024 Monster Manual has better lore than 2014 Monster Manual

kayakingpoodle said:

I do not want the core books to be setting books. I want the PHB and DMG to be rule books, and the MM to be a manual with lore, not a catalog of statblocks and art.

Click to expand...

Voadam said:

The problem with leave lore for setting books is that there is no baseline lore a setting can rely upon or diverge from. The 24 DMG provides no monster lore for its sample Greyhawk setting and relies upon the MM or the DM to fill in its blanks. Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance and even Eberron have traditionally relied upon a lot of core monster lore and generally only specified when such things diverged such as Dragonlance's Graygem origins for minotaurs and goblins and ogres or Eberron's druidic culture generally neutral not Gruumsh based orcs.

Leaving lore for settings means leaving a lot of core monsters without that baseline lore ever being specified.

Click to expand...

Voadam said:

That's a pretty big lore change for them, particularly for Iuz the most famous exemplar of cambions in D&D and an important figure in Greyhawk. Does it say anything about Iuz's origin as a cambion now that it is not son of Iggwilv and Grazz't?

Click to expand...

TheSword said:

I think what we are seeing is a bit of selective over-generalization. The worst parts of the 2024 MM are being used to generalize the whole of the 2024 MM while the best of other products are used to generalize all alternatives. There isn’t parity in the discussion.

Click to expand...

dave2008 said:

Also, and I know this will not satisfy people, but a lot of D&D lore is located in the 2024 DMG lore glossary. It doesn't fill all the gaps in the 5e24 MM lore, but it covers a lot and also adds quite a bit that was not present in the OG 5e books.

I like the idea that the core books all work together (as the designers have noted several times) and you don't need to cover it twice. I actually wish this concept had been expanded and more thorough. So I wish some of the traditional D&D monster lore that is missing (for monster groups) had been moved to the DMG and possibly even some of the lore we have in the 2024 MM reduced or made even more concise (and some moved to the DMG). So you go to the DMG for lore (game prep) and the MM for a catalog of stats and images (as @kayakingpoodle suggested) that can be used at the table during a game.

Click to expand...

dave2008 said:

Costs. Those books do very well for the author, but the sales are a tiny fraction of the sales WotC gets and would not justify the cost to make the book (much higher overhead). Now, I would guess WotC could get much greater sales.

Personally, I am all for a generic monster book with less lore then we have in 5e24 MM. However, I would want many more monster books that give extensive lore and options for settings and groups of monsters (like demons, devils, dragons, etc.).

Click to expand...

kayakingpoodle said:

For the record I did not suggest this I warned against the MM becoming a catalog of statblocks and art. Please do not take comments out of context.

Click to expand...

Reynard said:

I think if WotC put out a "Monster Manual Advanced" it would be their best selling book besides the PHB.

Click to expand...