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If you use standard 2014 rules, there are some excellent third-party monster manuals that can help with encounter design. Kobold Press (who also make TotV) have four excellent ones, the Tome of Beasts volumes 1-3 and Creature Codex. As a bonus, each of those manuals also has a Book of Lairs with...

He touched on that elsewhere in the video. He suspects "fastest-selling" is a weasel word designed to conceal the fact that it's not doing as well as they want to project.

Mearls later goes on to say that he thinks D&D may never recover and that we may be living in a "post-D&D" landscape. I would think someone who's been in the business as long as he has would realize how cyclical these trends are.

Approximately where in the video is that? Do you have a timestamp?

I roll insight for the player, so they don't know what the dice said. If it's a natural 20, I might say something like "You're very sure this guy is telling the truth." But I might say the same if it's a natural 1 and the guy is lying.

I probably should have said "specialized" instead of "unique."

I'm not sure I buy that because they actually got the anti-orc treatment. They used to have more versatility, which has now been removed. I don't know that playable vs non-playable is a factor in NPC design.

And you have to modify the stat block, which you don't for orcs. And the point of this article was how great it was that you could use humanoid stat blocks for orcs without having to modify them, and how wonderfully versatile orcs now are, which they weren't before. If modifying the stat block...

Ah, okay, if that's your definition of core, then yeah, I get you there.

Just not as many as humanoids. Orcs had a few unique stat blocks in 2014, but now they have many more. Playable or not playable doesn't really affect available NPC options. (Also, orcs are core but goblins aren't? Has this been stated, or is it just speculation?)

Okay, so what if you have a band of malevolent fey raiders but you want a special stat block for their leader, and you reach for the "bandit captain"? Same problem. Your parties never include wizards, clerics, or bards? What does that have to do with whether the 2025 monster manual is being...

I'm not saying the problem is insurmountable. I'm saying that the convenience which the article touts for orcs being able to use humanoid stat blocks has just been removed from goblins. I'm saying the design of the game is being inconsistent, giving with one hand and taking with the other. And...

So in my hypothetical goblin village, you don't see a problem with the idea that the every goblin-on-the-street is immune to hold person, but every town guard is not? Because for me, that is kinda brain-breaking.

They did, but I personally think quippers are cooler than piranha. I can't see any reason to eliminate them from the monster manual.

Why the heck did they take out quippers?

Of course you can do that. But being fey still has mechanical implications, which you're stripping away by using the humanoid statblock. And if you're going to strip those implications every time you have an NPC with a specialized niche, I repeat, why bother to make goblins fey in the first place?

They said PC goblins can be humanoids. I think we're still waiting to see whether any NPC goblins going forward are humanoid, unless there's an announcement I've missed. And if you treat all goblins as humanoids for purposes of using the generic stat blocks, why bother to make them fey in the...

So the article's point is that now orc NPCs can use all the generic humanoid statblocks. But goblin NPCs can't, because goblins are now fey, and fey don't have the same range of generic statblocks as humanoids. Does this seem like "one step forward, one step back" to anyone else? (In terms of...

There is, but even "post-apocalypse but rebuilding with hope for the future" is low on my list of things I want to play. Just personal preference.

Yeah, I'd prefer something like this too. I love the idea of this project, but one post in, the setting became post-apocalyptic, which is my least favorite genre of fantasy. Not trying to rain on anyone's parade, just offering the minority opinion.