Monster Design in D&D

Pardon me as I wax metanerdy.

I imagine that most folks that read this have played D&D, and even if someone happens to be reading it that hasn't, you can easily imagine that its a game about killing orcs and dragons.

So anyway, about monster design in D&D. As I said, everyone assumes dragons and orcs and stuff. Check. Good solid monsters, close to "realism" - assuming that by realism I mean "Traditional Tolkien style fantasy". But the medium for Lord of the Rings was film*, while obviously D&D is an interactive game.

Let me pause here. I'm writing this because of course my brain churns furiously, lately, about D&D related stuff, and I saw this post by another blogger, about monster books, and about the difference in monsters that are "fun", and monsters that are designed mechanically. He's referring to a difference in approach. "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a monster that sucked people's faces off and had like four arms with lobster claws on them?!?" as opposed, as he references, to: "We need an aquatic abberation monster that fits into Challenge Rating 2."

I recently also read, and posted about this stupid monsters article. It rails against, I think, both types of monsters. Those created simply as filler, because they needed 80 monsters to slap between these covers so that they could sell a book for $19.95, which gives us such gems as the Owlephant and Duckbunny. Then there are monsters that were created with the Gygaxian theory that you can never make your player's lives too hard. Monsters that eat your armor. Monsters that pretend to be treasure. Monsters that pretend to be clothes. Monsters that pretend to be swords. Monsters that are the floor. Monsters that attack you from the ceiling. Monsters that pretend to be a cloak. Monsters that live in books and attack you when you read them. Etc etc etc ad nauseum. Jeff, in his previously mentioned blog post, talks about the fun of a monster that steals the map from an adventuring party. Yet another monster that exists solely to screw with the players (oh, and their characters).

And as I sit and ponder on these things, it occurs to me that sure, crazy ass monsters that eat your armor and steal your map are fun - in a way. It challenges the players as well as the characters, in a different way that encounters with non armor or map destroying monsters do not. I guess its all about the group, and the mindset. I mean, the rustmonster is easily a part of why we have satire like the card game Munchkin. I remember rustmonsters and mimics and things, and how much spice they added to D&D. Yet, as I've seen others discuss, I'm not sure whether I'd be hugely pissed, or able to just laugh it off and tell stories about it later - if the plate armor I'd just dropped all of my life savings on, got eaten by a beastie the next time I was out at the local dungeon. I think previously, I'd have laughed it off - not being of the questioning mindset, and that the DM/the rules were always right, and were just how it was. You don't get pissed, dude, its D&D! The rust monster ate your armor?! That's AWESOME! Let me tell you about this one time that my cleric found this succubus who was fighting a mimic......... Now I remember how fun stuff like level draining was too :P

So anyway, yet again, I run out of steam and wind down.


[edit:

I own the 2nd edition AD&D book Monstrous Compendium Annual volume I. I love flipping through it, checking out all of the completely ridiculous monsters in it. I don't have it here, or I'd be more specific, but you've got (from memory)
A monster that pretends to be a house
An elephant-humanoid with two trunks and a bad attitude
Cats with antlers
A monster that pretends to be a sword (previously mentioned)
Evil fish
A man-purse that sucks your blood like a mosquito
A monster with a scorpions tail that pretends to be a coin
A skeleton monster
A skeleton monster on fire
A skull
Two skeletal arms
A mushroom monster

/edit]






* Sorry, I don't know why I half-ass baited you, there.

"But its not D&D!"

*whine*

I've been entertaining myself by keeping up with the Enworld forums, with regard to D&D 4e.

There's a few different kinds of traffic there right now. Alot of rules mechanics discussion, some newsish scoops about what this or that developer said, or what this or that publisher is doing, and then a healthy smattering of blatantly pro or anti 4e threads.

The ones that have amused me most greatest are the ones that whine about how "Its just not D&D anymore!" Or how they argue that its "Less realistic". These make me grin, and clap my hands in near-silent glee. Typically I only have to scroll one or two posts to see someone justly smack these posts down. Because c'mon people, "Not D&D"? We're talking about the game that is about killing monsters and taking stuff. and "Less realistic"? Like elves and fireballs were realistic in the first place.

But now to step back for a second, and lend them just a bit of respect, when they say "Not D&D", these are usually folks who have gone on and on and on and on about which editions of D&D they've played, and so on. So I think that what they're trying to say is that they're disappointed that its lost some of the feel of 1st/2nd/3rd edition. Or some combination of those. Which I suppose I can understand. Some people like keeping up with the weight of their coinpurse, or dwarves not being able to be higher than 12th level, or THAC0.

"Less realistic"? Obviously, I'm chuckling when I discuss D&D and realism, but perhaps they're talking about realism as it relates to its (arguable) source material, easily (but not only) Lord of the Rings. If they're using this as the base for their gripes about realism, then I can give them some credit.

Where am I going with this? Nowhere. That's where.

Broken Drums Followup

HUZZAH! EA Rocks, and is going to replace my rockband drums at no cost to me.

And I'm hoping to get my hands on this http://www.rockbanddrumsoft.com/

Songbird / iTunes

As I mentioned, I was looking for an iTunes alternative.

I'm trying Songbird.

I like it so far. Though its like pre-beta. So we'll see.

Busted Drums

So, I busted the drums on my Rock Band drum set. I noticed this, first when I started getting a funny hollow sound from one of the four pads. Later I noticed a tiny break in the gray cover of the same pad. We kept right on going, but soon saw that the tiny hole was a split in the cover. We stopped to take stock, and soon realized that I had managed to crack the plastic in two of the drum pads. !!!!!

So.. we stopped playing for the evening, even though I've started playing all the songs on "Hard"... INCLUDING mystery sets, which previously I always tackled on medium, because I was scared, but I ain't scared no more!

I am, however, concerned about being able to fix/replace my drum stuff. We discovered that the pads are removable pieces, more simply put - I don't have to replace the WHOLE drum set, to fix this, necessarily. The drum pads come off/out of the set. I have yet to carefully research to see if we can buy/replace individual pads. I can't have been the first person to beat the hell out of the thing, but I'm anxious about how to go about fixing it. And then keeping it from quickly happening again.

But uh, rock band fucking rocks :)

AIM/Livejournal trap

This popped up on my radar recently, and now I got it twice in like two days.

My aim name is listed under my livejournal profile, cause I don't mind.

Friday I got an AIM message from someone with the following:

"your private friends-only posts have been stolen: [link removed]"

I immediately smelled a trap, and started digging, and quickly found that the site that this links to is a simple browser hack that makes it jump around and scream stuff at you.

So, just a friendly warning to anyone who mixes livejournal and AIM: watch out for this kind of thing.

iTunes :(

I think I've complained about iTunes before. But here we got again.

I finally reformatted my computer. It was SO in need of it.

So I'm reinstalling stuff, and I am absolutely dreading iTunes.

It is such bloatware, I hate having to choose to use my computer, or to use my iTunes jukebox, but not both.

I also hate how terribly poorly it manages my music library. If I move some tunes around or anything. Goodbye playlists. Goodbye song ratings and statistics.

I loved winamp 5. It was light weight, and simple. But I'd be surprised if it can manage syncing with my nano. I like rating songs and keeping stats on them and such, cause I'm a nerd.. but do I need those things?

So, mostly I'm just complaining here.