Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[p1138]

The pit fiend one is something I think someone around here said, talking about how weak pit fiends are because their 7th level party got the jump on one and killed it because I guess they got surprise, and then it failed some saves preventing it from ever really doing anything. And like, rule 1 of pit fiends is you don't get the jump on pit fiends. These are lesser lords of hell, answering directly to the greatest devils in existence, commanding armies and ruling domains. You do not just happen up on one in a cave who's got his thumb up his ass. A pit fiend knows who you are months if not years before you bother him. Dumb DMing often comes from treating the monsters like video game enemies in Doom, where they just sit in a room, waiting to die.

Let's be realistic. Modern D&D barely explains how to play or run the game in any of its books. The bestiary was written with 90% of the entries written as a bag of hitpoints for the party to mindlessly beat up, and the players themselves have become a bunch of nimrods incapable of critical thought and whine at the idea of having to add multiple single digit numbers or even fucking tracking initiative these days as "too much crunch". All because their ideal game is just friday night improv magic tea party with the occasional dice roll that's only fine if there's no consequences attached. Meanwhile the DM's repeat how the game is just wildly unplayable above 10th level even though they've never played or run the game above 10th since most of the published adventures don't go that high and most of the campaigns themselves fall apart long before that leaving everyone on their 10th iteration of every class they've started the game as over the years.

Try discussing a D&D campaign with these people, and watch their heads spin at the concept of a campaign going on for a couple of years. Or ask them why creatures and NPCs with an int of 18 or more get played by DMs as if they're fucking retarded. Most of them aren't aware of anything in the game's main setting of Faerun beyond the fucking sword coast which is the equivalent of the area of Los Angeles or New York City but they think they're "adventuring" without leaving a 15 mile radius from the dirt farm their characters were raised on.

Most of the modern playerbase would assume a DM from a 2e, 3/3.5, or even a fucking pf1e game is just being "mean".

 

[AnOminous]

Most of the modern playerbase would assume a DM from a 2e, 3/3.5, or even a fucking pf1e game is just being "mean".

Having started with Basic (the 1977 red box version) when I was like 12, they'd probably consider me Giga-Hitler. I seriously doubt I could tolerate broccoli-haired zoomers even if I ever wanted to play again.

 

[Rend Me Asunder]

Have any of you ever ran/played a UESRPG game? It's an Elder Scrolls system not to be confused with UESTRPG, which is an Elder Scrolls 5e hack--this one is a d100 roll under. I'm thinking of running it for some friends who are Elder Scrolls fans and it looks pretty decent so far, but just in case I thought I'd ask.

 

[LovisXVI]

Have any of you ever ran/played a UESRPG game? It's an Elder Scrolls system not to be confused with UESTRPG, which is an Elder Scrolls 5e hack--this one is a d100 roll under. I'm thinking of running it for some friends who are Elder Scrolls fans and it looks pretty decent so far, but just in case I thought I'd ask.

I have had an abortive attempt at running a game in it, I enjoy what I have seen and tried of it though, it is obviously derivative of WHRFP but I actually quite like that system so it is for the best.

 

[The Ugly One]

Modern D&D barely explains how to play or run the game in any of its books.

The DMG for 5e has a pretty good amount of material talking about running games and making a world consist of more than a series of monsters in rooms, waiting to die.

The bestiary was written with 90% of the entries written as a bag of hitpoints for the party to mindlessly beat up

Everything I said about the pit fiend's role in the armies of hell comes from the 5e Monster Manual. The material's there.

Most of the modern playerbase would assume a DM from a 2e, 3/3.5, or even a fucking pf1e game is just being "mean".

Way back in the 80s, most people just ran Temple of Elemental Evil as a series of rooms full of monsters waiting to die, because most people just aren't very thoughtful. Gods & Demigods was taken by most players as a book of HP sacks for players to bludgeon to death. It's always been a problem that flavor text simply can't fix.

 

[AnOminous]

Gods & Demigods was taken by most players as a book of HP sacks for players to bludgeon to death. It's always been a problem that flavor text simply can't fix.

I never used Deities & Demigods for that but as a list of shit that if it showed up, you were utterly fucked.

The one time I knew of where someone used it as basically an enhanced Monster Manual for OP parties was a friend of mine's campaign where he'd let a Monty Haul campaign get completely out of control to the point everyone agreed just to destroy the world but instead of just abandoning it, they had an armageddon where they just fought everything until everyone died.

