Coming in May: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes! [UPDATED!]

So they just gave the title and showed the cover mock-ups; no specific info till Monday?

 

[Jester David]

I have to agree. Mordenkainen's Guide to the Planes or Multiverse would have been much better. And if those titles don't fit the book's content well enough, then... the book's content is a problem too.

Volo's Guide to Monsters was a great name that explained what the book was about: monsters and a guide to them. It set you up for the flavour and contents. The book was focused, with monstrouseas PC races.
Tales from the Yawning Portal was so-so. You can tell it was a tacked on name they came up with at the last minute. It really needed a map of the tavern and an introduction to each dungeon as told by the people of the tavern
Xanathar's Guide to Everything was such a terrible name. It gave you zero idea what was in it. Player book? DM book? It really sounded more guidebook, a sequel to Dungeonology.

This just continues that tradition. They're so desperate to be original and not use old names that they're doing a terrible job of naming the books.
This sounds more like a Monster Manual that Volo's Guide to Monsters. It doesn't imply anything but monster.

And, really, after VGtM, Tome of Beats, the upcoming Creature Codex, Fifth Edition Foes, Tome of Horrors 5e I don't really need a lot of monsters. I need more lore, expanded rules for planes, and a better presentation of that information than in 1e. Maybe some variant monster rules for planar threats.

 

[tmanbeaubien]

Awesome! Do you know what I was just thinking to myself today?

"Self, do you know what D&D needs? MOAR ELFS! You know, for when you're hungry. Let's see ... you can barbecue elf, boil elf, broil elf, bake elf, saute elf. There's uh, elf-kabobs, elf creole, elf gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple elf, lemon elf, coconut elf, pepper elf, elf soup, elf stew, elf salad, elf and potatoes, elf burger, elf sandwich. And then you can get them in all your varieties; I like me some Wood elf stew for those cold nights on the ethereal plane."

And don't forget -
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked elves and spam!

 

[Remathilis]

I don’t follow your logic at all. The Blood War is a bad example when I mention it, but just fine when someone else mentions it?

Okay.

Don't mind him. Just another person who thinks D&D is a generic toolset devoid of any sort of story or setting identity.

 

[Olive]

Obviously other people's mileage differs here but at the end of the day I don't care what it's called, or what it's cover looks like (or how many there are although I think the different covers are a nice thing for the gaming shops). What I care about is if the books are useful for me and my gaming group.

We started a new campaign last week and we've already used every non-adventure book put out for 5e - we've used spells from Xanthar's and monsters from Volo's as well as the core books. I've played or run other games that used races from Volo's and player options from Xanthar's as well. The books have been, to my mind, great. I played a lot of 3/3.5 and I bought almost every WotC book but I would be hard pressed to say what books saw regular use at the table. Bang for buck has been so much better in 5e.

I see a lot of complaints that there is too much Realms content but we play in a homebrew that is much closer in tone to Greyhawk than FR and it's never bothered me. So discussion on the Blood War (or specific planes or whatever) won't be useful to me at all but I'm sure we can figure out how to use the monsters and PC options in our games.

In short, I don't really get the idea that 'if it's not perfect, it's not useful' I'm seeing a bunch of. Perfect for you will be useless for someone else.

 

[Olive]

This just continues that tradition. They're so desperate to be original and not use old names that they're doing a terrible job of naming the books.

For the rule based books I quite like the names as at the table we can refer to Volo's, Xanthar's etc. It's more useful that PHB2 and, as the design team have pointed out, far less confusing.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Please, please, please don’t use another iconic Greyhawk hero, villain, or storyline to supplement the Forgotten Realms. Let’s actually have a product that actually features something else in this supposed vast and varied multiverse.

I'm not sure how you coming to this conclusion. From the sound of things, it would appear that this book will touch very lightly, on the Forgotten Realms (though I doubt it will be ignored entirely). Frankly, I would expect more coverage on Greyhawk conflicts/foes like Iuz before we'll see much on the Realms - and I expect that planar coverage will dwarf that of any specific setting world...

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[Charlaquin]

No. Just, no...again. Same problem. It's all FAR to 'campaign specific'. All this would do is clutter up pages that could have been better spent helping a DM figure out his own deity/pantheon conflicts.

I didn’t say it was a good idea, just that it’s what the book sounds like it’s going to be, based on the blurb and recent activity on D&D Beyond and Unearthed Arcana.

 

[silentdante]

some of these comments make me wonder why they bother playing the game at all

 

[RotGrub]

My only hope is that this book has a magical item like the Skull of Mondain, that when used, instantly kills all elf and dwarf subraces not found in the PHB.

 

[darjr]

So some of the code names make sense after the fact, some.

Why then do you think they picked this code name?