Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denizens as Monster Manual for DCC RPG?

[fireinthedust]

Some points:

1) Orcs are Appendix N. Tolkien is on that list, I believe.

2) NPC goons are more frequent than horrors from the deep. I would like piles of human goons to fight.

3) Generic monsters = setting flavor. I want to have goblins in the forests, orcs in the mountains, and giant bugs and swarms. I like that stuff. I really hope there is a *hefty* portion of the core book filled with generic monsters; I'm in the "Pathfinder Core is too small a book" school of thought when it comes to this, of course. M&M has generic NPCs (like police, thugs, scientists, robots, etc.), but it's only a few pages. This would also include animals: horses, wolves, snakes, swarms of rats, bugs, spiders, bats; familiars/pets; and giant varieties like frogs and spiders.

4) Frankly: stat out NPC warriors, and other mortal mooks. They come up more often than anything else in Appendix N. I could use a section of them as much as I could use a section on monsters.

5) Let's differentiate between standard adventure creatures and Unique Horrors (which could include Dragons). Unique horrors are things that likely don't exist in dungeons outside of the individual module they appear in. They're not Orcs, but adventure-specific encounters, even if they're armies of them. The army of Serpentfolk under the pyramid, for example, sure they're Unique Horrors.
Generics are things everyone knows about (ie: Zombies) and that we need for the material. Not that they have to be common.
Unique Horrors are things characters *shouldn't* know about. Or at least wouldn't likely come across. In theory, the Wolfman should be here, along with Cthulhu, and a loooot of Unique baddies. Dragons could go here, for example.


6) (and I can't be too clear with this) Monsters don't make my magic more magical. I DO. I scare my players all the time with basic critters like goblins. Good descriptions make that stuff great.

7) I like that Annual idea. Maybe have interesting titles so they're easy to tell apart, like "Annual 4: Blood of Battle" for the mass combat rules. Or something.

[Machpants]

I like more rule books and am not one to complain about rule book bloat. I love reading RPG books, and when DMing have the strength to say no to stuff I don't like. If the quality is good, the more the merrier! My acres of bookshelf space full of unplayed (but still read and enjoyed) RPG books is the proof

[Black Dougal]

Whether or not to do monster books hung me up for a bit, until I thought about Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu book. (I am rereading it because I haven't run it in years and recently came up with a good idea for it.) The CoC book contains a fairly short section on the main Mythos monsters and other assorted creatures that are likely to show up in adventures. As far as I know there has never been a specific "bestiary" sort of book published for CoC by Chaosium.

I will go ahead and correct myself. Chaosium does produce "bestiary" materials, but also does include enough creatures in the main book for a Keeper to get by for a while. Oops.

Perhaps we could put this up for a poll? It seems that most of the people on the forums don't want more monster books produced. However, there does seem to be some decent rationale for producing at least one.

I suppose you could have a big disclaimer in the front of the monster book that says something to the effect of: "Here have some pregenerated monsters. Don't ever expect to see them in published DCC modules."

[smathis]

I will go ahead and correct myself. Chaosium does produce "bestiary" materials, but also does include enough creatures in the main book for a Keeper to get by for a while. Oops.

I'll follow suit.

I wouldn't mind a monster book. But, like dkeester, I'd prefer to have enough monsters in the core book to get by on and have simple, clear options for creating my own.

I don't want DCC Monster Manuals I-IV. I have always stopped around Monster Manual II. Or with just the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio. I don't mind monster books, in general. And it might be nice to have one in a year or two that compiles all the monsters from the DCC modules into one publication (with a few new monsters too).

But I wouldn't buy a new monster book a year. I tend to hit critical mass with monster books after I have 2-3 of them. Once I get to the point where I have more monsters than I could reasonably use, I tend to not buy more monster books for the sake of just having them take up shelf space.

Same with extra rulebooks. I like the idea of the Annuals. And it might work out (for me) if they are smaller publications about the page count of the Esoteric Monster Generator. But if we're talking 250 page hardcovers, I'd probably buy one Annual and then stop -- unless there's something in a later Annual that is just too good to pass up. My experience with Annuals like M&M tried and 4e (Dread:FBoP too) is that they're good for the first year but significantly drop off.

Maybe a consideration could be a monster book in about a year with a compilation of the monsters in the module and a sort of Unearthed Arcana book for classes, rules options and such that aren't in the core book. I think that would be a good place for all the DR, Healing stuff and multi-classing stuff we've been talking about on the forums.

[Hamakto]

This is where I would like to step in and possibly point out something as a different option.

Instead of doing a yearly book, do a magazine every 2 or 3 months. This magazine would contain new material for the DCC RPG. It could then be bundled together every two years to be a compendium of sorts.

After saying that, I would rather the compendium be more of a reprint of the core book. Put all the errata and new stuff into the book and reprint it. That would allow a continual concept of one book to play. The question would be how much more $$ would a reprint with additional content be over the cost of a completely new book. That is the real question?

But then again, I would prefer a PHB and a DMG (including sample monsters). I know the goal is to have one book is all you need to play, but really half the book would be worthless to the player. If we keep print run #1 smaller in size, adding the extra material to print run #2 will not make the book too big.

Plus, I see more content getting added to the PHB and NOT the DMG book over time. I see the DMG being more errata and not additional content.

But this is only my opinion on things.