D&D 5E Monster Stat Blocks

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When comparing AD&D with D&D5E adventures, I noticed something missing from 5E adventures: inline monster stat blocks. Sometimes, a 5E adventure might have new monster stat blocks in the adventure appendix, but as far as inline stat blocks for monsters in an encounter, they are sadly absent.

It is true that not all AD&D adventures have these inline stat blocks. For example, inline stat blocks are mostly absent from the G1-3: Against the Giants series, except for unique NPCs, and unique characteristics of monsters such as hit points:

But inline monster stat blocks do see use in other AD&D adventures. Here is an example of an inline monster stat block from S4: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, one of my favorite AD&D adventures.

This stat block answers so many questions about this monster. What is its armor class? What is its movement speed? How many hit dice does it have? How many attacks does it perform? What does its breath weapon do? What are its immunities?

For me, stat blocks like this make running the adventure much easier, because they save me the trouble of looking up the monster in a separate book or online reference. The latter trouble is only compounded when an encounter has multiple different kinds of monsters.

Recently, I bought a very large 5E adventure. To my disappointment, it had no inline stat blocks. This had me thinking that if I were to publish more 5E adventures, I should also include inline stat blocks in them. But I had never seen such a thing in any published 5E adventure.

I searched for a condensed stat block format for 5E. But I was unable to find one. So I started working on one. I started with the first monster in the 5E Monster Manual: the aarakocra. Here is the MM entry:

I copied the relevant text and using some abbreviations:

Aarakocra. Medium humanoid, NG, AC 12, hp 13 (3d8), Spd 20 ft., fly 50 ft., Str 10 (+0), Dex 14 (+2), Con 10 (+0), Int 11 (+0), Wis 12 (+1), Cha 11 (+0); Skills: Perception +5; Senses: passive Perception 15; Languages: Auran; CR 1/4 (50 XP); Special: Dive attack, deal extra 3 (1d6) dmg w/ melee attack after flying at least 30 feet; Actions: Talon: melee weapon attack, +4 to hit, reach 5 ft, 1 target, 4 (1d4+2) slashing dmg; Javelin: melee or ranged weapon attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft or range 30/120 ft, 1 target, 5 (1d6+2) piercing dmg.

My first try was 545 characters long. This is far too long. Six lines of text. There is too much information to take in at a glance. And visually it is worse than the original stat block from the MM.

So I solicited help from Twitter (here), and after working through multiple iterations, we ended up with this:

Aarakocra. humanoid, M, NG, AC 12, hp 13 (3d8), Spd 20′, fly 50′, Dex +2, Wis +1; Perception +5; Lang: Auran; CR ¼ (50 XP); Dive attack, +1d6 (3) dmg w/ melee after flying ≥30′; Talon: melee, +4 to hit, 1d4+2 (4) S dmg; Javelin: melee or ranged (30′), +4 to hit, 1d6+2 (5) P dmg.

Three lines of text and a much more reasonable 277 characters. Short enough even to fit into a Twitter post!

Having stat blocks like this at my disposal would make me much more inclined to run a 5E adventure again, and when I publish another 5E adventure, I will be sure to include these condensed stat blocks.

Additionally, I am considering putting together an online reference for myself and others to use that would have condensed 5E monster stat blocks for use in our 5E adventures.

As a DM, here is what I like to see in a dungeon

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When I created the GPH series of adventures, I had in mind to create four modules that are easy for a DM to just pick up and run.

Here is an excerpt from one of the modules:

GPH1: Alabaster Palace of the Earth Genies, p. 8-9

From this excerpt, I note the following:

  1. One location entry per page or two.
  2. Location number and name at the top of the entry.
  3. Brief location description that can be read aloud to players.
  4. Occupants of the location, including full stat blocks and XP value.
  5. Other relevant details of the location, including treasure.
  6. Mini-map and expanded map location.

For the layout, I decided on one or two pages per dungeon location. Two page dungeon locations are presented as a 2-page spread so that the DM would not need to flip pages to read the whole entry. Everything is visible at a glance.

Map locations are numbered and named in the heading at the top of the page. Headings and subheadings are distinct from other text so that the DM can see at a glance all the information categories for this location.

Location descriptions can be helpful for a DM who would otherwise have to make up on the spot what the PCs see. They are not more than a paragraph; too much information at once and the players may forget details.

The occupants of the location and all of their relevant statistics are listed. This saves time for the DM because he does not need to flip through the monster manual, sometimes for multiple different monsters in a single location.

For other details, I try to picture myself in the location and look around in my mind and think like a PC. Can I climb up to that window? Is the door locked? What happens when I ring that bell? While all of the possibilities cannot be listed, at least the most important details are covered.

For each entry, I have also included a mini-map of the dungeon so that the DM does not need to flip to a different page to see where the PCs are in relation to the rest of the map. Also the expanded map helps with smaller details that might not be as apparent from the original map of the whole dungeon (furniture, traps, obstacles, etc.)

All of these together make the GPH modules easy for a DM to pick up and run.

Atlantean Exodus: Calendar

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I’m turning my attention from player characters to the world of Atlantean Exodus. One thing the Atlanteans bring with them from Atlantis is their calendar. The calendar is based on the Egyptian sidereal-solar calendar found in the Book of Nut, an ancient Egyptian astronomical text.

