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2022-05-17, 12:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2018
Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Sorry for the late reply, busy day.
None? All the extra lore is gone. Let's see if I can explain it a little bit better.
Monsters of the Multiverse has 33 reprinted races that are meant to cover character races you'd find in most worlds in addition to the PHB races. It also has most of the monsters from Volo's and Tome of Foes minus what I'm assuming were problematic monsters like Orcs dedicated to certain Orcish gods.
Approximately a 100 or so pages of Volo's discussing lore of certain monsters (beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti), lair maps for those monsters, and roleplaying tips for those monsters don't show up at all in MotM. And of course they want back an
In Tome of Foes, all the lore of the Blood War, demonic boons, fiendish cults lore for the demi-human races in the PHB plus some lore for new player races/subraces like the Gith, Eladrin, Shadar-Kai, variant Tieflings from other Archfiends not named Asmodeus etc. are all gone from MotM. Another 100 pages or so. Around 200 pages of stuff that doesn't show up in MotM. Maybe they've changed some lore from previous monster stat blocks? Don't think I've come across anything noteworthy yet.
Volo's was 226 pages and Tome of Foes was 258 for a total of 484... Subract 200 for a new total of 284. MotM is 291 pages and does pull a few races from other books and reworked the monster stat blocks for ease of use (at least when used by itself). Seems to work out. /shrug
Maybe instead of releasing Tasha's in 2020 they should have done something more of the start of a 5.5 Core update (At least the PHB and Monster Manual) instead of piecemeal bits here or there and waiting up to 4 years for the anniversary edition.
As an aside, I personally don't like short rests in this edition and would welcome more proficiency bonus abilities. A 14th level character should be better at their class/subclass than a 4th level one.
Anywho, they could have taken those same lessons learned in even better context when everything is working together as a whole. Then apply that info along with the various surveys and playtests closer to the release of the anniversary edition in 3 or 4 years. It's really hard to get excited when it doesn't feel like there's a solid plan in place. It's more like just consider Tasha's and everything after as playtest material until the anniversary edition.
1) They didn't remove the content, they just stopped selling new instances of it. If you own those books you can still use them to your heart's content.
2) If they had nuked VGtM and MToF from orbit via errata I guarantee the firestorm would be even worse. At least with this, people who like the old lore (warts and all) still have it, but not selling it makes it clear that WotC no longer endorses that older viewpoint of the game.
3) You might think "we all know why" but posts like Unoriginal's show that's not the case.
1.They did remove or replace a bunch of info from Volo's for reprintings. Err, probably for one reprinting if we are being honest as the errata is from December 2021 (when MotM was originally suppose to come out). https://media.wizards.com/2021/dnd/d...GtM-Errata.pdf Not sure what's up with Tome of Foes. Maybe there was just too much to replace/remove and they figured dialing it back by no longer reprinting it and no longer offering it digitally was the way to go? Manual of the Planes confirmed?
2. I don't think a lot of people have realized it yet as they either have access to the old material or didn't want it in the first place. Or maybe they're becoming more apathetic towards the whole thing and waiting to see what the anniversary edition has to offer. Dunno.
3. Probably should have phrased that differently. I think most people that keep up with statements from WotC from their Commitment to Diversity post thru say Book Updates should have a good feel for the reasons why.
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2022-05-17, 01:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
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2022-05-17, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
I doubt they've made themselves more money. At best, they've managed to avoid alienating enough of their audience to hurt their business; they certainly have gained nothing from it. The people who whined and complained until they got the change were either already customers, or were never going to be customers. The people who complain ABOUT the change will either stop being customers, or will continue being customers. At best, they'll retain the same customers, just with different ones upset at things. The trouble is, the people they moved to appease will keep complaining, too, demanding more changes, until they definitely alienate existing customers.
But you're a bad person for this. You're not allowed to have badwrongfun in this way. Only by embracing the new, creative-enabled Kenku who lack the restriction are you truly playing creatively. Green is not a creative color, after all. And you can still play a Kenku who only ever speaks in recordings; it's totally the same to have just your Kenku doing that, especially if he COULD speak normally if he chose, and not at all a different sort of character from a member of a race that is so limited. And YOUR Lizardman can be alien to others, even though all the others are humans in funny scaley skin makeup. So it's fine! Nothing's been taken away; just expanded! Made better!
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2022-05-17, 01:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2019
Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
The weird thing is, Golaiths apparently need to lose the +2 STR because they shouldn't be stereotyped as being big brutes, but every Goliath PC will still have a Powerful Build.
I think a lot of that is reflective of a general change in society, where groups once thought of as weird or scary are becoming better known and are telling their own stories (and usually, being just as mundane and silly as the majority group).
