What I miss about 3rd ED: Part I

Most of us have within our roleplaying lives have played the 3rd edition of D&D. Most of us loved it, some of us didn’t, but either way we played it. It was, for me, the system that I first DM’ed in and I loved it. The system, regardless of the comments of others, I thought was a simple one that lent itself to the wild imagination of a DM. The rules were firm enough to be a excellent base for any new DM, yet loose enough that they could be molded to any need at hand. Something that I feel 4th Ed is lacking. 

But that is not what I’m  about right now. I could go on for hours about the many rules changes that I think have done more to hamper the game the help. But... as this is part one of what I hope will be a long series, there is plenty of time for that later. 

The point here is to say, that what I miss about 3rd Ed were the monster descriptions. Now I have a pretty damn good imagination, and I can come up with some really amazing descriptions for things even on an off day; thats my job, I’m a DM. I spend quite a bit of time filling all the landscapes of the world with all the detail that I can so my players feel as if though there are right there in the world, not in a basement for a few hours. It takes up a lot of time coming up with all that detail. I love doing it so I’m not complaining, in fact its one of my favorite parts of being a DM. That said, it was so amazing being able to pick the monsters and have colorful entries right there for me to read to my players.

But that’s not so with 4th. Every so often you will get a brief overview of what the critter looks like if it is part of an over arching type, but thats about it. Most of the time you don’t even get that, so the DM is left trying to come up with his/her own description based off of a picture, which are also not as common as I would like, or off of the paragraph that covers the monsters tactics. In both cases I feel a little bit, nay, a whole lot, cheated. 

I have no doubt that the reason for the lack of description is due to the fact that Wizards thinks that everyone has all the D&D mini’s, and with them in hand you no longer have to give a colorful explanation of what the monster looks like. All you have to do is set the mini on the table and say: “There, thats what it looks like.” I same, LAME!!, to that. It totally takes me out of the story. Completely takes me, and I dare say most people, out of the detailed world that I have been building. 

And to Wizards I same “Shame On You!” One reason we play D&D is to be taken to another place. By taking away the little details, like monster descriptions, you take away the depth of the world, as well as make a DM’s job harder. 

So what do I miss about 3rd Ed?: Monster description entries. A little thing, yes, but its the little things that matter.