D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Savage Wombat]

Pen, I think you hot on what bugs me. The older dnd monsters had lots of demographically important bits but rarely tried to fit things into a larger story, epic or not.

The 2e Monstrous Manual entry on kobolds has tons of "biological" information about kobolds but nothing about history.

Honestly, that's what I want.

But when the MM tries to fit demons and devils into a larger mythical history you don't want that.

I don't want my PH to tell me that dwarves are a former slave race to giants - that sounds like the kind of racial baggage that would go against the world building I do. Saying "they live in mountains and hate orcs and goblins" lets me decide why for myself.

I think these discussions keep boiling down to "I prefer the story I liked" and that these "explanations" are merely rationalizations.

Some people liked the World Axis, and some people didn't. There's no "better".

 

[I'm A Banana]

FWIW, the "demographic" info in the earlier MMs was immensely useful to me in play.

If you're the kind of DM who wings things a lot, and you didn't know what terrain the next hex was until the PC's stumbled into it, and you didn't know what encounter the PC's would have until you rolled it, then having an entire population to put into a dungeon (randomly generated, o'course) is golden.

The 5e MM doesn't seem like it'll be that, but 5e is a different system. I bet it's possible, given XP and encounter guidelines, to whip those up anyway.

I like story info a lot, but I'm not a fan of D&D ignoring the fact that people will tell their own stories with it, rather than supporting that fact with a diversity of stories. I'd rather MM story info be 300+ short stories than it be one 300 page story.

 

[Hussar]

But when the MM tries to fit demons and devils into a larger mythical history you don't want that.

I don't want my PH to tell me that dwarves are a former slave race to giants - that sounds like the kind of racial baggage that would go against the world building I do. Saying "they live in mountains and hate orcs and goblins" lets me decide why for myself.

I think these discussions keep boiling down to "I prefer the story I liked" and that these "explanations" are merely rationalizations.

Some people liked the World Axis, and some people didn't. There's no "better".

Exactly. I agree. I'd rather the monster manual tell me what a critter is and what it wants than where it came from and what it's views are.

I think we're agreeing here. Keep the description to the biological type stuff and leave the mythos out of it.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't want my PH to tell me that dwarves are a former slave race to giants - that sounds like the kind of racial baggage that would go against the world building I do. Saying "they live in mountains and hate orcs and goblins" lets me decide why for myself.

I guess I'm struggling to see where there's a substantive difference between saying that dwarves are a former slave race to giants and dwarves hate orcs and goblins. Either one of them is racial baggage that hinders world building, if you feel obligated to accept it.

I think these discussions keep boiling down to "I prefer the story I liked" and that these "explanations" are merely rationalizations.

Well, there's that. That's the problem with these kinds of discussions; folks tend to get too wrapped up in trying to convince people to their way of thinking. I like knowing what people like and why they like it, so the discussion is potentially interesting. But I'm not likely to change my own views either.

 

[Hussar]

I guess I'm struggling to see where there's a substantive difference between saying that dwarves are a former slave race to giants and dwarves hate orcs and goblins. Either one of them is racial baggage that hinders world building, if you feel obligated to accept it.

Well, there's that. That's the problem with these kinds of discussions; folks tend to get too wrapped up in trying to convince people to their way of thinking. I like knowing what people like and why they like it, so the discussion is potentially interesting. But I'm not likely to change my own views either.

I'd say there's a fair difference. In the latter case, you have the what, but the why is entirely up to you. Dwarves hate orcs and goblins can be as simple as the fact that they share territory and thus conflict often. The idea that dwarves are a former slave race to giants is a much larger part of world building in my opinion. I now have historical facts inserted into my game world that I have to adapt into my game world if I want to be able to continue using supplements devoted to dwarves, because every single supplement that comes out will be based on the idea that dwarves are a former slave race to giants.

It's like KM said, I'd rather have 300 short stories than 1 really long one.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For me, I found the 4e PHB has more flavour and inspiration than any other D&D PHB.

