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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 4214650" data-attributes="member: 32536">Actually, I am not presuming such a thing at all. A 12-year old child has an imagination, if nothing else, and an imagination is all you need. Also, I am hardly one to call myself an experienced role-player or DM, myself, and my opinion on this particularly matter has changed little since I first got the 3E books when I was 16 or so, with no one to play with other than myself and my brother. I can say that I had no trouble thinking up different ways to use creatures in the MM without bothering to buy "Monsternomicons" or large amounts of fluff text.Actually, let me use a particular example of what I am talking about. I do not like the fluff text for Orcs in 4E. In fact, the statement "Chaotic Evil" is the first thing I am going to toss out the window. Why? I like the Orcs in Warcraft 3, and I want the Orcs in my campaign to feature orcs more like those. I have an inspiration for Orcs from sources outside of D&D itself, so any fluff in the D&D books is unnecessary.I think this particular preference of mine is related to the fact that I hate it when D&D designers make bizarre monsters that are hard to relate to. I like the Tarrasque because it reminds me of Godzilla and various mythic creatures like Jormungandr. I like Orcs because I played Warcraft II and read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I like Gelatinous Cubes because slimes are common foes in videogame RPGs. I like these things because I can understand them in some way without reading chunks of flavor text.Some other things I like in D&D are because of different aspects of the D&D fandom. I like Kobolds because of Meepo and Pun-Pun (I am not kidding). I like Piercers because they were featured in the first D&D adventure I ever played. I like Boneclaws because they were featured in a great battle I played in during an Eberron campaign. I like Null Shadows because they were pretty awesome in Sagiro's story hour.Honestly, I think Lore and monster fluff belongs in adventures, not rulebooks. A monster can only become interesting and memorable if it is used well as part of a cool story, not if it is merely described. It is the basic rule of storyteling called "show, don't tell". Show the DM and players how they are awesome and how they can be used, don't just say they can be used for such and such. After all, isn't it the case that, 90% of the time someone speaks fondly of some kind of creature on ENWorld, they refer back to some old module that featured said monster? I have seen people praise the Calzone Golem of all things in such a manner... No amount of lore could possibly save the Calzone Golem, but a fond memory  from an adventure can.</blockquote>

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