Which Monster Manual?

Yesterday's Monster topic and Seth's comment about the 2nd Edition Monster Manual really got me thinking about the differences between the various editions Monster Manuals.  From edition to edition the books vary a great deal while containing most of the same core group of monsters.  So my question to you, noble reader, is which Monster Manual do you like best and why?

There are plenty to choose from, here are pictures of your options to jog your memory a bit.  Noted that I've included Pathfinder as many (including myself) see it as D&D 3.75, and I included two covers of the AD&D 1st edition MM because one is near and dear to my heart and the other is the one that most people owned.  

The Accidental Antagonist

Recently I was looking through my notes of an old but beloved campaign my group played years ago called Nordis.  It was a cool campaign about an untamed wilderness full of treasure that hid a dark past that the party had to uncover.  It was a lot of fun, and has a lot of my favorite gaming memories but the one memory that really came back to me while looking through the notes was more of a humorous one. The story of the Accidental Antagonist.

As I said the game predominantly took place in a dense and unnatural jungle and the party spent a lot of time trudging through said jungle and battling its inhabitants.  I had a series of random encounter charts for the various parts of the jungle and the first time the party entered section 2 I rolled randomly and found that the party had come across a Troll.

Before

A Troll is a pretty standard opponent in a game of D&D, certainly nothing new for any of my players, but no one was prepared for the fallout from this seemingly innocent battle.  It didn't take long for the battle to turn against the party.  Trolls are dangerous and can pump out massive amounts of damage with their claw attacks and Rend ability.  Unfortunately for the group this problem was compounded with a crit or two and before anyone realized that they were in for the fight of their lives one of their members had already gone down.  The group ended up fleeing and escaping the troll with their lives, but certainly not their dignity, intact.  In my mind it had been a rough encounter for the group.  The dice had gone against them, but they had escaped and would be able to heal up and continue their quest.  No harm done.  Ah, how wrong I was.  If I only knew what was to come.  

When the part got back safely to town they spread word a Demon Troll roaming the woods, I figured they were just trying to save a little face, it had just been a regular random encounter troll out of the Monster Manual after-all.  Still, they went on for a few days as they got themselves back into fighting form, telling those who would listen to beware the Demon Troll lest it smite them, etc etc.  After everyone had recuperated I figured they would resume their quest when they reentered the forest.  They had other ideas.  When I asked which way they were headed they stated that they were making a bee-line for the spot where they had fought the troll.  I sighed, now realizing that the fight wasn't over that only the first round had ended.  The group was determined to deal with the Troll reciprocating the kindness that he had shown them. 

When they reached the spot of their first battle I rolled to see if the Troll was around.  He wasn't.  I figured that might be the end of it, but the Ranger decided to make good use of his tracking skill and hunt it back to its lair.  Once they arrived Round 2 issued.  The party was hindered by the entrance to the Troll's Dwelling, a decent sizes cave, which meant only two of them could really get in there and and mix it up with him.  This bottle neck turned to be the deciding factor in the battle and again the Troll gave the party a whipping they would never forget.  This time they barley escaped a TPK situation by one of the characters with enhanced speed making the Troll chase her through the woods while the rest of the party limped back to town.  

At this point one might have had hope that the issue was over and that the party would move on with some meaningful exploration of one of the many ruins, but I could see it was way past that.  Either the party was going to die, or this Troll was.  It was, "On Like Donkey Kong" as they say.  

After

Round 3 saw the party defeated again in the open forest.  Having narrowly escaped a TPK in their last encounter they had a much more itchy trigger finger on the eject button.  Round 3 was a turning point because at this point thing were starting to get ridiculous.  This damn random Troll had taken up over an entire game session all on his own.  He had defeated a party of adventurers three times.  It was time for him to get his own character sheet and a level of Barbarian.  His character sheet with the name Kraahn written at the top was what I came across in my notes that really brought this story to mind. 

The forth time the party found the mighty Troll Kraahn he had taken leadership of a tribe of Orcs who he had subjugated by force and intimidation.   This gave the party a chance to back out rationally.  Now they weren't just dealing with their hated enemy but also with a small tribe of Orcs!  Surely reason would kick in and the part would get the hell out of dodge.

Nope.

They charged into the camp screaming vengeance like a bunch of maniacs.  They mowed through several Orcs but eventually Kraahn made his appearance.  I made a point of describing him anew as seemingly more mighty than ever before but the party took no heed.  One of the characters, the one who had led the charge for the death of this Troll from the first, Harold Scarbottom dashed at the Troll with reckless abandon.  He battled the Troll alone for a time while the others held off the Orcs.  However, Kraahn had grown so strong that Harold had no choice but to feign death in the hopes of escaping.  Escape he did, and the rest of the party with him, but their defeat only strengthen Kraahn more.

