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Wandering Monsters: Not-Dragons
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<blockquote data-quote="Gold Roger" data-source="post: 6196023" data-attributes="member: 33904"><p>All of this is so setting dependant. Just looking at my own homebrew, hobgoblins/goblinoids are non-tribal and as human as, say, leucrotta. On the other hand dragons are near extinct and it could take centuries until one catches on and takes revenge for such a blasphemy.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I say this just to show an example for a mistake wotc made with 4e (imo, of course), that I fear might be repeated when I read these articles.</p><p></p><p>Of course it's a good thing when the designers put a fair amount of background for monsters and races. But I see this danger of overdoing it, as I consider it was done in 4e. You see, when I buy the MM and read hobgoblins are tribal and breed drakes, I say, fine, that info is of little worth to me when I use my homebrew. That's a price of homebrewing.</p><p></p><p> It gets troublesome when such info takes priority over such info as where are drakes found in the wilderness, how do they act and what use are they for me as DM. Info that is relevant to me, no matter what origin I give drakes in my game.</p><p></p><p>It gets even worse, when such ideas gets hardcoded into the mechanical design of hobgoblins and drakes. Lets say they give drakes and hobgoblins synergy when used in the same encounter and consider this in the creatures difficulty and xp values. This is great for players who use the monsters as written. But suddenly I and every other DM using the two monsters differently (possible even in established published settings) is stuck with monsters (in the case of hobgoblins a staple of low level adventuring) that are less usable out of the book.</p><p></p><p>Wotc should always keep in mind that there's a great number of preestablished settings and countless homebrews DMs want to keep using without retcons. If they don't consider this when designing races and monsters this runs counter to the inclusive philosophy of DDN. What does it help when the rules are so modular that I can adjust my campaign to all kinds of playstyles and settings, when monster and race design is so chock full of implied setting, it takes a massive amount of work to use them?</p><p></p><p>A good way might be to present monster fluff in a very general way and then add 2-4 short paragraphs of possible backgrounds with optional rules to enforce such background?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Gold Roger, post: 6196023, member: 33904"] All of this is so setting dependant. Just looking at my own homebrew, hobgoblins/goblinoids are non-tribal and as human as, say, leucrotta. On the other hand dragons are near extinct and it could take centuries until one catches on and takes revenge for such a blasphemy. I say this just to show an example for a mistake wotc made with 4e (imo, of course), that I fear might be repeated when I read these articles. Of course it's a good thing when the designers put a fair amount of background for monsters and races. But I see this danger of overdoing it, as I consider it was done in 4e. You see, when I buy the MM and read hobgoblins are tribal and breed drakes, I say, fine, that info is of little worth to me when I use my homebrew. That's a price of homebrewing. It gets troublesome when such info takes priority over such info as where are drakes found in the wilderness, how do they act and what use are they for me as DM. Info that is relevant to me, no matter what origin I give drakes in my game. It gets even worse, when such ideas gets hardcoded into the mechanical design of hobgoblins and drakes. Lets say they give drakes and hobgoblins synergy when used in the same encounter and consider this in the creatures difficulty and xp values. This is great for players who use the monsters as written. But suddenly I and every other DM using the two monsters differently (possible even in established published settings) is stuck with monsters (in the case of hobgoblins a staple of low level adventuring) that are less usable out of the book. Wotc should always keep in mind that there's a great number of preestablished settings and countless homebrews DMs want to keep using without retcons. If they don't consider this when designing races and monsters this runs counter to the inclusive philosophy of DDN. What does it help when the rules are so modular that I can adjust my campaign to all kinds of playstyles and settings, when monster and race design is so chock full of implied setting, it takes a massive amount of work to use them? A good way might be to present monster fluff in a very general way and then add 2-4 short paragraphs of possible backgrounds with optional rules to enforce such background? [/QUOTE]
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