Something has been irritating me a while about the Monster Manuals for a while and I feel compelled to voice my dislike.
The amount of white space bugs me looking through the Monster Manuals. What I'm talking about are the empty sections in a column that show up at the bottom of many pages (Examples from MM: pg 128, pg. 138, pg. 200-201. Examples from MM2: pg. 34, pg. 71, pg. 120-121).
To me, the white space is less appealing than my least favorite art pieces in the books. I would prefer almost anything to the blank space, either more art or more text.
Of course, I'm not sure how reasonable those requests would be in the end, as both would increase the costs, but I want to assume that the costs would be minimal for something that I would think that would improve later Monster Manuals.
Something has been irritating me a while about the Monster Manuals for a while and I feel compelled to voice my dislike.
The amount of white space bugs me looking through the Monster Manuals. What I'm talking about are the empty sections in a column that show up at the bottom of many pages (Examples from MM: pg 128, pg. 138, pg. 200-201. Examples from MM2: pg. 34, pg. 71, pg. 120-121).
To me, the white space is less appealing than my least favorite art pieces in the books. I would prefer almost anything to the blank space, either more art or more text.
Of course, I'm not sure how reasonable those requests would be in the end, as both would increase the costs, but I want to assume that the costs would be minimal for something that I would think that would improve later Monster Manuals.
This is a damned if you do and damned if you don't type situation. You can choose to run all the monsters continuously so that they the creatures often are split over two pages or you can deal with a certian amount of white space by insuring that each page is always devoted to one type of creature. In one instance you get a book that has white space and in the other you get a book that feels cramped and cluttered. Personally I prefer the more clean and organized feel of a book that keeps each page devoted to a certain type of monster, as was done in 2nd while others prefer the 1st and 3rd edition style monster manuals where creatures often where split over multiple pages and all space was filled.
You could always doodle in the empty spaces.
Yeah, ugh.
Splitting over multiple pages would have to fall under one of the things I would definitely dislike more than the white space.
I certainly prefer the clean and organized to breaking monsters over multiple pages, but I want to believe it is viable to fill that space economically with text or such, gaining benefits of both systems.
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You can choose to run all the monsters continuously so that they the creatures often are split over two pages or you can deal with a certian amount of white space by insuring that each page is always devoted to one type of creature.
...or you can write to fill and edit to fit. Have you seen the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary?
You could always doodle in the empty spaces.
This is strangely appealing.
While there are some people who dislike the white space because they feel they're losing out on content, properly used white space can greatly improve readability. From what I've heard, that's what they were going for.
The 4E Monster Manual is by far the best of the books - I just wish the rest of the system was as good. The white space does not bother me.
That said, I also liked the 2ed monster manual with its tightly packed pages.
...or you can write to fill and edit to fit.
That would be nice. If there's one thing the 4e MM is missing, it's some decent descriptive text for some of the monsters. I understand that WotC wanted to give the DM freedom to use the monster in any way he wanted, without being bound by canon, but some of the creatures don't even have a physical description!
My dislike of the white space doesn't come from the fact that I think I'm losing out on content. I just feel that the blocks of white space are ugly. Also I certainly believe white space is certainly a useful thing when used properly. However, I want to say that it is not being used properly in the 4e Monster Manuals.
Those bits of white space make me feel as if there were something that should have been there, but was left out. As if they reserved the space for a sidebar or another image, but that they never got around to filling.