Another level in Barbarian?  Check.

The Evolution

The fifth and final battle saw the party pull out all the stops, spend all their money on fire, acid and other supplies, and expend all of their resources in an attempt to smite their hated nemesis once and for all.  They were more clever this time, picking off as many of the Orcs from the tribe as possible when they left camp to hunt.  They also set up an ambush and lured Kraahn out of town.  Two levels of Barbadian or not, the guy wasn't the sharpest sword on the rack.  Even with all of these things together Kraahn didn't go down without a fight.  He KO'd one party member and literally ripped Harrol Scarbottom in half before finally dying for good. 


At the end of the session I was kind of floored at what had become of a simple random encounter Troll.  I wasn't too happy about it, but the group seemed to feel otherwise.  The yells of triumph when Kraahn went down in a flaming bubbling heap were nearly deafening.  Even Moox whose character Harold Scarbottom had died in the quest was ecstatic about the victory.  At his request we started a PC graveyard and had little sayings with which to remember how the character died.  Harold's read, "Never play Ahab to a Barbarian Troll's Moby Dick."  I think that summed up the series of events nicely.  The players happiness over the entire affair was only compounded when they saw the small fortune that Kraahn and his Orcs had accumulated and how much experience the Troll himself was worth.  Though I had never planned any of it, everyone had had a great time and left with a sense of real accomplishment for finally beating the bad guy. 

The moral of the story is that the best laid plans of Mice and GM's don't always work out, but sometimes this is Serendipitous.  Some of the very best things that happen just happen accidentally.  Certainly that is the case with Kraahn, the Accidental Antagonist.  He started off being just a Troll rolled on a random encounter chart but became one of the most hated and most memorable enemies our group has ever seen.

Wednesday Words: Mike Mearls

Normally this is where we highlight a quote from another great gaming site or blog, but today we are going to take a look as some words from a different source, D&D Head of R&D. 

When we look to the past, we learn that there are far more things that tie us together than tear us apart. The fact that we play this bizarre, arcane game puts us on the fringe of normal. Whether we like powers, feats, ascending or descending AC, Thac0 or base attack bonus, those are all details. We like to dream of worlds beyond the mundane, of great battles and victories that occur only in the shared imagination of a gaming group. To borrow from the forward to the 1st Edition Player’s Handbook: "As diverse as this mélange of enthusiasts is, they all seem to share one commonality: a real love for Dungeons & Dragons and a devotion that few other games can claim."

This is our game, and it is as healthy, vibrant and important as we make it. The rest is details. Don’t let that details drive us apart when the big picture says we should be joined together.

Mearl's attempt to diplomatically unite the Gaming Community is one that I certainly respect, even if I don't have much respect for the edition that he represents.  The fact is that our community is full of unusually (and perhaps overly) opinionated people.   We argue over things that other people would probably deem strange and/or unimportant such as: who would win in a fight between Conan and Drizzt, which is the best Star Wars film, and of course which edition of D&D was the best.  

Amidst the seemingly endless debate, dubbed the "Edition Wars" it is nice to hear someone of notoriety remind everyone that there is more than unites us than divides us, though often it doesn't seem that way. 

Anyone who hasn't should go read the full piece over on the Wizards website. 

Saturday Links: The "Raistlin Majere was healthy" Edition

I've always found Statistics to be fun... Well as they pertain to fun things like Sports and Gaming anyway.  You find out some very fascinating things when examining stats in gaming.  That is why this week's links are all about the numbers!

The Jovial Priest looks asserts that an ability score of 3 is unplayable.  In fact, he feels that most people aren't able to conceptualize what a 3 would really mean.  He takes a look at famous twin brothers Raistlin and Caramon as an example.  Most people feel that Raist's CON score was a 3 and Caramon's INT, while probably not a 3, was still very low.  The reality may surprise you.

Matthew Neagley over at Gnome Stew has a great primer on probability for beginners. 

This link examines the ramifications of substituting all d20 rolls in D&D with 3d6.

Highprogrammer has an entire page dedicated to weapon damage graphs. 

Kevin Sullivan has a page dedicated to looking at stats in D&D such as opposed skill rolls and character attributes.  He also has a great great chart plotting ability score probabilities.

Prestonpoulter has a great graph comparing a number of different ability score generation methods which can be seen below.  

