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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 7013333" data-attributes="member: 6701872">It isn't necessary for the players not to know anything about the stats in the Monster Manual to have those types of encounters. I know, because my group still has battles where in they don't know something about the monsters even though I encourage them to go ahead and read the Monster Manual all they want to.The key is simple: Don't tell the players "You see a [insert monster name]". Tell them "You see [insert visual description of the monster]". Unless the description is so unique as to entirely give away exactly what the creature is and can do, the players will at best have an inkling that they know what it is, and that is nowhere near a guarantee that they are actually right. Especially given that there are so many monsters that are incredibly similar in appearance (dragons with hues close to another color, such as a black dragon being easily able to be a deep blue or green), and even some that are practically identical (a gas spore and a beholder, for example).Just the other session, I had a player that was convinced I had described a mummy with no wrappings... but he was wrong. His character was actually facing a wight. Of course, I didn't spoil the discovery for him by telling him he was wrong - he figured it out over the course of the battle.</blockquote>