D&D 5E Latest D&D Errata: Drow, Alignment, & More

Sage Advice is a series of articles in which Jeremy Crawford, one of the D&D Studio’s game design architects, talks about the design of the game’s rules and answers questions about them.

Book Updates | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice provides updates and errata for a number of books, as well as answers to rules questions.

dnd.wizards.com

D&D books occasionally receive corrections and other updates to their rules and story. This Sage Advice installment presents updates to several books. I then answer a handful of rules questions, focusing on queries related to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons and Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos.

Official errata has been published for the following books:

• Curse of Strahd
• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Player’s Handbook
• Storm King’s Thunder
• Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
• Tales from the Yawning Portal
• Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
• Tomb of Annihilation
• Volo’s Guide to Monsters

Here's some of the highlights.

• Alignment is removed from the Racial Traits section of races.
• Drow have undergone lore changes which reflect the different types of drow. The 'darkness of the drow' sidebar which portrays them as only evil has been removed.
• Storm King's Thunder alters references to 'Savage Frontier' and 'barbarians'; Curse of Strahd alters references to the Vistani.
• The controversial Silvery Barbs spell has been clarified.

As a drow, you are infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. You are at home in shadows and, thanks to your innate magic, learn to con- jure forth both light and darkness. Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.

The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has cor- rupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now. Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.

 

[Scribe]

I don't care about any of this alignment stuff. I just want to know if there is anything meaningfully changed about mechanical issues? Any spells nerfed? Feats? Sub-class abilities? Anything like that?

A few spells changed, not much though I believe.

 

[J.Quondam]

As if the people who hate D&D will just stop being critical if WoTC makes the right combination of changes..

But this time around, I think most of the people who are critical of D&D are fans, not religious/cultural haters. The critics today are mainly people who want their game to be better for they way they play it, and for who they play it with.

 

[cowpie]

I understand your argument, but do you have any evidence that what you call "samey" actually does turn off new players?
I assume WotC has done a fair bit of market research into their "new player" and "likely book buyer" demographics, so I suspect they're going in the direction they are because they believe it will appeal those people, not turn them off.

I don't have any market research to immediately post, but this is pretty much common sense. You want new players; you want them to pick a character they like, and start playing with a minimum of work so they get hooked on your game. You don't tell them "make it up yourself" and then ask them to shell out 50 bucks for the PHB. You have to give them something they can immediately use. This has clearly been a selling point of virtually all RPGs since they started--it's a tried and true which is why they've always done it.

Players usually come to the table to live out a fictional fantasy, playing characters from whatever genre they're interested in. They also have distinct play styles that appeal to them too. That's why the players are showing up to the table. If all the characters are bland vanilla clones, that you have to work to make unique instead of just diving in and playing, it's not going to be appealing.

I'm not so sure about the market research WOTC is doing. They've made some similar moves over the past year that have blown up in their face (esp. the one led that Dragonlance breach of contract lawsuit), which indicates that the decision making is less about logic, and more about politics (I'd say more, but sigh I'll get banned if I do).

Some examples:
Star Wars: Players who like Luke, want to play Jedis. Players who like Han, want to play scoundrels. Players who like Wedge, want to play ace pilots. Players who like Chewie, want to play Wookies. etc. The rules should reflect that to give the players what they want.

Vampire: Brujah are violent warriors, Toreadors are manipulators, Ventrue are leaders, and Werewolves, they are kind of eco terrorists. Same deal here--players like the differences between clans to live out their vampire fantasy. If there were no differences, they why would players show up to play?

Traveller and Star Trek have unique aliens, CoC has professions--name any best-selling RPG and you'll see that they do this.

 

[Mordhau]

Okay? And by now leaning into this so-called "sameyness," WotC appear to be unwinding that for whatever reason, market research or no.
So the question stands: What's the evidence that this "samey" quality (whatever that means) turns off new players? I mean book sales seem healthy and WotC seems to be pretty content with doing what they're doing, so this "turn off" must be manifesting in some other way?

I don't know why you're asking me. It's not my argument.

 

[Blue]

The more mechanics you give to races, the harder it is to add new races. And there will always be people out there who want to play rabbitfolk or slimegirls or whatever new weird thing just got an anime adaptation - the Cantina Approach (the universe is vast and filled with many races; you can play whatever you want because mechanically it doesn't really matter) is very broadly appealing and doesn't preclude thinking deeply about races and cultures and incorporating those thoughts into you game - it simply doesn't require it.

Having five really well-thought-out, highly detailed races with a lot of little details that impact play across pillars is good for a single setting but bad for a multi-setting game. And one thing that keeps people playing DnD is how easy it is to make the setting your own.

You're not wrong. But the corollary to your conclusion is that races can never feature any ability we wouldn't want a 1st level character to have - full flight, size Large, etc.

