D&D General Joe Manganiello: Compares Early 5E to BG 3 . How Important is Lore?

[JEB]

The new lore completely discards or changes things like beholder hives, great mothers, the huge number of beholder kin that existed before, the nature of beholder society, etc. None of the new stuff actually improves beholders, it just changes them. It wasn't necessary and it didn't fix anything that was broken.

Interestingly, though, you don't see folks getting as irritated by monster lore changes or the like, as they do changes to campaign worlds. I guess it's different when it's supposed to be a specific fictional world your characters interact with, as opposed to setting-generic background info?

Speaking personally, I see the different monster origins etc. as a menu to choose from, to be reconciled together or provide alternative myths. At worst, everything could be true somewhere in the multiverse, as it's a big place. (It would be nice if Wizards affirmatively supported that sort of thing in the core rules, too.)

 

[Hussar]

Beholders didn't have a described reproductive cycle in 1e. This was added lore in 2e. This didn't overwrite, invalidate, or discard anything.

The new lore completely discards or changes things like beholder hives, great mothers, the huge number of beholder kin that existed before, the nature of beholder society, etc. None of the new stuff actually improves beholders, it just changes them. It wasn't necessary and it didn't fix anything that was broken.

Missed this the first time through.

Actually it did have a couple of effects. Number one, it invalidated anyone's homebrew material for Beholders by giving them an "official" reproductive cycle. Not a huge deal, but, it did overwrite something.

And the new lore made beholders much more difficult to use because now you have this massive bolus of lore that you need to know if you want to run beholders "correctly". And it was scattered across a number of supplements. It's not like the huge number of beholder kin, society, history, etc, was all in one nice book. No, it dribbled and dripped out piecemeal, often contradictory piecemeal, over a decade or so.

Making Beholders, at least for me, a compete non-starter. I have no interest in trying to use a monster if I have to read a 300 page supplement. The new beholders are much more useful to me, because I don't feel the need to make sure I'm using them "correctly".

Again, it's the whole "bouncing off the lore" thing.

 

[JEB]

One other thing I will add about my personal experience. It was engaging lore - specifically, 2E's monster lore connected to various settings - that first interested me in D&D, and in turn encouraged me to learn the rules and run games. That certainly isn't the only on-ramp, but lore shouldn't be discounted as a way to attract players (especially future DMs).

 

[Vaalingrade]

You don’t see the difference between a setting book and an adventure book?

I know what metaplot is and how it very often came out through adventure books.

see also my reference to WW's Stone, oh he of the many ruined adventures.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Missed this the first time through.

Actually it did have a couple of effects. Number one, it invalidated anyone's homebrew material for Beholders by giving them an "official" reproductive cycle. Not a huge deal, but, it did overwrite something.

And the new lore made beholders much more difficult to use because now you have this massive bolus of lore that you need to know if you want to run beholders "correctly". And it was scattered across a number of supplements. It's not like the huge number of beholder kin, society, history, etc, was all in one nice book. No, it dribbled and dripped out piecemeal, often contradictory piecemeal, over a decade or so.

Making Beholders, at least for me, a compete non-starter. I have no interest in trying to use a monster if I have to read a 300 page supplement. The new beholders are much more useful to me, because I don't feel the need to make sure I'm using them "correctly".

Again, it's the whole "bouncing off the lore" thing.

The 5e lore seems to have been written around the idea that beholders just pop up and do their own thing. So it doesn't matter if the DM doesn't know it.

And have you come across the concept of refluffing? Use the stat block but replace the lore, and possibly the physical appearance? VGR discusses it in depth, but it goes back as far as The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (1979) at least.

 

[Older Beholder]

I like lore changes, it gives me more options to choose from in my home game.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We can agree today the metaplot is not a good tool to sell more because thanks internet we can know what happens without spending a cent. And the cinematographic productions are for an audience who doesn't know very much the lore.

Dragonlance could be one of the best examples of how the lore or metaplot can become a "straight jacket".

* I have read my 2nd Ed MMs about beholders, and in the revised edition told it was mainly by "pathernogenesis" and rarely breeding with other member of the same specie. We can agree beholders hate each other too much for the "normal" sexual reproduction.

 

[Ir'revrykal]

The one thing that 5e has demonstrated quite clearly is that lore isn't actually all that needed.

This feels like a bit of a stretch. There is a stark quality difference between early 5e adventures and WotC's more recent releases. I'm sure there are many reasons why 5e sales have slowed down (even if they are still relatively strong), but low quality offerings with watered-down ideas and concepts are likely not helping.

 

[teitan]

I still want a new FRCS. WOTC failed that.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe in the past WotC enjoyed more creative freedom to publish D&D, and they worried players enjoyed the new titles, but after Hasbro CEOs thought D&D could be a new goose of golden eggs, and they wanted to make more money but without understand really the players who buy their products. This is not like videogame industry, our cutural level is higher,and we aren't tricked so easily, because our PC's have to survive the DMs' traps.

Some time I suggested Hasbro should create something like White Wolf's Dark Park, a special seal to allow 3PPs to publish their own fiction based in their WoD brand. It would be something like DMGuild but for literary fiction and webcomics.

The TTRPGs work when players get inspiration to create their own stories.