Best of the Web - Monsters as Puzzles, Holmesian Dungeons, and Bootleg Spellmarket

DM David has an interesting post called Turning a Monster Into a Puzzle in which he discusses a number of early monsters that had one weakness that players had to figure out but how this failed when everyone started reading up on the monsters outside the game and thus figured the secret ahead of time. Also how play-styles changed so that retreat isn't really an option these days so if a party doesn't get it you get a TPK. 

The Monster as a puzzle is a great idea but doesn't work with a wandering monster or one tucked away in a room. It works much better with a big monster that the players can hear rumors about ahead of time, one in which they can flee if their ideas don't work, one that is unique so that a Lore check won't give away the riddle. This sort of thing is the bread and butter of Lamentations of the Flame Princess that encourages every monster to be unique.

Blood of Prokoppius has a post called Towards a Holmesian Dungeon that I found interesting. Especially the large rooms, I never really noticed that. Modern dungeons are filled with tiny rooms. Perhaps tiny rooms are more realistic for underground construction, perhaps B2 set the pattern, perhaps that's because of the sizes of Dungeon Tiles.

Goodberry Monthly has a post called Bootleg Spell Market. The idea is nice and evocative, I imagine a small business in the rear of an apothecary that normally sells fake love potions and such. The rear sells real potions and scrolls and caters to the select few. Something a lot smaller than Diagon alley in the Harry Potter books. All that is nice, but the real gold in the blog post is the "What Could Possibly Go Wrong" column in which provides quirks to common spells. It reminds me of the Unique Spellcasting fumbles in Dungeon Crawl Classics.

I'd love to see a crowd sourced version of the 5E spellbook that provided info for each spell, this sort of thing, as well as interesting fumbles.