As I pointed out in my post, the only bit of lore there that actually adds something to our understanding of doppelgangers and their place in the gameworld is the bit about them being artificial creations - which is, as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] said, presented as a "rumour", not as fact.So now we've moved from proving the claim by @Hussar that there was only unreliable/no lore before 3e to... does the lore of AD&D 2e impress pemerton.
My point is that it is the only bit of the "lore" that isn't just reiterating basic mechanical information about doppelgangers, or their appearance, or utterly banal and generic (yet oddly contradictory) stuff, like them being greedy and hence robbing the people they imitate.one sentence out of the entire entry which puts forth numerous fact about dopplegangers that were not in the 1e monster manual ios written from the unreliable perspective... I'm sorry but that's a far cry from most to all of the lore being written in that tone.
In AD&D they also have AC 5 yet no armour in the picture - so we can infer they have some sort of hide. And the picture shows them to be hairless - the tops of their brains are exposed!You do realize before this there is no mention of skin color, being hairless or having a hide in 1e
The greyness is, indeed, an exciting new fact. (Rivalled only by the rumoured off-white walls of their homes!)
Except for the "Very" entry in their intelligence stat - which is why I pointed out the redundancy of the 2nd ed entry, which in my experience is a common feature of 2nd ed monster descriptions.this is the first time they are called out as intelligent which the 1e entry doesn't mention...
I'm saying that if generic verbiage about monsters being lazy (yet careful planners - not any less contradictory 24 hours later) and about using their shapeshifting powers to take the place of adventurers (something which is the whole raison d'etre for doppelgangers as monsters) is what counts as "impressive lore", then the bar is being set so low it's not even being set.Remember we are speaking to whether there is or isn't lore in AD&D 2e not whether it impresses you specifically.
We already knew that doppelgangers hang out in small-ish groups (3-12 encountered in the 1st ed AD&D MM). We already knew they are greedy and self-aggrandising (Chaotic alignment in their original incarnation). Telling us that wizards sometimes hire them as spies is about as informative as telling us that their victims don't like having their identity snatched. It's banal and obviouis. It's not adding anything new to the fiction of the game.
The entry for doppelgangers in Gygax's city encounter chart actually tells us more about the place of doppelgangers in the world than anything in that 2nd ed entry: by telling us that encounters with doppelangers "will normally take place only near deserted
places where there are entrances to the underworld, ruins, and the like" (DMG p 191) Gygax calls out doppelgangers as creatures of the underworld (akin in that respect to mind flayers, beholders, ropers et al) rather than more ordinary beings of the surface world, human communities etc.
The basics are that they are vicious shapechangers. To reiterate: I don't need "lore" to tell me that such beings are well-suited to being spies and assassins. It's self-evident. To borrow Mearls's language, even a rookie GM could come up with that.I have to ask what basics are you referring to?
We wouldn't. As I noted, that's one of the two bits of genuine lore in that entry (the other being that they are artificial beings - again, why artificial beings would live in tribes is not explained).Why would we assume they all come from the same tribe?
But unlike the artificial beings bit, I don't think it's very interesting because tribes have never played any role in the presentation of doppelgangers (contrast, say, orcs and hobgoblins, or even - for a quite different take - cloud giants). So being told they are all one tribe is a bit like being told they all take the same size in underwear - like, OK, I didn't know that, but what difference does that make to how I think about doppelgangers in my game?
The bit about being artificial beings I've already noted - several times now.Were created to be assassins and spies in a great magical war ? That their creator died? They work efficiently as groups? That they are both greedy and cowardly? That they have grey hides and are hairless in their natural forms. None of this is in the 1e monster manual
That they are greedy and cowardly (and lazy yet careful planners) is implicit in their original alignment (though strangely at odds with their neutral alignment). That they are hairless we already knew, from the picture in the AD&D MM. Likewise that they are AC 5 even unarmoured. That they are grey is new but (I contend) of little significance - I have run encounters with doppelgangers over the years, and their colour has never come up, because - wait for it - they are shapechanged into someone else! (Almost always one of the PCs.)
Here is what I found on p 71 of the MM (my MM seems to carry a bit more text than yours; I've added some comments in bold):I was curious about the lore for the doppleganger in the 4e MM... leaving out the mechanical stuff of course.
The consumage shapechangber, a doppelganger can bring entire kingdoms to ruin through duplicity and subterfuge without ever drawing a sword.
This is an abbreviated version of all the stuff about this in the 2nd ed book - again, largely self-evident. I'll also note that the picture shows them with hair, though we don't know if that's a true form or not.
Doppelgangers are much like humans in their behavior, and as such, an individual doppelganger might have any disposition
imaginable.
This is a departure from the 2nd ed description - between this and the two examples given, one unaligned and one evil, we can see an attempt to reconcile the chaotic and neutral versions of doppelgangers, plus the stuff about them being greedy, lazy etc. I think this is also connected to the idea that doppelgangers and changelings are the same thing, and hence - in Eberron campaigns, at least - doppelgangers are a playable race.
