Monster taxonomy and organization

It seems that the new 2025 Monster Manual organizes EACH  monster alphabetically. This means a "Green Dragon" is found under "G". In the 2014 Monster Manual (and most MMs before that), all dragons were found under "D", for dragon. The same happens with giants, demons, etc.

I think this is an awful decision.

Not that this is simple. One reason there's so much debate over monster classification (and issues like orcs being inherently evil) is that taxonomy itself is complex. In the real world, we classify living beings into categories like Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. Can a green dragon interbreed with a red dragon? There is no "right" answer, but I'd guess they can. What about a gold dragon? Applying real taxonomy to fantasy creatures is not easy or ideal.

But let's look at this from a practical standpoint

Should we have one single entry for each species? That is impossible because we need many entries for humans (bandits, clerics, druids, etc.).

Besides real taxonomy, how can we organize monsters?

One alternative I really like is monster type. This is one of the main points of my Teratogenicon. Undead have LOTS in common to each other, and if you ever want to create your won, looking at existing undead is more useful than calculating CR.

There are other practical reasons to use monster type.

First, let's assume you are new to D&D, and you don't really know the difference between demons and devils. Or maybe you vaguely remember playing 2e and you don't even KNOW there are monsters called either of these things.

You go looking for an explanation in the MM. You turn to "D" and... there is nothing.

Can you see the problem?

On the other hand, let's say you're an experienced DM and you want to build your own dungeon! This is going to be a hellish cave, full of demons... Now let's find some o populate it! Where do you look for them? Again, you've got nothing. At best, the MM has a list of "fiends" that include demons, devils and others.

And what if - unimaginable though it is - you forget the name of a particular demon you once saw and want to use as the villain?

The only way this is useful is if you use strictly for reference. You never create your own adventures, but maybe you're running a module that lists "1d4 green dragons" on the encounter table and you have to check it in the MM (that is not great either; most adventures should provide you with the relevant stats to avoid page-flipping and book-flipping, but modern D&D is so crunchy that this is nearly impossible).

This might be a radical, but I think a good MM could be divided in 20ish chapters, including the 14 monster types with a few subdivisions. For example:

Aberration

Beast

(Giant beasts)

Celestial

Construct

(Golems)

Dragon

(True dragons)

Elemental

(True elementals)

Fey

Fiend

(Explaining differences between demons, devils, etc.)

Giant

(True giants)

Humanoid

(maybe separate species from professions)

Monstrosity

Ooze

Plant

Undead

(maybe corporeal/incorporeal)

To clarify, "true" dragons, elementals and giants have that word in their names: e.g., Green Dragon, Hill Giant. To make things even clearer, D&D could use different names for wyverns and trolls. For example, "draconians", "dragon-like", "draconic creatures", "gigantic humanoids" (notice that troll is a "giant" but "giant bat" is not).

Calling a wyvern a "dragon" makes the idea of "natural language" impossible, since you'd have to explain (or assume) the meaning of the word "dragon" every time you find a "dragon-slaying sword", etc.

There are a few obvious problems to this approach.

First, the monstrosities are so numerous that the alphabetical approach just feels easier. In addition, they are not always easy to separate from aberrations (gricks and grells - what are they?). In fact, when I wrote Teratogenicon I had to go back to 3e to find a good definition of aberrations.

Some subdivisions would need further reflection. Should dragons be listed alphabetically, or should chromatic dragons be separated from metallic? Not sure.

But, from a learning or world-building approach, this would be nearly perfect. 

It also gives the MM a more "in universe" feel. When an average peasant sees a "dragon", "green" is not the first thing that comes to mind. Similarly, a "death knight" is an undead first, and for the untrained eyes it is not that different than other ghosts or apparitions. People will just run and call this place "cursed"!

The "monster type" division, therefore, is also teleological.

In addition, you could easily create an alphabetical index of each creature for easy referencing (with page numbers, of course), and this list could include both "dragons" and "green dragons", under D and G. You could add page numbers to modules and encounter tables too, but maybe that'd be too much to ask...

