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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5906312" data-attributes="member: 2067">The question here is: what is a Monster Manual for? Is it a book of raw ingredients you combine as you please?Or is it a book of prepared meals that you can then disassemble and recompile as you please?I'd argue that the latter book is much more useful to the people who actually need an MM -- who need a book to tell them how to run monsters and what the hell an aboleth is. If you make a book full of raw ingredients, and then give some advice about how to combine them, it's not going to be as effective.And the &quot;core books&quot; need to be geared toward the brand new player, IMO. When people say they play D&amp;D, they have the three core books in mind. If a new player can't just buy the PHB, the DMG, and the MM and have a night's worth of gaming sitting in front of his face, that's a problem, IMO.So the reason you might need 3-5 goblins is because that's how you encounter them. Sure, a trained DM can add themes and templates. But a new DM isn't going to bugger with that. This means that the core book is not very useful for a brand new DM, at the table. That's a big problem in my mind.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5906312, member: 2067"] The question here is: what is a Monster Manual [I]for[/I]? Is it a book of raw ingredients you combine as you please? Or is it a book of prepared meals that you can then disassemble and recompile as you please? I'd argue that the latter book is much more useful to the people who actually need an MM -- who need a book to tell them how to run monsters and what the hell an aboleth is. If you make a book full of raw ingredients, and then give some advice about how to combine them, it's not going to be as effective. And the "core books" need to be geared toward the brand new player, IMO. When people say they play D&D, they have the three core books in mind. If a new player can't just buy the PHB, the DMG, and the MM and have a night's worth of gaming sitting in front of his face, that's a problem, IMO. So the reason you might need 3-5 goblins is because [I]that's how you encounter them[/I]. Sure, a trained DM can add themes and templates. But a new DM isn't going to bugger with that. This means that the core book is not very useful for a brand new DM, at the table. That's a big problem in my mind. [/QUOTE]

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