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MonteCook.com archive

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Between 2001 and 2012, Monte Cook maintained a website with a massive number of D&D articles, including rare insights into the design of D&D third edition. Many articles were lost when the site moved to a new design in 2004, and all were lost when replaced with a new Wordpress blog in 2012. Thankfully, these pages are still available via the Web Archive.

  1. List of index pages
    1. Original site (2001-2004)
    2. Malhavoc Press (2004-2012)
  2. Interesting and noteworthy articles
    1. DMs Only
    2. The Stuff
      1. Adventures, hooks and locations
      2. Classes, prestige classes and class options
      3. Feats
      4. Items
      5. Monsters and templates
      6. NPCs and deities
      7. Races and variants
      8. Spells
      9. Other
    3. Line of Sight
    4. Another Rave
    5. Reviews
  3. Quotes
    1. Gaming anecdotes
    2. Game design and writing
    3. RPG business
    4. On designing D&D third edition
    5. Running and writing D&D
    6. Opinions
    7. Misc

List of index pages

Original site (2001-2004)

Archives:

Malhavoc Press (2004-2012)

Interesting and noteworthy articles

The following lists feature the best content. These are not complete lists of everything on the site. To browse the entire content, use the 2001-2004 archive page and 2004-2012 article list.

DMs Only

Resources and advice on running D&D from the author of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. It includes many excellent insights into how D&D 3e is designed.

The Stuff

Free game material for D&D 3e.

Adventures, hooks and locations

Classes, prestige classes and class options

Feats

Items

Monsters and templates

NPCs and deities

Races and variants

Spells

Other

Line of Sight

Monte Cook’s general articles.

Another Rave

Reviews

Quotes

Gaming anecdotes

The original D&D booklets had a typo. In the monster entries, instead of saying “%Lair” (for the percentage chance that the creature would be found in its lair), it said “%Liar.” The Arduin books embraced that concept (I’m guessing without knowing it was a typo): In those books, that game stat reflected the percentage chance that, if you talked to it, the creature would lie – apparently at any given time. It was a rule to handle the roleplaying of the creature. And along with the expected “%Liar: 45%,” the Arduin books even had monster entries that said, “%Liar: too stupid.” So the monster was too stupid to lie.

(Dragon columnist Ray Winninger has a hilarious story from back then. His group, who also believed that the stat determined how often a creature would lie, applied this rule to the elf henchman with the party. The PCs would ask the henchman if he had enough food, or whether he needed healing after the last battle, and the DM would roll to see if he told them the truth. You can just imagine the poor, starving, beat-up henchman, when asked if he needed any help, feeling this odd compunction to lie… shaking his head “no” with a look of profound regret and helplessness on his face.)

— Planescapin’

Game design and writing

Work extra hard on the beginning of your story. If the story doesn’t get good until page 3, no one will ever get to page 3.

— And I Want to Be a Paperback Writer…

Avoid reader services, rewriters, ghostwriters, or anything with a fee. These are often scams.

— And I Want to Be a Paperback Writer… (Part 2)

I do think that ideas (or at least most of them) come from merging existing ideas/concepts/images into new things. It might be a merging of things in a totally new way, or it might be merging things that have never been merged before. So your brain, even when you’re not aware of it, can be taking ideas from your experience and combining them in new ways. You can even train yourself to do this a lot, or at least become more aware of it.

— The Dreams Stuff is Made Of

You never know when an idea will come. It’s usually when you least expect it. Often, it’s sitting in the car, or in a restaurant, or lying in bed. If you’re like me, you’ve got to be ready. That’s why I often carry around a little notebook that will fit in my pocket (although the notes I have scribbled on Post-Its, receipts, and in the margins of other papers show that I don’t carry one around enough).

— A Dime a Dozen is Cheap!

When I’m stuck on a character concept, I often pick up a dictionary, flip to a random page, and pick a word that looks interesting.

— Guest post by Sean K Reynolds, Where Do These People Come From?

If you get a rejection letter from an editor, don’t send a snippy reply back. Don’t agree to a deadline and then miss it. Don’t botch your assignment. All of these things are going to lead to that editor not working with you again.

— Getting Started (2002)

A pet peeve of Toren’s is “when the Star Trek alien philosophy is applied to D&D races. Sometimes it makes sense, but usually there’s no excuse for it.” He said he wants to see more than “new humanoid races where the only distinguishing difference visually is the size of their ears, or the number of their eyes, or the colour of their skin.”

— The Art of Arcana Unearthed

When I came to TSR in 1994, the Planescape boxed set was just coming out (it was one of my first free products I got for being an employee, actually). Reading through that campaign setting made me realize that game writing could be more than just passive descriptions, staged fights, and game stats. Planescape evoked mood and emotion as well as creating story and character. I knew from the moment I saw it that Planescape was something I wanted to be involved with.

