D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)

[mamba]

i plan to prove that in just over a month or so too!

looking forward to that

 

[Minigiant]

Not really relevant to my concern. What makes them think publishing new rules would be alternately confusing and/or inadequate, such that they have to keep them in-house?

I remember listening to a podcast when they work announcing the dungeon master guide with two of the designers for it and they mentioned that in order to create new monsters they had to punch in values into a Excel sheet and look at a guidebook.

I believe the core problem is that if you want a rough and dirty monster creation rules you can probably do it but you would only spit out unsatisfying unsatisfactory monsters without knowing the additional guidelines surrounding it.

And really nobody wants to quick and dirty version.

Because of this actually printing out a monster creation rule system that would actually allow people of novice game design would require converting their various formulas and guidelines that they have in-house into an entire chapter worth of material.

And I don't think that they want to add entire chapter worth of pages to the Monster Manual just for that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I remember listening to a podcast when they work announcing the dungeon master guide with two of the designers for it and they mentioned that in order to create new monsters they had to punch in values into a Excel sheet and look at a guidebook.

I believe the core problem is that if you want a rough and dirty monster creation rules you can probably do it but you would only spit out unsatisfying unsatisfactory monsters without knowing the additional guidelines surrounding it.

And really nobody wants to quick and dirty version.

Because of this actually printing out a monster creation rule system that would actually allow people of novice game design would require converting their various formulas and guidelines that they have in-house into an entire chapter worth of material.

And I don't think that they want to add entire chapter worth of pages to the Monster Manual just for that.

They should have done the work and put it in the DMG IMO.

 

[Remathilis]

They should have done the work and put it in the DMG IMO.

They could have kept Greyhawk locked in the vault and used that space to put the monster creation rules there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They could have kept Greyhawk locked in the vault and used that space to put the monster creation rules there.

Or they could have just opened Greyhawk up on the Guild (along with all their other settings IMO) and used that space for the monster rules as you suggest.

 

[Remathilis]

Or they could have just opened Greyhawk up on the Guild (along with all their other settings IMO) and used that space for the monster rules as you suggest.

Nah. One or the other. Choose.

 

[Minigiant]

They could have kept Greyhawk locked in the vault and used that space to put the monster creation rules there.

Greyhawk and Bastions ate the DM toolbox chapter.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah. One or the other. Choose.

Why? I don't see any reason to accept your hypothetical ultimatum.

 

[grimmgoose]

Greyhawk and Bastions ate the DM toolbox chapter.

Yeah, Bastions are a player-facing tool they put in the DMG.

I get why it’s not in the PHB, but put it in the first supplement, not the DMG.

 

[Zaukrie]

I've n been a DM for over forty years. I've never used monster creation rules. I just take existing monsters and redo them. I wonder what WotC research says about how DMs create monsters? In any event, this topic is beat to death.... So I'll likely not post on it again any time soon