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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 5943576" data-attributes="member: 64209">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=21169" target="_blank">Doug McCrae</a>  I somewhat agree, while reserving some disagreement. By that I mean you make some excellent points. The type of game certainly matters (and D&D can be a different type of game depending on the group of players and DM...but it still has its own roots and "type").  Please note that I'm not necessarily interested in making D&D simulationist. (That is an interest in part, but not totally driving my point here). I want monsters to make sense. It doesn't have to emulate the real world. It needs to be fun, evocative, and most importantly MAKE SENSE. Here I almost want to toss out the words Verisimilitude and Narrativist, but I fear that'd lead too far into GNS territory and might reduce the discussion to jargon rather than important basics.  Here's the reserved disagreement, similar to what I said here (in this thread): <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/324957-need-monsters-beings-rather-than-statblocks.html#post5943049" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/324957-need-monsters-beings-rather-than-statblocks.html#post5943049</a>, (just a link to post #8) but in a different vein: I don't see why a goal of harmony between stats and ecology would be a barrier for any of the game styles you mention.   Is there any reason why a monster couldn't both make sense AND be fun for these different groups? I agree, it could be hard to achieve that for every monster, and I'm certainly not saying that harmony between stats and story is the ONLY factor that matters (that'd be like a player who said "I'm sorry I screwed the party, but IT'S WHAT MY CHARACTER WOULD DO!!!!") But, I also don't think people should ignore roleplaying, and neither do I think that monsters should exist as combat machines that live outside of a story/adventure/roleplaying context.  Like I said earlier...sure sometimes it's just a random fight. But the Monster itself (as an entity) shouldn't exist as nothing more, ever, than a random fight the way it's written up (nothing more, sometimes, SURE!). It's a subtle distinction, and one I missed myself when I mistakenly railed against Mike Mearls's article.  However, using a monster is different than creating a monster...especially in the sense of creating a monster for general use versus creating a monster as a DM for my own group for a single encounter. If I, as a DM, create a slughound for a specific encounter just so players can fight a slughound...it doesn't need an ecology. But if it's published in a monster book, then I (as a customer, not necessarily as a DM) become interested in what a slughound might do besides that one encounter. Hell, it could be the impetus for a campaign of "invasion of the slughounds".  I think I'm rambling and restating myself at this point...so I'll just leave with my general point:There's no reason that all of those can't be cinematically evocative, even if they fail to be all three of narrativist, simulationist, or gamist.</blockquote>

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