D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[Remathilis]

Is that supposed to be a "gotcha"?

Shadowrun is a much more narrow concept for a game than "fantasy" for D&D.

No its not. D&D is a blend of sword & sorcery, high fantasy, mythology and smear of horror. Its not generic fantasy. It quite frankly sucks out for anything that isn't its particular blend of fantasy. The best you can do is overlay a skin emphasizing one aspect of it (which is what settings like DS, RL, or Eberron do). In that regard, its not much different that Shadowrun, save that Shadowrun doesn't waste time trying to support a dozen different overlays.

The AD&D 2e Ravenloft books had custom rules to curate the game to better "feel" like the setting the writers intended (banned spells, adjusted turning undead effects, etc).

Yeah, and there's the secret: those rules sucked. Hard. Every 2e setting's custom rules were designed to punish players. Every. One. They contort D&D into unnatural shapes because D&D isn't designed for that level of genre emulation. So each setting kept forcing more and more restrictions on players, the rules, and the game itself until it was an ungodly mess of contradictions, buried rules in multiple books, and incompatible options.

It took playing those 2e settings in more modern rulesets (3e and on) to make me realize how much 2e's desire to contort D&D made them LESS fun, not more.

So I stick with my previous statement that D&D has always been a toolkit for adjustment. I've mentioned some 3rd party companies who adjusted the rules to change the "feel" of the fantasy level. D&D did that too, officially for narrower concept settings like Ravenloft.

No, 3pp built their own RPGs and called them D&D because that name sells. Much like how every RPG company under the sun had a d20 variant of their system in during the d20 glut (CoC d20, WoD d20, etc).

So I guess that "what is D&D" is entirely subjective. Hence why I disregard any comment of "this isn't D&D" when addressing custom rules adjustments onto the same framework. Adventures in Middle Earth, Brancalonia and Dark Souls WERE D&D to me. So is Obojima, Inferno and Apocalisse. Maybe not YOUR D&D.

I reject the Xeroxifaction of D&D. Adventures in Middle Earth is not D&D. Pathfinder is not D&D. Doctors and Daleks is not D&D. Only Dungeons & Dragons is D&D. Its a complete game with its own implied setting and assumptions. The fact that the d20 system can be made into a variety of different games that came be compatible with each other is great, but that doesn't make them D&D. And it burns me that so many people insist on making D&D the generic term for any RPG where you roll a d20.

 

[BenjaminPey]

yeah, as I said already, more magic that explains nothing

I don't see that as more or less magical than puffing a poisonous gas (or fire, again)?

 

[mamba]

I reject the Xeroxifaction of D&D. Adventures in Middle Earth is not D&D. Pathfinder is not D&D. Doctors and Daleks is not D&D. Only Dungeons & Dragons is D&D. Its a complete game with its own implied setting and assumptions.

then D&D isn’t D&D either, instead there were several very different games using that trademark to sell more units

 

[HatWearingFool]

The AD&D 2e Ravenloft books had custom rules to curate the game to better "feel" like the setting the writers intended (banned spells, adjusted turning undead effects, etc).

So I stick with my previous statement that D&D has always been a toolkit for adjustment.

I definitely agree that in the earlier editions D&D was more of a toolkit. The rules were all over the place and not very unified. Ie. Want lock picking? Here’s a new table to roll on!

But IMHO with 3e onwards this stopped being as true. The rules were now meant to unified and holistic. Of course it’s your game and you can do whatever you want.

 

[mamba]

I don't see that as more or less magical than puffing a poisonous gas (or fire, again)?

agreed, it is as magical. They keep adding more effects that can only be explained by magic rather than anything that is distinctly for a specific creature. There is less and less creature behind the stat block and ever more just an amorphous blob of effects that can as well be a green dragon, a poison genie or whatever

 

[mamba]

I definitely agree that in the earlier editions D&D was more of a toolkit. The rules were all over the place and not very unified. Ie. Want lock picking? Here’s a new table to roll on!

that does not make it a toolkit, it makes it less tightly designed and more just stuff you threw at the wall until some of it stuck

 

[BenjaminPey]

I for one very much enjoyed The Monsters Know What They Are Doing, precisely because it helped me tremendously to DM a 5E game. And I remember, speaking about the new MM here and there, that one of my first comment was "we may not need Keith Amman anymore (but I'm sure he'll come up with other cool things to write)!". I stand by that statement and insist it was a benefical, well-thought-out and well-executed design goal: helping the DMs enough that they WON'T need to read another book in order to use these monsters. Just use these things: that'll work.

 

[tetrasodium]

Exactly

Especially since mechanically there is barely a difference. It's a moderate damage class with a high dage bite that is 33% a highly resisted damage type.

2014 was all looks.

Why give GM's a bunch of specialized monsters that can work together as a team to challenge a party of optimized specialist pcs in ways that play out with a tactically unique & interesting dance each time when the mm can slop a laundry basket of generalist master of none tools that grind down PC's under an avalanche of bland encounters that blame the gm for not making them more interesting individually session after session?

 

[BenjaminPey]

agreed, it is as magical. They keep adding more effects that can only be explained by magic rather than anything that is distinctly for a specific creature. There is less and less creature behind the stat block and ever more just an amorphous blob of effects that can as well be a green dragon, a poison genie or whatever

But dragons spit things, don't they? Isn't it kind of their thing? And spitting a ball of poisonous stuff is in fact kinda believable? Kinda physical, rather than magical? Some spiders and snakes do that in the real world!

Anyhow, I doubt we'll agree on that and I respect your opinion, of course — and I'm sure there are better examples to back it up. Just, this one is rather strange.

 

[The Firebird]

But dragons spit things, don't they? Isn't it kind of their thing? And spitting a ball of poisonous stuff is in fact kinda believable? Kinda physical, rather than magical? Some spiders and snakes do that in the real world!

I think this interpretation, and the others I've seen, are reasonable. But the text doesn't say anything about them. The GM has to provide their own interpretation.