Talk:List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters

Article Cleanup post multiple deletion attempts 2019
I'd like to bring this back up, since we've just had to defend this article from two separate deletion attempts. Can anyone suggest anything to make the article more resistant to the (inevitable) next one? I'd like to lead off with:
 * remove the page number column entirely. I don't think it's necessary for the most part, a lot of the columns are left empty anyway, and it'll help reduce the overall byte volume of the article.
 * clean up any redlinks, most of which go to the other list articles which were deleted.
 * check any descriptions present and if necessary reduce them to a single sentence; this should proof us further against accusations of copyright violation.

Any other ideas?Vulcan&#39;s Forge (talk) 23:56, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I do have some other ideas what to do here, but to be honest at the moment (and since I don't think anyone's going to give a third try in the next month or two), I am going to focus on other things for now. Unless the current AFD party continues on for some time to come, I'd like to revisit this when things die down a bit. BOZ (talk) 04:23, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * And certainly not when we have people with the kind of overhelming opinions like I am seeing at the Yugoloth AFD. Yikes. BOZ (talk) 14:13, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that forward! By the way, there is also a merge discussion going on about the template used here. More ideas from my side:
 * Making more blue links to show that AD&D monsters are inspired by many sources which are notable. (That's what I have started to do.)
 * Introducing secondary sources to individual monsters where they exist. The Ashgate Encyclopedia... and Heroic Worlds at least should provide a few ones, and I wonder what others there might be
 * Alphabetizing? The big one. Would it improve the page if it was restructured to list the monsters alphabetically? Ideally with the possibility to also sort them according to sources. That was suggested by one deletionist, though I am a bit in doubt if that would change anyones mind. It is also a lot of work. So I am not sure if it is worth it. Daranios (talk) 13:17, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

The template merge process has broken the inclusion of the template on this page. It's not the merge itself, but the inclusion of the warning for each use of a heavily-used template. The template software fails to insert after the Al-Mi'raj entry. This breaks any other templates as well, including the References template. If you edit the full page you'll get a warning about template entry failure during preview.

I've managed to remove a few redlinks in the first section of the page. I've also removed a useless infobox. There are at least two other infoboxen nested somewhere on the page which may have useful linking information (Sirene and Pech, I think); they should be removed as well but with the linkage information preserved.

Given the unfortunate snappy tone of the merge discussion, I strongly recommend we remove the "page" column from the template as unnecessary.

I think I'd lean against alphabetizing the entire page. I like the breakdown by book and I think it makes things easier to find. I would like to see some kind of "expand all" for either then entire page or each block though, if that's possible.Vulcan&#39;s Forge (talk) 17:30, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree 100% on starting by including as many secondary sources as possible. It would not be a ton of work to mine Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons for sources on monsters. The 1E monsters list AFD has a bunch of sources mentioned by Hobit that I did not look at, so those may be useful too. Other considerations for improving this page are worth looking into, but the sourcing issue is easily the most important thing and should help with the remaining existing monster articles too if they are added there. BOZ (talk) 18:47, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Having an "expand all" button would be really great for me, too, as searching the page is for something is problematic as it is now. Daranios (talk) 20:59, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding this revert: While this source is secondary, it appears to be an undergraduate paper which cites primary sources. Since this isn't a reliable source, this kind of thing probably does more harm than good. Weak sources will give the misleading the appearance of WP:NOTEBOMBing, and are not actually usable for factual claims. Unless I missed it, p. 29 is where this specific point is mentioned. This claim is supported by Dragon Magazine #154. This is not an independent source. Since there are many good academic sources about this specific point, I've added one (ISBN 9780520960565) which includes some details.
 * Still, sources about the larger history of the game do not justify the level of extensive detail here, so it doesn't address the underlying issues with these articles. Grayfell (talk) 22:33, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the better source. Daranios (talk) 16:20, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Another big but not straightforward idea: The Ashgate Encyclopedia... states that AD&D monsters are adapted from many sources, mythology, fiction, etc. This is basically made clear by most of the blue links (in planning) for anyone willing to look. However, if those critical of this list want secondary sources for many monsters, outright stating the inspiration could be a way. I kind of tend to keep this as an idea if we cannot forestall another deletion discussion by other means, but what do you think? If we wanted to include the inspiration, what would be the best way to go about it?
 * Additionally, what would be the best way to add such information to individual monster articles such as they are? I think only in rare cases will there be a source directly saying "The Harpy (Dungeons & Dragons) is inspired by the harpy of Greek mythology." Should we simply find a source describing the inspiration and let it stand on its own, the description and name identity making it clear (I have tried this at Korred (Dungeons & Dragons). Or should we add the quotation from The Ashgate Encyclopedia? Or...? Daranios (talk) 20:07, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I would say we should include a note for that somewhere in the introduction, but unless it mentions the individual monster by name I would not recommend using that citation over and over again in the article. BOZ (talk) 20:27, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

