What amazes me with the continued defense of the weak MM stats is that it relies on doing things I imagine few groups would find actually fun.
If you think only a few groups find it fun to role-play monsters and opponents as living creatures with motivations and who like to take into account the game world and environment, then you would be very, very wrong. It is a
roleplaying game after all. Seriously, this is one of the more confusing things about you making comments like this. In just about every thread, for years, it's pointed out that that your playstyle is the minority, and yet you continue to assume everyone plays like you, or that your style is the default. Who is this "we" you keep talking about? Hate to break it to you, but players who prefer min/maxing and treating combat like a tactical boardgame with no actual role-playing of the opponents but instead treating them no more than statblocks is not how most people play the game. Is it a valid style? Sure. But not only is it a minority style, it literally tells you in every DMG since AD&D that the assumed style of play is for the DM to run opponents as living creatures with motivations, goals, strategy appropriate to them, and how important the world and environment around them is important.
Most players of D&D want and expect the BBEG to stand there, daring the party members to challenge it.
Again, assuming "most". What basis do you have for this? *Most* players do not want and expect the BBEG to be nothing more than a statblock to be taken in arena combat. This seems evident not only by the survey results we have and forum comments, but also by how the game is designed by how advice is given to DMs on running creatures.
To me, if the only way a dragon can be a tough combat encounter is if it stays off the combat map, and resorts to cowardly tactics, that is itself a miserable failure.
The entire complaint is this:
We want iconic monsters (and it doesn't get more iconic than dragons) to be able to land in the middle of the party, and to actually use its claws, bite, breath etc on the heroes, without having to worry about getting instakilled pathetic-style.
I'm sure there are some sneaky critters for which underhanded tactics that mostly frustrate the players are appropriate but dragons sure aren't them.
Dragons are
evil. At least the iconic ones that are typical opponents. They are also geniuses (except maybe white ones), or at the very least very smart. And they are old, which means they've experienced a lot. You want, no...by your own words,
demand, that DMs ignore all those things that an evil, intelligent creature would do just because you can't be bothered or you don't want to roleplay them as living smart creatures. All you want is to throw one stat block against the PCs statblock. An evil, intelligent creature is going to use any resource to it's advantage, and that includes being sneaky, being underhanded, and doing things like torching villages to lure PCs out into the open. They will do whatever it takes to win. That means a lot more than just "landing in the middle of a party and doing arena style combat."
To most of us, that's not much to ask. In fact, that's just our minimal expectation.
And like I've said multiple times before. If you insist on ignoring all of the flavor text on what motivates a dragon, how it behaves, what tactics it will use (minions, etc), and how smart it is to come up with these tactics and to plan for a party, then it's 100% on you to make those adjustments. Most of us do that. Not the game. The game literally gives you the tools on how to make dragons formidable and you're choosing to ignore them and then demand they cater to you? What incredible entitlement.
Especially cut the crap about "intelligent" foes. I'm dead tired of the notion that all a designer needs to do is to slap "Int 20" onto an otherwise uninspired mediocre stat block, and suddenly
it's on the DM to make that work. I call bullcrap!
I'm assuming this is directed at me, because I've made the argument for the importance of INT. Firstly, it's a strawman. No one making the argument of why the INT stat is important has said that all designers have to do is "slap INT 20" and "suddenly it's all up to the DM". What I, and others have said, is that INT is important because it tells you how a monster might react, act, and plan for the encounter. That's probably more important than any other stat because it's the difference between being a punching bag that just sits there in the middle of combat, and one that uses the environment, other creatures around it, plans for the PCs, uses tactics, and even uses PC weaknesses against them (like torching innocent villages because PCs are heroes and will try to save the village, falling right into the dragon's trap).
Sure seems to me that you're calling "bullcrap" on roleplaying in a roleplaying game. Perhaps you should stick to tactical boardgames, because that's what you keep saying you want while adamantly refusing to actually roleplay the opponents. D&D is not that. It
can be that, but you have to make the modifications yourself because that's not how the game is designed. This is not my opinion; it's right there in the DMG for how to play monsters, and why each monster entry has most of the page dedicated to flavor text. Constantly calling designers lazy, and incompetent because they aren't catering to your refusal to use these tools isn't going to fly. And you sure as heck don't speak for most gamers like you think you do. Min/maxers who ignore flavor text and roleplaying have always made up only the small minority of players. Always.
