Keep It Simple Sorcerer
So: "Just use a bear". When in a pinch, a non-existent monster profile works through the illusion of the GM screen, the skill of improvised description, and effective portrayal of the monster's behavior. But, now you have enough time to prep. You're not pulling your hair out. You just want to keep it simple for the sake of expediency at the table. Or perhaps you're writing your own content. A module, a one page dungeon, etc. How do you keep your content tight and relevant? Why don't we work through it?
Why don't we do it twice? Lets take a look at the orc, From the current edition, and from a slightly weirder version of the classic roleplaying game, and see how we can make the profile utilitarian but still provide the necessary information. This will of course be “violating” the style guides for these games, but that's not the point, the point is to make them useful during play; for quick reference; for readability.
As a GM you may eventually find the descriptive body of a Monster’s profile more usable than their combat details as you improve at prep and creating your own content. The lore, behaviors and other details in the prose can inspire you and help you flesh out your setting, whether it be by simply adapting some portion of the writings, or going with a twist or opposite take from the narratives presented. Inspiration is more likely to come from there than the numbers. These details can help you run the monsters far better than a string of numbers, but that's an article for another time.
Lighten the Load
Okay, we're going to start with a 5e orc:
Lots of info here, and while visually apposite, for 90% of what a monster is used for, completely pointless. (Lifted from DnD Beyond, Basic Rules pg 147)
Most creatures are Medium, so one could argue that UNLESS a creature ISN'T medium, size doesn't need to be pointed out, and could be considered a special trait listed on larger or smaller creatures. Same with species type (Humanoid), especially if such things provide immunities.
Making all Orcs chaotic evil gets into weird moral and philosophical areas about the meaning of evil. For a game though, its easier for adventurers to go cutting down an entire tribe if they can be SURE that they're all evil, even the babies. So, as all the alignments can be given a shorthand we can keep it, but it certainly doesn't need a row all to itself. It could be placed in small font beside the name, or in-line with another stat. In either case, that first line can be removed.
Next section. What is all that wasted space on the right? Why is "Armor Class" and "Hit Points" written out? AC and HP truncates those sections nicely. Including their Hit Dice is great, as it also gives a general "level" of the creature. So why don't we combine HP and HD into a single stat? Check out the weapon damage in column 2; Greataxe deals 9 (1d12+3) damage. We can do the same format with HP and HD. HP 15 (2d8+6) or HD 2d8+6 (15). The decision of which to use is debatable. HD is less important in 5e, so we can stick with HP on the outside.
As before, unless Speed is altered, Is 30ft not the assumed speed for everything? Bye speed. For monsters with different speeds, treat it as a special ability and put it near the bottom.
Okay, here's the bugbear...err, orcbear... for a lot of you out there. Yeet those Ability scores and just keep the Modifiers. This profile is for a generic mook. They have 15 HP and are going to die in two swings. Even the greater monster profiles aren't going to last long enough that a GM is going to want to track individual points of an ability score. Modifiers to rolls? sure. Keep it simple for your self both during play and in your notes. This makes that whole section half as wide as it currently is. That proficiency bonus can fit in there with the other combat info. In 5e, that's relevant most of the time, don't forget it by having it roll on to column two.
Why are skills listed in the first column for a monster? Or at all? Just use their raw modifiers, and decide on the fly if they apply their proficiency bonus or not. You're a big, smart GM, you can figure out if an Orc is diplomatic; stealthy; perceptive; or not. A Monster’s Senses are relevant for figuring out ambushes during dungeon crawling, so arguably these should be higher up, like by where speed used to be?
Okay, we've worked through column 1. Lets see what it looks like so far:
Orc - CE
AC 13 (Hide), HP 15 (2d8+6), Prof +2
Perception 10, Darkvision 60ft
STR +3, DEX +1, CON +3,
INT -2, WIS 0, CHA 0
Okay, half a monster profile, with plenty of space to work. Lets look at column two. Refresh time so we don't have to scroll up:
Languages: This sort of information is more relevant in roleplaying and not quick reference during combat. It also can be easily adjudicated what languages a particular monster speaks. Especially if the GM WANTS the monster to speak it. YEET.
Challenge rating is a lie, and it’s okay for an encounter to be unbalanced. This encourages smart play, tactics, and if need be, cowardice; but that's a different article. XP can be useful, but one could also argue that quantifying the life of a creature in a currency that players/characters desire is weird.
Encounters should reward XP regardless of how they are overcome, not the direct death of monsters. We can also talk about simple XP calculation in another article. If you need to, use a creature's HD as a guideline for XP rewards. Proficiency bonus is already over in column 1, so that leaves a monster's traits and their attacks.
