Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual: Roleplaying Game Core Rules, 4th Edition

I've been an absolutely RABID fan of Dungeons and Dragons in all of its incarnations since about 1980. I had all of the 1st edition and 2nd edition books, 3.0 represented a big change for me, but I grew to like it - and then 3.5 really fixed some of the bugs in 3.0 making it one of the most modular systems I'd ever seen.

When the 4th edition of D&D was announced, it seemed premature. When the video of the presentations about 4th edition hit YouTube, I was intrigued - a lot of what I seeing sounded very promising. I began to let myself get excited about the new edition, then I read one of the preview books - and began to get nervous, but I figured, hey, this is just a preview - they'll work out the bugs. After all, version 3.0/3.5 had a few clunky spots, but if you worked through those, BAM, you had an amazingly well oiled machine, right? Then I get the 4th edition rulebooks. Wow, talking about a head shot. We have "new Coke" in game form.

The Monster Manual is absolutely a train wreck. Monsters read like they're simply enemies to be killed - like in a computer game. I felt like I was reading the WOW or Diablo II strategy guide, not the Monster Manual. There is no sense of a larger fantasy world - as that appears to have been "streamlined" away from the process. Steve Jackson has to be doing a double take because D&D is now more Munchkin than Munchkin. Same thing for the Dungeon Crawl guys, WotC seems to have taken the success of the Dungeon Crawl Classics modules a bit too literally.

I sincerely hope that 4th edition is improved as additional supplements are released, but I'm not holding my breath (and I AM holding my dollars until I see evidence of improvement). At this point I see 4th Edition as an interesting game of below average depth and quality. I fear Gary Gygax is rolling over in his grave to see the "Dungeons and Dragons" name on it.

A successful company will identify what about it's product is 1) recognizable by the consumer, 2) successful and generated positive image and sales and, 3) needing improvement.

The new MM follows in the same flawed footsteps of the other core 4th books. Instead of trying to improve on their "brand" product (which generally agreed had it's main success in the 3.5 rule set) they attempt an entire rules/style revision and become an entirely different product. Most successful companies will tell you that will kill your "brand".

"Examine your company's history and figure out how it was branded in the past. Then revitalize the original message, putting your own twist on it. Reemphasizing the message that inspired and unified your firm's original customers won't alienate them." If we go by this...what WoTC is telling me is that they want to abandon it's original fanbase who made the D&D a success up to the 3.5 edition, in an attempt to strike out in an entirely new direction, hoping that an entirely redesigned brand product will tap into the MMO market's larger fanbase as potential new customers.

It seems a decision made simply to satisfy the shareholders, and not one at all made for the RPG community. The same mindset has been carried over into the new MM. Gone are the great descriptions, gone are the non-combat critters who used deception and trickery in favor of a big club, and gone are any other concerns other than stats/powers...it reads more like a recipe book serving up lists of ingredients that went into making the dish, but with no description as to which order to mix them, what temperature to use and how long to bake them. People can claim "it's up to the GM's imagination to make the critter his own"....but if the critter lacks even the most basic of visual description I wonder what the GM paid for. If the book emits the lush descriptions, reduces the critters all to basic combat obstacles and yet the books are still priced in the same manner as previous editions - then yes you guess it - you've been had.

IN regards to the MM and to the 4th edition as a whole - WoTC, get your head out of your *** and start trying to repair your brand right now. Classic RPG fans require a game made by RPG fans, for RPG fans...not by a new generation of MMO player who has no idea what a pencil n paper RPG system should be. The target 13 yr old audience will soon realize' as they get older, they want something more thought out and engaging than the 4th edition serves up.

I applaud the initiative of wanting to completely redfine your product brand..but when it is done with apparently no feedback taken from your current consumer base in development, then you reap what you sow. I smell manure.

The 4th Edition Monster Manual is a straight forward book. Each entry of a monster contains several variations for levels of engagement, with some monsters having 5+ variations and a few having 1-2. Each entry is rather detailed with the monster's statistics. The stats block has the monster's name, level, function in combat (soldier, artillery, skirmisher), XP value, and all the relevant information for using the monster appropriately. The organization is very compact, easy to read, well constructed, and simple. All monster entries have a lore association - the use of a knowledge check that reveals information about the monster to the players. Most monsters also have "Encounter Groups," an encounter of monsters that are balanced toward the specified level and made up of an array of varying foes.

