Belief and behavior... in gaming!

Another random connection: I was talking with Mike Mearls today about some monster (what was it, Mike?), and he said he thought they were cool; he used them in an adventure once. I can't remember what the monster was, but it must have been utterly lame. And not cool, absolutely not. Oh, that's it—he was talking about the apparatus of Kwalish, not a monster. I made the leap to monsters. My observation tied in with what I was saying on Tuesday about the complicated interrelationship between belief and action, and I postulated that we (D&D players) are inclined to believe things are cool if we've used them in an adventure. I said, "Heck, I wrote a whole adventure called 'The Maze of the Morkoth'—obviously I think morkoths are cool. They've just been the victim of bad implementation." 

Steve Schubert then observed that, somehow, the spawn of Tiamat presented in Red Hand of Doom, Monster Manual IV, and War of the Dragon Queenhave not yet been recognized as cool, despite pretty high opinion within the walls of WotC RPG R&D. Hey, use them in an adventure—then you'll think they're cool, because to believe otherwise would suggest that you'd wasted all that time prepping that adventure.

Wait... what?

It was good to be back at work today, despite the load of anxiety I felt on the drive in. I had lunch with Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, Steve Schubert, and Gwen Kestrel. FIne company, big brains, good food.