New Monster Manual: Design by Idiots

BoxCrayonTales · January 15, 2025, 09:36:18 AM

There have been female satyrs in art for centuries. While not part of Greek myth, European artists invented satyresses. I recall reading one source that conflated them with maenads.

HappyDaze · January 15, 2025, 09:51:54 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 15, 2025, 09:36:18 AMThere have been female satyrs in art for centuries. While not part of Greek myth, European artists invented satyresses. I recall reading one source that conflated them with maenads.

But were they born female?

BoxCrayonTales · January 15, 2025, 10:13:09 AM

In any case, these monsters are too far removed from their mythological origins for their names to make sense anymore. Rename them to something more appropriate: stonegaze snakehair, wood sprite, evil old folks, goat men, bullhead, etc.

RPGPundit · January 15, 2025, 04:30:59 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 15, 2025, 09:36:18 AMThere have been female satyrs in art for centuries. While not part of Greek myth, European artists invented satyresses. I recall reading one source that conflated them with maenads.

Maenads were part of greek myth, but they were human women driven to madness by Dionysus.

Female satyrs were a creation of renaissance artists in the 16th century, testing the bounds of creativity. They were never part of legend or folklore.

RPGPundit · January 15, 2025, 04:31:32 PM

Baptism of Fire has proper Satyrs.

Jaeger · January 15, 2025, 07:00:35 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 15, 2025, 09:21:40 AMNot a lot of artists are going to come up well when compared to Alan Lee.

Maybe so, but it is not as if WotC doesn't have access to some great artists.

You only need to look at various MtG pieces over the years to see that they have a killer artist pool to draw from.

But they have made an explicit choice not to.

They clearly have art direction that they want.

ForgottenF · January 15, 2025, 10:32:43 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on January 15, 2025, 07:00:35 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on January 15, 2025, 09:21:40 AMNot a lot of artists are going to come up well when compared to Alan Lee.

Maybe so, but it is not as if WotC doesn't have access to some great artists.

You only need to look at various MtG pieces over the years to see that they have a killer artist pool to draw from.

But they have made an explicit choice not to.

They clearly have art direction that they want.

Oh, I agree. It's baffling that the biggest company in the industry can't tap the best artistic talent. They get their lunch eaten routinely by smaller competitors. Incidentally, I got curious about this a while back and decided to look at how MTG art has changed over the years. You can look through the sets by year of publication here:

https://www.artofmtg.com/mtg-sets/

I would say that some of the issues that plague D&D art have started to creep into MTG in recent years, but on average it's still better.

Jaeger · January 16, 2025, 01:15:45 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 15, 2025, 10:32:43 PM...

Oh, I agree. It's baffling that the biggest company in the industry can't tap the best artistic talent. They get their lunch eaten routinely by smaller competitors. Incidentally, I got curious about this a while back and decided to look at how MTG art has changed over the years. You can look through the sets by year of publication here:

https://www.artofmtg.com/mtg-sets/

I would say that some of the issues that plague D&D art have started to creep into MTG in recent years, but on average it's still better.

The beancounters are starting to realise that they can deliver lesser art, and MtG players will still snap it up like crack. But the great art was one of the selling points of the collectable cards...

We'll see how long that bold strategy lasts.

Also interesting to see how the number of decks released per year exploded after 2010 or so.

RPGPundit · January 17, 2025, 03:51:39 AM

Yeah, they figure they can go cheap on art. But that will inevitably change to them just using AI art.

Orphan81 · January 17, 2025, 11:38:09 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 13, 2025, 08:59:40 PM
Quote from: Orphan81 on January 11, 2025, 03:43:56 PMThe biggest thing about the 2025 Monster Manual, is that there's a new way of Calculating Challenge Rating which has led to the Monster being stronger overall.

One of the largest complaints about 5th edition, was Monsters being too weak, particularly at higher levels. As has been revealed, the way CR was calculated in the 2014 edition, was the maximum output a monster was capable of, if everything was in their favor.

This could have been done with a simple PDF download (and been done years ago). Adjusting CR isn't a good enough reason for buying an entirely new book.

Well, the stat blocks themselves have been changed significantly by comparison as well. It's not like they just added the new CR in and changed nothing else. They reworked the majority of monsters to make them tougher and hit harder. CR calculation being different is just a bonus on top of that.

There's also been significant changes to creature types... Goblins and Bugbears are now Fey, this is a huge change because now it means spells like "Hold Person" won't work on them.

BoxCrayonTales · January 18, 2025, 09:58:15 AM

The changes to creature types are always confusing. There are already established settings. Arbitrarily forcing genre wide retcons like this has always frustrated me. Most people don't keep track of anal retentive stuff like that. A lot of the creature types in general are questionable at best. Why are centaurs and owlbears labeled monstrosities, but the tressym is a beast and the mermaid is a humanoid?

RPGPundit · January 19, 2025, 06:12:17 AM

I mean, goblins and bugbears were traditionally creatures of fairy, but in the D&D context reclassifying them as that instead of "humanoids" is surprising.

Orphan81 · January 19, 2025, 09:14:35 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 18, 2025, 09:58:15 AMGood DMs keep track of stuff like that.

Fixed that for you.

Since you know, there's a spell called "Hold Monster" that's a higher level and specifically can target any creature.

BoxCrayonTales · January 19, 2025, 11:55:40 AM

Quote from: Orphan81 on January 19, 2025, 09:14:35 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 18, 2025, 09:58:15 AMGood DMs keep track of stuff like that.

Fixed that for you.

Since you know, there's a spell called "Hold Monster" that's a higher level and specifically can target any creature.

What I mean is, e.g., prior to 5e the medusas were a race but post-5e they're a curse. Different people disagree on which depiction is correct whenever it would come up.

Obviously Hold Person vs Hold Monster is a more important concern, but the fluff does inform various other creative decisions.

Horace · January 19, 2025, 12:34:13 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 18, 2025, 09:58:15 AMThe changes to creature types are always confusing. There are already established settings. Arbitrarily forcing genre wide retcons like this has always frustrated me. Most people don't keep track of anal retentive stuff like that. A lot of the creature types in general are questionable at best. Why are centaurs and owlbears labeled monstrosities, but the tressym is a beast and the mermaid is a humanoid?

It depends on the current lore. Owlbears are monstrosities because, according to the current Monster Manual, they were likely created through magical experimentation, like some Frankensteinian monster. Maybe someday the lore will change, and they'll be considered beasts. But that's the problem with creature types: they depend on lore, which changes between settings. So owlbears can be magically-created monstrosities in one setting and beasts in another. Use whatever works for you.