A week consists of 10 days; these 10 days correspond to ~10 degrees of the night sky and the appearance of certain stars on the horizon.

A month consists of three weeks. These are not lunar months. The Egyptians did have lunar (and several other) calendars with regional variations, and celebrated certain festivals and religious ceremonies according to that calendar.

Twelve months make up a year, plus a 5 or 6 day intercalary period.

Thus, each year is 365 days (plus one day every four years). Historically, the Egyptians did not add an additional day added every four years, leading to gradual calendar misalignment and realignment every 1461 years. I’m treating the leap year days as forgotten knowledge that the Atlanteans still retained but lost over a period of thousands of years.

Each year is divided into seasons. The Egyptians used the Nile and its changes to demarcate the seasons, but in the case of the Atlanteans traversing the green Sahara, their seasons are divided into wet and dry seasons, plus a short season of storms at the end of the dry season.

At this time, some tribes of Africa have developed their own calendars, making the prediction of seasonal changes and thus early agriculture possible.

I really should post here more often…

I can’t believe it has been over a year since I posted on this blog. Lately, I’ve been posting on X. Posts there coalesce then evaporate like smoke. Blogs are slightly more durable. It’s all just sand and fire, but sometimes leaves a lasting impression in the mind. And even this, too, only endures slightly longer.

Work continues on Atlantean Exodus. I’m on the third draft of the playtest material. The core of the game is the same. Some subsystems have been refined.

  • Levels have been eliminated in favor of more granular and organic advancement, including a character’s starting advances.
  • Fortune has been replaced by effort.
  • Make an effort by spending up to 3 vitality. Each vitality spent grants +1 advantage die (1d6).
    (The resolution mechanic is 3d6+modifiers, rolling over a threshold number. Advantage dice are rolled in addition to the 3d6, keeping the three best die results.)
  • The new effort system neatly ties into character advancement, ability masteries, exhaustion, injury, death, and other subsystems.
  • Spiritism and other wonders in general are now more powerful, but have new tradeoffs for this power.

And there are a number of other changes that still need testing.

Because of the scope of the game (multiple generations of characters traveling across the green Sahara) and limited time, I have started writing code to simulate characters and the caravan on their centuries-long journey. So far, I can generate rudimentary characters. The name generation is improving.

More coaxing sand and fire into shape is needed. I’m a little rusty, not having coded for such a long time.

Meetings with G.I. Gurdjieff in Paris 1944: Book References

In Meetings with G.I. Gurdjieff in Paris 1944, there are references to three other books.

  • Book Studio 2009: reference to Transcripts of Gurdjieff’s Wartime Meetings 1941-46, published by Book Studio in 2009.
  • Patterson 2000: reference to Voices in the Dark: Esoteric, Occult & Secular Voices in Nazi-Occupied Paris, 1940-44, published by William Patrick Patterson in 2000.
  • Dolmen Meadows 2017: reference to G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943, published by Dolmen Meadows Editions in 2017.

These references are included to note previously published versions of a specific meeting note. Out of the 43 meetings, 11 were previously published in the referenced books.

Differences between Paris 1944 and these books are noted as well.

I realize now that a bibliography would have been helpful to the reader when encountering these references in the text.

Atlantean Exodus Update – What’s In a Name?

I have been working on character names to be used in the Atlantean Exodus RPG setting. For the duration of the playtest, I’ve been handwaving names. Now that most of the mechanics for the game are done, I’ve been turning my attention to this important detail.

Why are names important? In my opinion, naming a mesolithic hunter-gatherer “Bob” or their tribal leader “Grug” would be lazy, would do a disservice to their descendants, and would hurt immersion into the setting.

What is the setting about? To sum up:

“North Africa, 7000 B.C., when the Sahara was still green—a caravan of survivors, who fled the destruction of the once great civilization of Atlantis, travels east. Their aim: to cross the vast savanna to reach survivors on the other side of the continent, and there establish a New Atlantis. They face many dangers—wild beasts, restless spirits, and strange peoples. But the caravan’s sacred task drives them on, even if it takes generations. You, brave explorers, lead the way.”

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Celestial Bodies in Beelzebub’s Tales

Map of the observable universe. (Pablo Carlos Budassi/Wikimedia/CC BY 4.0)

“I shall this time begin to actualize not by following the practice of all writers, established from the remote past down to the present, of taking as the theme of their various writings the events which have supposedly taken place, or are taking place, on Earth, but shall take instead as the scale of events for my writings—the whole Universe.“ (BT p. 40)

What follows is a roughly hierarchical compilation of celestial bodies found in G.I. Gurdjieff’s magnum opus, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. Some are simply named and not described; others have extensive descriptions (for example, the Holy Planet Purgatory, Earth, the Most Holy Sun Absolute, etc.) beyond what is mentioned here.

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English Translation of Gurdjieff’s Paris Groups 1944 – Update

After further research, I have found that these meeting transcripts are considered in the public domain. And so I have published Meetings with G.I. Gurdjieff in Paris 1944, currently in hardcover and Kindle on Amazon. [Update December 11, 2022: Also now available through Barnes & Noble.]

I have renamed the book so as to not confuse the reader into thinking that Mr. Gurdjieff wrote these meeting transcripts directly—the meetings were transcribed at his direction.

Special thanks to Synda Cadervalloo and Jan Betermieux for reviewing my translation and offering suggestions for improvement.