Despite preferring human/demihuman-centric games, I also like a good monster or hundred to liven up a game too.

Though admittingly, it's far more likely I'll pull out a Medusa, or Wyvern, or Vampire (something that can really mess up the party), than stock giant badgers, purple worms, or worgs.

The first RPG I knew was AD&D 2E. The MCs were among its best assets: I could run a game within minutes. It's one area where it trumps 3E, IMHO.

Quote from: Novastar;559447Despite preferring human/demihuman-centric games, I also like a good monster or hundred to liven up a game too.

Though admittingly, it's far more likely I'll pull out a Medusa, or Wyvern, or Vampire (something that can really mess up the party), than stock giant badgers, purple worms, or worgs.

I agreee with the focus on people (even if they are elves). I prefer the big bad to be an NPC that a monster to be honest but when I do add a monster I want it to be a monster.

Quote from: JongWK;559844The first RPG I knew was AD&D 2E. The MCs were among its best assets: I could run a game within minutes. It's one area where it trumps 3E, IMHO.

Absolutely.  Amazing concept, less than stellar on the execution.  If they would have kept it to one monster per sheet like they planned, about 90% of my complaints with the products would disappear.

Quote from: RPGPundit;558751...or just a few dozen?

I have to admit I really don't get the necessity some people have to collect "monster manuals" of different kinds.  I've never found the need for it in any of my fantasy campaigns; for starters, usually the list of monsters in, say, the basic 1e monster manual or the monster section of the Rules Cyclopedia has more than enough variety.

And beyond that, I find it much simpler to just take one of those, and put some slight spin on it (it can even be precisely the same stats but with a different physical appearance), than to have a collection of a dozen monster-books full of unique creatures.

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I think some people are comfortable tweaking monsters, and therefore may not feel the need for thousands of monsters. Other people enjoy 'shopping the monster manuals' for beasties that fit the setting. I do both.


Might be the shiny new book factor as well.

Yes, but a shiny new book full of nothing but statblocks of usually repetitive monsters (and they can't help but be repetitive when you get to the 100th different kind of humanoid) is just boring.

And again, in terms of collecting shiny new books you have a point, but in terms of actual play, I can't imagine any campaign that couldn't get by on just the monsters included in the monster manual (any one of them), especially with modifications being made.

I'm willing to bet that anyone who does have dozens of monster books probably hasn't actually USED all the monsters in their first book, or even half of them. Much less more than a tiny percentage of all subsequent books' monsters.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;561491I'm willing to bet that anyone who does have dozens of monster books probably hasn't actually USED all the monsters in their first book, or even half of them. Much less more than a tiny percentage of all subsequent books' monsters.

True, but this is true also for splatbooks and the like. However, I just like to read well done RPG supplements. If a MM or, let's say, a "Villains Book" (like "Exemplars of Evil" for 3.5E) is well written and interesting, I find an escapistic (sp?) pleasure in reading it. If I find something useful for my campaign, all the better. I liked most of the "Races of" books, and I never used one of them (except for "Races of Faerun).

Which is, as I always say to no avail, the point that never comes up in all 4E/5E debates: 4E books' contents were moronic. Will 5E books be well written and full of interesting ideas? But everybody does seem to be interested in just crunch, dice and stats.

Quote from: RPGPundit;561491I'm willing to bet that anyone who does have dozens of monster books probably hasn't actually USED all the monsters in their first book, or even half of them. Much less more than a tiny percentage of all subsequent books' monsters.

In my case, that is half-true; I've used monsters from every book I have, not a tiny percentage but not a significant proportion either.

However, I do make and use encounter/stocking tables that use the monsters from all of my monster books, albeit when I'm DMing I reroll results that I find unsuitable for whatever milieu or dungeon I'm running, such as how I currently reroll kobold, orc, goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, dwarf, elf, halfling and giant centipede results). And I use monsters from all my books when I'm making saturday night specials and the like.

(Incidentally this is why I wish that every monster book contained encounter tables referencing the monsters contained within, so I can easily make a master encounter matrix that utilizes tables from the various books).

