D&D 5E Better Names than Xanthar's Guide to Everything

[Jester David]

The first real "splatbooks" for 5th Edition is due in November: Xanthar's Guide to Everything.

I hate the name. And not just because it should be "The Xantgar's Guide..."
The Xanthar is a pretty obscure character, and not really one that strikes me as an author, let alone one who would pen a guidebook (unlike Volo).
And unlike Volo's Guide to Monsters, nothing in the title tells you what to expect in the book. The only reason we guessed it was a splatbook/ accessory was that we were expecting one. (I actually thought it was going to be a young reader fluff book like Dungeonology...)

The name of this book seems to come from the desire not to give us books we've seen & bought before. So no "PHB 2” or "Dungeoneer's Handbook".
It really feels like they struggled to find a hook for this book. One that allowed them to include a wealth of generic options (that are so needed) but wasn't devoid of flavour. And this is what the committee finally settled on.

What else could they have named it?
Either serious, or humorous titles that would have been better than Xanthar's Guide to Everything

 

[Patrick McGill]

Honestly, it should have been called Unearthed Arcana. I understand them not wanting to retread ground, but to me Unearthed Arcana belongs on the shelf next the Players Handbook, The Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master's Guide. It's the fourth core book, or should be.

 

[Mercule]

Here's a list:
- The Morgrave Guide to Adventuring
- How to Not Die in the Dungeon
- The Murderhobo Handbook
- Machine of Lum the Mad
- Codex of Infinite Planes
- Book of Exalted Deeds (not accurate to original name, but cool, IMO)
- Tasselhoff's Book of Lore

Personally, I like the The Morgrave (University) Guide to Adventuring best.

I also really like the idea of a Codex of Infinite Planes where they Wizards just sucks it up and puts the bare minimum support they can for the top-shelf settings and then let's them be free on DMs Guild. Assuming a 196 page count book, they could spend 30 pages (plus graphics and maps) on each of Greyhawk, Eberron, Planescape, Krynn, and Dark Sun, which seem to be the most popular settings. Do a map for each, with a pretty high-level overview and a few mechanics, as needed. So, Eberron gets Dragonmarks, the Artifacer, and a handful of races. Dark Sun gets the Preserver and a handful of races, maybe some sort of psionics framework. Krynn gets Knight of Solamnia as a Fighter kit, lunar effects on magic, and some races. I don't know Planescape well enough to comment. Greyhawk probably doesn't need any mechanical stuff, so it could donate a few pages, but it should at least describe the human ethnicities.

 

[Prakriti]

Xanthar's guide would indeed be a terrible title. Luckily, they spelled the infamous beholder's name correctly, so we can rest easy.

All joking aside, I agree with you and Patrick. It's an awful name for a book, and this book in particular. Unearthed Arcana was the way to go. If they wanted to avoid repeating themselves, then I would still prefer a setting-neutral title that fits with the handbook theme of the existing core books: Adventurer's Vault, Hero's Guide, Fantastic Discoveries, Exotic Heroes, Untold Legends, Arcane Encyclopedia...

That said, I do LOVE the concept of having two complementary books: one written by a human about monsters (Volo's Guide) and one written by a monster about humans (Xanathar's Guide). That's really amusing to me, and quite ingenious. But the concept really isn't obvious from the title. Xanathar's Guide to Adventurers would have been much better. But even then, it still wouldn't be the right title for a book like this.

 

[Quickleaf]

Honestly, it should have been called Unearthed Arcana. I understand them not wanting to retread ground, but to me Unearthed Arcana belongs on the shelf next the Players Handbook, The Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master's Guide. It's the fourth core book, or should be.

Xanthar's guide would indeed be a terrible title. Luckily, they spelled the infamous beholder's name correctly, so we can rest easy.

All joking aside, I agree with you and Patrick. It's an awful name for a book, and this book in particular. Unearthed Arcana was the way to go. If they wanted to avoid repeating themselves, then I would still prefer a setting-neutral title that fits with the handbook theme of the existing core books: Adventurer's Vault, Hero's Guide, Fantastic Discoveries, Exotic Heroes, Untold Legends, Arcane Encyclopedia...

That said, I do LOVE the concept of having two complementary books: one written by a human about monsters (Volo's Guide) and one written by a monster about humans (Xanathar's Guide). That's really amusing to me, and quite ingenious. But the concept really isn't obvious from the title. Xanathar's Guide to Adventurers would have been much better. But even then, it still wouldn't be the right title for a book like this.

Unearthed Arcana. Thirded.

EDIT: And I fully agree with you that a book written by a monster about humans would be ingenious.

 

[Jester David]

I'd have liked something like VanRichten's Guide to Adventuring or VanRichten's Monster Hunter's Handbook.
But Unearthed Arcana would have also been good.

 

[Satyrn]

Satyrn's Stuff and Such

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

The Nameless One's Dodecahedron Journal, with every new archetype being described as a previous life of the character.

 

[happyhermit]

Unearthed Arcana would be needlessly confusing IMO, not very confusing mind you, but enough to make it not an automatic choice.

"Is Unearthed Arcana allowed?" "Do you mean the book or on the website?"

They already used the flip side of "Arcana Unearthed" and I don't really see the benefit to naming the two things the same, have seen that cause problems in other areas.

 

[Dualazi]

"Xanathar's Guide to Everything Except the Warlord"

Sorry, it had to be done.