Well, actually, you're kinda wrong. We already see this in a number of races that give advanced spellcasting at higher levels. So this is already acceptable as a minor practice, but nothing that scales large.

So, how do we combine what already exists and is therefore already proven to be acceptable, with the ability to give races even more meaningful features that shouldn't be handed out until higher levels? If you don't accept expanding the already existing system, how can we do it and still meet your requirements?

 

[Mordhau]

5) None of the above.

They neither did or did not do market research?

Interesting. I hadn't considered that WotC were factoring in quantum uncertainty into their design process.

 

[FormerLurker]

But this time around, I think most of the people who are critical of D&D are fans, not religious/cultural haters. The critics today are mainly people who want their game to be better for they way they play it, and for who they play it with.

To some degree.
I think there's also a lot of critics online—especially Twitter—who hate D&D because it's the big popular RPG and invent reasons to justify their dislike. But aren't going to stop hating D&D if it gets rid of slavery or NPCs with a lisp.

And there's something disingenuous (maybe poor word choice) about expecting a franchise to change to fit the will of the fandom. That feels toxic, and that level of fan service hasn't worked out well for other franchises, even ones as big as Star Wars.
Especially a game as flexible as D&D where it's expected that you make D&D your own. If someone doesn't like brothels in D&D they can just not include them. There's a long list of bits of D&D I never liked and don't include in my homegame. I don't expect D&D to change to fit my esoteric tastes.

 

[J.Quondam]

I don't have any market research to immediately post, but this is pretty much common sense. You want new players; you want them to pick a character they like, and start playing with a minimum of work so they get hooked on your game. You don't tell them "make it up yourself" and then ask them to shell out 50 bucks for the PHB. You have to give them something they can immediately use. This has clearly been a selling point of virtually all RPGs since they started--it's a tried and true which is why they've always done it.

Players usually come to the table to live out a fictional fantasy, playing characters from whatever genre they're interested in. They also have distinct play styles that appeal to them too. That's why the players are showing up to the table. If all the characters are bland vanilla clones, that you have to work to make unique instead of just diving in and playing, it's not going to be appealing.

I'm not so sure about the market research WOTC is doing. They've made some similar moves over the past year that have blown up in their face (esp. the one led that Dragonlance breach of contract lawsuit), which indicates that the decision making is less about logic, and more about politics (I'd say more, but sigh I'll get banned if I do).

Some examples:
Star Wars: Players who like Luke, want to play Jedis. Players who like Han, want to play scoundrels. Players who like Wedge, want to play ace pilots. Players who like Chewie, want to play Wookies. etc. The rules should reflect that to give the players what they want.

Vampire: Brujah are violent warriors, Toreadors are manipulators, Ventrue are leaders, and Werewolves, they are kind of eco terrorists. Same deal here--players like the differences between clans to live out their vampire fantasy. If there were no differences, they why would players show up to play?

Traveller and Star Trek have unique aliens, CoC has professions--name any best-selling RPG and you'll see that they do this.

Do you expect D&D to crater soon, then? If I'm reading you correctly, you're predicting that WotC should fail hard in the next few years, as new gamers realize D&D is not what they want, and either discover/move to other systems, or abandon the hobby entirely.
Is that a fair prediction, based on your reasoning?

 

[cowpie]

But this time around, I think most of the people who are critical of D&D are fans, not religious/cultural haters. The critics today are mainly people who want their game to be better for they way they play it, and for who they play it with.

I don't doubt the fandom (though there's always a small percentage of people who claim to be fans who aren't). You could argue that the act of problematizing, critiquing, disrupting and dismantling D&D (and the claim that these actions are always good and virtuous) is the methodology of a new quasi-religion attempting to clean up D&D. Whether this makes the game better is still open for debate, and the ideas driving these actions are not universally agreed upon as always being good. This could be similar in some ways to the old religious censors, who certainly believed they were saving the world by "cleaning up" D&D to make it "good with god" back the 80s.

One unfortunate thing the old censors did, was demonize anyone who disagreed with their agenda. The main criticism of the new agenda, is the proclivity to finger-point at anyone who doesn't go along with it 100% as bad people, or gatekeepers, or worse, which is why it's so contentious (and why there can be skepticism about the virtue of the cause, given some of the bad tactics used).

 

[Mordhau]

Do you expect D&D to crater soon, then? If I'm reading you correctly, you're predicting that WotC should fail hard in the next few years, as new gamers realize D&D is not what they want, and either discover/move to other systems, or abandon the hobby entirely.
Is that a fair prediction, based on your reasoning?

I think the likelihood is that none of these changes are likely to cause D&D to fail or significantly to decline.

That doesn't necessarily mean that people like them or don't like them, it just means they aren't really big enough issues to matter.