"Brass is the worst"! LOL, good catch. BOZ (talk) 13:43, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * About the collapsability: I did not see a combination yet, to uncollapse/collapse everything, which would be great. As MOS:SCROLL seems to suggest that uncollapsed as default setting is preferred, and I personally think uncollapsed would help with the search function, I would change the default setting. - That would be at the expense of an easy overview, though. Are there objections?
 * One could discuss if it would make sense to include headings for all the monster books to make everything accessible from the table of contents. Are there opinions? Daranios (talk) 12:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

I decided not to redirect Githyanki or Gnoll to this list for now, as I have done with most that get the PROD treatment. By the way, I think I figured out how to best handle the D&D monster list; let me see if I can get my thoughts together on that in a few hours. BOZ (talk) 17:25, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Busy day yesterday! I will try to get my thoughts together today. I am leaving Half-orc unmerged in addition to the above for now. BOZ (talk) 13:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Same thing above with the PROD on Displacer beast. BOZ (talk) 12:57, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Secondary Sources to Include
As I am loosing a bit the overview of what's still to do about our major issue, adding secondary sources, I would like to make a list. Please feel free to add and update. Daranios (talk) 12:41, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Everything that's in Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons
 * Checking existing D&D monster articles for useable sources
 * Checking remaining redirects for useable sources - Done by
 * - Done (except if something more hides in other articles). Daranios (talk) 21:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Of Dice and Men - Done everything monster-related I could find - Daranios (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * - Done - Daranios (talk) 12:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * - Done - Daranios (talk) 12:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * - Is there more than the alignment info for chromatic and metallic dragons?
 * Dungeons & Dragons Arts and Arcana (about its independence compare Articles for deletion/Displacer beast)
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 22:22, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Fannon, Sean Patrick. The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, 2nd Edition. Obsidian Studios, 1999. ISBN 0-9674429-0-7
 * Appendix N
 * Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground (p. 44 in the little of preview I could see is already interesting)
 * - about some PC races
 * - Case study about the kobold, but a few other snippets here and there
 * Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies - Seems to exist for 3rd and 4th edition, but presumably can still help with monster descriptions
 * Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture - Done what I could see in Google preview Daranios (talk) 22:22, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
 * 20-sided monsters: The Adaptation of Greek Mythology to Dungeons and Dragons. William S. Duffy unpublished paper from CAMWS 2018 Organized Panels and Workshops - Done Daranios (talk) 22:22, 31 July 2021 (UTC) - The sources of that paper might be interesting, too!
 * Dungeons and Drawings: An Illustrated Compendium of Creatures''
 * - Had a note about Golem, is there more?
 * Sources for more monsters based on plastic toys
 * Are there monsters in the sources listed in Articles for deletion/Outer Plane? - Done all online sources. Daranios (talk) 21:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
 * - What's in the computer games?
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 18:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * rpg.net Monstrous Compendium review
 * Various GameSpy articles on D&D (video games) - maybe there is something there
 * The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons by GameSpy - Checked all parts and done. Daranios (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Dueñas, Medardo Landon Maza. "Monsters Manual de D&D: democratización mitológica." LIBRO DE MEMORIAS 4: 19.
 * Littman, Greg. "Sympathy for the devils." The Philosophers' Magazine 65 (2014): 46-53.
 * The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, p. 437 (and following?)
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 11:59, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The Dumbest Dungeons & Dragons Monsters Ever (And How To Use Them) by the Escapist
 * There and back again: Nostalgia, art, and ideology in old-school dungeons and dragons
 * La mythologie nordique dans Donjons & Dragons Entre réception et stéréotypes - Done Daranios (talk) 14:31, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Laurent Di Filippo, « Le zombie des jeux de rôle. Au croisement des traditions haïtiennes, germanoscandinaves et chrétiennes », communication présentée lors de la journée d’étude « Zombie : mythe ou réalité ? » organisée lors du festival Ludinam, Besançon, France, 26 mai 2017.
 * - Focussed on 5th edition, but also looks to history, so probably has useful bits
 * (Aboleth! and some)
 * Fantastic Creatures in Mythology and Folklore
 * Mapping our Digital Menagerie : a Monster Manual for the Megadungeon - D&D monsters as a metaphor for creature names in digital space; not sure if there is anything, needs a closer look
 * Playing with power: The authorial consequences of roleplaying games
 * Wargamer.com is a reliable source and has a section dedicated to D&D, mostly plot summary and mostly 5th edition, still potentially usefull