There was a dude dual-wielding Stormbringer and Mournblade.

 

[p1138]

The DMG for 5e has a pretty good amount of material talking about running games and making a world consist of more than a series of monsters in rooms, waiting to die.

Where the hell are the setting books? Where are the examples? They don't exist. The guy running D&D at WotC just made a twitter post the other day about actually meeting with some of the Dragonlance writers again, because WotC has done barely fuck all for worldbuilding in 5e. Thay, heavily featured in that movie they failed to promote, wasn't even on the Faerun map for 5e until recently.

Everything I said about the pit fiend's role in the armies of hell comes from the 5e Monster Manual. The material's there.

You're fucking kidding me, right? I complain about the lack of any world building and campaign setting books, and you refer to some flavor text? Where is the example in universe for any of the settings where a pit fiend is doing anything other than participating in combat? Where are the setting books that aren't just the bullshit 64 page nothing guides that are 40% random tables?

Way back in the 80s, most people just ran Temple of Elemental Evil as a series of rooms full of monsters waiting to die, because most people just aren't very thoughtful. Gods & Demigods was taken by most players as a book of HP sacks for players to bludgeon to death. It's always been a problem that flavor text simply can't fix.

Brings up Gygax's shit from the early 80s where the examples of any setting and worldbuilding were almost as non-existent as they are today because most of it hadn't been written yet. At least that's technically better than current day WotC and the player-base that just pretends the 3 decades of shit in between then and now never existed.

 

[AnOminous]

Brings up Gygax's shit from the early 80s where the examples of any setting and worldbuilding were almost as non-existent as they are today because most of it hadn't been written yet. At least that's technically better than current day WotC and the player-base that just pretends the 3 decades of shit in between then and now never existed.

Before even Basic there was stuff like Greyhawk, Blackmore, and Eldritch Wizardry, the old brown paper versions, where a lot of the world was outlined. Greyhawk had a lot of unpublished lore, too, before being codified in a big box set, but you could also get that stuff in outlets like Dragon Magazine and, if you knew people, you could get ditto copies of stuff passed around like samizdat in the community.

More recent versions kind of suck at this, but I know whenever a major demon showed up in one of my games, it wasn't the usual "okay let's just kill this thing until it dies" but "OH FUCK HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS?"

 

[p1138]

Before even Basic there was stuff like Greyhawk, Blackmore, and Eldritch Wizardry, the old brown paper versions, where a lot of the world was outlined. Greyhawk had a lot of unpublished lore, too, before being codified in a big box set, but you could also get that stuff in outlets like Dragon Magazine and, if you knew people, you could get ditto copies of stuff passed around like samizdat in the community.

Sure, but by the mid 80s and up through right before 5th edition this stuff was in mass production. Proper setting/campaign books published for D&D, novels written for it to establish plenty of lore as well. But between the launch of 5th edition and right up until the 2024 version, even Greyhawk was basically non-existent for a decade other than being the occasional reference that most of the players wouldn't ever notice.

But before that, yeah you'd either have to rely on magazines, or hope to get some shitty dittos(Haven't seen a proper ditto copy of anything in a long time) of Gygax and Arnseon's home settings from when it was barely a product. But like I said, that was so early on within the history of D&D as a whole that it's not really a problem and was at least an attempt at that compared to modern WotC doing nothing for a decade.

 

[AnOminous]

But before that, yeah you'd either have to rely on magazines, or hope to get some shitty dittos(Haven't seen a proper ditto copy of anything in a long time) of Gygax and Arnseon's home settings from when it was barely a product.

I forget when it basically ceased to exist but when I was in school I had access to the ditto machine for reasons. I still remember that smell. I loved that smell because I associated it with copying stuff I wanted. It was the mechanical equivalent of Disk Muncher for the Apple ][.

 

[Ghostse]

I forget when it basically ceased to exist but when I was in school I had access to the ditto machine for reasons. I still remember that smell. I loved that smell because I associated it with copying stuff I wanted. It was the mechanical equivalent of Disk Muncher for the Apple ][.

you were smelling heated methylated alcohol, which is what the ink was dissovled with.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

It's sad, you know.

Even late in 3.5e's lifecycle, we got books like the Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness, which were great for fleshing out some of the heavy hitters a party might encounter (dragons, beholders, undead, and so on).

Now it's just statblocks and some bland flavor text.

