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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4180043" data-attributes="member: 710">I think the Monster Manual should contain some fluff. Not to the amount of &quot;Ecology of...&quot; articles (I want a little more then 30 Monsters in a 200+ page book <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ), but they should contain fluff. What I don't like is if the fluff is deeply integrated into the mechanics. I am okay with mechanics getting &quot;fluffy&quot; names, but monster abilities requiring me to use the full implied setting or heavy house-ruling to remove it reduce their usefulness. There is a range where this acceptable - I like the idea of Hobgoblins as soldier monsters or Gnolls as pack monsters. This works fine. If I ever need a soldier monster, I can look to the Hobgoblin and use that one. But I don't like being required to use their cities and nations, or their gods.Vampires (in 3E) for example seem overloaded with special rules, and still don't cover all the variants I'd like. Dragons and their requisite spellcasting also seemed way to much.The Shadows ability to spawn is a very awkward type of mechanics, since if taken at face value, Shadows would overrun the world. It you only put this ability in the fluff, you never run into that problem. Each DM can decide on its own, and until the PCs have researched the information for the campaign, shadows and shadow creation/spawning is a mystery and can create suspense...So far I agree with KM that the monster fluff from the excerpt wasn't that great. I am not sure if we have seen the full monster fluff, but if that's it, there probably should be some more. On the other hand, if I really get a handful of monsters on every level of 4E, maybe the loss of fluff is worth it. Not having to create stat-blocks is a big seller to me, after having created countless of these in my 3E campaigns.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 4180043, member: 710"] I think the Monster Manual should contain some fluff. Not to the amount of "Ecology of..." articles (I want a little more then 30 Monsters in a 200+ page book ;) ), but they should contain fluff. What I don't like is if the fluff is deeply integrated into the mechanics. I am okay with mechanics getting "fluffy" names, but monster abilities requiring me to use the full implied setting or heavy house-ruling to remove it reduce their usefulness. There is a range where this acceptable - I like the idea of Hobgoblins as soldier monsters or Gnolls as pack monsters. This works fine. If I ever need a soldier monster, I can look to the Hobgoblin and use that one. But I don't like being required to use their cities and nations, or their gods. Vampires (in 3E) for example seem overloaded with special rules, and still don't cover all the variants I'd like. Dragons and their requisite spellcasting also seemed way to much. The Shadows ability to spawn is a very awkward type of mechanics, since if taken at face value, Shadows would overrun the world. It you only put this ability in the fluff, you never run into that problem. Each DM can decide on its own, and until the PCs have researched the information for the campaign, shadows and shadow creation/spawning is a mystery and can create suspense... So far I agree with KM that the monster fluff from the excerpt wasn't that great. I am not sure if we have seen the full monster fluff, but if that's it, there probably should be some more. On the other hand, if I really get a handful of monsters on every level of 4E, maybe the loss of fluff is worth it. Not having to create stat-blocks is a big seller to me, after having created countless of these in my 3E campaigns. [/QUOTE]

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