Players reading the MM

[Ginnel]

Looking back I did forget the option of, go upstairs and bring down the Colossal red dragon figure and start dusting it off.

I myself am all for the players are grown ups and as long as they aren't reading adventures it should be fine but then again the average age of my group is probably 29-30 (ack, that seems so old!) and I've known them for a while so I can trust them to be mature about it.

I just think players will get so much more out of it when they see an enemy use a tactic/power for the first time.

 

[Wormwood]

The relevent question to me is, "Why is he reading the MM?"

1. If he's reading the MM out of boredom, then I'm doing something wrong and we need to address this immediately.

2. If he's reading the MM out of interest, then that's pretty cool. But I'd prefer he read the MM (or any book actually) on his own time. Perhaps he'd be interested in running a game himself? I'd love to play if that were the case.

3. If he's reading the MM in order to research monsters so he can 'beat' the adventure, then I'm a little shocked I didn't notice that I've been gaming with a prat for the past dozen years.

 

[Valerion Steele]

i always ask non-dm types not to read monster manuals and they don´t do it...
there´s another dm in my group and we circulate dming and the only other player whos gonna have a mm has a weak memory , so he probably won´t remember even the tiniest bit of info on a monster,,,

 

[Cabled]

DURING the session is a no-no...I don't even put anything but Character resources where the players can get them, and I politely ask that nobody read thier own copies. Outside of the session, no problem but if I see that out of character knowledge creeping in too much, I might veto a character action unless they make the appropriate Knowledge check. It depends on the creature...the "staples" that every adventurer has likely heard of- dragons breathe something, trolls regenerate, giants throw boulders at you- it's reasonable characters would know that in my game world.

 

[Xanaqui]

Back in 1st ed, I'd memorize the MM, MMII, and FF. From this memorization, I learned to reverse engineer the structure of (most) creatures, which means that I can often give pretty close stats, even to a creature I've never read, for a game that I've just learned.

So, no. I don't have a problem if the players are reading the MM, as long as it's neither a creature they're presently encountering nor a creature they know they're going to encounter soon. However, if they're looking at it for too long in session, it may be a symptom that I haven't given them a turn in a while.

 

[Nebulous]

It depends. If he's looking up the hit points, AC and the spell powers of the bugbear shaman they're fighting, i'd probably pop his hand. Otherwise, the MM is a fun, fun book to flip through. It depends i suppose on different players. When i was young, and up until this day, the MM's were my favorite books. Still are. I would just pore over them and eat up all the details. A lot of players don't care to inspect it that much other than a cursory flip through.

 

[Xorn]

Since you said it's my book--I have a problem with it. Go over to the store-side of the shop and buy the book, it's what pays for our game room. As a matter of fact, what the hell were you doing digging through my book bag!? Why don't we step outside and have a "talk" about not touching things that don't belong to you...

Okay, in all seriousness--if I'm running a game at the game shop, I have a problem with most people flipping through my property. But if we're talking about my normal play group, at home? I guess I'd ask them not to look through the book, since they are just ruining the mystery for themselves, but in the end the scenario is fairly unlikely to happen anyway. But several of them DM, and would own the book themselves.

Remember, I'm the "a meteor hit you in the head" guy... maybe that's why my current playgroup has never picked up the MM in the middle of a game.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

I voted for talking about how they are only ruining things for themselves, but it really does depend on the situation. My current group doesn't have this problem, but some of my previous groups have been filled with players who were power gamers and or thought they needed to beat the game and would use whatever tactics they deemed necessary (These are some of the reasons I formed a new group). Those previous groups put me off from non-DM's using the MM when a player pulled out an MM, flipped it to the entry for the dragon I was using, and started bitching because I had added something to the dragon's spells.

 

[hong]

Since this is a brand-new edition we're talking about, no way am I going to beable to stop people reading the books. Nor am I going to WANT to stop them. It's far more important to pump their enthusiasm for the new edition than try to police information flow.

 

[Kzach]

Where's the "Kick them in the nads," option?