I really enjoyed Art and Arcana, so was excited to pick up Lore and Legends. Overall, I was disappointed. It felt more like I was reading a product catalog put out by WotC than a history of 5th edition told through its artwork.
There were parts that triggered nostalgia, like reading back to the old Next playtests and art concepting. The book also made it quite apparent to me that 5e’s art style has shifted over time and that I preferred the earlier, more grounded style.
That said, I found the book generally un-critical and starry-eyed. (If it matters, I started with 3e; have generally enjoyed 3e, 4e, and 5e; and am both playing in and DMing separate 5e campaigns right now.)
For example, I was disappointed that there was no mention of Chris Perkins’ Dice, Camera, Action show, despite the pretty in depth discussion of other live plays, presumably because that would have required discussing controversy. I was also disappointed at the lack of any discussion on the OGL debacle, despite it fitting into the time frame, even if only for WotC to congratulate itself on releasing the 5e SRD into the Creative Commons. Finally, I recall being annoyed at reading about 5e’s recent shifts regarding alignment and traditionally evil races as revelatory, without any critical discussion as to why WotC had returned to these concepts in the first place in 5e—Eberron came out 20 years ago, and 4e had already advanced the treatment of alignment (most were Unaligned), the characterization of “evil” races like gnolls, and the stereotyping of peoples like Vistani.
I don’t expect every Twitter controversy to be covered, and I don’t think they necessarily should be in the grand scheme of history for a book like this at a certain level of generality. But some of these matter a lot, either by omission (OGL) or by one-sided storytelling (treatment of alignment and races) that doesn’t reflect on how 5e had regressed in the first place.
Overall, there is a lot of artwork and an optimistic view of 5e’s history. I don’t regret buying or reading it. I was more disappointed at the missed opportunity to tell a more holistic story of 5e, more like what I recall reading in Art and Arcana, but I suppose that can’t be helped given the licensing relationship and the recency of events.