Love It & Loath It: D&D Edition

Each version of D&D has its pros and cons.  Some aspects of the system are great, while others are much less so.  Today I found myself thinking about the various editions, some of the things I liked most about them, and some of the things I liked least.

Here we go...

AD&D 1st Edition 

Loved    - Light rules with plenty of room for the GM, the classic modules, Nostalgia, the Cavalier class, combat tends to move quickly, historical inspirations, Gary Gygax
Loathed -Poorly organized rulebooks, descending armor class, demihuman racial limits


AD&D 2nd Edition


Loved    - flavor and feel, character class descriptions, non-weapon proficiencies, Nostalgia, historical inspirations
Loathed - THACO, descending armor class, superfluous supplemental books with no eye for game balance, demihuman racial limits

D&D 3rd Edition

Loved    - Improved saving throw system, modular design, improved skill system, feats and other factors allowed for more customizable characters, online SRD, classes well balanced while maintaining their individuality
Loathed - Out of Control Multiclassing and/or Prestige classes, wildly unbalanced supplemental books, the removal of weapon proficiencies


D&D 4e

Loved    - Encourages team play, less work for the DM
Loathed - Dissociated mechanics, classes are too balanced and loses a lot of flavor, overabundant player options (almost 3,000 feats and counting!), skill challenges, healing surges, rules poorly organized in PHB


That's just what I could think of off the top of my head.

What are your favorite and least favorite things about each edition of D&D?

Bolstering the Ranks: Why the Hell is it so hard to find new players?!

I've played with the same group for about eight years now.  We have had many people come and go for various reasons over the years, but the core four members of the group have remain unchanged.  Recently we lost two members in quick succession and found ourselves down to just the aforementioned four players.  While it is certainly possible to play with four, and we have done it many times, it was the general preference that we add a few more members to fill out the table.  

Normally when we need new members we will invite a friend of one of the already existing members.  This is the easiest option for both the group who is getting a known quantity, and for the new player who already knows someone at the table.  However, after eight years we seem to have exhausted this option; none of us could think of a single person to invite to the game.  After a bid of head scratching we examined our options.  We do live in the information age after all, how hard could it be to reach out and pluck a prospective gamer from the orchard of the internet? 

As it turns out, pretty hard.

Now there are various ways to find new members, many of which I'm sure we weren't aware of., but of the ones we did know the three that seemed the most promising to us were message boards, Obsidian portal,  and Pen & Paper Games. 

Message boards for specific games have worked really well for people I know.  I once knew a guy who would hit the D&D boards and within a week would have a whole new group.  That man had a talent for finding people that it quickly became clear that I, and the other members of my group, lack.    The problem is that my group no longer plays just D&D anymore.  When 4e came out it became clear that the game was not for us and so we started looking elsewhere.  In the time since 4e came out we have played Hackmaster 4th Edition, Hackmaster Basic, Hackmaster Advanced, Aces & Eights, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, 1st Edition D&D, 2nd Edition D&D, and D&D 3.5.  So though it was cool that the release of 4e caused us to branch out and leave our comfort zone a little bit, it no longer made it possible to hit the D&D boards looking for players.  Similarly, Paizo has prolific message boards, but by and large those players are Pathfinder players who might not be interested in switching systems should the need arise.  So in the end we didn't have much luck with message boards and decided to forgo others like ENWorld, RPGNet, and others. 

Obsidian Portal is an awesome site and a great resource for many things including finding games.  We used Obsidian Portal as kind of a passive way to look in the months leading up to our active search.  We listed the campaign we were playing along with some information on our group and tossed our line out, hoping some Gamer without a group would bite.  Alas, we had little to no luck.  We considered contacting some of the other groups in the immediate area, but many of them were playing 4e, so it was unlikely they would have been a good fit.  However, all was not lost.  Obsidian Portal partnered with Pen & Paper Games, a site dedicated to helping Gamers find Gamers.  We all figured this would be our best bet. 

It was at Pen & Paper Games that we made our last  ditch effort to find some new blood.  We threw a wide net over the area, opting for a "spray and pray" philosophy.  Rather than working our way down a long list of people one at a time, we just emailed everyone we thought might be a good fit.  So just how many was that? 

Thirty two.

That's right, thirty two people got messages from us offering them a seat at our table.  This was not just a quick "hey you don't know us but join our game" email.  No, this was thorough.  We talked about our group, how many members, what ages, our play styles, what games we play, what times, how long we had been together, what we were looking for, what we would be playing, and a host of other things.  We added a "no pressure clause" by stating that it was just a trial to see if the person was a good fit for the group and the group a good fit for the person.  When we finished writing the email (a group effort) I was sure that we had emailed too many people and would be bombarded with responses.  This was a little worrying because the table we play at is only so big.  Turns our I shouldn't have worried.  Go ahead and guess how many responses we got.