 

[Ghostse]

Now it's just statblocks and some bland flavor text.

And remember the new Mordenkainen's dropped the flavor text because it was racist, triggering, and othering. Big yikes stuff. Can't be gate keeping like that.

 

[The Ugly One]

You're fucking kidding me, right? I complain about the lack of any world building and campaign setting books, and you refer to some flavor text?

You're complaining that the 5e monster manuals only present monsters as "a bag of hit points," when in fact the presentation is, when compared to past monster manuals, easily good enough to conclude that they're intelligent beings who live in a world with a social structure and a history. Moreover, those setting books & boxes everyone adulates today sold very poorly. Most people didn't have them, so if DMs were better in the 80s and 90s, it couldn't have been due to material nobody was buying. Maybe video games hadn't rotted their brains as badly. If a 12-year-old in 1979 could run more creative game using nothing more than the '77 MM and a dog-eared copy of B/X he got at a yard sale than a fat 38-year-old soybeard in 2024 with decades of content behind him, nearly all of which is now online in various wikis or for sale in PDF form on DTRPG, the problem is not that WotC hasn't published enough text yet. The problem is the DM is just stupid.

And just to compare world-building you get in monster manuals:

1e MM - For background, you've got 5 paragraphs about hell in the section about Devils. It's a nice little write-up. This is the Pit Fiend:

The lowest plane of Hell is the home of the dreaded pit fiend, a devil ofgreat power. They possess a terrible strength and the most evil nature. Allpit fiends have personal names. They are the personal servants ofAsmadeus. Each typically carries an oncus-like weapon and a jaggedtoothed club, and all can strike with both in a melee round.

2e MM - For background, you get about 8 paragraphs about baatezu. It covers a page, but there's a ton of white space. Still more than 1e. This is the Pit Fiend:

Habitat/Society: Pit fiends are the lords of Baator, the baatezu with the greatest power and station. Pit fiends are found throughout Baator, but are very rare on the upper layers and in the frigid cold of Caina, the eighth layer. Pit fiends are very rare on Avernus, Dis, and Minauros. They are rare on phlegethos, Stygia, Malbolge, and Maladomini. In the fearful realm of Nessus, the pit fiends are common.

Wherever they are, pit fiends wield enormous power. They lead legions of dozens of complete armies into battle against the tanar’ri. These huge forces are terrifying to behold, and any non-native of the Lower Planes of less than 10 Hit Dice who sees them flees in panic for 1 to 3 days. Those of 10 Hit Dice and greater must save vs. rod, staff, or wand or flee in panic for 1d12 turns.

It is rumored that pit fiends are not the most powerful beings in Baator, but themselves servants of some greater power. If there are greater beings in Baator, certainly they are powerful enough to hide their presence from mere mortal sages.

Ecology: Pit fiends are spawned from the powerful gelugons of Baator’s eighth layer. When gelugons are found worthy, they are cast into the Pit of Flame for 1,001 days. They emerge as pit fiends.

3.5 MM - For lore, you get just three short paragraphs about devils. I think it's a few more words than 3.0, but there's not much. As for the Pit Fiend itself?

Pit fiends are the undisputed lords of the baatezu, masters of creating fear in mortals and devils alike. A pit fiend often wraps its wings around itself like a grotesque cloak, and appears wreathed in flames. A pit fiend is 12 feet tall and weighs 800 pounds.

Wow. Talk about your bag of hit points.

4e MM - You get a full page of background to the Nine Hells and the devils that live there. As for the Pit Fiend itself?

Nobles of the Nine Hells, pit fiends form an elite ruling class that oversees vast numbers of lesser devils. Only the archdevils known as the Lords of the Nine Hells stand higher than the pit fiends.

Each pit fiend is lord of a large domain within one of the layers of the Nine Hells and is vassal to the archdevil who rules that layer. A pit fiend might govern a city, command a fortress, lead a great legion, or server as a seneschal or counselor for an archdevil. With the exception of Asmodeus, each Lord of the Nine commands no more than a dozen or so pit fiends.

As the lords, barons, viziers, and generals of the Nine Hells, pit fiends rarely confront adventurers in person. They are the progenitors of devilish schemes, and they step in only when important plans go awry or when great plots reach fruition. In the Nine Hells proper, pit fiends command vast numbers of lesser devils. Penetrating the defenses of a pit fiend's castle and destroying the mighty devil in its own demesne is a deed of truly epic proportions.

