D&D: WotC Errata Update– No, Mind Flayers Aren’t Kid-Friendly Now
Wizards of the Coast issued their errata update to clarify what exactly they’ve changed about monsters going forward. Check it out.
Yesterday, Wizards of the Coast updated the blog post accompanying the latest batch of errata. Wizards of the Coast has clarified exactly what’s being changed after a week of, shall we say, spirited conversation on various forums and social media. You know, the places famous for fostering measured, reasoned discussion?
Is This the Disneyfication of D&D Monsters?
The biggest concern among the playerbase seems to be the idea that WotC is removing swaths of lore from books. Some commenters have decried WotC for “Disneyfying” monsters like Beholders or Mind Flayers in their latest errata.
But if you look at what’s actually been taken out, it’s a few paragraphs here or there. Most of which describe monster personalities, sure. But they’re just a lead-in to the meat and potatoes of roleplay tables that tell you your Beholder enjoys lording its superiority over others.
Or that it holds Greed as its highest ideal. Or that it’s worried its followers are spying on it, and it needs to take out frustrations on its minions.
In short, the lead-in to the personality tables has been largely overwritten. For now, it’s just changes that clarify and make explicit that the various traits you might find in a table are only possibilities. Beholders are by no means all xenophobic aberrations who reproduce when they dream about something obsessively.
Relax, the Mindflayer is Fine
All of that lore is still in the book.
The only thing that’s gone are three paragraphs that gave some flavor, sure. But they were by no means the only clue as to the monsters’ personality or habits or history. All of that information is largely untouched.
A fact which head of D&D, Ray Winninger, explained in an update to the recent errata post. We’re including it in full below so that folks can see what exactly they said.
In a nutshell though, don’t worry– Mind Flayers are still evil monsters. They still colonized the Underdark and devoured brains and totally run Wizards of the Coast.
WotC Errata Update– Statement
We recently released a set of errata documents cataloging the corrections and changes we’ve made in recent reprints of various titles. I thought I’d provide some additional context on some of these changes and why we made them.
First, I urge all of you to read the errata documents for yourselves. A lot of assertions about the errata we’ve noticed in various online discussions aren’t accurate. (For example, we haven’t decided that beholders and mind flayers are no longer evil.)
We make text corrections for many reasons, but there are a few themes running through this latest batch of corrections worth highlighting.
1) The Multiverse
I’ve previously noted that new setting products are a major area of focus for the Studio going forward. As part of that effort, our reminders that D&D supports not just The Forgotten Realms but a multitude of worlds are getting more explicit. Since the nature of creatures and cultures vary from world to world, we’re being extra careful about making authoritative statements about such things without providing appropriate context. If we’re discussing orcs, for instance, it’s important to note which orcs we’re talking about. The orcs of Greyhawk are quite different from the orcs you’ll find in Eberron, for instance, just as an orc settlement on the Sword Coast may exhibit a very different culture than another orc settlement located on the other side of Faerûn. This addresses corrections like the blanket disclaimer added to p.5 of VOLO’S GUIDE.
2) Alignment
The only real changes related to alignment were removing the suggested alignments previously assigned to playable races in the PHB and elsewhere (“most dwarves are lawful;” “most halflings are lawful good”). We stopped providing such suggestions for new playable races some time ago. Since every player character is a unique individual, we no longer feel that such guidance is useful or appropriate. Whether or not most halflings are lawful good has no bearing on your halfling and who you want to be. After all, the most memorable and interesting characters often explicitly subvert expectations and stereotypes. And again, it’s impossible to say something like “most halflings are lawful good” without clarifying which halflings we’re talking about. (It’s probably not true that most Athasian halflings are lawful good.) These changes were foreshadowed in an earlier blog post and impact only the guidance provided during character creation; they are not reflective of any changes to our settings or the associated lore.
3) Creature Personalities
We also removed a couple paragraphs suggesting that all mind flayers or all beholders (for instance) share a single, stock personality. We’ve long advised DMs that one way to make adventures and campaigns more memorable is to populate them with unique and interesting characters. These paragraphs stood in conflict with that advice. We didn’t alter the essential natures of these creatures or how they fit into our settings at all. (Mind flayers still devour the brains of humanoids, and yes, that means they tend to be evil.)
The through-line that connects these three themes is our renewed commitment to encouraging DMs and players to create whatever worlds and characters they can imagine.
Happy holidays and happy gaming.
