Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why A GM Can Never Have Too Many Bestiaries
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7690719" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Ok, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd use your language less sloppily. If the title of this article was just clickbait, and you didn't really mean it and I wasn't supposed to take it seriously, please let me know and I'll file it alongside, "Why is no one writing games for the GUMSHOE system?"</p><p></p><p>But it does appear from the text that you are defending the claim that you can't have too many bestiaries seriously. So my detailed knowledge of the books you mention but did not review isn't really essential, since you don't claim merely that I need these particular bestiaries much less demonstrate why (since you mostly talk about your specific situation and not even the books except in very vague terms). Rather your claim is that I need all bestiaries, because a DM can't have too many. And since I'm quibbling with that claim, and you've decided to challenge me on it, all I need to demonstrate is broad familiarity with RPG bestiaries and their contents. So yeah, I've not purchased the recommendations you made here, and haven't even looked inside one other than Pathfinder 5, but I have looked at a lot of bestiaries. </p><p></p><p>Just for 3.X I'm familiar with the contents of:</p><p></p><p>Monster Manual 1-5</p><p>Fiend Folio</p><p>Draconomicon, Lords of Madness, Liber Mortis, and various other assorted theme books with mini-bestiaries.</p><p>Tome of Horrors 1-2</p><p>Creature Collection 1-3</p><p>Pathfinder's Beastiary 1-5</p><p>Denizens of Avendnu</p><p>Monsternomicon</p><p>Book of Templates</p><p>Advanced Bestiary</p><p>Bestiary Nefarious</p><p>At least some of the various Monster Geographica books</p><p>Minions</p><p>Mindscapes: Beasts of the Id</p><p>Book of Fiends</p><p>Book of Unremitting Horror</p><p>Bestiary: Predators</p><p>Liber Beastarius</p><p>Various Hacklopedia's</p><p></p><p>And probably a lot of other stuff that is no longer taking up any mental space in my head. And that's to overlook that I'm familiar with pretty much all the 1e and 2e material, as well as Gamma World, GURPS, and any number of other systems. How many bestiaries do you need to be familiar with before you can form the reasonable opinion that you don't need this particular one or even many of them? How many bestiaries do I need to be familiar with before I can decide that not only do I not need a lot of them, but I probably don't get good value out of buying one for a system I don't play since the only value I get out of a MM really is being able to flip it open and use it without much adjusting of stats or performing conversions or acts of creation.</p><p></p><p>I think it safe to say that I'm reasonably conversant with the last 30+ years of RPG development and publishing. I don't think I need to have read absolutely everything to form an opinion.</p><p></p><p>And if someone came to me and said, "I've got 500 dollars to spend, and I want to buy all the D&D books I'll probably ever need", I probably wouldn't be recommending mostly monster books or even many of them. And to a certain extent, that's not merely a matter of taste. It might be a matter of bias, in that I might have a bias against monster books because I find making monsters fairly trivial (and fun), and so don't need those books or recognize how much others do. But the truth is, the average quality of monsters in most monster collections strikes me as rather low, and your average DM would be better off with a brief guide on how to make monsters once he's got a collection or two on hand.</p><p></p><p>Beyond that, there is indeed the matter of taste, in that while it is reasonable to assume that for any given monster it is to someone's taste, it is not reasonable to assume that every monster will be to every taste and as such monsters that draw heavily from 'new wierd' or 'psionics' or 'science fiction' or comedy or specific alien settings or anything else or are a pastiche of a creature from a particular novel are almost by definition content that a large percentage of DMs won't use. Products that heavily feature monsters of a specific trope are almost by definition products aimed a narrow audience. Not everyone is going to be interested in getting Deadlands or Cthulhu or New Weird into their D&D. For people that do, these books are going to be key content. But and for people that aren't, particular Bestiaries along those lines are going to be useless or at the least offer low value compared to what they could spend their dollar on.</p><p></p><p>Also, again, I'm not disagreeing with you out of mere ignorance, or is the fact that I disagree with you too silly for public discourse.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7690719, member: 4937"] Ok, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd use your language less sloppily. If the title of this article was just clickbait, and you didn't really mean it and I wasn't supposed to take it seriously, please let me know and I'll file it alongside, "Why is no one writing games for the GUMSHOE system?" But it does appear from the text that you are defending the claim that you can't have too many bestiaries seriously. So my detailed knowledge of the books you mention but did not review isn't really essential, since you don't claim merely that I need these particular bestiaries much less demonstrate why (since you mostly talk about your specific situation and not even the books except in very vague terms). Rather your claim is that I need all bestiaries, because a DM can't have too many. And since I'm quibbling with that claim, and you've decided to challenge me on it, all I need to demonstrate is broad familiarity with RPG bestiaries and their contents. So yeah, I've not purchased the recommendations you made here, and haven't even looked inside one other than Pathfinder 5, but I have looked at a lot of bestiaries. Just for 3.X I'm familiar with the contents of: Monster Manual 1-5 Fiend Folio Draconomicon, Lords of Madness, Liber Mortis, and various other assorted theme books with mini-bestiaries. Tome of Horrors 1-2 Creature Collection 1-3 Pathfinder's Beastiary 1-5 Denizens of Avendnu Monsternomicon Book of Templates Advanced Bestiary Bestiary Nefarious At least some of the various Monster Geographica books Minions Mindscapes: Beasts of the Id Book of Fiends Book of Unremitting Horror Bestiary: Predators Liber Beastarius Various Hacklopedia's And probably a lot of other stuff that is no longer taking up any mental space in my head. And that's to overlook that I'm familiar with pretty much all the 1e and 2e material, as well as Gamma World, GURPS, and any number of other systems. How many bestiaries do you need to be familiar with before you can form the reasonable opinion that you don't need this particular one or even many of them? How many bestiaries do I need to be familiar with before I can decide that not only do I not need a lot of them, but I probably don't get good value out of buying one for a system I don't play since the only value I get out of a MM really is being able to flip it open and use it without much adjusting of stats or performing conversions or acts of creation. I think it safe to say that I'm reasonably conversant with the last 30+ years of RPG development and publishing. I don't think I need to have read absolutely everything to form an opinion. And if someone came to me and said, "I've got 500 dollars to spend, and I want to buy all the D&D books I'll probably ever need", I probably wouldn't be recommending mostly monster books or even many of them. And to a certain extent, that's not merely a matter of taste. It might be a matter of bias, in that I might have a bias against monster books because I find making monsters fairly trivial (and fun), and so don't need those books or recognize how much others do. But the truth is, the average quality of monsters in most monster collections strikes me as rather low, and your average DM would be better off with a brief guide on how to make monsters once he's got a collection or two on hand. Beyond that, there is indeed the matter of taste, in that while it is reasonable to assume that for any given monster it is to someone's taste, it is not reasonable to assume that every monster will be to every taste and as such monsters that draw heavily from 'new wierd' or 'psionics' or 'science fiction' or comedy or specific alien settings or anything else or are a pastiche of a creature from a particular novel are almost by definition content that a large percentage of DMs won't use. Products that heavily feature monsters of a specific trope are almost by definition products aimed a narrow audience. Not everyone is going to be interested in getting Deadlands or Cthulhu or New Weird into their D&D. For people that do, these books are going to be key content. But and for people that aren't, particular Bestiaries along those lines are going to be useless or at the least offer low value compared to what they could spend their dollar on. Also, again, I'm not disagreeing with you out of mere ignorance, or is the fact that I disagree with you too silly for public discourse. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why A GM Can Never Have Too Many Bestiaries
Top