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*Dungeons & Dragons
2025 Monster Manual to Introduce Male Versions of Hags, Medusas, and Dryads
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<blockquote data-quote="Echohawk" data-source="post: 9550878" data-attributes="member: 9849"><p style="text-align: justify">I think you are both demonstrating significant selection bias here. If you take the time to <a href="https://www.enworld.org/wiki/monster_encyclopedia/" target="_blank">compare lore for specific monsters across editions</a>, 5e comes in about average compared to previous editions, at least in terms of quantity. Quality is, of course, entirely subjective.</p> <p style="text-align: justify"></p> <p style="text-align: justify">3e and 4e both had some lore-heavy <em>Monster Manuals</em>, with the <em>Monster Manual V</em> and <em>Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale</em> immediately springing to mind. And while the 2e <em>Monstrous Manual</em> is a wonderful book, a fair number of the entries suffer from the requirement that they take up exactly a page. While this forced some writers to get creative in producing interesting lore, there are also plenty of creatures with several paragraphs spent on unnecessarily complicated subsystems for that monster's abilities and quite a few that badly need an editing pass to deal with internal inconsistencies or incoherent wording.</p> <p style="text-align: justify"></p> <p style="text-align: justify">When it comes to monster lore, every edition has strengths and weaknesses. That often depends on exactly which creature you're looking at, and, frankly, personal taste. In my opinion, anyone trying to make a claim that a specific edition is unequivocally best for monster lore is likely to simply be displaying their own edition biases.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Echohawk, post: 9550878, member: 9849"] [JUSTIFY]I think you are both demonstrating significant selection bias here. If you take the time to [URL='https://www.enworld.org/wiki/monster_encyclopedia/']compare lore for specific monsters across editions[/URL], 5e comes in about average compared to previous editions, at least in terms of quantity. Quality is, of course, entirely subjective. 3e and 4e both had some lore-heavy [I]Monster Manuals[/I], with the [I]Monster Manual V[/I] and [I]Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale[/I] immediately springing to mind. And while the 2e [I]Monstrous Manual[/I] is a wonderful book, a fair number of the entries suffer from the requirement that they take up exactly a page. While this forced some writers to get creative in producing interesting lore, there are also plenty of creatures with several paragraphs spent on unnecessarily complicated subsystems for that monster's abilities and quite a few that badly need an editing pass to deal with internal inconsistencies or incoherent wording. When it comes to monster lore, every edition has strengths and weaknesses. That often depends on exactly which creature you're looking at, and, frankly, personal taste. In my opinion, anyone trying to make a claim that a specific edition is unequivocally best for monster lore is likely to simply be displaying their own edition biases.[/JUSTIFY] [/QUOTE]
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2025 Monster Manual to Introduce Male Versions of Hags, Medusas, and Dryads
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