My current "monster books" that I use when DMing are:
AD&D Monster Manual
AD&D Fiend Folio
AD&D Monster Manual II
Arduin Trilogy
All the Worlds Monsters Volumes I, II& III (albeit only the monsters referenced in the Arduin encounter tables so far; I haven't dove into them yet).
Booty & the Beast
Swords & Wizardry Monster Book
OSRIC Monsters of Myth
OSRIC Malevolent & Benign
Swords & Wizardry Tome of Horrors Complete
Empire of the Petal Throne
Realms of Crawling Chaos
Carcosa
The Bleak Beyond Bestiary
Varlet's and Vermin
Telecanter's Dangerous Denizens
The White Dwarf Fiend Factory compilation netbook
Kard & Magica
OSR Blogs
B/X D&D
+ stuff I'm forgetting.

as well as monster generators such as the Random Esoteric Creature Generator and Exquisite Corpses.

With such a pool of monsters, I've come to quite enjoy the emergent experience of a monsters coming right out of left field not only for the players but for me the DM as well.

If you publish a monster book for some variety of oldschool D&D or clone I will buy it and use it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;561491I'm willing to bet that anyone who does have dozens of monster books probably hasn't actually USED all the monsters in their first book, or even half of them. Much less more than a tiny percentage of all subsequent books' monsters.

If you've never run a full-on dimensional invasion by Mind Flayers, let me tell you that extensive monster lists come in handy. No stone goes unturned as far as cannon fodder goes. Besides the point isn't to run them all, although you could in a long enough campaign, the point is that "here be dragons" actually holds mystery when the players could be facing any one of ten thousand different creatures in the next game. And admittedly many of those in D&D are humanoid+power, but many more are quite unique. Those enhancement skills come in even more useful when you have such a wide base to choose from. The "ecology of" series in Dragon were outstanding examples of this, loved those articles.

Try mixing in the WHFRP chaos attribute tables with the 2e monster lists sometime, now that's an afternoon's entertainment.

Quote from: VectorSigma;559012I'm less interested in the monster stats per se than I am in what the monsters tell me about the game/campaign.

Wow you said it. Then shouldn't (after say, the initial core book) any standalone monster manuals be campaign world specific? After a base stat block, information about any critter should be dependent on where its likely to be, what its foes are, and the like.

Having escalated one of my games up through Pathfinder, dealing with the complexities of stat blocks is my biggest frustration. I think you all put your finger on my top peeve of the complexity curve through the years.

Quote from: RPGPundit;561491Yes, but a shiny new book full of nothing but statblocks of usually repetitive monsters (and they can't help but be repetitive when you get to the 100th different kind of humanoid) is just boring.

And again, in terms of collecting shiny new books you have a point, but in terms of actual play, I can't imagine any campaign that couldn't get by on just the monsters included in the monster manual (any one of them), especially with modifications being made.

I'm willing to bet that anyone who does have dozens of monster books probably hasn't actually USED all the monsters in their first book, or even half of them. Much less more than a tiny percentage of all subsequent books' monsters.

RPGPundit

Nope, there are monsters in the original MM I've never run...hell, there's monsters in B/X I've never run (like the Devil Swine).

I still like having the variety, though.  Sometimes you need a specific something for a game.  Like a flumph.

Quote from: Gib;559386Arts and crafts D&D is awesome D&D.

The new cut/paste job kept me busy a couple of years ago when I was unable to walk for several months and I had already gone through every book and movie I had in the first two weeks.

Quote from: Planet Algol;559384*backs away slowly*

Anyways, I print out the PDFs of my monster books as digest sized booklets so they're pretty small and light and I easily stuff all of them in my satchel.

Unfortunately, the tiny and shitty font used in the first four AD&D hardbacks makes this difficult since shrinking down the text to half size makes it difficult to read (for me).

Quote from: The Traveller;561636If you've never run a full-on dimensional invasion by Mind Flayers, let me tell you that extensive monster lists come in handy.

As a matter of fact, I did indeed run that very thing, in my Port Blacksand campaign. I didn't find need of anything more than the Monster Manual.

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Quote from: The Traveller;561636Try mixing in the WHFRP chaos attribute tables with the 2e monster lists sometime, now that's an afternoon's entertainment.

Oh, hell yes.  The two "Realms of Chaos" books (Lost and the Damned, and Slaves to Darkness) found great use in the AD&D 1e campaign I was running from the late 80s to the early 90s.  That was one awesome game.

For the monsters, I don't usually make use of the WFRP chaos stuff, but I use the Tome of Corruption VERY regularly in the Albion campaign; in particular one character's gotten herself mutated like three times.

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