The Story Thus Far...

Our intreped explorers have found themselves amnesiac and only recently come to their senses in the strange castle of some wizard with whom they are allowed no contact. For weeks, they have been his "guests" without thinking much of it until now. They find themselves suddenly aware of their lack of memory, their strange surroundings, and their immenent danger.

So they band together to take the wizard's laboratory only to find that the old mage has died in the middle of some horrible rituals. He lived long enough to summon dire creatures from the underworld, but not long enough (alas) to control them. After defeating the wraiths, the characters decided to flee the now ruined and burning old tower and make for the nearest human settlement, as they descended the hill, the rains began.

By the time they had reached the bottom what began as a heavy shower had become a deluge from the sky. Creekbeds, swelled into rivers, and the thin ravines which the charcters were travelling down because of muddy slopes were quickly threatening to become flooded. Atop a slope, one of the more perceptive in the party spied a figure out in the rain, and beyond it, a cave!

Having climbed the horrible slope with the strong arms of Thorin, the party discovered the figure to be a strange statue of some aztec looking deity. Seeking refuge inside the cave, they are quickly met with the sound of some poor sould crying for help as a revolving door of stone turned at the end of the tunnel. Solving the room's riddle, the party ventured onward through a forgotten temple to a primordial.

Adding monsters to the mythology

I don't want to be a bummer, but there really was something about first edition AD and D that was intuitive for the D.M.. When the creatures walked into a room, you sort of knew what kind of monsters just ought to be in there based on the creatures that populated your fantastic visions as spawned by movies, myths and books. So, you know about goblins, you get fairies and giants and crap like Rumpelstiltskin.

While I love the new Dungeons and Dragons(s, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.), where the F are they getting these monsters? Are they Mangan or something? Who, while planning a dungeon, thinks 'this would be a great place for some faceless mountain lions?' The end result is kind of like old Jorune or Call of Cthulhu where the monsters are crazy but you have no idea what they are and no frame of reference to remember them on the fly. Plus, with Jorune or Call of Cthulhu, you really only need a couple of monsters for the adventure. In Dungeons and Dragons, I'm seriously getting to the point where I just open the book to a random page and that's whats hanging out waiting for everybody. What's their motive? What does their lair look like that makes it unique to that creature?

Let's try it this way, old Dungeons and Dragons--the characters enter a forbiddon glen in the middle of the forest, slowly they creep forward until--
a--they hear the sound of pan flute and see a man with goat legs run by
b--the sound of hoofbeats shows a herd of creatures half man, half horse. They raise their bows because you have tread on their domain.
c--a nearby tree whips you and says, "who dares disturb my slumber."
d--a horrible spirit rises out of a forgotten grave and floats towards you angrilly.

New Dungeons and Dragons
a--a horrible giant with lightening for skin, says, "who dares my...what the hell am I doing in the middle of a glen with lightening for skin. What the hell, is this street fighter?"
b--you see a bunch of clockwork bugs examining a map of the continent trying to figure out which kingdom to take out. Luckilly you've caught them at step one of their master plan: conquer this forgotten glen with no discernible value.
c--you see a half eagle half horse creature that is perpetually on fire waiting for Spring to end so that it can start a forest fire...because....um....because... Anyway, you see it a mile off because it's on fire so you avoid the glen.
d--you hear the creeking of gears. My lord is that an iron golem?! Or a guardian...or maybe a hommunculi...or, who the hell keeps making these things...maybe its warforged...or...why are there so many robots in this game...and do they really eat old peoples' medicine? And, hey, how did this thing get in the middle of the woods.

When you know what the monsters are, you don't need to spend hours trying to figure out what should be in the next room and why. When you don't know, you have only two options--either the encounters are just crazy random (evil thing at the middle of the dungeon seems to attract everything to it and charm them so that they're all friendly to one another) or overprescribed (everything in this dungeon is a goblin). Personally, I think Dungeons and Dragons aught to either get back to using monsters from real legends or write up a hell of a lot more description. Obviously, some of the monsters like Sahuagin, have become classics by now, but some of the other creatures really need some description of where they might be found and what sorts of lairs they inhabit.

Strangely though, the real answer seems to be to custom build monsters with abandon. After all, if you know that you want some kind of fungal monstrosity, you're unlikely to find the right fungal monstrosity in the monster manuals--they'll probably have fire for skin or have some kind of connection to mind flayers. Your best bet, I think, is probably just to make the crap up. And why not...afr all, you don't have to worry about making a creature that is somehow out of character with the other monsters in the game which are, by now, so damn random that they don't make much sense anyways.

4th edition and hit points

Alright, after a long hiatus, I'm thinking of taking up fourth edition to see how the rules play out. My first feeling, and this comes from having played 4th at three game days, is that the monsters simply have too many hit points. The length of time that it takes to kill goblins is ultimately ridiculous.

So, in running the game, I have decided to halve the creatures hit points except in key encounters. I expect that this will affect the game in the following ways:

• Encounter powers: Since each encounter is technically half an encounter, I'm only allowing characters to recuperate powers after every other encounter. They may still rest so as to use healing surges. This will mean that encounter powers will have to be used with some discretion. On the other hand, creatures will still have their encounter powers. This will, I think, make for more and more interesting encounters as their will be more creatures gone through in the same ammount of time, with the same number of cool effects.
• Minions: minions are likely to become more powerful. After all, they won't lose half their hit points so they will remain the same power level while everything else goes down.
• Strikers: Strikers who do 25 points of damage and etc., will be more effective at killing things in one shot, however, they're likely to find a lot of the damage they do going for nought. This takes striker's power down a step which in my opionion, makes them as attractive an option as all the other characters, who are kind of less worthwhile than strikers as they stand right now.
• Controllers: Particularly wizards, are kind of a joke with effects that last until the end of their next turn on dailies. Who cares? One turn? Battles with creatures who have 120 hit points are going to go for too long for that one turn to really matter that much. However, if the creature has half as many hit points, controller effects will matter all the more.
• Looks like AD and D: In my opinion, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was a great game with some problems. Subsequent additions have done a lot to fix those problems at the expense of taking away a lot of what made the game great. Dungeons have gone from forty rooms with a bunch of interesting stuff to five. By halving the hit points and experience, you are doubling the number of encounters the characters get between levels, the size of their adventures, and the number of encounters a party can get through in one session.