In conclusion, I dislike the new organization. It makes it more difficult to find some monsters and put them into proper context. It makes the game less coherent and more difficult to learn. I will not say I have the perfect answer, but I can say I find the former approach preferable to the current mess.

Yam-Shaped Campaigns

This is not my idea; the term may have been created by Sly Flourish but I couldn't find the exact source. In any case, I think it is a concept worth discussing and spreading.

Many people discuss "railroad" campaigns and "sandbox" campaigns as if they are opposite choices. I don't think this is entirely accurate. In any case, there is a third alternative that is probably my favorite: the "Yam-Shaped Campaign."

A "Yam-Shaped Campaign" is "narrow at the beginning and end but wide in the middle". In other words, it has a clear beginning (possibly with clear goals) and one (or preferably, a few) explicit endings. However,  HOW and IF you'll get there is up to the PCs.

In 5e D&D, Tomb of Annihilation (ToA) and Curse of Strahd (CoS) are good examples. In B/X, my favorite is probably B10 Night's Dark Terror.

Instead of adding a picture of a yam to this post, let's try this.

The PCs start the game at point A, in an exact place and time. Although this might seem to be the case for all campaigns, it is not. For example, if you're running a random wilderness, the PCs might be in a world of quantum randomness.

Points B and C are two possible "endings": let's call them the good ending and the bad ending.

In this kind of campaign, the PCs will usually have, at the very least, a vague idea of B or C. Conversely, they might have a vague idea (or a few options) on where to go NEXT and they eventually find out about B or C as the campaign progresses.

The black lines represent the multiple paths the PCs can take. The grey lines represent possible paths that lead the PCs away from the proposed ending.

Let's try some concrete examples.

In Curse of Strahd, the PCs begin near the village of Barovia. They know one possible "bad ending": they get stuck in there forever. This is unlikely to actually happen, because both the PCs and the villain are unlikely to sit and wait. So they have a clear goal instead: get out of there.

With that in mind, they can wander around looking for an exit, and they'll eventually realize that the only way to do that is to face Strahd. This is "point B". When they face Strahd, they can defeat him, join him, replace him, etc. 

The book even contains a page describing what may happen next, but this is beyond the scope of the campaign. Having this is very common and useful, because you might want to continue playing after Strahd has been "resolved".

In the diagram above, I used "time" as an axis. This can be some type of "STRICT TIME RECORD" or something more abstract. Strahd has no clear timeline, but the confrontation gets closer and closer. Tomb of Annihilation has a strict time limit: if enough time is passed, the PCs simply fail and everyone is doomed (IIRC).

Both approaches are possible, but I think SOME time pressure is needed in this type of campaign or the PCs might wander around aimlessly.

In any case, there is at least two possible endings; probably more. I think of point B as some kind of "final showdown" that can result in victory or tragedy (C).

Even if the "endings" are clear, the GM might have to choose what to do if they are skipped. What happens if there is a TPK, for example (all PCs die?). Do they start again with new PCs? Turn back time? Find a new campaign? Or maybe advance the time line a few years, and create PCs that must serve/oppose the (now victorious) antagonist?

What if the PCs leave the continent or ignore the villain? Same thing. Most decent campaigns will at least give you an idea on what to do next, but you're mostly on your own.

When I wrote my own adventure, I didn't know this "Yam-Shaped Campaign" terminology. But I did include an "aftermath" section that I'll add here as an example, as it includes:

- Two possible "boss" endings.

- What happens if the adventurers just fail or leave.

- Ideas for more adventurers if they succeed.

These three possibilities are the bare minimum, I think, to include in a yam-shaped campaign. Here is how it looks:

Aftermath

Here is what happens after the end (or in the middle, in some cases) of the adventure.

If Malavor is slain, the bee-people will immediately destroy the remaining demons. The Queen (now free from mental slavery) will telepathically ask the adventures for death, but she will resurrect from its own carcass (as an ordinary bee) in less than one minute and fly away. The fortress will collapse within 1d6+6 days. The demons in the underground will be buried alive. Some might survive.