You can see the same progression with creatures such as vampires, werewolves, etc. Terrifying, unglamorous, inhuman monsters (the original myths), to urbane and charismatic but still thoroughly evil and with the monstrous side only thinly concealed (Dracula), to protagonists of their own stories with more focus on the upsides of their nature (Interview with the Vampire), to being full-on romantic heroes with the monstrosity shoved so far out the spotlight as to be effectively nonexistent. (Twilight and about 1.3 billion urban fantasy / paranormal romance novels).
Increasingly, audiences want stories where everyone is essentially a human, and only the bigoted and mean types would ever judge them for being a bloodsucking animated corpse or whatever. Sometimes this is done well, sometimes it's not (see: True Blood).
When it's done well, it's possible to get across that a character is, yes, fundamentally a person in every way that matters, but they're still weird and very much not a human in some way that's interesting and creates story potential. Take Eberron's takes on goblinoids and their intriguing three-species society and bond, or anything Keith baker wrote on changelings or warforged. When it's done badly, you have Star Trek rubber forehead aliens, where there are no plots being told that you couldn't tell with factions of humans and every city is the Mos Eisley cantina.
It is disappointing that there is such a heavy lean towards simply Bowdlerising away the differences rather than even trying to walk that line--what's the difference between a human and tiefling in Wildemount beyond the cosmetic?The DMG does not mandate 6-8 encounters per day.
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2022-05-17, 01:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2011
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- Castle Sparrowcellar
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2022-05-17, 01:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
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- Sweden or Britannia
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
I'm in the latter camp. I strongly dislike many of the changes and the way WotC went about these changes, and I'll gladly say so if anyone asks, but what's the point of getting upset about it anymore? I reached out to WotC through every channel I had access to, and since they still went ahead with it I just don't see the point in continuing. They don't want my business so they're not getting it - the books are expensive and of inconsistent quality anyway, so it's money I can spend on third party stuff or on another system entirely. Maybe I'll find my way back to D&D one day but WotC pushed me firmly away from 5e.
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2022-05-17, 01:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
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- Texas
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Problem is, the QC function was lackluster throughout. The PC race changes were kind of slap dash, not well thought through in my opinion, but it hasn't even come up at the tables where I play.
Fathomless doesn't get talked about much but I'm not sure how much of that is flavour vs. power.Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2022-05-17, 01:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Last edited by truemane; 2022-05-18 at 09:44 AM. Reason: Scrubbed
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2022-05-17, 01:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2012
Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Not my experience. The Orc Babies in Orc Cradles thing has been a point of contention for as long as DND's existed. Problematic as a term is newer than that, but critique of DND and more particularly greyhawk/forgotten realms/dragon lance has been arounds since before I got into the hobby over a decade ago. {Scrubbed} "The adventurers are actually the evil ones for slaughtering goblin villages wholesale" is the most common subversion of DND standard stuff out there, and that's because basic DND makes a lot of people feel a bit awkward/skeevy.
And while "problematic" is subjective in one sense, it also isn't, in the same sense that its not subjective to consider something 'controversial.' People, real people, who I have met IRL, consider FR very uncomfortable to interact with on any level. That's "problematic" in a more basic sense.
Some people probably will, but this isn't how... most people behave? Outside of twitter anyway. The problem comes in when people get weird about defending something they like from any possible line of legitimate criticism. Nobody hates you for liking lovecraft, but if you're going to argue lovecraft wasn't racist (the man had a panic attack when he found out one of his ancestors was welsh) and didn't put that in his works (he explicitly said Innsmouth was about race-mixing with the Welsh) you're going to get weird looks. That's all that's at play here.Last edited by truemane; 2022-05-18 at 09:46 AM. Reason: Scrubbed
Make Martials CoolAgain.
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2022-05-17, 01:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Spoiler: @TelesphorosEven putting the problematic/deprecated elements aside, remember too that MotM is intended to be a multiversal / setting-agnostic book. Several of the stuff you mentioned meanwhile is setting-specific and so doesn't really have a place there. The Blood War for instance is a big part of FR, but it's not really a thing in Eberron (gray morality) or Ravenloft (everyone including fiends has way bigger problems due to the Powers) etc.
I don't view this as a piecemeal change, they applied the racial updates very consistently after Tasha's. We got not a single fixed ASI nor blanket cultural mandate since then for any of the new races.
VGtM's lore was particularly egregious so I can understand it getting both an errata and a replacement treatment. There is a lot of cringe in the sidebars and preceding the tables.
