D&D 5E A Compilation of all the Race Changes in Monsters of the Multiverse

Over on Reddit, user KingJackel went through the video leak which came out a few days ago and manually compiled a list of all the changes to races in the book. The changes are quite extensive, with only the fairy and harengon remaining unchanged. The book contains 33 races in total, compiled and updated from previous Dungeons & Dragons books.

D&D 5E - List of All 33 Races in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains 33 races compiled from previous Dungeons & Dragons books. Aarackocra Assimar Bugbear Centaur Changeling Deep Gnome Duergar Eladrin Fairy Firbolg Genasi, Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Fire Gennasi, Water Githyanki Githzerai Goblin Goliath...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Full List of Monsters in Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains revamped stat blocks for 260 monsters previously published in previous Dungeons & Dragons 5E books. The list was compiled by YouTuber Bob Worldbuilder based on some blurry screenshots originally shared by Nerd Immersion (see the video...

www.enworld.org

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

There's an article at Gizmodo with some commentary by Jeremy Crawford on the changes in the book.

I found this bit interesting -

“We also removed any traits that were cultural as opposed to physical or magical—you’ll also see we’ve done something on the game design side, which is that the ability score increases do not appear in the races in this book. Instead, players will be able to have a floating set of bonuses during the determination phase of character creation rather than that being a part of their race selection.”

Maybe by the Anniversary Edition they'll be completely absorbed into the stat generation phase.

 

[Mordhau]

Jeremy Crawford from the Gizomdo article

“For quite some time, we have not liked how the choice of race in the game had often too much weight on the player’s choice of class,” Crawford admitted. “Fans often talk about this—that connection between race and class is not something we as designers actually desire. We want players to pick those two critical components of their character and choose the two that really sing to them so they don’t feel like they’re pigeonholed.

I feel that this is revising history. If they didn't like it why did they design in that way? They focused race on specific classes overly much in early 4e and then later in the edition they introduced flexibility. Then in 5e they made the deliberate decision to double down on class based focus. Races being directed toward certain class was obviously a longstanding design intention.

 

[Malmuria]

There's an article at Gizmodo with some commentary by Jeremy Crawford on the changes in the book.

I found this bit interesting -

“We also removed any traits that were cultural as opposed to physical or magical—you’ll also see we’ve done something on the game design side, which is that the ability score increases do not appear in the races in this book. Instead, players will be able to have a floating set of bonuses during the determination phase of character creation rather than that being a part of their race selection.”

Maybe by the Anniversary Edition they'll be completely absorbed into the stat generation phase.

The Crawford quotes seem to come from “virtual event promoting the upcoming launch of Monsters of the Multiverse.” So I take it that the author of the article did not interview Crawford, but is simply summarizing the press event.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Jeremy Crawford from the Gizomdo article



I feel that this is revising history. If they didn't like it why did they design in that way?

I'm assuming a mix of tradition and a change of design in the past 7.5ish years of D&D 5e's history. They said "for quite some time", not "for ever since this edition started". And even if it was "we didn't like this from the start" the answer "but they were rolling things back from the 4e changes that were largely unpopular, and wanted to keep whatever they thought people would like from traditional D&D to be safe" is still a viable one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Jeremy Crawford from the Gizomdo article



I feel that this is revising history. If they didn't like it why did they design in that way? They focused race on specific classes overly much in early 4e and then later in the edition they introduced flexibility. Then in 5e they made the deliberate decision to double down on class based focus. Races being directed toward certain class was obviously a longstanding design intention.

Yeah, that is pure media spin. They've changed their policy for reasons that have nothing to do to with game design.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm assuming a mix of tradition and a change of design in the past 7.5ish years of D&D 5e's history. They said "for quite some time", not "for ever since this edition started". And even if it was "we didn't like this from the start" the answer "but they were rolling things back from the 4e changes that were largely unpopular, and wanted to keep whatever they thought people would like from traditional D&D to be safe" is still a viable one.

You know, if they would admit to that answer, that would be ok too. But they won't.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You know, if they would admit to that answer, that would be ok too. But they won't.

How do you know that? Have you (or anyone else) asked them?

 

[Micah Sweet]

How do you know that? Have you (or anyone else) asked them?

There is no way they would ever admit that changes made in 4e were unpopular. It would reflect poorly on WotC.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Jeremy Crawford from the Gizomdo article



I feel that this is revising history. If they didn't like it why did they design in that way? They focused race on specific classes overly much in early 4e and then later in the edition they introduced flexibility. Then in 5e they made the deliberate decision to double down on class based focus. Races being directed toward certain class was obviously a longstanding design intention.

And you can change it if you feel it was not agood choice.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And you can change it if you feel it was not agood choice.

They didn't say they changed their minds. They said it wasn't their intention at all, and that's just not true.