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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 9061103" data-attributes="member: 8863">Ah yes, Greyhawk.  I learned early this was allegedly the original D&D setting*.  Unfortunately my introduction to the world was through a package of Rose Estes' execrable books that I came across at a local dollar store in 1995 which I picked up hoping to learn more about the setting.  While I admit that in shame, it really doesn't have anything to do with MC5.But as you said, there isn't a lot of difference between Greyhawk and D&D in feel, in fact there are those old timers who would absolutely insist that Greyhawk IS D&D and D&D is Greyhawk.  This doesn't help that MC1 and MC2 already covered the most important core monsters, with MC3 having a good share of what was leftover.  This one seems to cover some remaining scraps from MMII and a few entries from the FF (hello, flail snail), and tries to put in some stuff that's supposed to be Greyhawk specific, some of which I think originated in Greyhawk Adventures.  At this point I think TSR was still mostly converting 1e monsters rather than covering new ground with the MCs.I don't think it's bad, but it's another MC where most of the best stuff was included in either the MM or Annuals later in 2e.  I don't think it's junk though, as the content is suitable for typical vanilla games.TBH, it really takes a lot for me to consider a monster to be lame or stupid.  I like to use a lot of different monsters to keep players on their toes and obscure stuff is fun because they're less familiar and less memorized by the players.  So while Alzrius didn't think the spriggan was all that interesting, I always liked the idea of evil gnomes that can turn giant-sized, but I've never gotten around to using them.  Many years ago, <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/phantom-fungus.86618/page-5#post-1516641" target="_blank"> I responded to a topic </a> by Monte Cook about some 3e monsters that basically had no traction for him; I actually thought they were interesting and used them in one of my own dungeons.  There were a few monsters 3e introduced in the MM that I experimented with, and the most disappointing was probably the grick, which my players defeated with far less effort than I was expecting.  Yet that monster had enough traction to make it to 5e's MM.  Monster illustrations make a lot of difference too, going back to the spriggan, IIRC Tom Baxa did the art in MC5, while the MM illo, which I saw first, was by Tony DiTerlizzi who is by far a much better artist, and provided a better illustration. So think it's mostly a matter of taste, and DMs are just naturally going to like different monsters.  I don't mind the "meh" monsters too much, because maybe some other DM will be interested.  And even then, I might use it layer anyway.  A monster has to be really bad for me to dislike it.*Yes, Blackmoor should be considered the first setting.  The main thing with it is that it was a relatively small setting, and Gary kind of just dropped it into Greyhawk I think because all these early games were part of a larger world.  It's better than how Mystara eventually treated it by dumping it into the distant past though.  However, I feel Blackmoor should be its own thing rather than tacked onto either Greyhawk or Mystara.</blockquote>

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