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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 317887" data-attributes="member: 1106">No, I meant that they're both different aesthetics, but both seem to have received more airtime in the core MM than they deserve.That in mind, I recognise that cthulhuesque themes are ingrained in classic AD&D to a limited extent (aboleth, mind flayers, weird temples from old modules) and how much all of the 1E tomes loved to dwell on outsiders...yet somehow it all came out with a significantly different overall flavour to the mix.I know that the monster selection in the MM is quota fulfilment ("we need big flyer of CR X, and we need another sonic critter....hey, we can do two birds with one stone - let's call it a yrthak"), but the basis on a need rather than the monster being a cool idea kinda shows, IMO.  This is consistent with the 3E focus on practicality and keeping an eye on the game balance ball, and from that perspective is admirable....yet  the feel and themes of the monster selection in the MM shouldn't completely run second pony to fulfilling quotas.  Perhaps they felt they met that criteria too...it just doesn't quite meet my expectations for the D&D brand (heh).Yup.  But the core monster book should be more Threshold, less Sigil, if you catch my drift.  There is time and page space for branching out into other themes elsewhere - and that is a good thing.I think I have personal aesthetic problems with too much assymmetry, sonic-attack-based creatures, "add extra arms or eyes and it's new", seemingly redundant "DM special" undead, some grating names etc. and will admit my bias in that respect.  The designers of past tomes have occasionally aesthetically rubbed me the wrong way too (the bhaergala in particular springs to mind), but not to the extent that 3E MM1 does.  I'm not biased against all that is new, either, because I have no such problems with Monsters of Faerun (although the Tomb Tapper challenges suspension of disbelief as to how it manages to burrow with the mouth in it's stomach), and couldn't really tell you why I think that the Tall Mouther is a lot more D&D in feel than the Choker, but there you have it...YMMV (and apparently, it does)...</blockquote>

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