D&D 5E What do you like, and what do you not like about Volo's Guide to Monsters? (spoilers)

[Tony Vargas]

So it's perfectly fine for a company that has touted its credentials as providing a balanced game and leveraged that to sell product to then suddenly about-face and say that they didn't bother to balance things?

No, that was not 'perfectly fine,' but Essentials was 6 year ago, and, anyway, this is the 5e forum.
Let it go.

And on top of that you then accuse DM's who don't want imbalanced mechanics in their games as needing an excuse?

Not that it's vital to the joke, but that's not what it implied at all, rather the idea was that DMs who wanted to exclude the races for any other reason could use the superfluous 'Balance Warning' as an excuse.


I know, I know - it's not funny if you have to explain it...

 

[Zaukrie]

Great book. I like unbalanced rules. Not everything should be the same. I don't understand why I would ever attack kobolds if all they want to do is stay on their own...

 

[ccs]

No, that was not 'perfectly fine,' but Essentials was 6 year ago, and, anyway, this is the 5e forum.
Let it go.

Not that it's vital to the joke, but that's not what it implied at all, rather the idea was that DMs who wanted to exclude the races for any other reason could use the superfluous 'Balance Warning' as an excuse.


I know, I know - it's not funny if you have to explain it...

It's funny to the rest of us watching you explain it to him...

 

[dave2008]

So it's perfectly fine for a company that has touted its credentials as providing a balanced game and leveraged that to sell product to then suddenly about-face and say that they didn't bother to balance things?

And on top of that you then accuse DM's who don't want imbalanced mechanics in their games as needing an excuse?

As far as I'm concerned, this was just plain lazy design.

Perhaps it is a nod to those of us who don't want balanced races.

 

[flametitan]

On just this. These races got massive chapters in the first part of the book far beyond what any PHB race has gotten. There is just no point in reprinting of a bunch of info in chapter 2.

For me I can sympathize with the point, but it's for a different reason than what you listed. A big selling point for me was that it'd have stats for goblins and orcs. My assumption was that they would be built like the PC races we've gotten previously, and would be balanced for regular use in case I wanted to incoporate them as a regular choice rather than purely enemies.

I was a little disappointed that the section on monstrous adventurers (which had the goblin, the hobgoblin that was oh so important to how my world was set up, and orcs) had a huge disclaimer that everything in it was imbalanced, which even though I know it was playtested, made the iconic monster races seem more like an afterthought than the selling point they were touted to be.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

Perhaps it is a nod to those of us who don't want balanced races.

If you don't want balance, just make up whatever you want. You don't need polished product for that. The entire point of 5e was to fix all the issues of previous editions, one of which was power creep and bloat. That requires addressing balance issues and playtesting. That seems to not be the case anymore.

 

[Demetrios1453]

So, as far as I can see from this discussion, and others, on the races in VGtM, there seem to be three defaults:

Something new is weaker than the old stuff: "This is too weak! It's useless, since no one will play or use it since it's not as powerful!"

Something is balanced with the old stuff: "This is just the same as everything else! Are they even trying to make something different?"

Something is more powerful than the old stuff: "Oh no! Power creep!"

 

[dave2008]

The entire point of 5e was to fix all the issues of previous editions, one of which was power creep and bloat.

That was never the intent of 5e,

I might say that was the basic intent of 4e as a lot of the design choices were to address perceived issues with previous editions. Personally I think they did a really good job with 4e, but it didn't seem to sit well with a lot of people.

 

[Parmandur]

So, as far as I can see from this discussion, and others, on the races in VGtM, there seem to be three defaults:

Something new is weaker than the old stuff: "This is too weak! It's useless, since no one will play or use it since it's not as powerful!"

Something is balanced with the old stuff: "This is just the same as everything else! Are they even trying to make something different?"

Something is more powerful than the old stuff: "Oh no! Power creep!"

Well, following the square of opposition, those do seem to be the three possible outcomes. The fact people in the first and third category are talking about the same things, though, seems like a good sign for the second possibility.

 

[Grainger]

I am, overall, very pleased with the book. I've had it less than eight hours and have already had numerous ideas for storylines. That to me is a sign that it is well done. I feel the intention was to spark the imagination in new ways, and this is the way to do it.

That's my take on it as well. Just flicking through it has given me several ideas for significant encounters or quests, and it's worth its price for that. Funnily enough, it has also inspired me to go back and look deeper into the existing MM (VGM inspired me to read the basic MM material on the newly expanded races), and I've already pulled out some fresh ideas from that. I can't comment on whether the new character options are any good, as evidence of that will only emerge in play.