WotC has learned rule writing from their years of MTG competitive play. Where players seek loopholes in rules to exploit. RPGs shouldn't be about competition, meta or balancing rules. RPG Rules are tools, intended to help the GM adjudicate outcomes and generate content. “Tools, not Rules”.
So these verbose carefully worded monster traits can be truncated with the expectation that those using them are intelligent enough not to exploit or use them in an antagonistic fashion.
Aggressive - As a bonus action, the orc can move up to its speed towards a hostile creature that it can see.
Compared to…
Aggressive - Can Move as a Bonus action toward a visible hostile creature.
It is assumed no one can move further than their speed as part of an action unless some special effect changes that. Why mention "up to speed"? would anyone think they are FORCED to move their full speed? That orc just gonna run right past the target? RPGs are not card games.
Okay last two; Actions could obviously include a spell list or all of 5e's legendary or lair actions, but for the Orc we just have two weapons. they both are listed as Melee, but then also list a Reach of 5ft. More redundancy for the exploitation crowd. Lets clean these up:
Greataxe - Melee Weapon, +5 Hit, 9 (d12+3) dmg slash
Javelin - Melee/Thrown Weapon, 30/120ft, +5 Hit, 6 (d6+3) dmg pierce
Since the Javelin is a THROWN weapon, not simply a bow/gun/blow dart, etc. It is relevant that Strength affects this weapon. The range should also be up near the fact it is thrown. Then we see the hit bonus, 5e has the streamlined damage, not a terrible idea, followed by the rolled damage. Damage type I have placed after and shortened as it is of less priority.
So now we've run through the whole profile, let’s do some last moment tweaks:
Orc - CE
AC 13 (Hide), HP 15 (2d8+6), Prof +2, Perception 10, Darkvision 60ft
STR +3, DEX +1, CON +3, INT -2, WIS 0, CHA 0
Greataxe Melee Weapon , +5 Hit, 9 (d12+3) dmg slash
Javelin Melee/Thrown Weapon, 30/120ft, +5 Hit, 6 (d6+3) dmg pierce
Aggressive Can Move as a Bonus action toward a visible hostile creature.
Our lil Orc is now a single column, a larger font, and still has all the info a GM would need to run it at the table. Using some shorthand that makes sense to you (DV for darkvision, Per for Perception, M Wp for melee weapon) and you'll be slapping two monsters on an index card for your encounters, and no longer needing to crack open a book or swap tabs on your browser.
One interesting thing of note that remains an issue with the 5e profile, is an inconsistent positioning of values. Despite the rigidity and the....MTG of it all, 5e cannot seem to decide if numbers belong before or after their descriptor. It is AC 13, but +5 to hit. HP 15, but d6 slashing damage... Arguably a curiosity for most readers, but could provide readability issues for some.
Which brings us to the Gonzo in the room…
I didn't have to share the full image of this piggy boy from pg 423 of Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I did. Look at his precious snoot and tell me you don't want to boop it. You'd be lying. Do you think he has a curly tail? He does now. In your mind.
None of that matters though. We have a profile to compress. You'll note that compared to 5e, the DCC Orc is already pretty crunched (and all the descriptors are consistently BEFORE the values). But I think we can crunch more. WE CAN GO FURTHER.
The Orc profile has an Init, an unarmed attack, or a weapon of the GMs choice at +1 to hit, AC 11 + armor of the GMs choice, Their HD is 1d8+1, Move of 30', One action at a d20, +2 to Fort Saves and -1 to Will. Like 5e Orcs, they are Chaotic. DCC only has one axis of alignment, so Good/Evil is not here.
The text block below then goes into some brief background description. Near the bottom it provides variant profile info for a warboss, a witch doctor, and "Prime orcs". A fun challenge. Lets see if we can combine a Base Orc and three variants into a single profile.
While the profile is nicely succinct, it is also not very readable. Striking the right balance is important at the table. But again, lets look for some redundancy first. DCC strips out almost all miniature play, with little focus on 5' melee range, square grids, or the like. So, we can assume, unless an action HAS a range value, it is melee. Additionally, A GM can probably get a combined note about giving an Orc a weapon and/or armor, rather than stating both separately. So we can adjust the first section thusly:
Orc: Init +1; ATK +1, Claw (d4); AC 11; Equipment;
Now a GM knows that an Orc adds +1 to attacks, adds nothing to damage, adds 1 to their AC, and commonly uses equipment. If a monster has different bonuses to ranged and melee, first of all, UGH. Second of all, find a different way to make that difference stand out. Use behavior, damage, or special traits on attacks to make one the weaker/superior option for the monster. If it truly comes down to accuracy, change the die size. Players are more likely to notice you rolling a different die (For DCC, You ARE rolling in plain sight....right?) than math-ing out the particular modifiers.
