So with the release of Mordenkainen presents Monsters of the Multiverse, it really signals
two main shifts in the game, while in previous decades, seeing a compilation book, such as
a rules or spell compendium would be the death knell of that edition before they publish
a new edition of the game, with this book its not only a consolidation of monster listings
from Volos Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's tome of foes, its also a consolidation of
character race options, which I think is the main selling point of the book for me.
There is a general update to the format innate and acquired spells are listed in the stat
block, which is a bit more clear cut for how these fit into the combat system, there is
a shift away from consigned alignments for many of the intelligent creatures but most
importantly, and the real reason this book had come along, is that it signals not a shift
to a new Rules edition, but a shift away from using the Forgotten Realms as the default,
official world setting for the game.
It's right there in the name, they are literally telling us, that the game is now focused more
on multiversal play, because they are probably a bit tired of old school gamers ragging on
them about covering more of the forgottens realms lore than they have been, and it also
allows them to develop new world settings, and convert existing world setting lore from
their Magic the Gathering card game franchise into D&D sourcebooks that anyone can slot
into their own games.
So, we are not going to see 6th edition D&D just yet, but we are now in the Era of 5.5
D&D.
Looking at the player character options in the book, a lot of the changes there are to
make these races world setting agnostic, so this is not a Forgotten Realms Tabaxi, or
an Eberron Changeling, but its not a complete conversion, for instance, there are no Warforged
here, but, there are more monstrous races like the Centaur, Tortle, Harengon and Bugbear.
The second major rules change here for the playable races is the bonuses to their ability
scores... these are not restricted anymore, you have three points you can assign, either
+2 to one attribute and +1 to another, or three +1 bonuses placed where you like.
This places the customization and choice of background firmly in the player's hands and
I think is a general improvement that doesn't change much in practical gameplay, though
I am sure there will be lots of moaning and complaining about it.
Hey man, back in the day, after you reached a certain level and had these high attribute
scores, just maybe the DM would let you play a cavalier character class...
D&D used to be way, way more restrictive on your options building a non-human character
as well.
These races are also being integrated with the online character-building software hosted
by D&D Beyond.
What we don't see in Mordenkainen presents are the Thri-kreen, which makes them more
specific to the world of Athas and the Dark Sun setting, but more importantly, it means
that any predictions that races from Star Frontiers are going to be brought back as
members of these multiversal races, so, no Vrusk, Yazirians, Dralasites and so on.
We have races from the Feywild, Shadowfell and the Astral plane and limbo, but the intention
here is to represent these races as those who originated on alternate parallel dimensions
but are now more naturalized to the prime material plane, and the designers have outright
stated this as a fact for the lore on the origin of all the goblinoid races.
To me, its seem absolutely inevitable now that Dungeons & Dragons is gearing up to expand
into the Magic the Gathering franchise and vice versa, which I am absolutely fine with.
At no point is anyone forced to include anything they don't like in their actual games, everything
in these books are just options, they can't hurt you.
Dungeons & Dragons has always been evolving to be a looser, more narrative-focused game
system, the rules mechanics in past editions used restrictions more to enforce the lore
behind each race and class, for example, the whole idea of prerequisite class levels and
feat selections to unlock prestige classes in 3.5 edition D&D.
These have been simply built into each class as advanced subclass options which occurs
much, much earlier in the campaign, so the player gets to play the sort of character
they really want to play, What I would like to see, is some acknowledgement
from Wizard of the Coast that this is in fact their planned road ahead, I'd also like to
see some clarification on whether it's still the phlogiston sea taking players between
these worlds, or if we should now be thinking about the transitive planes of the Astral,
Ethereal and limbo as the New phlogiston hyperspace.