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<blockquote data-quote="Guyanthalas" data-source="post: 7690702" data-attributes="member: 73919">I think one of the things that people may be taking for granted is the Plato's Cave theory behind this (however bastardized my example may be). If I had played and read every single book for the last 30 years, I would probably be very comfortable crafting my own critters and using the unlimited power of imagination to add new effects to them. As it stands, I still consider myself somewhat of a fledgling DM and my understanding of monsters (view of reality, to continue my Cave analogy) has a very limited scope to only what has been given to me from the Monster Manual.I spent a lot of time designing a monster for a contest recently. While it didn't win, it certainly taught me a lot about monster design that I never would have expected before. The monster didn't do physical damage, and that broke me out of my normal realm of thought. It suddenly opened a world more of possibilities to me that I had not explored before. (In writing that I sound like a 14 year old kid, when in reality I'm 32). Lack of &quot;exposure&quot; had doomed me to believe the shadows on the wall were reality.So to the people disagreeing on things, I think at the very least its reasonable to say that all the stuff you have read in the past has shaped your view of monsters and channeled the expectation of what those monsters should be like. Even if at the end you want two different things, a variety of sources is certainly helpful in shaping what you want now. And very helpful for those that are &quot;stuck&quot; in one system or another to potentially look elsewhere to further creating inputs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Guyanthalas, post: 7690702, member: 73919"] I think one of the things that people may be taking for granted is the Plato's Cave theory behind this (however bastardized my example may be). If I had played and read every single book for the last 30 years, I would probably be very comfortable crafting my own critters and using the unlimited power of imagination to add new effects to them. As it stands, I still consider myself somewhat of a fledgling DM and my understanding of monsters (view of reality, to continue my Cave analogy) has a very limited scope to only what has been given to me from the Monster Manual. I spent a lot of time designing a monster for a contest recently. While it didn't win, it certainly taught me a lot about monster design that I never would have expected before. The monster didn't do physical damage, and that broke me out of my normal realm of thought. It suddenly opened a world more of possibilities to me that I had not explored before. (In writing that I sound like a 14 year old kid, when in reality I'm 32). Lack of "exposure" had doomed me to believe the shadows on the wall were reality. So to the people disagreeing on things, I think at the very least its reasonable to say that all the stuff you have read in the past has shaped your view of monsters and channeled the expectation of what those monsters should be like. Even if at the end you want two different things, a variety of sources is certainly helpful in shaping what you want now. And very helpful for those that are "stuck" in one system or another to potentially look elsewhere to further creating inputs. [/QUOTE]

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