I think you do a disservice to Ammann and his approach. The point is simply that (particularly in 5e) monsters are designated as having specific abilities. Those abilities have to be either instinct or training. Whichever they are, it makes sense for the monsters to rely on them. If goblins can attack and then hide as a special thing, they should be looking for opportunities to do that. The goal is actually to make the world more naturalistic. One of the things Ammann emphasizes over and over is that monsters (mostly) aren't murder machines, and the GM should bear that in mind when deciding how a monster behaves. If a monster's ability suggests ambush predator (e.g. special attack jumping out of a tree) then consider how ambush predators behave in the real world when running it. Have it attack stragglers, have it break off and flee if it can if the ambush doesn't work and it finds itself in a real fight, don't have it pursue runners if it's secured its meal, etc.
As I said, it's definitely better than a stabbing zoo!
I don't mean to suggest that monsters are just innocent wildlife tryna live their life maaaaaan. No, many are not. Many in fact really are at the dungeon entrance specifically to set up ambushes against characters and will use their abilities to try to do that. But I've read the book, and as I said in the post, my observation is the author presents the best tactic for each monster. The whole thing in 5e is kinda a board game or a "sport" instead of a living world from that perspective, and it's just not my bag.
I disagree that a monster possessing a special ability means they are waiting to use it, or even will use it. I can fly planes, but I don't carry around a stat block where I think "how can I use plane flying to destroy my enemies today?"
Sorry, Additionally I think the example with the plane you gave is unfair as you are living in a time of relative peace versus the monsters are essentially in times of anarchy/dictators. I did enjoy reading your article and I plan to write more varied creatures that are underprepared.
You missed the point of the article. It's not about the description block of the monster. It's about the milieu. You can't predict what's going to happen in an adventure and prescribe that in an article or book. Every monster will act differently in different situations, given the context of the fiction that's happened up to the point where the encounter begins.
All the pieces of a given gaming group's milieu are more important than any text that will ever be written in any monster entry. And many of those writings are completely inappropriate, given the right context.
I think your post is great for reminding GMS that monsters can be unprepared depending on the situation. But I think it is important that when players do fight the monsters they have a degree of organization that makes sense to the context. Lizard High cultist who are used to humans/other cultists doing the work for them would be quite unprepared, and clumsy in fighting. But if players encounter a militia of monsters they would have battle tactics.
Unprepared for what? These cultists are perfectly prepared for the ritual they're performing.
Yeah, I agree, monsters that have tactics are more fun to fight in combat than those that don't. That's great advice, but it's not relevant to the meat of this article. It has no bearing on dungeon encounters unless combat starts. This article is discussing everything before that point.
It's still true that all of these things are combat related, not open-system related. I mean, it's called "Why These Tactics" for a reason. They're oriented toward an assumption that monsters will be pieces in the chess of a combat encounter. "Every creature wants, first and foremost to survive." Survive from what? Survive from the hostile encounter that's presumed to happen. There's no room for the example given in this blog, which is a very standard one for OSR play -- that the monsters rolled on the encounter roll aren't even thinking about survival. They're too busy with their ritual, and will act accordingly. It would have been a waste of time putting so much though in to the combat tactics of the lizardmen if there isn't even going to be a fight.
I think it's a cool blog and there's a lot of great contributions that I'm grateful for. But it's overly focused on one perspective of D&D monsters, to a fault. I could have other criticisms myself of that whole approach and the prescriptive tone, but that's off topic.
To be fair to this article, it's pretty clear that the author here is staying firmly within the OSR, and the (very minor) criticism comes from that place. MM is using a popular site to compare and contrast, and I don't think they're dissing the approach at all for use in 5E.
