How do you like your Monster Manuals?

[Nonlethal Force]

I didn't vote, because I honestly only have MM1. I've never felt the need to buy any more. I can come up with classed monsters just fine on my own, so I typically won't buy a book if there is more than a very small smattering of them. In fact, even one may be enough to really turn me off - although probably not enough to prevent me from buying it.

To me, classed monsters is like a door to door salesman coming buy and selling me a gallon of chocolate ice cream, a gallon of strawberry ice cream, a gallon of vanilla ice cream - and then coming buy and trying to sell me neopolitan ice cream! If I have all the pieces, I don't need someone to put them together for me!

On the other hand, for DMs who don't have much time I can see how these kind of books would be helpful. Thus, if I had to vote I would say they should be in seperate sourcebooks. Maybe call one of them "DM's GUIDE: Classed monsters 1"

That way people could avoid them or buy them up.

 

[Thomas Percy]

Brand new/updated creatures AND classed monsters from previous Monster Manuals.

I like MM4.

 

[Pants]

I like MM4.

I do too, but I think it would be foolish of WotC to ignore the outcry that it generated amongst fans, unless they've been receiving a lot positive feedback via email or something, because I see nothing but MMIV wherever I go.

And that makes me sad, because the Avatars of Elemental Evil, Defacer, Whisper Demon, Tomb Spider, Balhannoth, Vitreous Drinker, and the Verdant Prince are just great creatures.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I love MM4, and I design game stuff for publication myself. I just like having higher-level versions of classic monsters. We got a lot of satisfaction out of the ogre skirmisher and the various classed drow. As long as the creature with class has an interesting concept (as opposed to, like, "Orc fighter"), I want to see more classed monsters.

I'll chime in here to agree. I would expect more of this for 4e, because it is very new-GM friendly. Not everyone -- dare I say most folks? -- has the time for statting monsters.

I'll go out on a limb and proffer an unpopular opinion -- scads and scads of books of new monsters is a bad idea. They're fun for the artwork, but how many of them do you actually use? D&D already has orcs and hobgoblins and bugbears and gnolls filling the same ecological niche (man-sized savage humanoid) -- why pile on more?

 

[mearls]

I do too, but I think it would be foolish of WotC to ignore the outcry that it generated amongst fans, unless they've been receiving a lot positive feedback via email or something, because I see nothing but MMIV wherever I go.

There's an interesting paradox in listening to customers, particularly when it comes to RPGs.

There are basically three customers for D&D: people who play lots and lots of D&D, people who play some D&D, and people who don't yet play D&D.

The problem you run into is that, of your three groups, the first one is by far the most vocal and most demonstrative. They drown out the other two groups. The key is, if you listen only to that first group, you lose the other two groups. Soon enough, your game is dead.

Take a look at a game like Champions/the Hero system. Way back in the early 1980s, on the day before the first Champions boxed set came out, there were (effectively) zero Champions fans. By definition, the designers had to "listen" only to people who didn't play Champions when putting the game together. The result was a rulebook that clocked in around 80 pages.

Over time, as Champions built up fans, I imagine that the designers started listening to their fans when it came time to release the next edition. The established gamers, the guys who knew Champions inside and out, wanted more, more, more.

With each new edition, Champions swelled from 80 pages to, IIRC, 400+ pages in the latest edition. The book I own, I think it's 4th edition, is over 300 pages.

In many cases, the needs of your most established fans contradict the needs of the other two groups. It's a hard lesson to learn, and a hard path to pursue, because almost every venue of communication you have available is dominated by the first group.

You can't ignore the hard core fans, hence the changes to how we handled existing monsters in MM V, but you can't cater to them exclusively, either.

As a potentially interesting side note, the stuff I see via email is much different than message board talk. For instance, with the monster makeover series I received probably 50 - 100 emails for each column. About 80% of them were positive, 20% were generally positive but took issue with a specific decision or idea, and 3 were screechingly negative. I think it's the public nature of message boards, along with the greater perceived anonymity, that makes people more negative on boards.

 

[hong]

As a potentially interesting side note, the stuff I see via email is much different than message board talk. For instance, with the monster makeover series I received probably 50 - 100 emails for each column. About 80% of them were positive, 20% were generally positive but took issue with a specific decision or idea, and 3 were screechingly negative. I think it's the public nature of message boards, along with the greater perceived anonymity, that makes people more negative on boards.

I'm not negative, Mike! I still love you with all of my body, including my pee-pee!

 

[Thomas Percy]

There's an interesting paradox in listening to customers, particularly when it comes to RPGs.

There are basically three customers for D&D: people who play lots and lots of D&D, people who play some D&D, and people who don't yet play D&D.

The problem you run into is that, of your three groups, the first one is by far the most vocal and most demonstrative. They drown out the other two groups. The key is, if you listen only to that first group, you lose the other two groups.

I'm curious what we EnWorlders are, so I'll (or someone else, because I have hard time in work) make a poll with this question.

I saw results of poll about game experience of EnWorlders and I was shocked, 20 years of expirience is a norm here. This is more we Poles know about existence of role playing games!

 

[sedarfaery]

Leave classed monsters out of the monster manuals. Give me original critters or update the critters from older editions.

 

[DragonLancer]

If WOTC does read this thread, I'd just like to say:

I've been playing and buying official D&D books for over 20 years, and I've always been fanatical about Monster Books...unitl MMIV.

It's the first one I didn't buy, and I have absolutely no interest in a MM that gives stats for humanoids with class levels. I can do that on my own. There is obviously a market for a product like that, but it should be a seperate product.

Same here. I have no need of classed monsters. Those I can make on my own. What I eed is new and original monsters (which arn't more humanoids, or golems).

 

[hong]

I wonder how many of the people who complain about classed monsters also complain about how complicated it is to build PCs/NPCs in 3E....