— Planescape Memories

Further, to have David “Zeb” Cook writing the preface of the book simply could not be more appropriate. Zeb, of course, wrote the Planescape boxed set that started it all. He was also one of my early inspirations to get into the game industry as a career. I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned that in this column before, actually. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I picked up a copy of Dwellers in the Forbidden City. As I studied the cover like an archeologist examining a rare new find, I saw the words “By David Cook.” It caught my attention because, of course, we shared the same last name. It was the first time I thought to myself, “Hey, some actual living person writes this stuff. It’s his job.”

— Planescape Memories

Planescape was strong on story – when you’re writing material dealing with the various realms that make up the multiverse, how could it not be? The product line encouraged writers to take one more step, and go farther afield than traditional medieval fantasy. It encouraged players to do more than just fight everything they encountered, particularly because so much of what they encountered was more powerful than them.

— Planescapin’

Diablo can be a fun game, but fights at 10th level end up feeling exactly like fights at 1st level, and you still need to go back to town for healing potions just as often as you did before. Don’t let this happen in your D&D game. … The whole world doesn’t rise in level as the PCs do, so when they have made it to 15th level, they should feel as though they really are superior to some of the foes they must face. If this isn’t the case, then why keep trying to gain levels?

— Design Secrets: High Level Adventures

RPG business

I’d rather see Dungeons & Dragons allowed to be the game that it is, rather than see it put in a position where it must appeal to the mass market. I’d rather see its product lines determined by what makes the game better and what serves the audience than simply by what is most profitable. Forcing D&D to compete with larger and more successful (and completely different) product lines, attempting to make it unrealistically profitable, will only hurt it in the long run. I’d rather see the game in the hands of a company for whom it was the primary concern, rather than an afterthought.

— The Littlest Fish (2002)

Wizards doesn’t know how to handle a game that isn’t a huge hit. Magic was a huge hit, and Pokémon was a huge hit. Wizards is really good at the care and feeding of huge hits. The company carefully and masterfully fostered both of these runaway successes into even bigger (and more importantly) long-term successes. But give Wizards some middle-of-the-road product, and they don’t know what to do with it. From Amazing Stories magazine to Alternity. From (remember this?) C-23 to (dare I say it) D&D. And now Chainmail.

— More Wacky Wizards Hijinks

For example, we 3rd Edition designers weren’t allowed to put a mass combat system in the core rulebooks, even though we wanted to, because the powers that be decided that Chainmail would be that mass combat system. Now, this is back when the plan was for Chainmail to be the biggest thing since sliced bread and D&D would be just sort of a “support product” for those who got really into the game.

— More Wacky Wizards Hijinks

I get asked a lot, “Why doesn’t the DMG have a mass combat system?” Good question. Unfortunately, the answer is, “We weren’t allowed to put one in.” Why? Because Chainmail was coming, and Chainmail was going to be the D&D mass combat system. Now, not only did Wizards of the Coast drop Chainmail like a hot potato, but by the time it finally came out, it was no longer a mass combat game.

— Where’s the D&D Mass Combat System?

Whenever you speak to a gamer or interact with them online, remember that in actual fact you are interacting with an entire game group (because even if you do not remember the interaction, they will, and they’ll tell their group about it). In fact today, when you answer a fan’s email or talk to them personally, you might be actually interacting with a large group of people, because the answer you give or the way you act may end up as a post on a message board.

— Gaming Industry Etiquette (Or “How to Avoid Looking Like a Pathetic Jerk”)

Here’s the math: If a d20 company puts out a book and sells N number of copies, Wizards of the Coast would sell N times 10 to 50 copies of that exact same book. (And if it’s not d20 AND not it’s published by Wizards, cut N in half.)

— Getting Started (2002)

When we worked on 3rd Edition, the designers had various goals. One goal for the game was to recruit new players (and thus customers). Of course, encouraging new players to try the game is the holy grail of the industry.

— Covering Ourselves

If the average player plays the game for three years, and there are 100,000 active players buying lots of products, getting each one to play an extra year is almost the equivalent of recruiting 33,000 new gamers.

— Covering Ourselves

I call this the Rules Absorption Rule. Don’t release a new game system and then immediately follow it up with a lot of additional or optional rulebooks. In a perfect world, for example, Wizards of the Coast would never have released Sword and Fist and its ilk so quickly after the release of 3rd Edition. The audience, as a whole, didn’t need those books yet – there were months of playing sessions’ worth of new material to get familiar with in the core books alone. We should have only released adventures and source material in those first months.

— Three Years in the Middle of All This

Even before 3.0 went to the printer, the business team overseeing D&D was talking about 3.5. Not surprisingly, most of the designers – particularly the actual 3.0 team (Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, and I) thought this was a poor idea.

