Monster Manuals: Things You Don't Kill

[Imaro]

I think a paragraph or two of flavor text for a monster is the right amount. You can fit a lot of ideas into that length, as the mind flayer entry demonstrates. 4e gets it pretty much right, imo, as does 1e. Those ecology articles in Dragon magazine? Six pages on the ecology of the trapper? Very not right, imo.

I don't really think it's about length... and I don't think it necessarily has to be the same length for every monster. I will agree though that alot can fit into two paragraphs... if the right information is presented, I have no problem with that length, and honestly I don't think most people are asking for 6 pages on each and every monster... moreso I think people want better as opposed to longer background info... though in some cases it may be necessary to expand it in order to get the better story stuff.

Out of curiosity, which is your favorite 4e MM?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Out of curiosity, which is your favorite 4e MM?

I've only really read the first one so I couldn't say, I've only glanced at MM2 and MM3. I've seen a number of people saying they prefer the later MMs, though.

 

[evileeyore]

this, however? Not...

tl;dr

 

[pawsplay]

This is the problem that always comes up in this discussion. If I say I don't want much flavour, it automatically means that any flavour included in an entry somehow "disproves" my point.

Not at all. I was simply pointing out that mind flayers specifically have a fair amount of setting assumptions in their description.

I know that there is flavour there. OF COURSE there is flavour there. There has to be some. But, two paragraphs is a far cry from the reams of flavour that some seem to be advocating.

Who? What do you mean by ream?

To me, the monster manual is a rule reference that I pick up to stock my adventures with.

It's not something I sit down and read, any more than I sit down and read the dictionary or any other reference work. It's a tool to be used, not something to peruse, IMO.

I don't feel the same way at all. When I was eight years old, I saw someone reading a Monster Manual at church camp and I was completely intrigued by this book, the purpose of which I didn't quite fathom. Monster books have dozens of monsters, more than could fit into most MMORPGs, much less an average tabletop campaign. When you buy a monster book, you are primarily purchasing a resource that provides options, but logically, you are also buying a book 75% of which you will not use in play.

Monster manuals, OTOH, are not. They are not a source of setting information.

That really depends. Big campaign books were just popping up around the time time I started playing D&D.

D&D doesn't need that. I want a toolkit that lets me build my own campaigns, not piggy back on others.

I find this phrasing confusing. A toolkit is piggybacking on the work on others. I think of RPGs in much the same way as I approach reskinning or modding a game, or customizing a mini. Whatever I don't want can be cut away, replaced, or reinterpreted.

"My drow are patriarchical sky dwellers" actually provides more interest in the presence of contrasting MM material than otherwise. In what way are they like the drow I know? In what ways are they different? It's the essence of what made Dark Sun interesting. Halflings were still small and food-oriented, but in Athas, that made them cannibalistic raiders.

I enjoyed the full page speads in the Monster Compendium. If something sounds stupid it's a lot easier to replace it than to try to create whole cloth for every single critter in the campaign. In the absence of fluff, monster manuals make very little sense, actually. A real monster toolkit would give you lots of modular ways of designing monsters. Instead, monster books give you finished monsters, for the most part. The question then becomes, Ok, what do I do with this monster?

don't get me wrong, I thought Races of the Wild for 3e was junk as a player book, because I hated the flavor, but I didn't dislike the idea of flavor itself, just that particular book. I disliked the MM IV because I thought the monster designs were vacuous and cutesy, like a blander version of the old Fiend Folio and its disjointed creature list. I disliked the maps and planned encounters and so forth. I thought monster lore was poorly implemented. But I liked the concept of throwing more into a monster writeup than some stats.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

A toolkit is piggybacking on the work on others.

That's sort of an extreme interpretation.

Buying a set of appropriate saws, a portable mill, some measuring devices, and a hammer with a plan to change a bunch of timber into a deck is an entirely different proposition from buying pre-cut boards, having a frame delivered, and borrowing a nail gun.

There are degrees of toolkit, degrees of piggybacking, and degrees of carpentry.

EDIT:
Incidentally, I'm in the "give me a hammer and get the heck out of my way" camp vis a vis creature detail. This might be because I find an interesting sentence or two more thought-provoking than 5 rambly paragraphs, and it might be because I'm a biologist and most attempts to create an ecology for these critters just make me laugh and give me stuff to throw out.

 

[Imaro]

That's sort of an extreme interpretation.

Buying a set of appropriate saws, a portable mill, some measuring devices, and a hammer with a plan to change a bunch of timber into a deck is an entirely different proposition from buying pre-cut boards, having a frame delivered, and borrowing a nail gun.

There are degrees of toolkit, degrees of piggybacking, and degrees of carpentry.

EDIT:
Incidentally, I'm in the "give me a hammer and get the heck out of my way" camp vis a vis creature detail. This might be because I find an interesting sentence or two more thought-provoking than 5 rambly paragraphs, and it might be because I'm a biologist and most attempts to create an ecology for these critters just make me laugh and give me stuff to throw out.