The races all have mythic histories presented, for instance. Gygax's PHB tells me that dwarves are short, live in mountains and like beer. The 4e PHB tells me that dwarves were once slaves of giants, who were liberated with the help of their god. That, to me, is flavour and inspiration.

The history of the dragonborn and tieflings, the relationship between elves and the fewywild, etc are all similar.

The books also has gods which, to my mind, have more mythic character and inspiration than the 3E gods. (And earlier PHBs had no gods at all.)

I'm not saying you're wrong to see more mythic inspiration in the 3E or AD&D PHB, but I personally can't see what it is that you're seeing in them. To me, they are completely devoid of game-inspiring backstory for PCs, whereas the 4e PHB is full of that.

Seconded. Also out of the book, 4e PCs come with more personality than the PCs of any other edition. In AD&D two fighters differ by stats and equipment. In 3.X two fighters also have two feats that are different. In 4e the very way two fighters approach combat differs.

For me, the difference between the 4e MM and Gygax's MM is that Gygax's MM has statblocks plus advice on demography, whereas the 4e MM has more dynamic statblocks (I can read those statblocks and envisage dramatic encounters resulting from them) and information on how the monster fits into an epic backstory.

Please don't confuse Zeb Cook's overrated 2e Monstrous Manual with Gary Gygax's 1e Monster Manual, the amount of text per monster in which makes the 4e MM1 seem positively loquacious.

FWIW, the "demographic" info in the earlier MMs was immensely useful to me in play.

If you're the kind of DM who wings things a lot, and you didn't know what terrain the next hex was until the PC's stumbled into it, and you didn't know what encounter the PC's would have until you rolled it, then having an entire population to put into a dungeon (randomly generated, o'course) is golden.

The 2e Monstrous Manual is not, however, what it presents itself as. What it is is a world building guide for a semi-generic semi-improvised hexcrawl RPG. If you'd put almost all the ecology into a blue book supplement (along the lines of the Castles Guide) it would have made the basis of a pretty good supplement along the lines of Vornheim. However if we look at e.g. Eberron or Sigil, Goblins do not live in the same ecology as they have in Generic Hexcrawl Universe. On the other hand they are still goblins, so the sort of information that the 4e MM presents on the individuals and organisational patterns is still useful.

In short if I were playing Fate I'd still find the fluff the 4e MM and 4e MV presents useful. For even playing D&D in most official D&D settings I find the 2e Monstrous Manual almost useless.

Edit: [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], what's the difference between what a creature wants and what its views are?

 

[Remathilis]

I'd say there's a fair difference. In the latter case, you have the what, but the why is entirely up to you. Dwarves hate orcs and goblins can be as simple as the fact that they share territory and thus conflict often. The idea that dwarves are a former slave race to giants is a much larger part of world building in my opinion. I now have historical facts inserted into my game world that I have to adapt into my game world if I want to be able to continue using supplements devoted to dwarves, because every single supplement that comes out will be based on the idea that dwarves are a former slave race to giants.

It's like KM said, I'd rather have 300 short stories than 1 really long one.

See, I don't see the difference. The What and the Why are opposite sides of the same coin. Actually, the WHAT is far more egregious, IMHO since that gives a concrete mechanical element to the why.

Player 1: "Orcs! I get a +1 to hit orcs!"
Player 2: "Why is that?"
Player 1: "Uh..."
DM: "In my world, dwarves fight orcs with a strong hatred and developed techniques to fight them.
Player 2: "Huh. I'm an elf. You said elves and orcs have been at war since the elf god blinded the orc god. Why don't I get a +1 to hit orcs?"
DM: "Uh..."

All the Why does is provide a DM to unconcerned to create a why with a creative one out the box. If he needs to change it, he can. If he doesn't, he has a fallback issue.

 

[pemerton]

I like knowing what people like and why they like it, so the discussion is potentially interesting. But I'm not likely to change my own views either.