— Looking at D&D v3.5

The idea, they assured us, was to make a revised edition that was nothing but a cleanup of any errata that might have been found after the book’s release, a clarification of issues that seemed to confuse large numbers of players, and, most likely, all new art. It was slated to come out in 2004 or 2005 … It wasn’t to replace everyone’s books, and it wouldn’t raise any compatibility or conversion issues. Here I sit, in 2003, with my reviewer’s copies of the 3.5 books next to my computer, and that’s not what I see.

— Looking at D&D v3.5

In the corner of the game industry that is d20, I need two hands to count all the game professionals I know who are working on products but do not play the game regularly. I can think of at least a few who – I’m fairly certain – have never played a session of 3rd Edition D&D.

— Shut Up and Play

Most people will tell you that the problem was just the sheer number of companies producing material, and the sheer number of products. But I don’t think it was quite that simple. To be blunt, the problem was that so many of the products being published were crap. And it’s because so many of them covered such absurdly narrow topics.

— The Open Game License as I See It, Part II

It seems unlikely that lightning will really strike twice and that there will be a 4th Edition boom to roleplaying game sales as occurred with 3rd Edition. I hope I’m wrong – if nothing else, as an RPG fan, I’d love to see them flourish. But in so many ways, 3rd Edition was a perfect storm. It was long overdue, people were hungry for a change, and yet (particularly at the outset) their expectations were low. Today, things seem to be just the opposite.

— The Open Game License as I See It, Part II

On designing D&D third edition

By the time I came along (around 1994), they were already tossing around the words “Third Edition.” When we suddenly became Wizards, it was clear that the new edition was just over the next hill.

— Full Circle, Part 1

I would throw out whatever wacky idea came to my head. “Let’s put half-orcs back in!” I’d say. “Let’s have skills rather than proficiencies.” I expected to be shouted down, with good explanations about how that “wouldn’t be good for the game” for some reason that I had never thought of before. Except that nobody did.

— Full Circle, Part 1

Originally, way back when the 3rd Edition process started, it was thought that we would just take the existing 2nd Edition products and ‘update’ them. By the time I’d gotten to this point, though, we’d chucked that idea right out the window. This would be a brand-new book from start to finish.

— Full Circle, Part 2

A personal career highlight for me came in an email from Gary Gygax, writer of the 1st Edition DMG. He not only liked my DMG, but he said it had taught him a few things about being a Dungeon Master.

— Full Circle, Part 2

I didn’t necessarily think that the standard bard was underpowered. I did know, however, that a lot of bard fans weren’t happy with the class as presented. It had no unique flavor to it. The bard was sort of a second-string… everything.

— Alternate Bards and Sorcerers

People talk about sorcerers constantly casting magic missile or fireball. But I can tell you that the class was actually balanced with those spells in mind. It’s the other spells that throw a wrench into things. The “machine-gun” sorcerer is not a balance problem.

— Alternate Bards and Sorcerers

The designers of the newest edition built so much reliance on rules right into the game, to make it easier to play. As one of those designers, I occasionally think to myself, “What have we wrought?” Then I remember that we intended these rules to be tools to help people create their own game material. To demystify the craft of game designer – to look behind the curtain.

— Rules Are Rules (But Nothing More)

It was one of my goals in designing 3rd Edition to make it playable without miniatures.

— Running a 3E Game Without Miniatures

I’ve always had a problem keeping the rules 100 percent straight in a session, even in the early days of 3rd Edition, when I was fresh off the design team and the books had just come out. The problem was, I remembered so many different ideas, different incarnations, different versions, different arguments about various rules, that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the final rule actually turned out to be.

— Reclaiming the DM’s Throne, Part 2

It was intentional that players find a number of aspects of their character and its advancement more compelling in 3rd Edition than in previous editions. One of our goals specifically was to keep players interested in the game longer. The genius of level-based characters is that hopefully the abilities you get next level make you want to keep playing to attain them. This is the “stick and carrot” approach, and it’s been around since the earliest days of D&D. All we did was try to amplify the concept so that there were truly attractive things at every level for every character.

— An Occasion for Every Rule, and a Rule for Every Occasion

When we were designing 3.0, one of our guiding principles was, “If you’re going to make a change, make it clearly a change.” The reason for this guideline is that subtle changes are confusing.

— Looking at D&D v3.5

We actually designed 3.0 with mastery in mind. For example, we created subsystems that worked like other systems, so that if you knew how one worked, you’d find the other one easier to understand.

— Looking at D&D v3.5

It comes as no surprise to regulars at montecook.com that I regret that we didn’t spend more time in particular on the ranger.

— Looking at D&D v3.5

What I’d do is carefully map out all the various conditions and their cures, and assign a character level appropriate to them. For example, maybe “blindness” is something that’s appropriate to happen to 1st-level characters. By the time they get to 3rd, they can cure it without a problem. … We got into this kind of thinking very late in the design process for 3rd Edition. We applied it to monsters somewhat, but obviously not enough, and it’s doubtful that recent monster design continues to reflect this framework.