Wait, did the much-maligned 4e MM really just BTFO every Monster Manual before it? It absolutely did.

Now, what's the 5e MM give you? You get a page and a half of background material on devils and the Nine Hells. Of all five core monster manuals, it is arguably the most lore-rich presentation of any of them. 4e's close, though. Then, of course, you have the paragraphs on the pit fiend:

The undisputed lords of most other devils, pit fiendsattend the archdukes and archduchesses of the NineHells and carry out their wishes. These mighty devilsare the generals of the Nine Hells, leading its infernallegions into battle.

With an inflated sense of superiority and entitlement, pit fiends form a grotesque aristocracy in the infernal realm. These domineering and manipulative tyrants conspire to eliminate anything that stands between them and their desires, even as they negotiate the convoluted and dangerous politics of the Nine Hells.

A pit fiend is a hulking monster with a whip-like tail and enormous wings that it wraps around itself like a cloak. Armored scales cover its body, and its fanged maw drips a venom that can lay the mightiest mortal creatures low. Fearless in battle, a pit fiend takes on the most powerful foes in single combat, demonstrating its supremacy and an arrogance that prevents it from acknowledging any chance of defeat.

I didn't quite expect to discover that 4e and 5e present the most lore of any of the monster manuals, and definitely didn't expect to find that my 3rd edition book gives you barely enough hook to hang your hat on. Objectively, though, if we're looking at how the monsters are presented in the core books, 4e and 5e are the least guilty of presenting naked stat blocks. The worst culprit? 3rd edition, hands down.



If a DM was able to run an engaging campaign out of the 3.5 monster manual with its two-sentence description of the pit fiend, then 4e and 5e really leave you with no excuses.

 

[D. Pedro II]

If a DM was able to run an engaging campaign out of the 3.5 monster manual with its two-sentence description of the pit fiend, then 4e and 5e really leave you with no excuses.

I will add a little because I am a newfag when it comes to RPG, I began playing these back in september of 2024 due to a series of coincidences, and having played both 5e and 4e, I will say that that the monster manuals are indeed very well developed. hell, the DMG books, both 1 and 2, are very in depth when it comes how to run the games, to how you can build monsters, followed by tips and tricks to make tactical combat in 4e's case, ending with settings you could utilize to play your games from heroic tier all the way to epic tier.

hell, I am dming a 4e campaign and the books give so much material to work on. I can't fathom how one could claim that these books are not quality when it comes to lore for its setting.

 

[p1138]

Wait, did the much-maligned 4e MM really just BTFO every Monster Manual before it? It absolutely did.

Now, what's the 5e MM give you? You get a page and a half of background material on devils and the Nine Hells. Of all five core monster manuals, it is arguably the most lore-rich presentation of any of them. 4e's close, though. Then, of course, you have the paragraphs on the pit fiend:

I didn't say shit in that post about anything before 4e regarding monster manuals, did I?

Yes, I know what the 5e MM says about pit fiends(I posted the pages, somehow you missed that I guess?). Apparently you can't read but let's go over what I said.

Where the hell are the setting books? Where are the examples? They don't exist.

You're fucking kidding me, right? I complain about the lack of any world building and campaign setting books, and you refer to some flavor text? Where is the example in universe for any of the settings where a pit fiend is doing anything other than participating in combat? Where are the setting books that aren't just the bullshit 64 page nothing guides that are 40% random tables?

Now here's what you said.

The pit fiend one is something I think someone around here said, talking about how weak pit fiends are because their 7th level party got the jump on one and killed it because I guess they got surprise, and then it failed some saves preventing it from ever really doing anything. And like, rule 1 of pit fiends is you don't get the jump on pit fiends. These are lesser lords of hell, answering directly to the greatest devils in existence, commanding armies and ruling domains. You do not just happen up on one in a cave who's got his thumb up his ass. A pit fiend knows who you are months if not years before you bother him. Dumb DMing often comes from treating the monsters like video game enemies in Doom, where they just sit in a room, waiting to die.

I didn't disagree about the dumb DM'ng part. But where are you getting all of this shit from that you posted? Sure as fuck isn't the 5e MM. I already posted the bestiary entry as well as the flavor text that was a few pages prior. Knows who the PCs are for months? How? Where is that in the 5e MM? Certainly doesn't come from the spell list on page 77 nor is it in the flavor text on page 69.

