How stellar was the old Fiend Folio!

[pawsplay]

Ehh, I dunno. The 1e FF was full of a lot of stuff that I think was too silly for words. It had some occasional flashes of brilliance, but what product doesn't have at least occasional flashes of brilliance?

AFAIC 1e FF was a weird book with very limited usefulness and a high "noise" level.

There is nothing more useless than a book of logical, well-balanced monsters pretty much like other monsters you may have heard of or imagined.

 

[Blair Goatsblood]

Funny, I was looking through an old White Dwarf magazine the other day and an article in it had a write-up on the deities of the lava children.

A Hybrid earth/fire elemental race has their own Pantheon? There really is a god for everything in D&D!

 

[jdrakeh]

The FF was/is the best D&D monster book ever.

 

[Celebrim]

The production values were terrible. Many of the monsters were questionable, some where nearly useless, and a few were so downright silly that they seemed to make new monsters from April editions of Dragon to be downright serious minded. The really bad art didn't help the credibility of the monsters either.

Still, if you can get past that, it's got alot of cool concepts. On the whole, I'd say that it has stood up as well as the other two 1st edition monster manuals. Afterall, its not like it was a step down from MM1's production values, and its not like its got fewer interesting and useful monsters than MM2. The overall picture you get is of alot of really good ideas turned into monsters with greatly varying skill of execution. Or, occassionally you get extremely well executed monsters - like the Slaad - with very muddled conceptions.

I've used all of the following: Aarakocra, Apparition, Bat (Giant), Berbalang, Bullywug, Caryatid Column, Crypt Thing, Dark Creeper, Dark Stalker, Doombat, Elf (Drow), Ettercap, Forlarren, Gibberling, Grell, Hook Horror, Hornet (Giant), Huecuva (!!), Lizard King, Mephit (!!!), Scarecrow, Skeleton Warrior, Slaad (!!), Son of Kyuss, and Yellow Musk Creeper (and Zombie). That's not a bad haul AFAIC considering how picky I am about monsters. There are probably half as many again as I'd consider using but have never found a need for.

 

[WillieW]

The Fiend Folio was from a very different time and experience of D&D and so judging its production values by today's standards may be a little unfair. Its artwork was more "doodle in the corner of a character sheet" at times than professional quality book illustration. Its monsters were frequently enthusiastic constructs rather than rules-based paradigms of consistency. You should remember that when it was published we were still finding "This 20' x 20' room is empty" in published modules. So D&D still had a long way to come to what we're familiar with today. But as several contributors have said, we used many of the monsters in our games and some went on to be highly developed in later versions of the rule books, so it couodn't have been all bad.

For me, books like FF are fun because they offer a creative seed to the DM. Maybe that seed is already potted, lebelled, and in bud in the more sophisticated books like MM and MM2, but its the same plant we're hoping to flower at our games.

I've had some very complimentary remarks made to me in this thread (thank you! Much appreciated! ) for work I produced years back, quite often using the less popular monsters from the compendiums. I propose that all you active DMs out there should take five random FF monsters and stick them together in a little Side Trek type adventure, rationalise their being together in a plausible way, then spring them and their strangenesses on your players in an upcoming session. Bet you all have fun.

FF Forever!

Edit: Anyone wanna Fork the Thread and we'll give it a FF Side Trek go?

 

[pawsplay]

What's so weird about an empty room?

 

[WillieW]

What's so weird about an empty room?

What's exciting about one?

 

[pawsplay]

What's exciting about one?

It's so full of possibilities.

--Also, many areas would reasonably have empty areas.

 

[Ceramicwombat]

The Fiend Folio was my introduction to D&D. I found it in a used book store when I was 9 during a family vacation. I spent the rest of the vacation with my nose buried in it. I had no idea what hit dice, frequency, damage, or anything else in the statistic blocks meant. No idea what the 2d4, 3d6+8, or 4-40 business was either. But based on the strange art and stranger descriptions, I knew I needed to find more books like it. Not knowing the difference between AD&D and Basic, I picked up the Red Box and was disappointed that the Fiend Folio was not compatible. Anyway, the Fiend Folio is the reason I still have a soft spot for Slaad, Gith, and the wonkier denizens of the D&D universe.

 

[jaerdaph]

What's so weird about an empty room?

What's exciting about one?

Empty rooms should always have a pie.

But then it wouldn't be empty anymore I suppose...


Mr. Walsh, it's good to see you here! I always enjoyed your adventures in DUNGEON.