If the Queen dies, bee-people will disperse immediately. It will take Malavor 3d6 days to summon another avatar or come up with a new use for his fortress. His success is not guaranteed. He might try a different plan. In any case, the hive will still be a menace as long as Malavor lives.

If both the Queen and Malavor are still alive, the hive expands. In 2d4 weeks, the number of demons and bee-soldiers is doubled, and the hive’s defenses are reinforced. In another 1d6 weeks, Malavor manages to mutate himself into a bee-demon, half-insane, but with full control of the bee-people. The bloated and sick avatar dies after a while, but this no longer affects the bee-soldiers, that can now be cloned in the underground. Three months after the characters left, Malavor unleashes his army against the nearest village.

The underground is a different matter. The underground is currently running its own schemes. It supports Malavor but only because he lets them do their own stuff. If Malavor leaves the hive, they will quickly take it. They will seal all doors to the outside, leaving a couple of secret passages. They might demolish the towers to avoid getting attention from the outside, and cover the whole fortress in dirt to transform it into a mound. They are digging their own underground tunnels, leading to somewhere miles away… or miles below. There are more demons in the Abyss that spawned Malavor and the biomancers.

In addition, unless Zothaq and more than half the biomancers working underground are killed, the underground keeps expanding until it becomes some kind of megadungeon, full of demons and hybrid life forms. The forest around the ruins of the hive becomes progressively weirder, with mutant beasts prowling around. Fortunately, they have no plans of conquering neighboring towns right away (the idea here is that the characters find this out and come back after a while, hopefully when they are a bit stronger).

In conclusion, I have run multiple campaigns. Some could be described as "Railroads," others as "sandboxes," but lately, I have realized that Yam-Shaped Campaigns are my favorites. 

In my sandbox campaigns, I have noticed that the PCs (Player Characters) often get lost easily and have no clear direction. As a DM, I then have to decide abruptly where the game should end, or I let it fizzle out. Conversely, railroad campaigns feel terrible: it is like the PCs have no choice and I have the sole responsibility of taking the game to the end.

Yam-Shaped Campaigns give me the best of both worlds: the PCs are free to wander around and surprise me, but I always have an idea about what is going to happen next and we can even have an epic  - or tragic! - ending before moving on.

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Tehanu, A Maze of Death, Fouché, White Nights, Sacculina (micro reviews)

Here are some very short reviews of some books I've read lately. The one-sentence summaries (in italics) are not mine, but copy-pasted from AI to save you a few clicks.

I gave each book a rating, but to each might have been influenced by my expectations - so my judgement of Dostoevsky (one of my favorite authors) is probably a lot harsher than Fracassi, which I haven't read before. Highly subjective, of course.

I avoided the number 7 because it is too easy to choose 7 when you're unsure, so I forced myself to choose between 6.5 and 7.5 when that was the case.

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin (rating 5/10): This fourth book in the Earthsea series follows the story of Tenar, now a middle-aged widow, and her journey of self-discovery and empowerment. 

I really like LeGuin and I'd recommend everyone to read A Wizard of Earthsea. However, Tehanu almost bored me to tears. There is little to no action. By the end of the book the protagonist meets failure because... she cannot get the lord of the land to help with the dishes.

It's curious because "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", another text I really like by the same author, seem to point in the exact opposite direction: making fantasy fantastic, not mundane.

Anyway. Read A Wizard of Earthsea and keep reading until you stop liking it. Books 2 and 3 are decent, but the first is my favorite. This fourth book is probably for hardcore Earthsea fans only, and it will not please them all.

A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick (rating 6.5/10): A complex and thought-provoking sci-fi novel where a group of colonists on a distant planet must unravel the mysteries of their existence. 

Far from my favorite PKD novel, still interesting in the exploration of themes like religion and shared realities and fantasies. As it often happens with this author, his vision still looks relevant decades later. The ending is... very peculiar to say the least, but maybe not great.

