people either outright say, or heavily infer, that unless an ability is in the statblock, then that monster can't do anything else.
I know a lot of people who criticised 4e's MM made this assumption - they got angry that, in 4e, devils couldn't animate dead - and their argument for this was that the ability to animate dead was not in the stat-block.
I think those people were wrong - a 4e stat-block is not a "total picture" of a monster and its capabilities, any more than a PC sheet in that game is a "total picture" of a character and his/her capabiltiies - but that might be a discussion for another day.
People have described their gameplay more akin to a boardgame, where all the flavor text and lore about the monster is ignored (as well as attributes unless it involves a save somewhere) because of statements like "monster X is boring because they don't do anything but attack." INT and WIS scores are there for more than just saves. They tell you the intellectual capacity of said monster, which tells you how they would react in the game world. All that flavor text is just as important.
I very rarely see anyone compare his/her own game to a boardgame. It's almost always a comparison I see made by others criticising those games (as you are doing here).
It's fine to prefer one's own game to others who are playing differently, but if you want to understand what those others are talking about you're going to have to go beyond pejorative labels.
If someone says, for instance, that monster X (say, kobolds) is boring because just a bag of hit points, telling them to play Tucker's kobolds - and pointing to the kobold flavour text about trap-making - is probably not very helpful advice. If that person wanted to play Tucker's kobolds s/he probably could. But it seems more likely that s/he wants to play a game in which confrontations take place in a more forthright manner. Probably what s/he is looking for is a way to make kobolds play with some of the same sort of mechanically-expressed dynamism as (say) a battlemaster with his/her manoeuvres or a monk with his/her ki.
I mean, we don't
need those abilities - we could, as classic D&D tended to, wrap it all up in hit points and simply narrate our PCs dodging, tripping, staggering etc as the enemy's hit points go down - but many people clearly find them fun. Presumably the person who complains about monsters as bags of hit points finds those sorts of things particularly fun, and wants more of them on the monster side of things.
So when ehren says that kobolds using deadly traps is just the DM out to get the players, that's actively against what the book actually says.
<snip>
we have people like ehren saying that if a group of kobolds set traps that result in PCs dying or suffering, it's bad DMing rather than how the game actually should work (role playing the monsters to their ability).
The fact that the MM mentions kobolds using traps doesn't tell us whether or not Tucker's kobolds is good GMing, or fair GMing. Consider this: the MM mentions other things, too, like Rakshasas ability to "take on any guise", and their 1x/day Dominate Person. A GM could easily look at this and decide that a Rakshasa imitates one of the PCs, thereby gets close to any or all of his/her (NPC) friends, loved ones, etc and has them kill themselves. Or, disguised as the PC, the Rakshasa could get the local banker, where the PC has his/her money stored, to hand it all over to the Rakshasa. Etc, etc. But this would not necessarily by good or fair GMing just because it is consistent with what the MM tells us about Rakshasas, and might be described as playing a Rakshasa to the best of its ability.
That's not to say that Tucker's kobolds were bad GMing - Roger Moore seems to have had fond memories of them. But one can't tell whether or not they were good GMing just by reading the MM flavour text. And, personally, I don't think Roger Moore's GMing advice that he derioves from them is very good advice.
The whole basis of AEDU is built around "you'll have X encounters per day, where you'll spend Y amount of resources on each one", which has resulted in a de facto expectation from players that they call beat every encounter because they know and/or expect how many resources will be spent.
There seems to be some edition-confusion here.
5e has a clear "encounters per day" expectation - 6 to 8, with 2 short rests - or else the mechanical balance between long-rest and short-rest based classes can get out of whack.
3E had a clear "encounters per day" expectation, though that had nothing to do with AEDU because (unlike 4e and 5e) it had no systematic distinction between short rest and long rest recharge. It nevertheless talks about "encounters per day" because hp and spells are recovered on a per-day basis.l
4e - the only edition which has an explicit AEDU structure - has no "encounters per day" expectation (there is discussion of encounters-per-adventure, eg on DMG p 104, but not of encounters per day). I think this is mostly becauase it doesn't need one, because the bulk of recoverable resources in 4e are on a "per encounter" rather than "per day" basis.
we have had people literally say that if the encounter isn't built for the PCs to win, then that's bad DMing and "out to get the PCs" because the rules say how each encounter should be balanced.
