D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[Maxperson]

At that point, when the players take a noncombat interest in an NPC, the DM can update the "monster" statblock to a unique individual statblock, or sometimes even a player character sheet.

No. This is a big, fat no from me. I'm not going to be like, "Okay guys, WotC dropped the ball here and I need to pause the game while I create a bunch of stuff for this monster so that we can continue to play."

That stuff needs to be there BEFORE they encounter the monster, so it can be in play immediately when needed, and since I don't know which monsters I will need stuff for, I'm not going to spend the time to do it for every single monster in advance. That's WotC's job.

 

[Maxperson]

they mostly are, put the fluff outside the stat block

It's not fluff.

 

[mamba]

i’m running a film-noir lovecraftian campaign set in a big city. Your concept of a Tortle Ninja-flying monk spoils the mood.

they could live in the sewers of the city and be trained by a wererat

 

[tetrasodium]

Dunno.

You don't come off as a millennial nor gen z and old enough that you were older than the prime watching years and toy playing years.

Your constant rush to regularly dismiss everyone you think might be ready to collect social security and 4% of their 401k as too old for an opinion on d&d leaves out a fairly significant chunk of customers who don't fall cleanly into any major generational grouping.
There's another older one one between boomers and genx but I don't think it's quite as much of a distinctly square peg. AFAIK the younger one is mostly too Young to have developed all that much into a distinctly square peg yet.

 

[mamba]

It's not fluff.

put anything not relevant for combat outside the stat block, I do not care whether you agree with calling that part fluff or not, that is missing the point

 

[mamba]

There are also more recent inspirations

I have no idea what that is

 

[Yaarel]

No. This is a big, fat no from me. I'm not going to be like, "Okay guys, WotC dropped the ball here and I need to pause the game while I create a bunch of stuff for this monster so that we can continue to play."

That stuff needs to be there BEFORE they encounter the monster, so it can be in play immediately when needed, and since I don't know which monsters I will need stuff for, I'm not going to spend the time to do it for every single monster in advance. That's WotC's job.

Statblock creation for a unique character is done between sessions. Keep track of any decisions that were made on the fly until then.

 

[mamba]

The primary reason I can think of is that I got the idea for a wise old turtle druid and I don't know when, if ever, I will get to play him.

what relevance has turtle here, why is wise old dwarf druid not filling that niche basically about as well?

I think my flaw on this thinking is assuming that I need to be DM shopping to play the character I want. That just because I want to try something new, I need to abandon my current group and find a new one and hope that DM is more permissive while also adjusting to a new group and DM who will have different quirks. Hell, I may need to leave a group of friends to game with strangers just to try out my idea. (Then again, if my group would rather I leave then play a Tortle, I'm pretty sure they weren't friends)

that cuts both ways, if you are so insistent on playing that turtle that you leave your group over it, then yeah, you did not really consider them friends either

 

[Minigiant]

Your constant rush to regularly dismiss everyone you think might be ready to collect social security and 4% of their 401k as too old for an opinion on d&d leaves out a fairly significant chunk of customers who don't fall cleanly into any major generational grouping.
There's another older one one between boomers and genx but I don't think it's quite as much of a distinctly square peg. AFAIK the younger one is mostly too Young to have developed all that much into a distinctly square peg yet.

I'm not dismissing the older generation. I'm stating that they're not the primary consumer base for wizards anymore. Because many of them, I have left the mainstream DND world and join the osr or kept their old editions.

The 20-45 age range are the primary Purchasers and players 

• 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise
• 60% are “hybrid” players, who switch between playing the game physically or online
• 58% play D&D on a weekly basis
• 48% identify as millennials, 19% from Generation X and 33% from Generation Z
• The majority of current D&D players started with 5th Edition

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not dismissing the older generation. I'm stating that they're not the primary consumer base for wizards anymore. Because many of them, I have left the mainstream DND world and join the osr or kept their old editions.

The 20-45 age range are the primary Purchasers and players 

• 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise
• 60% are “hybrid” players, who switch between playing the game physically or online
• 58% play D&D on a weekly basis
• 48% identify as millennials, 19% from Generation X and 33% from Generation Z
• The majority of current D&D players started with 5th Edition

Proving my point. Gap/saddle/micro generations don't generally get slotted into their own grouping even when they are very different from the one they are adding noise to.