[A] doppelganger sneak . . . has no reservations about fleeing if the battle turns ill, using change shape at the earliest opportunity to lose itself in a crowd.
This seems consistent with the cowardice mentioned in the 2nd ed AD&D entry.
A doppelganger assassin might trail the party, waiting to lure a single victim away from the others, murder him, and take his place. It might also pose as a potential ally or someone in need. Once revealed for what it is, the doppelganger uses shapeshifter feint to gain combat advantage and cloud mind to escape if the battle turns against it.
This is all pretty basic stuff - and is largely the same as the stuff in the 2nd ed book about imitating victims, adopting confusion tactics if the attempt fails, etc.
A doppelganger might look like an eladrin wizard, a dwarf fighter, or even a dragonborn paladin. It can’t duplicate a person’s apparel or carried items, so it must dress and equip itself for the part. For this reason, it keeps several changes of clothing in its lair.
This is mostly pretty basic stuff. The bit about clothes is a departure from AD&D, though -eg the AD&D MM even has a highlighted note (p 29) teling us that "A doppleganger actually forms itself into the likeness of the clothing and equipment of the imitated creature as well as the physical features thereof." When I ran a 4e doppelganger encounter I ignored this - living dangerously, I know - and ran it the old-fashioned way.
Doppelgangers can insinuate themselves into all sorts of groups. They also form alliances with intelligent creatures that realize the benefits of having shapechangers on their side.
This is much the same as the 2nd ed entry in respect of being spies and assassins, only briefer.
This is an abbreviated version of all the stuff about this in the 2nd ed book - again, largely self-evident. I'll also note that the picture shows them with hair, though we don't know if that's a true form or not.
Doppelgangers are much like humans in their behavior, and as such, an individual doppelganger might have any disposition
imaginable.
This is a departure from the 2nd ed description - between this and the two examples given, one unaligned and one evil, we can see an attempt to reconcile the chaotic and neutral versions of doppelgangers, plus the stuff about them being greedy, lazy etc. I think this is also connected to the idea that doppelgangers and changelings are the same thing, and hence - in Eberron campaigns, at least - doppelgangers are a playable race.
[A] doppelganger sneak . . . has no reservations about fleeing if the battle turns ill, using change shape at the earliest opportunity to lose itself in a crowd.
This seems consistent with the cowardice mentioned in the 2nd ed AD&D entry.
A doppelganger assassin might trail the party, waiting to lure a single victim away from the others, murder him, and take his place. It might also pose as a potential ally or someone in need. Once revealed for what it is, the doppelganger uses shapeshifter feint to gain combat advantage and cloud mind to escape if the battle turns against it.
This is all pretty basic stuff - and is largely the same as the stuff in the 2nd ed book about imitating victims, adopting confusion tactics if the attempt fails, etc.
A doppelganger might look like an eladrin wizard, a dwarf fighter, or even a dragonborn paladin. It can’t duplicate a person’s apparel or carried items, so it must dress and equip itself for the part. For this reason, it keeps several changes of clothing in its lair.
This is mostly pretty basic stuff. The bit about clothes is a departure from AD&D, though -eg the AD&D MM even has a highlighted note (p 29) teling us that "A doppleganger actually forms itself into the likeness of the clothing and equipment of the imitated creature as well as the physical features thereof." When I ran a 4e doppelganger encounter I ignored this - living dangerously, I know - and ran it the old-fashioned way.
Doppelgangers can insinuate themselves into all sorts of groups. They also form alliances with intelligent creatures that realize the benefits of having shapechangers on their side.
This is much the same as the 2nd ed entry in respect of being spies and assassins, only briefer.
The only thing that is in the 2nd ed lore that is not here is their origins as an artificial race, and the bit about a single tribe. Which is to say, the 4e entry has all the standard stuff one would expect in a discussion of shapechangers, and doesn't have these distinctive bits of origin story. (I assume that the entry for changelings in the Eberron book fills in this gap, though.)
Not that many words - by my count (and exlcuding my comments) 202 words. The habitat and ecology entries that [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] posted are over 450 words. The rest is 235, so a total of nearly 700 words to tell us that shapechangers work as spies and assassins and like to imitate people and steal their stuff.talk about alot of words to say nothing
The actually novel bit of the 2nd ed entry - "Dopplegangers are rumored to be artificial beings that were created long ago by a powerful wizard or godling. They were originally intended to be used as spies and assassins in an ancient, highly magical war. Their creator died long ago . . . All dopplegangers belong to a single tribe." - is 50 words, and could easily be edited down. The other 650 words is guff.
I mean, seriously - "They may wait until nightfall, or until their victims are alone, or even follow them to an inn." I can only assume that the writer was being paid per word (or, perhaps, that the one-monster-per-page format meant that they weren't too fussed about padding).