We always have a 'look-out guy' when we have encounters in areas with more than one entrance or we've passed other chambers without investigating. His job is to look out for other monsters attracted by the noise and generally has a hard hitting spell or magic item ready to buy us time from any kind of flanking attempts. If nothing comes or he is really needed then he joins the intitial melee. We've done this since 1e.

Rob,

Mixing populaces of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears doesn't seem so monster-o-rama to me.  They're 3 inter-related species, after all.

Quote from: SettembriniHuh?
Really, KotB was explicetly cited by Mearls.

Lost City?
It´s THE classic module offering free floating gaming. You have lots of parties, lots of space, lots of options. You can even join the different factions, let them wage war or do whatever else you fancy.

Those parties, factions, and zones are mentioned in the Lost City, but the DM is given no guidance on how to manage them. It seems like 4E will not only note the dynamic actors, but give detailed guidance on how to work then into encounters; it's an explicit integration of location-based and story-driven adventures. Makes sense to me.

Why do you need rules on how to manage factions and encounter zones?  It just takes a few minutes of thought and some tactical know-how to do this.  Why do you need more advice than "be sure that you play monsters and NPCs in an intelligent manner?"

A few rough illustrations help, sure, but that stuff has always been around.  Even 1e AD&D had a great section in the DMG about how various monster lairs would react to repeated assaults by PC parties.  But it was just common sense, which I guess the old rulebooks assumed you had.

I think part of what Mearls is commenting on is how the shape of dungeons changed and not all was good about it.  In AD&D, 10' corridors and giant rooms were common.  A few people had wtf moments.  "Wait, I've never seen 10' hallways outside of major public buildings.  And this 'small' room has more square footage than my apartment."  
 
3E shrunk things down: 5' corridors is the norm.  rooms are smaller, you can put the whole dungeon on a battlemat.  The downside is there isn't much room for maneuver in many encounters so it becomes like the martial arts movies where the mooks approach one at a time to get pummelled.  To avoid this, greater care needs to be taken in overall map design to avoid unwanted choke points.

Quote from: KenHRWhy do you need rules on how to manage factions and encounter zones?  It just takes a few minutes of thought and some tactical know-how to do this.  Why do you need more advice than "be sure that you play monsters and NPCs in an intelligent manner?"

A few rough illustrations help, sure, but that stuff has always been around.  Even 1e AD&D had a great section in the DMG about how various monster lairs would react to repeated assaults by PC parties.  But it was just common sense, which I guess the old rulebooks assumed you had.

indeed.  if they fill up the core books with shit like that, i'll just use the SRD when it comes out.

Quote from: jrientsRob,

Mixing populaces of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears doesn't seem so monster-o-rama to me.  They're 3 inter-related species, after all.

Exactly. It's not like a dragon issuing orders to a bunch of githyanki slaves who are kept in line by vampiric lycanthropic zombie gelatinous cube overseers.

Quote from: jrientsI don't have my copy handy, but I swear to Grodd that the Caves of Chaos were chock full of advice on how the monsters in various areas interacted.

Looking at it more carefully this afternoon it would seem that you and Settembrini have a point, although I still maintain that it's not "chock full" of such advice in the way that's been presented. Looking at the first Orc lair reveals most of the rooms are simply statted out, with a single paraagraph at the end of the section advising what to do if the pc's attack or kill the chieftain.

It's not quite the high end strategising one would think, but it's there nonetheless.

Quote from: KenHRWhy do you need rules on how to manage factions and encounter zones?  It just takes a few minutes of thought and some tactical know-how to do this.  Why do you need more advice than "be sure that you play monsters and NPCs in an intelligent manner?"


A few rough illustrations help, sure, but that stuff has always been around.  Even 1e AD&D had a great section in the DMG about how various monster lairs would react to repeated assaults by PC parties.  But it was just common sense, which I guess the old rulebooks assumed you had.