In my view, one of the biggest issues in D&D play is
who gets to decide what encounters the PCs have.
In classic, Gygaxian D&D the answer has two parts. First, the players decide which placed encounters they meet, because they are the ones who explore the dungeon, gather intelligence, and plan their assaults. (The Tucker's kobolds story is about a group playing in this fashion.) Second, the GM rolls for wandering monsters - which are, in effect, encounters that the players can't control (except very indirectly, by reducing their time spent and hence the number of wandering monster rolls). However, with regard to this second category of encountrs, classic D&D has quite robust and elaborate evasion rules, which means that players can still avoid these encounters with a bit of luck and decent play.
In this sort of game, if the players decide to have their PCs assault a dungeon level or dungeon room which is on the tought side for them (eg they're 3rd level and the room has a couple of hill giants in it), well, that's on them. If the GM rolls up a tough wandering monster, well, that's a bit more tricky. Gygax has express advice about this - first, the bit I quoted upthread, about tailoring numbers to the strength of the party; and second, this discussion in the intro to his DMG (p 9):
[T]he rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition. You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well thought-out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players’ interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils. They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favorite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, everytime you throw the ”monster die” a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons . . . If a party deserves to have these beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everything possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If your work as a DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance.
In other words, Gygax was quite aware that when it is the GM who is framing the PCs into encounters, there is a possibility of imablance/unfairness. And he gave advice on how to deal with it: namely, avoid using the unfair/imbalanced encounter (but don't use it, then fudge it, as they would be contrary to the precepts of the game).
In contemporary D&D play it is much more common for the GM to be in charge of all encounter framing; and the modern game lacks the robust evasion rules of those earlier versions. In these circumstances, I think that Gygax's advice to GMs becomes all the more important.
no wonder why someone thinks it will result in a TPK if the players always expect to win due to metagaming if the DM actually plays the monsters like Tucker's Kobolds.
<snip>
You like to quote Gygax, then I'm sure you're also aware in the DMG of him saying that if PCs die because of their own poor choices, then too bad for them.
What counts as a poor choice? In Gygax's style of D&D, it is poor play to recklessly engage wandering monsters; to recklessly provoke wandering monster checks (eg by being needlessly noisy); and to enter placed encounters without properly scouting, scrying etc first.
What is poorplay in a contemporary game, where the GM chooses all of the encounters? In a recent thread (maybe this one?) [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] talked about using encounters where the players are expected to have their PCs flee. I'm personally not sure about the point of such an encounter. It looks a bit railroad-y to me - the players' job becomes to guess what reaction the GM expects them to take to whatever it is they're confronted with. Whereas that was never the case in Gygaxian play.
Players don't have that same sense of risk if they assume there is no real risk of their PCs dying because of that metagaming balance knowledge.
<snip>
if you do play reckless like that and run into a situation like Tucker's Kobolds, don't blame the DM for playing them as they would normally act and don't blame the game, because it's you who made the choice to act recklessly.
It's a game, and a leisure activity. It's not unreasonable to expect the GM to play fairly. What counts as "fairly" is obviously variable from table-to-table.
But if I prefer Conan-esque play to Advanced Squad Leader, and the GM knows that, and then the GM hits me with Tucker's kobolds, I'm going to be irritated. And I will absolutely blame the GM, and justifiably so. There's a million-and-one contrivances in the game that make it work as a game. The millionth-and-first, especially if it's the one I care about, isn't going to be a problem. (The millionth-and-second, wherein a Rakshasa - offscreen - doesn't pretend to be my PC and kill all my PC's friends and family and steal all my PC's stashed loot, will be fine by me too.)