What's gone from each monster's entry are things like organization, environment, and treasure. The flavor text descriptions in MM 3.5 are also gone. Some monsters have very limited bits of description, just enough to provide a scope of what the foe is like or where it comes from.

Many of the negative reviews for this book aim at one general point: the book feels flat and the monsters lack any creativity. Without descriptions, details on how the creature acts, or the other bits of flavor and spice from previous edition MMs, some reviewers wonder if Wizards put any thought into the game at all. It's my opinion that Wizards put in quite a bit of thought and decided that the majority of the creativity should be left to the players and the dungeon masters. Yes, monster entries are mostly limited to statistics blocks detailing the tactical abilities of the foes but that's not a bad thing. Using your imagination, and the experience most of us bring from previous years of playing, you can create your own societies for gnolls and devise the dark ritual that brings flameskulls to life (or unlife, really).

The art is mostly impressive, with a few selections being reused or just unimpressive. However, chances are good that you're not purchasing this book for pictures - you want a collection of enemies for your players and the means to properly use them in combat. The 4th Edition MM provides that to you aptly - here's what the monster can do, what it tries to do, and what it looks like. Use your imagination, you know the thing you play D&D with, and fill in the details.

The haters of the new edition may have some reason to have reservations or complain but the new Monster Manual shouldn't be it.

Each item found in the table of contents has a standard layout. Turn to the appropriate page and you will find the name of the creature or creature type, followed by (usually) short descriptive text. This limited amount of fluff has been derided by some but personally I prefer quality over quantity and I find the text exactly as descriptive as it needs to be; capturing the essence of the creature without forcing the reader into accepting a single interpretation.

After a brief description of the average specimen, the name of a specific variant of the creature or type appears followed by a short explanation which builds upon facts established in the previous section. Next the creature's stat block appears. The layout is simple and easy to understand. Statistics are presented in such a way as to be intuitively accessible to the reader. Each creature has one or more basic attacks and a handful of powers which can be used either at-will, once per encounter, or when triggered by some event such as when bloodied.

The average creature seems to have about 2-3 powers while complex monsters like dragons have as many as 6. As others have pointed out, this tends to average less abilities for high-level monsters than in previous editions. The design goal here seems to be listing the powers the creature is most likely to call upon during a desperate confrontation with heroic characters, thereby giving the GM less to think about during play. To me this is the right choice on the part of the designers. In previous editions a high-level dragon would have some low-level spells and abilities that it would never waste an action using when fighting skilled opponents, therefore making the inclusion of such a spell in the creature's write-up of limited use.

Many creatures also have a Lore section; detailing what information about a given creature the player characters may have access to through skill use.

Most stat-blocks are accompanied by an image of the creature or sometimes a group of different variants of the same type. All images are labeled which was not the case in previous editions. The art captures the feel of each creature and combined with even the briefest write-ups, should allow every GM to understand and correctly play each creature with minimal prep-time.

The only complaint I can find to make is that some creatures may be difficult to find without an index. For example, Bugbears are not listed separately in the table of contents. They are found among the entries for goblins. This complaint is not anywhere near significant enough to affect this review however. There is also a monsters by level section which lists every creature in the book grouped according to it's encounter level. This is arguably more useful to a GM than a traditional index.

In conclusion, this version of the Monster Manual is in many ways an improvement over other books of it's kind including previous edition D&D Monster books. The layout is simple and easily navigated, and the information is exactly what a GM needs, no more and no less. GMs on a budget should appreciate this fact as not a single page or paragraph is wasted. Those who give this book anything less than a 3 star rating are haters, pure and simple and any wise gamer will ignore their spiteful ignorance out of hand.

The new rules almost feel like a tribute the old days of D&D. Just in concept really. These are just rules and guidelines. You do with them as you see fit. You are the roleplayers. Stop saying that 4th edition is not for roleplayers. Heck look at LARPERs, their roleplay sessions are nothing but beating on each other with foam bats, yet they are role playing. You aren't very imaginative if you can not roleplay using 4th edition rules. Posers.