D&D 5E How Much Lore is Enough?

[DEFCON 1]

I took a look at the Basic Game's DMs rules. That had a whole bunch of monsters in it. Had no "offending lore" to have to work around, either. Stat blocks only.

I cannot say that it was a better product because of it being that way though. But if you want lore-free monsters... there ya go.

 

[TwoSix]

I have no issue with it. Easy enough to reskin if a specific campaign demands it, and gives hooks when you're running a generic campaign. Might impact you if you're running a homebrew world with players who don't buy in and keep bringing up the standard tropes, but I'd usually argue you shouldn't do a homebrew world with a lot of customization without a high amount of player buy-in.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

If I care enough about the monster to create my own lore, I'll just ignore what's written in the Monster Manual. The great thing about WotC's approach is that now I feel encouraged to use more monsters. Reading through the Monster Manual I may find out that a monster that never sounded interesting to me has a cool background story that works pretty well with my own setting.

Basically, I never think about monster lore as a constraint to setting creation. I see lore entries, no matter how detailed they are, as an incentive to use a creature in my game.

 

[Roger]

I categorize the monsters and their lore into 3 levels:

1. I can build an encounter around this. E.g. stirge, troglodyte, zombie.

2. I can build an adventure around this. E.g. intellect devourer, revenant, myconid.

3. I can build a campaign around this. E.g. slaad, modron, aboleth.


I think all three are useful for different things, but it also seems that many people have some inherent preference for one particular level.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Desdichado]

My early flip-through of the MM suggested it might be more specific than I like.

But it doesn't bother me much.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm of the opinion that subtraction is easier than addition. It's easier to say "not going to use that" to something specific rather than create something new from whole cloth.

To be blunt, that's the point of buying material that somebody else made - I'm paying them to do the work (which in this case includes exercising the imagination) for me.

 

[Mistwell]

I view it similar to how I view an aspect of my work, where we make graduation gowns.

It's easy to take a big gown and cut it down to be a smaller size - the body is basically the same for a set of about 5 sizes, and it's just a matter of trimming down the length and sleeves to make it into a smaller one.

On the other hand, it's easier to start from scratch than it is to make a bigger gown from a small one. It could be done, but it's not worth the effort and materials to do it.

Same with monsters in D&D. Give me more, and I can always trim it down. That's easier than building it up from little.

Can you tell work is on my mind?

 

[DMZ2112]

Is everyone comfortable with WOTC dictating this degree of your setting?

Wizards literally -- literally -- cannot do this. This is an impossibility. They do not pay me; they do not have me in chains in a Renton basement; they do not have a drone targeting solution on my wife and cats. When one of those things is true, I will complain. In the interim, my setting is completely unaffected by the thickness of Wizards' D&D5 lore, whether it is clotted cream or filtered water.

What I do object to is the inclusion of /mechanics/ in the core books that do not belong, like a drow subrace of elves or the entirety of the warlock class. Thanks, Wizards, I'll never hear the end of these in my game store campaigns. Way to sell me out.

But while I truly and deeply despise the appearance of the horrific mutant D&D5 halfling, and will never forgive the atrocity (however fictional) that has been perpetrated against that noble race, I carry my torch because I don't want to be staring at those enormous noggins and creepy tiny hands and feet for years every time I open a D&D book, not because that's what halflings will look like in my campaign. Wizards doesn't get to decide that.

Hussar, there's a pretty good case for being disappointed by some of the lore choices in the new core books; don't muddy the water by claiming that the lore choices somehow hurt you and your campaign directly. If nothing else, they're helping you by identifying what you /don't/ want elements of your campaign to resemble, which is in itself encouraging creative thought.

Like the man says, you can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can't pick your friends' noses.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I think it's just about the perfect amount. It's enough to give you hooks to play with and inspire, but it doesn't take a ton of space and isn't so detailed as to be extremely setting specific (save those things like modrons that are very setting specific). And it's not like I'm forced to use it if I don't like it or have a better idea.

 

[Desdichado]

Wizards literally -- literally -- cannot do this. This is an impossibility.

Of course they can. Just because we're under no obligation to pay attention to their dictates doesn't mean that Wizards can't dictate all kinds of stuff to us in their books.

The open question is whether or not that's annoying to you, not whether or not they can do it. Sadly for Hussar, it doesn't look like anyone's really carrying his torch for him, so nothing seems likely to change anytime soon. Because, as you say, we can always ignore that kind of setting dictate in the MM. I seem to be the only one so far who's responded a little bit sympathetically to his gripe, but even I don't think it's anything worth worrying about.