— If I Had Another Shot At It

When we designed 3rd Edition D&D, people around Wizards of the Coast joked about the “lessons” we could learn from Magic: The Gathering, like making the rulebooks – or the rules themselves – collectible. … But, in fact, we did take some cues from Magic. For example, Magic uses templating to great effect, and now D&D does too.

— Ivory Tower Game Design

This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves – players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones. …I no longer think this is entirely a good idea.

— Ivory Tower Game Design

Throughout 3rd Edition design, fellow designer Skip Williams made a very good case that the previous editions’ ways trained players of spellcasting characters to act intelligently and with forethought and planning … We couldn’t make that assumption in 3rd Edition. No class should be more or less challenging to play well, if possible. Using the old paradigms, a spellcaster is just plain less fun to play for the typical player because you get less stuff to do.

— Just One More Thing Before I Go, Part I

Running and writing D&D

At the very least, we should have called the table “Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values” rather than “Calculating Magic Item Gold Piece Values.” … Do not – I repeat – do not allow players to look at that table and see what they can make for X amount of gold.

— Making Magic Items FAQ

You shouldn’t have things that grant a “+ odd number” to an ability score. The reason for this is that a +2 or +4 always means something (your bonus increases to a +1 or a +2 no matter what your score). A “+ odd number” only means something if you have an odd score. Not only is that weird (“This belt makes me stronger when I wear it, but not you.”), it also makes it too tempting to min-max with such an item.

— Making Magic Items, Part 2

The original design intention behind [prestige classes] was to allow DMs to create campaign-specific, exclusive roles and positions as classes. … Too many prestige classes are designed like 2nd Edition kits: player-driven PC-creation tools for character customization. That’s okay sometimes, but it really overlooks the main reason that prestige classes were invented.

— Prestige Class Online Design Workshop

It’s a shame, actually, that Wizards of the Coast decided to fill their class books with prestige classes, because they all were (obviously) geared toward encouraging a specific class to qualify for them. Prestige classes should be obtainable by more than one class.

— Prestige Class Online Design Workshop

Prestige classes should generally be as good as or a little better than a base class, because they have requirements; those with harsh requirements should be even a little better yet.

— Prestige Class Online Design Workshop

Be harsh with requirements, then be generous with abilities. That ends up making players happiest and creates the most interesting characters.

— Prestige Class Online Design Workshop, Part II

The unwritten rule (violated a few times in the DMG potion list) is that only spells with ranges of Personal or Touch can become potions. The truth of the matter is, there’s no real game-balance reason why potions can only be made from a subset of spells. That rule is just there for flavor.

— Potions, Potions, Potions!

Opinions

Someone was telling me recently that the Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin was wonderful. It’s a fantasy series, set in a fantasy world, but there is little or no magic. Now, I read plenty of sci-fi, mainstream fiction, and nonfiction. Most of that doesn’t have magic in it, and that’s okay. But a fantasy novel without magic? I’m sure it’s very good, but I just can’t get my mind wrapped around it.

— It’s a Kind of Magic (2001)

Every Dragon Magazine cover since the dawn of 3rd Edition has had just a single, static figure (okay, once in a while we see two figures), standing pretty much stock still. The art’s well-done, but I think the approach is a shame.

— Covering Ourselves (2004)

I still think that seasons one and two of The X-Files were quite good, and seasons three to five were great. However, now I think that the show stinks, and I’m glad it’s been canceled.

— 10 Rules For Being an X-Files Character (2002)

Scottish myth is one of the things I really like.

— Monte, What’s Up?

If you’re not watching the new show Lost, you’re missing out. It’s really, really good. However, despite what I said earlier this year about enjoying the West Wing, I can no longer recommend it.

— Ah, Autumn (2004)

“Magic as music” is an idea that’s been around for a long time, and I think it’s quite cool.

— Alternate Bards and Sorcerers

Being a fan of something is productive. Without someone to appreciate it, art has no meaning. Without someone to listen, music is pointless.

— Viva la Fandom!

There’s talk of a Firefly movie, now, and apparently it’s all the more likely because the DVD set was somewhat successful. However, the idea doesn’t thrill me.

— You Can’t Take the Sky From Me… (2004)

Misc

I recently read something by a guy who had had TiVo long enough so that his young daughter doesn’t remember TV before TiVo. When they are watching a television that’s not at their house, she’ll ask to watch a specific show, but of course she can’t get it because the TV doesn’t have TiVo. He tried to explain that to her, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of watching TV as someone else dictates rather than watching what you want when you want it. Eventually, he had to tell her that the TV without TiVo was broken so she’d understand. It’s an interesting preview of the future of entertainment, I think.

— Taking Time and Effort out of the Equation (2003)