If you like PKD, you'll probably enjoy it.

Fouché: The Unprincipled Patriot by Stefan Zweig (rating 9/10): This biography of Joseph Fouché delves into the life of the cunning and enigmatic French politician who navigated through the turbulent times of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era. 

Such an awesome book! A short, fun read for anyone, and it is also full of ideas you can use for your role-playing games. His story is full of war, intrigue, violence, and backstabbing. Fouché is an amazing character - he would make an amazing villain or patron - maybe both!

Of course, if you are interested in the French Revolution, this is a must read.

(Sidenote: Zweig also wrote a Dostoevsky's biography that I didn't enjoy as much and will not review).

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky (rating 6.5/10): A melancholic yet hopeful tale of a lonely dreamer who falls in love with a mysterious woman over the course of four nights.

This is one of Dostoevsky's earliest works. I have never read anything bad by Dostoevsky. This is not his best, but already shows some signs of an author who would soon become one of the greatest (if noyt the best). It reads like a silly love story at first but manages to get deeper as you go.

Overall, a short, enjoyable read.

Sacculina by Philip Fracassi (rating 7.5/10): A gripping horror novella about a group of friends who encounter a terrifying and parasitic creature while on a fishing trip. 

A pleasant surprise! This is a decent horror novella by an author I didn't know. Reads like an exciting good script for an one-hour movie. A quick, exciting read.

It has echoes of H. P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood ("The Willows"). If that is what you like, you'll probably enjoy this one.

More glancing blows (and near-saves)

 A quick rule for any D&D game. I'm certainly not the first one to suggest the "half damage" part.

---

Glancing blows

When you roll the exact number needed to hit the target's AC, this is a glancing blow.

You damage is halved.

If the target has more than 1 HP before the hit, the glancing blow can reduce it to 1 HP, but no less.

---

This is the gist of it, but we could change the specifics. 

Instead of half damage, for example, I might do "one third of your maximum damage" to save myself a roll (and further differentiate 1d6+1 from 1d8 damage). 

Likewise, the "1 HP" part probably needs a few exceptions, but it would be fun if even a peasant has a 5% chance to survive being hit by a powerful monster and live to tell the tale (even if unconscious, maimed, etc.  -the idea is that a glancing blow doesn't kill).

You could extend the same reasoning to saving throws. This is somewhat similar to what I've been doing in my games. When the MU casts an 8d6 fireball, I make a roll even if the target is a group of goblins, allowing a natural 20 to save some of them. I might call this rule "there is always a save".

D&D 4e had minions rules that worked in a similar way: "minions" had only 1 HP but wouldn't be killed if they made a successful save. 

I think my version feels a bit less artificial. No goblin should resist TWO 8d6 fireballs! Also, REDUCING a foe to 1 HP is a great opportunity of surrender, retreat, parlay, etc.

I also like making glancing blows a common concept so my players can finally accept I'll eventually tell them the monster's AC, so they might as well stop asking if they hit!

Anyway, for now this is just a random thought.

Weapons vs. monster

We discussed weapon versus armor in several posts. I think it is an interesting subject, but I'm still not sure it is worth the effort.

It probably works better when you're running troops of humanoids against each other, a la Chainmail. But what about dragons and ogres? AD&D suggests the table doesn't apply to them.

But, arguably, knowing if you foe is a dragon or ogre is more relevant than chain versus plate.

So maybe we should do "weapon vs. monster" tables instead of "weapon vs. armor"?

Of course, we already have something like that at least since AD&D. I don't remember if if it is from some  OD&D supplement (let me know!), but even in Chainmail the weapon versus armor table has a couple of columns for horses (and also different hit probabilities against ogres, dragons, etc.).

Could we create a minimalist version for B/X and other OSR games?

I think it would be a good idea. Let's see. Instead of specific monsters, I like to think of monster types.

- Giants are resistant to small weapons, but more vulnerable to large weapons, especially swords and polearms. Same for oozes. (although I think giants also deserve an HP boost for that). The downside is that David vs. Goliath becomes harder.

