I just bought #Shadowdark, and reading through the PDF now. And its monster listing makes the same mistake that all other #TTRPG monster manuals seem to make - they list the monsters alphabetically.
This makes no sense. When I browse monsters, I want to browse them by level - so that I can find monsters around the same level as the PCs. If I want to look them up by name, I'll use the index.
Therefore, monsters should be sorted by level, not alphabetically.
#FightMe
@enfors I get you. I personally would actually prefer both listings, because when I look for a specific monster I mostly already know its name. I do look by level though, too, sometimes.
I guess people laying out monster lists think that alphabetical sorting is more practical? Maybe they think GMs don't search by level. I don't know.
@enfors Yeah, if you do levels that's a good bet. If you don't do levels or clearly graded threats sorting things alphabetical makes a little bit more sense, but even then biome, biological order or narrative role are way better.
Just provide an index that's where the alphabetical listing should go.
@enfors I have a very easy and obvious counter-argument.
The monster listing should be in alphabetical order. That's how we remember what the name of something is and then find it easily, which is going to be the primary mechanism by which you engage with the content. However, it also needs an index by level so that you can look at the level of things in a given range, find out the names, and then go look them up. Sorting by level is going to be way less useful the majority of the time.
@lextenebris So let's say you look at the level index and find that there are 10 monsters of suitable level.
You must now flip to the first monster and check it out, then flip back to the index.
Then repeat that 9 more times, without forgetting what you had already looked up.
That would be much easier if they were all on the pages next to each other.
When you look for a monster by name, you only do it *once*. When you do it by level, you do it many times - *that* should be the easiest.
@enfors Let's say that before the game you go through the index and find monsters that look alright. You've got the time, after all. You've got a few hours. You jot down your list of things that you want to do during the session, including what monsters you want to bring to bear.
Now, during the session, you have the name of the creature you've got, but for some reason you forgot to write down a special attack, and you know it has one. Now, under time pressure, you need to find that monster while your players are looking at you in the book so that play can continue.
I want those monsters in the book in alphabetical order. The indexing for level can be slower than the sorting for finding on the fly.
@enfors Remember, thinking a thing doesn't make it so.
I know the process of putting things together and when things need to be done under stress. You are never going to be looking up monsters that are close to one another in level under stress. That's just not when it happens.
Either it's going to be while you're doing prep, in which case you have hours, or it's going to be while the PCs are doing things and you're putting something together for the next random encounter, assuming you haven't intelligently already put together random encounter tables.
Which brings up random encounters, by the way, and the fact that random encounter tables include the name of a creature and not its stats. Anytime you go to resolve a random encounter, you don't need to search by level, you're searching by the name of the thing. You want that to be the quickest, easiest, lowest friction activity.
This is just a matter of looking at the workflow and seeking the point of highest friction.
I'm not saying that an index of creatures sorted by level isn't useful, because obviously there are uses for it. It's just not the primary use of a list of creatures.
Christer Enfors
THOPAN
Blind Mapmaker
LexTenebris
Fluchtkapsel