Some random links for today.
- I guess people have minotaurs on the mind. In older D&D systems and D&D 4e. It's so hard for me to follow 4e descriptions, though.
- I like this post about Luck.
- I'm housecleaning and I'm handing off a bunch of big terrain pieces - a Warhammer Fantasy Battles Fortress and other stuff - to some of my players. I need to eBay the last of my ogre minis, too, since I have some other stuff to sell (a film SLR, a whole collection of official MST3K tapes, etc.) But it's house organizing time and I have to admit that stuff I haven't used in 15-20 years isn't likely to get used in the next 15-20.
- Stocking monsters up for my campaign, I've noticed that I always grab my Rolemaster monster books ahead of my D&D and GURPS ones. I don't know exactly why, but I always feel more inspired by those books. Speaking of which, back to working on my dungeon!
That gives me an idea to try branching out into other books for monster sources. I tend to use my D&D books all the time. Since I have copies of DCC, HarnMaster, and Runequest, I should see how those stock dungeons.
ReplyDeleteI like my monsters to be unexpected so I rarely grab the D&D books when I am stocking a D&D dungeon. I grab Earthdawn first, then Rolemaster, AD&D2 (expecially Planescape), 3.5E, Savage Worlds, conversions I made of video game monsters, and other books second. But I also know D&D so intimately I rarely need the books when I want something native.
DeleteOh, who am I kidding? Arduin. I keep falling into Arduin.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think would make the 4e descriptions more interesting in that series of posts? I tend not to repeat explanations for mechanical concepts that were introduced earlier, so I guess I could improve that. The "Lore" bits are supposed to be mostly system neutral. Are they clear?
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure. 4e's approach is such a foreign culture that I can't really find a good handle on the descriptions. The lore is fine, but it feels mostly like the monsters are designed from the ground up to fit a certain aesthetic and combat-centered gaming style. If I had a constructive idea for you I wouldn't be shy about offering it up, but I really don't.
Delete4e monster stat blocks are indeed combat-focused. The idea is that everything you need to run the monster in a fight is in the block, but it might also be able to do other things outside of that.
ReplyDeleteA hag, for example, might know all sorts of magic rituals, but the stuff it uses in combat is what's listed in its stat block. Minotaurs are good at navigating mazes, but that won't be listed in its combat stat block.
To me, 4e combat feels very similar to games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem and Disgaea. Combat happens in a square grid, and everyone has special abilities that push and slide people around, do interesting things to the map, or mess with the action economy (not all at the same time, but at least one of them). Teamwork is very important both for the PCs and for the monsters.
That combat system really shines for set-piece battles, but you won't want to break it out for fights against 1d6 random goblins. It's also impossible to make a literal conversion of a 4e monster to GURPS, since most of their stats come from their level and role and things like equipment end up being effectively flavor text. It's better to go purely from the lore, and from super-high-level summaries like "this monster pushes people around a lot", or "this one is all fire all the time".