MM4 Table of Contents up

[BOZ]

i hate to say it, especially about a monster book... but i don't know if i'll be getting this one. FC1, i think, i'll get much more enjoyment out of.

 

[Sammael]

First of all, thank you for the insight, Mike.

I think the real bone of contention lies in exactly how we define innovation. Many people want to see monsters with unique, never before seen abilities. I can empathize, since I like that too. However, that doesn't mean that unique abilities are the only way to go.

The problem I have with this concept is that all the non-unique stuff has been done before. There are already plenty of creatures that fill the same niche as the Arcaniss (i.e. the aforementioned half-red dragon lizardfolk sorcerer, or some of the Dragonlance draconicans, or the abishai (again with sorcerer levels).

The idea behind the spawn is to provide a bunch of creatures tied together by theme and built in a way that makes them easy to use together.

Once again, I find this problematic. Including one new creature in a game requires very little effort. Including a whole bunch of related creatures implies that the DM has to make significant changes to the metaplot of his setting (be it a published or home-made setting). For those who like the umpteenth attempt made by Tiamat (or her Dragonlance doppelganger, Takhisis) to get an edge over Bahamut by creating yet another horde of evil dragon-related creatures, this is fine. For those who don't, 36 pages of the MM4 aren't as useful as they could have been.

The redspawn arcaniss is meant to stand back and blast away at its enemies, while other, more melee-oriented spawn fight in melee. He's a very simple, easy to understand and use monster. Many of the spawn are the same way. They are meant to be used together, and are kept simple to make it easy to run a number of monsters at the same time.

I certainly understand the desire to keep some of the monsters simple. However, I believe that they could have been made simple and unique at the same time.

When we try something different, we're flying blind. But without trying anything different, we can't really push the game in new directions.

Again, I understand and appreciate the sentiment. It's just that I (personally) haven't liked a number of WotC's recent directions. I sincerely hope that the new directions have won WotC some new customers to replace those lost by them.

What seems obvious to gamers about how good or bad a monster is isn't obvious to us, because we don't have any feedback on it.

Once upon a time, WotC used to have playtesters, and lots of them. That was one of the purposes of RPGA, as I recall. I have no idea as to why this is no longer the case, but I feel that a lot of the newer material shows that lack of playtesting.

@Whizbang: I am curious as to why you feel the need to defend WotC Marketing, when you buy anything WotC publishes anyway, regardless of their decisions?

 

[d20Dwarf]

You'll notice I'm not disagreeing with you.

Cheers,
Cam

I know.

Dammit, we're being positive again.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Once upon a time, WotC used to have playtesters, and lots of them. That was one of the purposes of RPGA, as I recall. I have no idea as to why this is no longer the case, but I feel that a lot of the newer material shows that lack of playtesting.

You're assuming an awful lot. I certainly hope the other designers are playtesting as much as I am, otherwise I'm gonna be jealous.

 

[Sammael]

One of the WotC designers openly replied to my Redspawn Arcaniss CR comment that he doesn't have to playtest monsters, only compare them to existing ones, so I'm not assuming anything.

Even if you do playtesting yourself (with your group(s)), a designer shouldn't be the only person to playtest his own work, much like a programmer shouldn't be the only person to test their own code.

Look at the list of playtester credits in the 3.0 core books. Now tell me if the same amount of playtesting is going on with the current products.

 

[d20Dwarf]

One of the WotC designers openly replied to my Redspawn Arcaniss CR comment that he doesn't have to playtest monsters, only compare them to existing ones, so I'm not assuming anything.

Ah, I haven't been keeping up with other threads or other message boards, you'll have to forgive me for not having seen that somewhere else. Maybe you could link us?

 

[Sammael]

Unfortunately, I don't have a community supporter account, so I can't search. It was, I believe, the very first thread on the Redspawn Arcaniss, so maybe one of the nice community supporters could help us.

 

[Odhanan]

I just thought of something else.

It might seem like, rather than fire blind, we could just ask what people like. That doesn't always work. What sounds lame sometimes plays very well.

For example, back in early 2000 I was on an RPGA mailing list for the Living Greyhawk campaign. We all had playtest copies of the rules to help us write LG adventures. A lot of people on the list really, really hated rolling once for initiative, as opposed to every round. Yet, once people started playing with the rule it was obvious that rolling once was much, much better than the old way.

Sometimes, you have to throw something out there and see how it works.

Well, I tried this once with my computer. Once it flew through the window I'm not sure it worked like I wanted it to.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Well, I tried this once with my computer. Once it flew through the window I'm not sure it worked like I wanted it to.

I hit somebody with an orange the other day. I thought it worked pretty well, but clearly opinions differ.

 

[Mouseferatu]

You know, it actually does get tiresome to read the endless "WotC does no wrong" posts from the freelancers.

I'm sure it does. Point me to one.

I never said WotC can do no wrong. I tend not to bother wasting my time ranting about products--from WotC or anyone else--that I dislike. I have better things to do. For the record, I can think of several books out from WotC recently that I wasn't fond of. I can think of several design decisions I'm not happy with. But it does nobody any good for me to harp on those, does it?

I do get sick and tired of people who whine and bitch that things aren't done exactly the way they'd like, and that all other ways of playing the game are wrong. Or hadn't you noticed that my arguments in this thread are not made against everyone who has expressed the slightest negative opinion of this book, but merely against a certain vocal fringe?