D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

[schneeland]

I'm pretty sure that's coming in 2024.

I would hope so (as @Ruin Explorer correctly observed, there are setting books for 5e that illustrate that a middle ground in terms of detail is possible). On the other hand, I'm not sure - I feel if they wanted, they could have published such a book already. I can only assume that either they felt it is already too late in the edition life-time or they find it too useful not having to care about consistency.

 

[Scott Christian]

Throw in cat people who were created by a heretofore unheard of "cat lord". But if I get to play the tabaxi Antonio who wears a hat with a feather in it and boots? It's all good.
View attachment 254932

Haha - it is good.

 

[Oofta]

I would hope so (as @Ruin Explorer correctly observed, there are setting books for 5e that illustrate that a middle ground in terms of detail is possible). On the other hand, I'm not sure - I feel if they wanted, they could have published such a book already. I can only assume that either they felt it is already too late in the edition life-time or they find it too useful not having to care about consistency.

I think it would be unimaginably difficult to have a new comprehensive campaign book for FR that was consistent with all the preexisting lore while also adding anything new. Unless of course they just reboot everything. If they did that I think there's a possibility of torches and pitchforks coming out.

 

[schneeland]

I think it would be unimaginably difficult to have a new comprehensive campaign book for FR that was consistent with all the preexisting lore while also adding anything new. Unless of course they just reboot everything. If they did that I think there's a possibility of torches and pitchforks coming out.

I agree that it would be quite a bit of work - this is why I would like to just throw some money on WotC for it instead of doing it myself

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I will say, in the spirit of the OP, I have seen a seeming shift in the conversation regarding 5e over the past...year, perhaps two years at most.

That is, up until a year or two ago, it was strange to go more than a few months without someone gushing over 5e, showering it with praise and adulation. I personally found such threads quite tedious, and thus stayed far away. But I noticed their presence. Obviously such threads were very common when 5e first came out so people were all jumping on the bandwagon as it were, but even after they died down, they remained pretty steady for quite a while. As stated, if more than a couple months went by without a thread like that, it was a surprise.

And then, they seemed to slow and stop. Obviously it's hard to notice an absence, but as I said, over the past year or two it seems like people have shifted their attitude about 5e. It's no longer all sunshine and rainbows and puppies for everyone and eternal sugar-frosted happiness for all. There's a certain....I wouldn't call it "disillusionment," that's much too strong, but perhaps "chagrin"? Maybe it would be better to say the honeymoon has well and truly worn off, and the day-to-day foibles and the chafe of certain restrictions has begun to show. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that things like Level Up and other, similar projects (as well as rumors about a "50th anniversary" update etc., which we know have since been soft-confirmed) started gaining traction around this time.

5e's golden dawn has faded. Plenty of people still obviously love it, not at all trying to imply otherwise. But I'm not seeing that outrightly effusive "ermahGERD I just HAVE to talk about how AWESOME this is" stance anymore. Some folks are criticizing changes in art direction (y'know, that tedious brouhaha we had recently.) Some are criticizing the mechanics. Some, as noted, chafe under the restrictions of the rules that exist, wanting more options or more customization or more depth, etc.

Whether 5e is the "silver age" of D&D or not, I don't know. I don't personally think the "gold/silver/bronze/dark/etc." age terminology is particularly effective, but who knows? But I think we have hit the silver age of 5e individually. The gold hour has faded to the silver light of day, and some folks have noticed a bit of tarnish here and there.

 

[Parmandur]

In part due to the objectively decreasing page-counts and word-counts dedicated to lore/settings (whilst the page-counts for monsters and adventures increase), even within supposed setting-books, a lot of 5E lore is simply very shallow/cursory.

This here, particularly, IA the heart of my point, though: yes, lore page counts are down, but whether that is good or bad are subjective and relative to taste. One person's "simply very shallow/cursory" is another's "streamlined usable GSM material." There is no objective value there.

 

[Weiley31]

5e might mechanically be the best system and it's certainly the most popular (possibly soon to be even more so), but is far from D&D's second golden age.

It simply doesn't approach AD&D depth of lore, heck it doesn't even out do Basic D&D on lore. This isn't an edition war post, mechncally and certain other ways 5e is my favourite edition, but I don't pretend its something its not, a golden age.

Social Media/Pop culture is fueling D&D's popularity. Playtesters pushed WotC in a direction, accidentily, that just dove tailed with streaming and other cultural pheonomana.

Compare to AD&D the lore is extremely shallow, occasionally self contradictory in the sane book, shallow (deserved to be said twice), and often is starved for room because 5e books try to be too many things at once, and so do few to none of them well.

Hell even 4e had deeper dives into settings it did.

It also confusingly mixes generic D&D lore with FR lore sowing confusion. I'm still baffled by much of MToFs lore and parts of VGtM.

3rd parties shouldn't be vastly out doing WotC on quality & support of their settings. I bought the core 5e Southland books from their Kickstarter and it straight up kicks the ass of WotC's best, most well done 5e setting books. Its not alone in doing so. I wish WotC supported it's settings half as well as Kobold press does there's. Honestly the paper quality and the binding quality for Southlands is also vastly superior.

Also they killed most of the novel lines in 5e just as things were getting good. This we do not forgive or forget!





So no it's not a Golden Age, it's system and current popular earn it silver at best.

 

[DarkCrisis]

One real downside is the world lore will never move forward short of Drizzt novels and Faerun video games.

Dragonlance is probably about to get the last trilogy is will ever receive

 

[MGibster]

And frankly, who really cares about lore?
My Greyhawk is different than anyone else's.
My Forgotten Realms are different than anyone else's.

I guess the people who like the lore care about it? Look, if I show up to a Vampire the Masqurade game and the GM tells me, "Okay, in my Vampire, all the kidred have been conquered and enslaved by the Technocracy who enforce their will through your Werewolf overseers in a post-apocalyptic dystopian cyberpunk future" I'm going to be a little upset because that's not the game I signed up for.

I don't really care if there are minor changes to the lore in most games I play. If Xanathar didn't exist in your Forgotten Realms game I wouldn't care one bit. I'm not going to care if we go to Daggerford and the right lord isn't in charge. But if you made enough changes, I'd probably ask you why we were playing in the Forgotten Realms to begin with. I was a big fan of Dark Sun when it was first released, but when they revised the setting just a few short year later, I didn't like it as much and I didn't want to play it anymore. So some of us care about lore.

 

[MGibster]

Not a fan of lore. Some is needed but I regard lore an enemy of new players and especially DM, particularly if given the impression that they need lore knowledge to play.

While I'm a fan of lore, there is certainly such a thing as too much. When you've got new players, start small, and feed them the tidbits they need to get the adventure. Do they need to know the current situation between the monarch, his wife, and his two mistresses? Not unless it has some relevance to gameplay. Do they need to know what happened 2,000 years ago on the top of the Cliffs of Woe? Again, not unless it has some relevance to their adventure/campaign.

I mentioned the first Star Wars movie in another thread as a good example of giving the audience some background. In the first 15 minutes, we learn that the emperor has dissolved the senate and seized total power, there's a growing rebellion against his unjust rule, and there was a Clone War in the not so distant past. We don't get bogged down in details because we don't need it. This knowledge adds to the story and gives us a sense that there's a bigger world out there.

And quite frankly, while I have fond memories of the many, many splat books from 2nd edition AD&D, looking back, how much of it did I really use in my games? Hardly any of it made any meaningful contributions to my game.