Monster

This week I am joined by Lucas Zellers, host of the 'Making a Monster' podcast to talk, unsurprisingly, about monsters! This episode is broadly split into two halves, the first focusing on mechanical minutia of running stat blocks, including various tips and tricks, such as "do your homework"! We also discuss the elegance of Matt Coville's Action Oriented Monster design approach and how it highlights shortcomings in the design of Dungeons & Dragons. Running higher level monsters RAW is essentially parsing a database; it might not appear like it at first glance, but communicating intent, theme, history, and philosophy in a way which is easy to understand is really an exercise in technical writing. The second half of the episode focuses on the historical weight and implication of monsters in the D&D-verse. Lucas shares his passion and knowledge of Dagon, using them as an example of the "iceberg" history all monsters have. Perhaps next time you haphazardly throw an encounter together (much in the way I do!), you'll spare a thought for the legacy of these creatures... which will likely open up interesting and unique ways to play! 01:18 - What Monster Design Reveals About the System 08:46 - "Monsterless" Games 21:57 - Planning & Running Monsters 43:41 - 'Named' Monsters & Historical Baggage Find Lucas on: Website: https://www.scintilla.studio Twitter: https://twitter.com/sparkotter Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/otterspark YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP4DNJTVwQlC5U7ro6lrIMg Making a Monster: https://scintilla.studio/monster/ The Book of Extinction: https://scintilla.studio/extinction Find me on: Website: https://www.thinkingcritically.co.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThinkCritDnD Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinking_critically_dnd/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThinkingCriticallyDnD YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH_BSgazjwyshzo1jazHeaQ References: 'Monster of the Week' by Evil Hat Productions 'Vaesen' by Free League Publishing Action Oriented Monsters by Matthew Colville 'The Dresden Files' by Jim Butcher 'Ezmerelda's Encyclopedia of Evil' on DMs Guild Intro Music: 'Local Forecast' by Kevin MacLeod Intermission Music: 'Chill' by Kevin MacLeod Outro Music: 'Local Forecast - Elevator' by Kevin MacLeod