Player access to the Monster Manual

[dreaded_beast]

A player of mine started looking up the stats for a monster that the party encountered during the session or sometime near the end, I forget which exactly. I politely told the player that I don't appreciate players looking up monster stats during a game session. The player hastily apologized and proceeded to put the Monster Manual away.

At the beginning of our last session, the party sorcerer wanted a familiar, so she started looking up the stats for the various familiars in the Monster Manual. When the party cleric summoned a celestial dog, he also had to have access to the Monster Manual to determine it's combat stats. For situations like these, I don't really mind.

In general, I don't really mind players reading the Monster Manual or knowing monster stats. The only thing I ask is that they don't use their player knowledge of the monster unless their character has the same knowledge as well. In addition, I prefer that the players do not lookup the monster during the actual game session. Afterwards the following day is fine, I guess. If they already own the Monster Manual, I don't really have any right to tell them not to read a book that belongs to them, in my opinion.

Now that I finished typing up the previous paragraph, maybe I should tell my players that, hehe.

So, how do you handle player access to the Monster Manual?

 

[DragonLancer]

I never let players access the MM during or after the game. If I know in advance that they have access to something from there (familiar or summoned beastie) I write out the entry for them to keep a hold of.

 

[WanderingMonster]

• Template 'em
• Change the name
• Advance them
• Class levels

Other than those, you can't really forbid them to look at it. You can insist that summoners have the stats of their critters written down or else they can't summon that creature.

 

[Darkness]

I agree with your take.

Also, I have to point out that the stats of a monster encountered in a game session might vary quite a bit from those of the basic monster found in the MM. E.g., this is not just any plain old ogre mage commoner - this is a fiendish ogre mage Rgr3/Ftr4. Advancing monsters by HD is also nice.
That's one thing I like about 3e: You can never know if the orc you're facing doesn't have almost as many class levels as you do. (Granted, orcs sometimes were classes in 2e as well, though it has become much more common now and even the weirdest creatures can pick up classes, templates, etc. now.)

 

[Darkness]

• Template 'em
• Change the name
• Advance them
• Class levels

• Also, where appropriate, change the appearance as well.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Yup, tell your players what your rule is. That's important.

I wouldn't let players look up hostile-monster stats during the actual encounter - that's something I've never encountered, only heard about, and frankly find unbelievable! I also wouldn't let players flick through _other_ game books of any description during my game, other than for the purpose of checking a rule to make a tactical decision - not paying attention to the game is unbelievably impolite towards me as GM and to the other players and I'd stop that right away. Again, it's never happened to me.

Other than that, I have no problem with players reading the MM.
Of course summoners need to check their summoned creatures' stats! Not letting them consult the Monster Manual is rather like not letting a caster look up a spell in the PHB during a game session.
And of course players can read the MM! Half of the players I've ever GMed for are GMs in their own right anyway, and for the others I've found that learning about monster mechanics in general helps make the game more transparent for them and fosters trust in me as GM.

 

[Crothian]

it doesn't bother me, I change everything anyway.

 

[StalkingBlue]

What Darkness says. If you feel you need to take action to keep surprising players who know the MM backwards, start playing with Class Levels, HD Advancing, Templating. For this humanoid foes are always good because of their hidden class-level power potential.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

If I know in advance that they have access to something from there (familiar or summoned beastie) I write out the entry for them to keep a hold of.

As a GM, I do the same thing. As a player, however, I've yet to find a GM who does this, so using the MM during play to look up potential summoned monsters is generally acceptable (in fact, I've had GM's hand me the MM when I summon a creature so I can run it during the encounter).

Of course, looking up the GM's monsters is not acceptable.

 

[thundershot]

Fantasy Flight Games has a nice book for dealing with this, too...



Chris