Let’s discuss Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (MotM). Is it a blatant cash-grab by Wizards of the Coast (WotC)?
WotC has been making progress over the past few years in making the D&D system more inclusive (although some think that it has been too little, too late). Volo’s Guide to Monsters added playable races that Tolkienesque high fantasy settings and previous editions of D&D would have considered irredeemably evil - orcs, goblins, and kobolds. It also added new, less traditional humanoid races that greatly increased the diversity available to players. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything changed how characters were built. No longer were character attribute bonuses defined by their race. No longer were all orcs strong warriors. An orcish wizard could put her bonuses into intelligence rather than strength. Any race could be any class. These were welcome changes to a system that said characters were limited by their race, with the real-world implications of that attitude.
So, many people looked forward to Monsters of the Multiverse. What new rules changes would it introduce? Would it provide insight into the next version of D&D, whether it would be a 5.5 edition providing relatively modest tweaks to 5E or a massive rework in a sixth edition? At least to me, MotM was a massive disappointment. Rather than fundamentally changing how the game is played, MotM is basically a set of errata, bound into a hardback book and sold for $30 a pop. Are the contents of this book worth paying for, worth the resources used to print and distribute it? Let’s look at a few examples from the book.
The first section of the book presents “over 30 race options” which “debuted elsewhere and appear all together for the first time here, each revised to fit into the current state of the game.” In other words, these races have been updated with the rules from Volo’s and Tasha’s. Problems with existing definitions were corrected. New players could get all of the non-Player’s Handbook races without having to buy several books. But….
It doesn’t include all of the non-core races. For whatever reason, it doesn’t include the Leonin, the Owlin, the Kalastar, the Warforged, the Loxodon, the Simic Hybrid, the Vedalken, or the Eberron and Exandria varieties of Orc. To get access to those races, a player would have to buy five more books. So much for the one-stop race shop.
MotM does make at least two races playable. The original Kobold had the “Grovel, Cower, and Beg” power that enabled it to “cower pathetically to distract nearby foes.” Hardly a power that a heroic character would want to use. The new Kobold replaces that power with “Draconic Cry”, which provides the same benefits and can be used more often.
The original Kenku race was cursed. Perfect mimics, Kenkus could only communicate by repeating things they heard others say. Very hard to roleplay. I only saw live plays that included Kenku player characters three times. Two of those ignored that rule. The third Kenku was mostly silent, talking in song lyrics when necessary. The new rules remove that restriction, as well as renaming the “Expert Forgery” ability to “Expert Duplication”. A small, but welcome, change in tone.
The need to include non-broken races is less obvious. The cat-like Tabaxi, for example, were basically unchanged, except for the changes to ability rules from Tasha’s. The most obvious change was in the character size. The original Tabaxi were Medium, slightly taller than humans. The new ones can be Medium or Small. For those who want to play a housecat, I guess. Hardly a critical change.
The rest of the book is taken up by updates to various monsters. One of which is the demon lord Orcus. The new stat block reads significantly differently than the original. Looking more closely, however, reveals that the update mostly rearranges the same information into a new template that is (might be) easier to understand. The only real change to gameplay was replacing the ability to cast chill touch with a necrotic bolt attack. Again, not a game-changing modification.
Another updated monster is the Redcap. Its statblock was rewritten to streamline the text. The only change affecting gameplay is an increase in armor class from 13 to 14. Whee….
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse is not fit for purpose. It should never have been published. Except for the Kenku and Kobold updates, I haven’t found anything worth paying for it in. WotC has experience with publishing errata. Magic: The Gathering has an extensive errata system that updates older cards based on new rules or templates. D&D already has one, as well, although it is just a PDF document. Everything in MotM could have and should have been published on the web. For free. This book is a blatant money grab by WotC exploiting all of those dedicated players who preorder any new sourcebook. Those players are owed an apology, if not a refund.
Den of the Red Wolf 