I can certainly manage all that stuff on the fly. But then again, I handle tactical combat on the fly also (no mechanics for tumbles, flanking attacks, or attacks of opportunity in my D&D). I don't see why offering some explicit guidance in managing the game at the dungeon scale is any more 'dumbing down' than the ever more explicit mechanics governing combat and social encounters.

Quote from: DrewLooking at it more carefully this afternoon it would seem that you and Settembrini have a point, although I still maintain that it's not "chock full" of such advice in the way that's been presented. Looking at the first Orc lair reveals most of the rooms are simply statted out, with a single paraagraph at the end of the section advising what to do if the pc's attack or kill the chieftain.

It's not quite the high end strategising one would think, but it's there nonetheless.

The advice they're referring to is in the introductory parts of the module.  There's great advice on how monsters will organize and prepare to repel subsequent invasions of their lairs if the PCs don't clear them out on their first try, for example.

Quote from: jrientsRob,

Mixing populaces of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears doesn't seem so monster-o-rama to me.  They're 3 inter-related species, after all.

It can work. But in the context of the article it seemed like trying to pack the most monsters in the smallest space sake hence "Monster-o-Rama".

As a DM I prefer B2's Cave of Chaos approach where each species are allied but have clear living spaces as opposed to 1st Edition Monster Manual approach where it has different humanoids living together in a hierarchy.

However while it can be made two work most of the time I see DMs abuse the monster manual approach to try to pack as many monsters together in a nonsensical pattern.

That was a problem I encountered in Badabaskor on the top two levels where the original had a room or two of a goblins and a room with kobolds. But there was a lot of orcs, bandits, and gnomes. I could have probably came up with a story for the goblins, but the lone kobolds flat out didn't make sense. I opted to axe the two and focus on a more interesting backstory and encounter situations with the orcs and gnomes.

Finally also I do understand why some DMs used the monster-o-rama back in the day as for many a variety of challenges makes the game more fun. And about the only way to do that with monsters is use more types of monsters.

In 3rd edition you have the option of leveling monsters which can make individual monsters more interesting. So you don't have to use monster-o-rama to get a variety of challenges.

It will be interesting to what 4th Edition is going to retain as far as customizing monsters.

Quote from: WarthurExactly. It's not like a dragon issuing orders to a bunch of githyanki slaves who are kept in line by vampiric lycanthropic zombie gelatinous cube overseers.

Well.. a red dragon ordering around some Githyanki slaves, with perhaps a vampiric NPC henchman sounds like kind of a cool encounter to me.

Honestly, though, the "swarm" style encounter can be pulled off under 3.5 but just not at 1st level, and you have to be a bit choreographic with it: you just stack them swarm as waves (each wave representing a balanced EL). I've done it plenty of times.

If they can stretch that range of viability where the swarm encounter is possible to include the low levels? I'm excited.

See, I´m fully positive in Mike being knowledgable about all this.
Thusly I postulate the MAN made them designers write a certain amount of articles on 4th without spilling too many beans.

Quote from: KenHRThe advice they're referring to is in the introductory parts of the module.  There's great advice on how monsters will organize and prepare to repel subsequent invasions of their lairs if the PCs don't clear them out on their first try, for example.

Yeah, I read that. I was thinking more along the lines of the specific, zone-like encounters that Mike Mearls was referring to in his article. Early D&D had it embryonic form, but there were plenty of adventures where it was almost nonexistent.

Quote from: DrewYeah, I read that. I was thinking more along the lines of the specific, zone-like encounters that Mike Mearls was referring to in his article. Early D&D had it embryonic form, but there were plenty of adventures where it was almost nonexistent.

Again, though, DMs were constantly told to play the PCs' opposition intelligently.  You were expected to look over the maps and encounters and formulate a plan of action on your own.  Just about every one of the old modules was explicit about the DM having to read the adventure thoroughly, flesh out areas on his or her own, and think through how the place would react to the PCs' actions.  They weren't just meant to be pulled out and used on the spur of the moment.