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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7396039" data-attributes="member: 82106">And you have, of course, described the 4e MM1 perfectly! It has a stat block, usually a paragraph or two of general description (sometimes more depending on the monster), a table for doing lore checks that gives DCs for specific facts (which are usually in addition to the general description, though sometimes just allowing access to that by PCs), and then a sample encounter using one of the DMG templates and including the monster. Many monsters have 2-3 sub-types, allowing more flexibility in play.This was a somewhat controversial style. Some people, like me, liked it. Others hated it. I think its one weakness was they sometimes literally forgot to actually do a basic explanation of what the monster WAS, how it was intended to look and its 'purpose' in the game. This isn't, IMHO, a flaw in the general technique of presentation though, just a criticism of specific monsters. MM2 dropped the encounter blocks and lore blocks, which was a dead loss. MM3 emphasized fiction and was much more illustrative of the nature of the monsters, which was good, but they STILL lacked the MM1 lore and encounter blocks, which would have added more useful stuff! It could be a page count issue of course. Now that we're SLOWLY freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the dead tree that should be less of an issue....</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7396039, member: 82106"] And you have, of course, described the 4e MM1 perfectly! It has a stat block, usually a paragraph or two of general description (sometimes more depending on the monster), a table for doing lore checks that gives DCs for specific facts (which are usually in addition to the general description, though sometimes just allowing access to that by PCs), and then a sample encounter using one of the DMG templates and including the monster. Many monsters have 2-3 sub-types, allowing more flexibility in play. This was a somewhat controversial style. Some people, like me, liked it. Others hated it. I think its one weakness was they sometimes literally forgot to actually do a basic explanation of what the monster WAS, how it was intended to look and its 'purpose' in the game. This isn't, IMHO, a flaw in the general technique of presentation though, just a criticism of specific monsters. MM2 dropped the encounter blocks and lore blocks, which was a dead loss. MM3 emphasized fiction and was much more illustrative of the nature of the monsters, which was good, but they STILL lacked the MM1 lore and encounter blocks, which would have added more useful stuff! It could be a page count issue of course. Now that we're SLOWLY freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the dead tree that should be less of an issue.... [/QUOTE]

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