If you guessed one and a half, you are correct.  

What do I mean by that?  Well we got one ligit response by a guy who was interested, and one quick email from a guy who said he might play if we change the day we play on.  To say we were disheartened would be an understatement. 

Now I should mention that all of the people who we emailed were not held in equal regard.  We rated each person on a 1-10 basis and only emailed the top 32 people.  So naturally where was our one response from?

If you guessed the very bottom of the list, you are correct. 

Needless to say it was more than a little disheartening, but we emailed the guy (Doodle, by handle).  Doodle seemed nice enough via email and was very prompt in his responses so we invited him to come down for the start of our Call of Cthulhu game and roll up a character with us.  When he showed up we were all pleasantly surprised, he was friendly and very normal.  Hey, don't look at me like that... it's the internet you never know what you're gonna get.  Doodle had played CoC before so he was a help with some of the rules and his sense of humor really seemed to mesh with the rest of the group, something of underrated importance in my opinion. 

As I write this we are two weeks into our CoC and things are going great.  Everyone is very happy with Doodle and he seems reasonably happy with the group.  Still when I think of the process we went through to find and recruit him I have to ask myself, why the hell is it so hard to find new players? 

If you have a story of your own trials and tribulations of finding new group members please, let's hear it!  If you have any advice on finding new members, please share that too!

Game Balance and the Conformist Utopia

Reducing everything down to the point where everything is mechanically identical may be balanced, but it will be just as fun as a conformist utopia. -Korjik

I came across this quote over at EnWorld.  Besides being funny, it is also absolutely true.  In my youth I always thought game balance was a good thing, something that one should strike for.  However, over the years I've come to question whether a balanced game is always a good idea.  Now I'm not saying one should throw game balance to the wind, just that balanced isn't always better.   

Take D&D as an example.  In first and second edition you have no real balance between the classes, at least not in the modern sense.  The fighter is great at the beginning, but gives up the crown fairly early on to the magic using classes.  This is further balanced out by the fact that the magic wielding classes all took far more experience to advance in level.   Yet a 18th level fighter and a 18th level wizard were not balanced against one another.  

Third edition came along and did away with differing experience table and so undertook the difficult task of balancing each class against each other each level.   At this task, they failed terribly.  That isn't to say they didn't go a great job, I'm not bashing 3rd edition here, but the classes were not all made equal.  A 12th level Wizard is orders of magnitude better than a 12th level Ranger.  Other classes were very well balanced, like the Wizard and the Sorcerer, but by and large there was a pecking order as to how powerful the classes were.  The reason they couldn't all be perfectly balanced is that they all did different things, and did them in different ways. The classes all had their own feel and their own niche within the game.  

Soon after 3.0 came 3.5.  It attempted to fix the issues in the original 3rd edition design, including some of the balance issues between the classes.  Rangers, for example got much better, but still the classes were not perfectly balanced against one another and the pecking order still was there, albeit in a slightly different order.  The jam was still in the cog, which is to say that the classes were still so widely different, and had abilities that couldn't be quantified to match each of the other classes perfectly.   
 
Enter 4th edition.  Game developers had been questing for balance for a long time now and finally come up with a way to balance all the classes almost perfectly, give them all comparable abilities.   Now I'm not saying that all the classes from 4e are the same, but they are much more similar to one another than in any other version of the game.  Each has dailies, per encounter, and once a day abilities that can be easily balanced against one another.  Now I'm not saying that 4e is perfectly balanced, but it is the closest thing to perfectly balanced that exists out there.  

WotC finally hit the mother-load of balance, finally reached the promised land it had long search for.  Hell I had been looking for it myself for a while, but now that I got to look on it, I didn't really like what I saw.  Gone was the unique feel of each class, gone was what made each of them special.  They just all felt the same, uniform, homogeneous. 

That's when I realized that the White Whale I was chasing was something of a poisoned prize.  To get balance you have to give something up, a certain amount of flavor and texture.  You have to be willing to part with the differences that make things unique and interesting.  Balance craves uniformity and consistency, and those things just aren't very interesting. 


So I am done chasing game balance as the ultimate prize.  Instead I'll keep it on the shelf with the other things.  It has it's place, but it isn't higher than a host of other factors that make up a great game.