NEXT! - Lets crib from 5e a little by putting HP and HD in the profile. Average of the HD "rounded up"; 5, plus 1; [ HD d8+1 (6) ] Don't even need to put HP in there. HD is used quite often in DCC. Critical Hits, Turn Unholy, Healing, etc. Having HD up front is fine, but we could easily flip it with HP 6 (d8+1) instead.
Now, as with 5e, Move doesn't need to be stated unless it is different, but MV 30' is shorter than "Speed 30ft.", so if it changes, putting it back in won't affect the profile drastically. Same applies to Action dice. If the die size is different, or if the monster has more, put it in. Otherwise assume a d20.
Lastly, some quick clean up. When you have Fort, Ref, Will all next to each other, what mechanic are we referring to? Saves. We don't need SV Fort, Ref, Will. The same is true for alignment. move that to the front, put it in parenthesis after the name:
Orc: [C] Init +1; ATK +1, Claw (d4); AC 11; Equip; HD d8+1 (6); Fort +2, Ref 0, Will -1
A Monster, all on a single line. To make it look more interesting we could organize it in different ways:
Orc [C] HD d8+1 (6); AC 11
ATK +1, Claw (d4); Equip
Init +1; Fort +2, Ref 0, Will -1;
Put the HP and AC up by the name, where they're directly relevant to one another. Put Attacks and any special traits related to them in the next row. Finally, other less often used modifiers in the last row. The best use of each is dependent on where you put them. In an indie zine, the long sentence style string will fit wherever you need it in the middle of a module. The more table/chart style is more for an appendix or on a GM's prepped index cards during a session.
Orc [C] HD d8+1 (6); AC 11; ATK +1, Claw (d4); Equip; Init +1; Fort +2, Ref 0, Will -1
Boss HD 4d8+4 (24); ATK +4
Witch Doctor HD 2d8 (10); Cleric Spells 1st +d4, 2nd +d3-1, Spell Check +3
Prime Orc HD 3d8+3 (18); ATK +3, Claw (d4+3)
With the variants, we can assume anything not restated is the same as the core line. The Boss, Witch Doctor, and Prime Orc are all chaotic, AC 11, can equip items, have an Initiative of +1, etc. Of course, the DCC profile was never excessive, but extracting the useful info from the description block and converting to additional profile information was utility gained.
Now you can start distilling your expansive selection of monstrous manuals, fiendish folios, creature collections, and bestial bestiaries down until you can fit it in your GM go-bag. Or a USB drive. Or that Cloud that keeps yelling that you're out of Gigabytes.
(Note - This originally was posted on my wordpress blog paired with images meant to compliment the text, those were lost in transition to blogspot. I was able to recover the relevant Monster Profiles but the rest remain lost. My apologies, I hope the context remains understandable.)
Further Reading
- Dungeon Crawl Classics - I bounced off this twice reading through it. This game is like ice cream and french fries. It shouldn't work but it does. It leans heavy into the goofy shit from 60s-80s psychadelic fantasy, and twists Basic/Expert and d20 together until they're unrecognizable. Which somehow ends up fun and simple. But the best part for our current topic is the sheer amount of wonderful tables in this book. Start cribbing the tables when you want to create your own monsters for your games, either rolled on to create ones by random chance, or used to craft something more thoughtful.
- Monstrous Compendium (2e) - If you feel the need for a tome in hand, I recommend embracing the Compendium style of AD&D 2e. Instead of dozens of splat books or hardcovers, hole-punched packs were released intended to go into a single (or multiple) binders for easy sorting and rearranging (Of course, they released lots of splat books too. TSR couldn't help themselves). With a binder and printouts of digital versions of manuals, you can easily bring what you want. Just note that The Monstrous Compendium was designed for 3 or 4 ring binders, and I highly recommend using 4s to reduce the stress on your pages.
- DnD Beyond - The website is kind of a mess, but at least 5e is a gateway game into the hobby, and the basic rules are free on the site. Of course, the basic rules of sooo many games are free. I should have a long article at some point talking about alternatives options for....many reasons. Whatever you do, don't subscribe, download whatever you buy. As far as digital storefronts are considered, they don't believe you own anything, so keep it on your hard drive for safekeeping.
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