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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cyberen" data-source="post: 6123571" data-attributes="member: 69074">Interesting thread !I think one of the underlying issues is the one of implied setting. The main strength/feature of D&D is its lack of hard-coded setting, thus potentially encompassing all trends in heroic fantasy, and more. At the same time, in order to appeal to new players, D&D has to be playable out of the box, and has to offer strong story hooks in the "core" books. I think 4e "Points of light" fulfilled this agenda quite well : both lightweight AND hooky, and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] explained it quite well in another thread. Unfortunately, 4e wasn't careful enough whith renaming iconic things. Those issues have to be taken of carefully, but the setting model proposed by 4e is IMHO excellent. In the core, monsters should be statblocks+hooks. Then, each and every setting (WotC, 3rd party or homebrew) should sort this mess of critters in flavourful storylines. This is one of the reasons I'm not too keen on using FR as the base setting for Next : the kitchen sink model doesn't teach anything to new DMs concerning worldbuilding, as opposed to Darksun, Dragonlance or Eberron which make strong design choices. I think the very nice idea of a MM written as a bestiary take full sense at the setting level, not in the core rules.Concerning Modrons, I should add that this monster totally blew my mind when I first met its description in ADD (was it in the Manual of the planes) : pure Law as mathematics (platonician solids), and its tools are the embodiment of these perfect shapes, give a very strong image of the nature of Law, and of the outer planes of the Great Wheel, and of their denizens. Of course, it's not really playable (but the ideas concerning Modrons as robots given in this thread are !), and not really well executed (Modrons should be made of force, use Fly and Telekinesis, not sprout arms/legs/wings like walking M&Ms !). The idea of such a Nirvana, and of a less perfect shade of it made of mechanical models of these solids, drifting in the Ethereal Sea, is pure awesome, even if PC never get to interact with them.</blockquote>

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