I think you do a disservice to Ammann and his approach. The point is simply that (particularly in 5e) monsters are designated as having specific abilities. Those abilities have to be either instinct or training. Whichever they are, it makes sense for the monsters to rely on them. If goblins can attack and then hide as a special thing, they should be looking for opportunities to do that. The goal is actually to make the world more naturalistic. One of the things Ammann emphasizes over and over is that monsters (mostly) aren't murder machines, and the GM should bear that in mind when deciding how a monster behaves. If a monster's ability suggests ambush predator (e.g. special attack jumping out of a tree) then consider how ambush predators behave in the real world when running it. Have it attack stragglers, have it break off and flee if it can if the ambush doesn't work and it finds itself in a real fight, don't have it pursue runners if it's secured its meal, etc.
As I said, it's definitely better than a stabbing zoo!
I don't mean to suggest that monsters are just innocent wildlife tryna live their life maaaaaan. No, many are not. Many in fact really are at the dungeon entrance specifically to set up ambushes against characters and will use their abilities to try to do that. But I've read the book, and as I said in the post, my observation is the author presents the best tactic for each monster. The whole thing in 5e is kinda a board game or a "sport" instead of a living world from that perspective, and it's just not my bag.
I disagree that a monster possessing a special ability means they are waiting to use it, or even will use it. I can fly planes, but I don't carry around a stat block where I think "how can I use plane flying to destroy my enemies today?"
Well, ok that last part isn't true.
Sorry, Additionally I think the example with the plane you gave is unfair as you are living in a time of relative peace versus the monsters are essentially in times of anarchy/dictators. I did enjoy reading your article and I plan to write more varied creatures that are underprepared.
You missed the point of the article. It's not about the description block of the monster. It's about the milieu. You can't predict what's going to happen in an adventure and prescribe that in an article or book. Every monster will act differently in different situations, given the context of the fiction that's happened up to the point where the encounter begins.
All the pieces of a given gaming group's milieu are more important than any text that will ever be written in any monster entry. And many of those writings are completely inappropriate, given the right context.
I think your post is great for reminding GMS that monsters can be unprepared depending on the situation. But I think it is important that when players do fight the monsters they have a degree of organization that makes sense to the context. Lizard High cultist who are used to humans/other cultists doing the work for them would be quite unprepared, and clumsy in fighting. But if players encounter a militia of monsters they would have battle tactics.
Unprepared for what? These cultists are perfectly prepared for the ritual they're performing.
Yeah, I agree, monsters that have tactics are more fun to fight in combat than those that don't. That's great advice, but it's not relevant to the meat of this article. It has no bearing on dungeon encounters unless combat starts. This article is discussing everything before that point.
It's still true that all of these things are combat related, not open-system related. I mean, it's called "Why These Tactics" for a reason. They're oriented toward an assumption that monsters will be pieces in the chess of a combat encounter. "Every creature wants, first and foremost to survive." Survive from what? Survive from the hostile encounter that's presumed to happen. There's no room for the example given in this blog, which is a very standard one for OSR play -- that the monsters rolled on the encounter roll aren't even thinking about survival. They're too busy with their ritual, and will act accordingly. It would have been a waste of time putting so much though in to the combat tactics of the lizardmen if there isn't even going to be a fight.
I think it's a cool blog and there's a lot of great contributions that I'm grateful for. But it's overly focused on one perspective of D&D monsters, to a fault. I could have other criticisms myself of that whole approach and the prescriptive tone, but that's off topic.
To be fair to this article, it's pretty clear that the author here is staying firmly within the OSR, and the (very minor) criticism comes from that place. MM is using a popular site to compare and contrast, and I don't think they're dissing the approach at all for use in 5E.
What are they doing?
1. Sleeping (automatic surprised)
2. playing games/talking among themselves (players have advantage on perception checks)
3. drinking/carousing (disadvantage on perception checks)
4. Eating/cooking/preparing a meal.
5. Searching the area/ looking around (advantage on perception checks)
6. They see you and you see them so roll initiative, oops.
I love the "what are they doing" tables in Worlds Without Number! Who am I kidding, I just love tables.
Thank you for a well written and interesting article.