Likewise.

What I am responding to is a particular set of remarks about the 4e core books - that they lack inspirational flavour. And making the point that this is not an objective truth - because for me they had more inspirational flavour, plus more inspiration full stop (because inspiring the play of a RPG is not just about flavour but about system), than any other edition of D&D.

I find the repeated criticisms of the 4e MM especially jarring with my own experience - sometimes I wonder if mine was the only copy which shipped with a page of small-type description of the history of the Abyss and the nature of demons, nearly the same amount of information on the history and political sociology of goblinoids, and mutiple paragraphs of description for neary every creature in there (even down to the much-maligned "bear lore").

 

[Hussar]

See, I don't see the difference. The What and the Why are opposite sides of the same coin. Actually, the WHAT is far more egregious, IMHO since that gives a concrete mechanical element to the why.

Player 1: "Orcs! I get a +1 to hit orcs!"
Player 2: "Why is that?"
Player 1: "Uh..."
DM: "In my world, dwarves fight orcs with a strong hatred and developed techniques to fight them.
Player 2: "Huh. I'm an elf. You said elves and orcs have been at war since the elf god blinded the orc god. Why don't I get a +1 to hit orcs?"
DM: "Uh..."

All the Why does is provide a DM to unconcerned to create a why with a creative one out the box. If he needs to change it, he can. If he doesn't, he has a fallback issue.

See, that bolded part right there is why I don't want mythos included in the Monster Manual. That little tidbit is so campaign specific that it has no place in the core game, IMO. It creates all sorts of assumptions on the part of the player that aren't true. So, the home-brew DM has to go through every single thing with a fine tooth comb if he wants to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.

The only reason elves hate orcs and vice versa is a hold over from Tolkien. It might be ret-conned in the game lore, but, that's the reason. There's no particular reason why orcs and elves have to hate each other, any more than there is any inherent reason why elves and dwarves should dislike each other. It's baggage that has been hanging around in the game for so long that people have internalised it to the point that it isn't even examined anymore.

That's the difference between what and why. What is an orc? Well it's this and that. Fine, no problems. Why do orcs behave like this? Well, because their pre-defined god which only exists in official TSR/WOTC settings has issues with the other pre-defined god from official TSR/WOTC settings.

See, I told you that I wasn't limited to just Planescape for this stuff.

 

[Elderbrain]

Oh. I guess we have differing views on what counts as "campaign specific"; I've always seen the story of Correlon putting out Grummush's eye as being a generic, universal story true in every campaign setting where elves and orcs exist. (The 2nd edition book "Monster Mythology" basically says as much.) What I mean when I say "campaign specific" is stuff like "In Ebberon, halflings ride dinosaurs" or "In Dark Sun, halflings are cannibals", whereas a statement like "The halflings worship the goddess Yondalla" I consider generic. In other words, if it's true in only one campaign setting, it's specific; if it's supposed to be true in every D&D campaign, it's generic. That's why I considered Planescape to be generic material; all the worlds (Oerth, Toril, etc.) in 2nd edition shared the same set of planes, so that whatever was true about, say, Yugoloths, was true in all of those worlds, not just one. Halflings, Minotaurs, and such could vary from world to world because they each adapted to the world they lived in. But (until 3e) there's only ONE Abyss, ONE Nine Hells, etc, so the creatures inhabiting said planes couldn't have multiple differing stories, just one. You couldn't say that there both was and was not a Blood War, for instance, because it'd be contradictory.

Anyhow, the reason I want Planescape material in the core rulebooks is because I have no expectation or promise from WOTC that a Planescape campaign setting is actually coming. Didn't get one in 3e, 3.5, 4th or Essentials. So basically if it ain't in the monster manuals and the Manual of the planes, Planescape fans get zip. If I had an ironclad guarantee of a hardcover Planescape book for 5e, I'd say "Fine. Remove all Planescape references from the monster manual." I just don't see one coming, is all...