I didn't quite expect to discover that 4e and 5e present the most lore of any of the monster manuals, and definitely didn't expect to find that my 3rd edition book gives you barely enough hook to hang your hat on. Objectively, though, if we're looking at how the monsters are presented in the core books, 4e and 5e are the least guilty of presenting naked stat blocks. The worst culprit? 3rd edition, hands down.

I wasn't talking about stat blocks. Since when was the MM the sole material to read anything about the settings within D&D? Oh wait... 5th edition.

My point was that during the production and existence of 5e, WotC did fuck all for world building and all you did was bring up shit you read from previous editions proving my point because I don't know where you got this all knowing in advance bit from, but it's not in the 4e MM flavor text you posted, the the 3.5 MM text, the 2e MM text, or the 1e MM text. So you either made it up(which isn't a problem since we're talking about a fantasy TTRPG, but at least admit it) or read it elsewhere at some point over the years and forgot about it, but it sure as fuck wasn't anything 5e was it.

You can't defend WotC doing a piss poor job of producing any worldbuilding content for a decade when it doesn't publish any of the previous content(which wouldn't even be incompatible with 5e) and most of the people who jumped on the bandwagon with 5e won't touch it because it's from an older edition that requires shit like a 3rd grade knowledge in basic arithmetic to run and they're afraid of that.

 

[The Ugly One]

I will add a little because I am a newfag when it comes to RPG, I began playing these back in september of 2024 due to a series of coincidences, and having played both 5e and 4e, I will say that that the monster manuals are indeed very well developed. hell, the DMG books, both 1 and 2, are very in depth when it comes how to run the games, to how you can build monsters, followed by tips and tricks to make tactical combat in 4e's case, ending with settings you could utilize to play your games from heroic tier all the way to epic tier.

hell, I am dming a 4e campaign and the books give so much material to work on. I can't fathom how one could claim that these books are not quality when it comes to lore for its setting.

Because the internet is populated by people with strong opinions about books they've never read, movies they've never seen, music they've never listened to, and games they've never played.

 

[D. Pedro II]

Because the internet is populated by people with strong opinions about books they've never read, movies they've never seen, music they've never listened to, and games they've never played.

Ain't that the truth. I will add that 4e is unresonably hated, aswell. playing it so far, it does has its faults and short comings, but what it sets out to be, it does really well. In fact, I got a book here from 4e, Open Grave, it has over 20 pages just of LORE for the entirety of the undead existence. It goes from how they are created, their physiology, their relations with necromancers, to Gods like the Raven queen and Orcus and how they view then.

I cannot comment on the older editions for I haven't played then, and WOTC is WOTC, but you gotta give credit where credit its due.

 

[Paradox Mystic]

WOTC is WOTC, but you gotta give credit where credit its due.

Exactly, there is plenty to critique people don't need to make up lies to attack it more. The lies also devalue the legitimate criticisms because it erodes trust in the community.

Because the internet is populated by people with strong opinions about books they've never read, movies they've never seen, music they've never listened to, and games they've never played.

Some people you can show them something is clearly true with lots of sources and different styles of arguments to defend it being true and they'll still do mental gymnastics to deny it even if their reason for denial is stupid like "It would be cool if X wasn't the case/I don't want X to be true."

I had players who didn't understand killing a NPC known for wanting to spread political stability and the moral Good made them on the side of Chaos and Evil. They thought if Peaceful McGoodGuy is attacking them to defend some lives then he must be secretly insane and evil.

 

[The Ugly One]

Ain't that the truth. I will add that 4e is unresonably hated, aswell. playing it so far, it does has its faults and short comings, but what it sets out to be, it does really well. In fact, I got a book here from 4e, Open Grave, it has over 20 pages just of LORE for the entirety of the undead existence. It goes from how they are created, their physiology, their relations with necromancers, to Gods like the Raven queen and Orcus and how they view then.

I cannot comment on the older editions for I haven't played then, and WOTC is WOTC, but you gotta give credit where credit its due.

Open Grave is, in my opinion, one of the finest D&D expansion books ever published. A pity the stat blocks are useless now, but the lore is excellent.

Old products are especially prone to people posturing as though they're much older than they really are for e-cred. The D&D scene is especially full of 35-year-olds acting like they were personally offended from the womb when David Cook revised AD&D in 1989, and they just recycle other opinions they read online. AI is gradually making such posts obsolete.