Well IMO, there are much better games than D&D if you want a pure toolkit...pre-constructed races, pre-constructed-classes, a default setting, a default cosmology, etc. do not a pure toolkit make... especially when compared to something like GURPS, Reign:Enchiridion, or Hero.

 

[Hussar]

Well IMO, there are much better games than D&D if you want a pure toolkit...pre-constructed races, pre-constructed-classes, a default setting, a default cosmology, etc. do not a pure toolkit make... especially when compared to something like GURPS, Reign:Enchiridion, or Hero.

(bold mine)

But again, it's not an either/or proposition. No one, or at least not me, is advocating a pure crunch book. Nothing but stat blocks and combat info. I don't want that either.

I'm with Doug MCCrae on this. Two paragraphs, pretty much what we got throughout Basic/Expert or 1e D&D is all I want. I don't even mind a bit of setting info, so long as it's fairly generic. "Mind Flayers have a hidden city beneath the earth" is pretty generic.

But, later, we change from mind flayer to Illithid. And Ultrathid. And Ilithlich. And and and. We go from a very basic concept of a sort of Cthulu-esque brain eater, to this massive tome of canon that intrudes every single time mind flayers are used in a subsequent supplement.

I don't even know why mind flayers got the name Illithid. No idea where that comes from. And, quite frankly, don't care.

And, if you think people don't claw onto flavour in the core books, you haven't been reading En World for the past couple of years. All you have to do is look at any thread related to cosmology and you'll see that.

Zero flavour is bad. I'll agree with that. But, the level of detail you're proposing is just as bad. There is a happy middle. Well, mostly happy anyway.

 

[Hussar]

/snip of the OP, just to try to drag things back out of my sidebar. Sorry for the off topic rant.

Well, what do you think?

Honestly, I think that it's far easier to take a combat monster (defined as something that is a credible threat to the PC's) and turn it into a non-combat encounter than the other way around. To make a combat monster into a non-combat encounter only requires that the monster not attack, and try to talk to the party.

IME, this works most of the time. Unless something is definably evil (like a demon and, honestly, even then), players will take the time to talk to stuff that initiates conversation. When that troll walks up, sits down a couple of dozen feet away and waves you over, holding a dead goat in its other hand, most players are intrigued enough to hold off attacking.

OTOH, the "non-combat" monsters that D&D has long had - the Dryad is a perfect example that comes to mind - are either so unbelievably broken (Which fairy was it that caused death saves if you saw it? Sylph? Nymph?) or very much lacking in any sort of credible threat at all. And either monster becomes very difficult to turn into a combat encounter.

So, why stat up something like this? If it's not a credible threat, it dies. End of story. If you need its skills, well, that can be taken straight from the DMG in 4e. Or, create it like any other NPC and give it a skill level that seems appropriate.

I love the idea of a big book of non-combat encounters. Hazards, traps, and stuff to talk to. I just don't think the monster format is required for it.

 

[Imaro]

(bold mine)

But again, it's not an either/or proposition. No one, or at least not me, is advocating a pure crunch book. Nothing but stat blocks and combat info. I don't want that either.

I'm with Doug MCCrae on this. Two paragraphs, pretty much what we got throughout Basic/Expert or 1e D&D is all I want. I don't even mind a bit of setting info, so long as it's fairly generic. "Mind Flayers have a hidden city beneath the earth" is pretty generic.

But, later, we change from mind flayer to Illithid. And Ultrathid. And Ilithlich. And and and. We go from a very basic concept of a sort of Cthulu-esque brain eater, to this massive tome of canon that intrudes every single time mind flayers are used in a subsequent supplement.

I don't even know why mind flayers got the name Illithid. No idea where that comes from. And, quite frankly, don't care.

And, if you think people don't claw onto flavour in the core books, you haven't been reading En World for the past couple of years. All you have to do is look at any thread related to cosmology and you'll see that.

Zero flavour is bad. I'll agree with that. But, the level of detail you're proposing is just as bad. There is a happy middle. Well, mostly happy anyway.

What exactly is the level of detail I'm proposing? And please before you answer go back and read my post to Doug.

EDIT: Also the toolkit comment was not addressed to you, I quoted the poster I addressed it to, just so there would be no confusion.

 

[Hussar]

What exactly is the level of detail I'm proposing? And please before you answer go back and read my post to Doug.

EDIT: Also the toolkit comment was not addressed to you, I quoted the poster I addressed it to, just so there would be no confusion.

See and for me this isn't enough to inspire a fantasy game (and again D&D is not generic fantasy, it has it's own mythology, archetypes, etc. Choosing to change them is cool but pretending that D&D is a generic FRPG is disingenuous.). I want hooks for creatures (for in and out of combat interactions) beyond... "This is how and why it attacks" I want a background for the creature within the default setting, quirks & hooks I can use when running the creature within the default world's mythology... of course if I want to change something the "Canon police" aren't going to kick down my door and force me to keep everything the same.

(bold mine)

I would say that you are advocating considerably more flavour than I am.

You seem to want more than just the following:

1. Appearance
2. Where it lives
3. Basic motivations and outlook

Would that be correct?

Me, all I want are those three things.