There is More 5e Content on Kobalds

First, a note.  5th edition's Volo's Guide to Monsters has more information about the kobald.  You can read the whole entry through this site.  Here's a screen shot of the first two pages; there are 8 pages in all:

I have to tell you, I'm still not very impressed.  The exhausting and annoying issue with all this content is the lack of details that would be of tremendous use.  Telling us that kobalds are skilled at tunnelling, and that they make small-diameter tunnels (I thought of that too) does not describe the exact size of tunnel or how much they can tunnel in the space of a day.  We're told it's "respectable." What the hell use is that?

There is this endless litany of where kobalds are and what little skills they have, but none of these produce a "feel" for a kobald's mentality.  Wikipedia does better!  Though, the wikipedia entry will disappoint, if D&D kobald is what you're looking for.  A problem I have with all of the 5e monsters is "splatter design."  We're told a dozen things in a short 260 word passage; and when we have eight pages, do we carefully investigate and expand those things?  No, we add a hundred other things: they're cowards, they loot, they're good with tools, they don't shun arcane magic, they're clever as crafters and strategists, they understand their actions contribute to the group, their plans always include an escape route, they are rarely affectionate, they don't have funerals, they're cautious, they get angry, they fear, they're this, they're that ... and this just goes on and on for eight pages.  Imagine reading a sociology textbook that just gives a long list of what humans sometimes do, believe or think.  It's tremendously boring, it keeps returning to the same theme over and over and when you're done reading it all, you know about as much about using kobalds in a game setting as when you started.

I mean seriously, take the bit about them being good with tools.  When are we going to use that, exactly, as a DM?  Have the party come along to find the kobalds fixing a cart, so we can say, "As you watch the kobalds, you're really amazed at how good they are with those tools."  Or maybe the party has caught some kobald prisoners, and now the wagon is broken, so we can tell the party, "You know what?  Get the kobald to fix it.  They're really good with tools."

You know who else is good with tools?  Humans who are trained to use tools.  Thank heaven that because those are so rare, we have murderous kobalds to help us.

Of course, more of this is to help out a player who is running a kobald, than it is a book about monsters.  The passages are really more to help the player know what to say, cookie-cutter like, when it comes time to "role-play" a kobald.  Make sure that you acknowledge that you're weak, that you're not that clever, and to get personally affronted easily ... and oh, don't forget about that ever-critical tool ability, plus a willingness to loot and find escape routes.  There, fleshing out the character, done.

It's like explaining the character of Willie Loman from Death of a Salesman thusly: you're a man, you're married, you've got a suit and tie, you carry a briefcase, you're a salesman, you have two sons, you talk out loud to people you used to know, that aren't there now.  Got it?  Great.  Start talking.

This is my favorite bit:

There are 20 names here.  20.  Arranged as an alphabetical list in two columns, with plenty of white space and numbered to save us the trouble of having to pick.  I've played this game a long time, I've never needed a name for a kobald; though I think, if I really needed one, I could randomly pick a consonant in my mind, randomly pick a vowel to follow it, then randomly pick another consonant.  Something like, I don't know, "Bob."  Bob the Kobald.  Fits fine.

Later on in the description, we find out that kobalds have cellars and sleeping areas, and mines, and mushroom farms.  Under "mushroom farms," we're told kobalds aren't good at agriculture.  It might interest people to know that underground mushroom farming is "simple" if you don't need to make money and you absolutely do not depend on them for food.  Otherwise, it is labour intensive and frustrating, since one small contamination can spread like wildfire and destroy the whole crop.  Ah, but maybe kobalds can eat anything.  We'll never know, because we spent at least a full page describing how kobalds make and use the same traps that every other humanoid in D&D uses.

I don't want to be petty, but eight pages of this content and there isn't one piece of information that isn't rehashed from books 35 years old, that I can use.  Back in the 90s, I could open a splat-book and at least steal some bits and pieces here and there, to fit into some table or redesign into a concept that would expand my system.  But with this 5e stuff, it's just old stuff rewritten, telling me that deadfalls are common traps, that kobalds attack light sources in combat, that they use poison, that tactics include ambushes ... it is just cliche after cliche for eight goddamned pages.  It's a little annoying.