Let's put aside your insulting characterization of people in favor of the changes as being "whiners and complainers." You're ignoring, as usual, two important groups:
1) Newcomers who, seeing the efforts WotC is making to be more inclusive, feel more comfortable joining the hobby themselves and promoting it to others. That's a gain.
2) The designers themselves who are diverse and talented people (wow!) and want these changes, and feel more comfortable staying with a company that's willing to risk the bottom line to do what they see as morally and ethically right. Had WotC stubbornly stayed retrograde on this, it's not hard to imagine several of these creatives going to other companies that are willing to make similar changes, such as Paizo.
So to characterize this as pure loss on WotC's part is shortsighted at best.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2022-05-17, 01:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Vacation in Nyalotha
Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
With setting details and other features being offloaded to the community this is the trend I foresee, though I expect most to remain with D&D.
Do we have data available on WotC pay? Paizo has some godawful salaries as some news articles debuted recently.
Edit:
Quick google parks WotC graphic designer at 80k. Meanwhile Paizo devs read off at 45k, in Seattle which is apparently the 5th most expensive city to live in out of all USA options.Last edited by Xervous; 2022-05-17 at 01:55 PM.
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2022-05-17, 01:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
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- Texas
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
I confess, this got a chuckle out of me.
It's about Hasbro optics. If a major corporation is involved, why wouldn't they be clunky in implementation?
So does a sociopath. (Our lizardfolk druid seems to be doing fine in our Saltmarsh campaign, and he's not a sociopath.
Kenku
Please stop, yer killin' me.Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2022-05-17 at 01:46 PM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2022-05-17, 01:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2011
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- Castle Sparrowcellar
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
I know what it means. I'm saying that portraying that position in that manner in a "sarcastic" light comes across as a strawman of the people you disagree with: "Here are my philosophical opponents, look at how ridiculous they are, look at the silly things they believe."{Scrubbed}
Perhaps that wasn't your intention when you wrote it. Certainly how it came across though.
Like if I wrote something along the lines of "I am literally incapable of creating any characters with depth or nuance unless they literally say that orcs are all baby eating monsters by birth, Wizards of the Coast taking that away from me has literally ruined every game and essentially destroyed D&D forever. It is incredibly important to me that all high elves have a +1 racial intelligence bonus otherwise my entire worldbuilding collapses." you can understand how, even if written in blue, there's more to it than "haha I am being sarcastic so it doesn't mean anything".
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2022-05-17, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
When people make ridiculous claims like "remove all lore" and "why do we have races at all" then it makes it very hard (for me anyway) to commiserate with their positions.
Putting aside your very questionable assumptions about the reasons people stay in the jobs they do, I don't see what graphic design has to do with anything in this topic. Unless we're complaining about the artwork too now?
Okay thanks for the laugh
Yep.
Indeed.Last edited by truemane; 2022-05-18 at 09:48 AM. Reason: Scrub the post
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2022-05-17, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
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- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
More inclusive ... then what, exactly?
I was a newcommer back in 3.0, when half-orcs got +2 str / -2 int / -2 cha. Elves had +2 dex / -2 con. I had never occurd to me that this was somehow "not inclusive" -- because it fit the archetypes. And for a newcommer that surely was sufficient. ... or that this was more (or less) inclusive then 2nd edition (for obvious reasons).
As a newcommer - it makes perfect sense, that "Klingons" make for poor wizards, and "Vulcans" poor barbarians. The fact that kingons would make better wizards then vulcans because either ASI's got turned flexible, while klingons happen to have a racial ability that combo's up with spellcasting ... THAT doesn't make sense.Yes, tabaxi grappler. It's a thing
RFC1925: With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea.
Alucard (TFS): I do things. I take very enthusiastic walks through the woods
Math Rule of thumb: 1/X chance : There's about a 2/3 of it happening at least once in X tries
Actually, "(e-1)/e for a limit to infinitiy", but, it's a good rule of thumb
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2022-05-17, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
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- Corvallis, OR
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Here's another confirmation that it's not optional (if you play AL):
https://yawningportal.dnd.wizards.co...iverse-update/
If you possess a character with one of the race options presented in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, you must update your character to the new entry as presented in that product. This has always been the policy of D&D rules usable with D&D Adventurers League campaigns.Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
5e Monster Data Sheet--vital statistics for all 693 MM, Volo's, and now MToF monsters: Updated!
NIH system 5e fork, very much WIP. Base github repo.
NIH System PDF Up to date main-branch build version.
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2022-05-17, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
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- Grognardia
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Re: Please explain to me why the Tasha's rules aren't optional?
Metamagic Mod: Thread closed.
Last edited by truemane; 2022-05-18 at 09:48 AM.
(Avatar by Cuthalion, who is great.)