- Golems are resistant to cutting and piercing weapons, plus weapons made of wood. You need a mace of pick for that. Of course, a golem made of straw is weak against cutting and strong against bludgeoning.

- Plant creatures and wood golems are more vulnerable against cutting weapons, especially axes.

- Arrows and daggers are weak against ALL these creatures (you're unlikely to reach their vitals), plus undead, but maybe daggers are good against unarmored and defenseless humanoids. Would give thieves a reason to use them over longswords.

- Blunt weapons are good against skeletal undead and similarly brittle creatures.

- Lycanthropes require silver weapons. Demons, fey and golems have magic resistance. Elementals resist most weapons and certain elements, and so on. Swarms resist all weapons.

Dragons and other monsters are treated according to size.

How to enforce that? I think a simple -1 to +2 to both attack and damage will suffice. Anymore than that would probably be a headache.

If we only had giants and oozes to deal with, I'd give them some damage resistance - maybe 4 points? - but allow a weapon to roll two dice instead of one. So a dagger would have a hard time but a 2h-sword would deal more damage than usual (2d10-4).

And then we'd have to consider giants in armor... sigh. Maybe doing a simple version is not so simple after all. But it might be worth the effort, at least to different weapons and make the monsters more... tangible?

D&D 2024 monster stats

Here is an example of monster stats in 2024 D&D:

This is... not bad.

Of course, we could reduce it by half while keeping the information we need 90% of the time. How often do you need to know this monster's Charisma score?

But it has a few advantages over the D&D 2014 stat block: it abbreviates AC, HP and CR, it includes saves right next to abilities, and it removes the armor type since it rarely does anything.

It adds Initiative to monsters, which I don't get. 

Here, it is "+5 (15)". I'm assuming that 15 means that:

- You can use that instead of rolling.

- They found it useful to save you the trouble of simply checking Dex modifier.

- They found it useful to save you the trouble of simply adding 10.

- They made a mistake (it was supposed to be 13, due to Dex) and I'm spending more time thinking about this stuff than they did.

But it wouldn't be D&D without some errors and redundancies, right?

It also has a few weird things. 

For example, it mentions "Gear Daggers (10)". This is somewhat useful, but it almost creates more questions than it answer:

Are these ordinary daggers or whatever "umbral daggers" are? Does this creature (that has claws) has any unarmed attacked when it runs out of throwing daggers? Assuming it does, can it attack twice when unarmed?

(There is also an apparently baffling concept: this is a dagger that cannot kill you according to its description, but only poison and paralyze you. I'm assuming vampire's prefer warm blood...)

Some creatures that have attacks with swords and bows ALSO have these listed as gear, which looks redundant.

And the "Vampiric Connection" part is a bit baffling, since it seems to be a power particular to the MASTER and not the creature.

Now, about he ability scores... They LOOK fine, but I'm wonder if this wouldn't be more useful:

It LOOKS horrible in comparison, but at least it emphasizes what needs emphasizing: the fact that THIS monsters, contrary to most, has saves that are different form modifiers. And I'd guess that is the reason why they botched the "initiative" bit, BTW.

Similarly, it wouldn't be hard to rewrite the attacks to something simpler:

Umbral Dagger (x2), +5. Melee (5 ft) or Ranged (20/60 ft). 

Damage 5+7 (1d4+3 piercing +3d4 necrotic). If reduced to 0 HP by this attack, the target becomes Stable but has the Poisoned condition for 1 hour. While it has the Poisoned condition, the target has the Paralyzed condition.

Anyway, the whole thing feels a bit cumbersome but has a few advantages over AD&D, since it lacks the several "none" and "nil" lines found there.

I do miss some of that 2e information (morale, terrain, etc.) but maybe "number appearing" should be included in the random encounter tables instead (does 2024 have those?).

Apparently the MM indicates that D&D 2024 is what we expected: a small improvement over 2014 in some areas, a bit worse in a few, and still maintaining a vague compatibility and lots of redundancies and inconsistencies.