Volo's always been an idiot -- every one of his 2E books had a preface by Elminister warning the reader to take everything with a grain of salt -- but this just smacks of 'oh no, we can't have games involving terrible real world things that might make us wet our panties!'.

Hey, WotC! Some of us would like to fight actual EVIL THINGS, not just po' ol' misunderstood fellas!

EDIT: Did Paizo ever do anything like this shit? I sure as hell remember the Second Darkness adventure path stated that drow were pretty much all demon-worshipping bad guys and gals. Compared to this, adding goblins to the playable race list in PF2 looks downright normal.

And Pathfinder orcs are also known for bloodthirsty nature.

Their equivalent of yuan-ti? EVIL.

Welcome to D&D 5.84e. 

And all the other fantasy rpg's are just glad they're not D&D right now. LOL

But like pundit says, which I agree with, the hard sjdubs won't be happy until D&D is dead. Well, they'll never be happy. They'll find the next fandom they can ruin because of racism.

I'm just really glad right now I got off the 5e bandwagon.

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 14, 2021, 10:45:14 AM
Apparently there's another chuck of lore being removed from 5e by errata and apparently digital documents are being memory-holed. I haven't see an official source though.

Even left-leaning Reddit is concerned.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/rg4jut/writeup_of_all_the_lore_thats_beein_removed_from

Welcome to the future. What a fucking clown show.

LOL, when they are getting Reddit to go WTF!?

You know that is an own-goal in the making.

The ENworld thread jumped to 25 pages in a day with plenty of WTF responses. Even some of the local WotC defenders are starting to admit that things are getting a bit watered down at this point...

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 14, 2021, 01:31:11 PM
I can understand changing races so that they have multiple cultures with different values, but outright removing anything that describes nasty stuff like slavery, prostitution, and racism? I thought one of the things you did in D&D was play as an actual social justice warrior who did stuff like freeing slaves, freeing prostitutes, and promoting racial harmony? What are you supposed to fight if nobody is doing bad things? That's like making a superhero RPG set in a world without crime. How does this even work? Are we supposed to play this like DragonRaid now?

Ding, Ding, Ding, and we have a winner!

They want D&D to be the CRT version of Dragonraid.

They don't care about what the game was. They only care about what they want to make it into.

WotC is basically taking the bet that they have enough new players that they can start to make the changes that they want, and still be the #1 RPG when they drop the old toxic fan base.

There will be a shift in lore for the 50th anniversary not-edition. Which we are starting to see now.

Then there will be the real shift when the evolved not-6e edition comes out in ten years.

Quote from: horsesoldier on December 14, 2021, 01:31:11 PM

Don't worry guys. Remember this is an RPG! Rule zero! You can do whatever you want! In my game, after all...

Well, damn. You're right.

Attention Everyone!  Forget everything I just wrote above.

It is not a big deal because you can just ignore it at your table.

Nothing to see here at all folks.

A total mountain out of a molehill.

Move along, move along...

This trend of updating the e-texts faster than the books can keep up, let alone changing your e-text version without your approval, reminds me of 4e days.  Oh well, looks like my decision to stick to Basic 5e and make copies of those files was right. I feel a priority to do the same with any DriveThruRPG or HumbleBundleofHolding files before the politbureau feels particularly enthusiastic... 

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 14, 2021, 06:32:15 PM
This trend of updating the e-texts faster than the books can keep up, let alone changing your e-text version without your approval, reminds me of 4e days.  Oh well, looks like my decision to stick to Basic 5e and make copies of those files was right. I feel a priority to do the same with any DriveThruRPG or HumbleBundleofHolding files before the politbureau feels particularly enthusiastic... 

Yeah. I realize that they're going to more of a subscription model with D&D Beyond - but trying to change books after-the-fact ticks me off. Back in the 1990s I went through this when playing the board game Star Fleet Battles, for example, which constantly came out with official errata to change and rebalance things. Errata should be the last resort for things like errors in editing or printing, not to introduce later changes. If one has substantial changes, it is a revision or a new edition - not errata.

I'll have to review the content, but I suspect that if Volo's Guide had just come out this way originally, no one would have remarked on it.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 14, 2021, 11:39:36 AM
Cripes, WotC, why not just call it the 'Misunderstood Manual' as opposed to the 'Monster Manual'?

I'd say that this is enough evidence to absolutely validate everything the RPG Pundit has predicted about WOTC and D&D 5th Edition.  It's all there in black and white..... Or should I now say that it's all there in contrasting colors?

For all the doubters out there, Pundit has been proven 100% right about WOTC.  It's a settled fact, now.

Will they update the cover text?

QuoteImmerse yourself in monster lore in this supplement for the world's greatest roleplaying game

...just not quite as much lore as the original printings.

Could this finally be WOTC's jump the shark moment, or do we have to wait for the print release of D&D CRT Edition?

Quote from: Jaeger on December 14, 2021, 06:24:20 PM
The ENworld thread jumped to 25 pages in a day with plenty of WTF responses. Even some of the local WotC defenders are starting to admit that things are getting a bit watered down at this point...

Dont you worry, Mistwell will be along to tell us all how cutting down unnecessary fluff is a good thing.

There's some hand wringing going on, over on RPGCRT.net

Just keep your eye on this ebay search, and your problems should be solved.

Failing that, in future any game book you get and like, you should get in print format. If you as an individual GM or player need more than 1-2 books at the game table either your system is too complicated or you've been hooked into the splatbook spiral.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 15, 2021, 03:07:56 AM
Failing that, in future any game book you get and like, you should get in print format.

I'm glad I bought the hardbacks (pre-Tasha's, obviously) and only use the e-versions for chargen and online gaming monster stats. Deleting material I paid for would be really annoying otherwise.

I thought 2014 5e is a good balance of old and new elements that appeals to a wide variety of gamers. Crawford-5e is not.