 * D&D Anatomy: 5 Facts You Should Know About Mind Flayers
 * D&D Anatomy articles by CBR
 * All those monster lists on web magazines like, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (blog, but ENNIE-winning one), , , , , ...
 * D&D Monster spotlights by Bell of Lost Souls - is that site reasonably usable?
 * - not sure about independence, but surely interesting
 * Another non-independent secondary source by DiTerlizzi, but could be interesting for monster development within 2nd edition
 * - Not independent, but lists the creators of several monsters
 * All the third-party role-playing game magazines (promising articles are referenced at Monstrous Compendium and Monster Manual; see also User:BOZ/Game magazine index)
 * Fictional Reality online magazine archived here
 * The Space Gamer, archived here, see also User:BOZ/Space Gamer for a list of reviews
 * Casus Belli, archived here, see also User:BOZ/Casus Belli for a list of reviews
 * Backstab, French RPG magazine available in that internet archive starting with no. 1 here
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 19:18, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 16:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If it helps, I have a listing of reviews at User:BOZ/Backstab. BOZ (talk) 19:43, 30 November 2021 (UTC) - Nice, thanks BOZ! I'll have a look there what I can find for AD&D 2nd edition in the long run. Daranios (talk) 20:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC) - And here are some more issues available: . Daranios (talk) 10:37, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Checked numbers 1-10, 12, 14-15, 19, 24. Daranios (talk) 10:37, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * All the third-party role-playing game magazines (promising articles are referenced at Monstrous Compendium and Monster Manual; see also User:BOZ/Game magazine index)
 * Fictional Reality online magazine archived here
 * The Space Gamer, archived here, see also User:BOZ/Space Gamer for a list of reviews
 * Casus Belli, archived here, see also User:BOZ/Casus Belli for a list of reviews
 * Backstab, French RPG magazine available in that internet archive starting with no. 1 here
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 19:18, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * - Done Daranios (talk) 16:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If it helps, I have a listing of reviews at User:BOZ/Backstab. BOZ (talk) 19:43, 30 November 2021 (UTC) - Nice, thanks BOZ! I'll have a look there what I can find for AD&D 2nd edition in the long run. Daranios (talk) 20:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC) - And here are some more issues available: . Daranios (talk) 10:37, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Checked numbers 1-10, 12, 14-15, 19, 24. Daranios (talk) 10:37, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Noting this source here in case it is useful on other articles: Also noting that there is a merge discussion on Lich (Dungeons & Dragons), and that I have done a bunch of work on Draft:List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters with more to do on other lists next week. :) BOZ (talk) 13:02, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I copied the Juliette Wood source to the hippgriff and manticore redirected articles, and to the other monster list drafts. :) BOZ (talk) 12:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Have you gone through all the reviews and sources listed on Volo's Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse to see if there is anything useful for any of these monsters? BOZ (talk) 21:12, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Good idea, no, I didn't. The only one I did was the one preview of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons I stumbled upon. Daranios (talk) 10:00, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Cool, I hope something useful comes out of those. :) BOZ (talk) 12:49, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Sources present at Volo's Guide to Monsters article: Done. Daranios (talk) 10:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

New strategy
OK, to Vulcan's Forge and Daranios and any other interested parties... I have given a lot of consideration on how to handle the monster list question over the last few months, and I think I have a solution. It will not solve everything that ails the lists that we had, and you will never satisfy those who only want deletion, but I think I have come up with the best case scenario to answer as many of the criticisms as possible while still having a list, and I outlined my ideas below.

1. Rather than a list by edition (and since most of the edition lists were deleted, one more was redirected, and it makes little sense to have this as the only one), we will have one single list. To preserve the original work of the individual lists, it will be a list by edition, but we will only least each creature once, starting with its first appearance. So for example, anything that first appeared in the 1974 white box would appear there. Anything that first appeared in the 1977 Monster Manual will be there, anything that first appeared in the 2E Monstrous Compendium or Monstrous Manual will be there, the 3E Monster Manual, etc. This will preserve a sense of publication history, I think, and allow the current tables to be used as they are instead of having to modify them as we would need to do if we were going to reconfigure them alphabetically.

2. The list will be limited, but allow for expansion. We will not generally be listing normal animals for example, or every single instance of when a different dinosaur was added to the game, or separate entries for every single variant or subtype that appeared later, or other minutiae. Most of the giant animals can also be skipped, with the exception perhaps of giant eagles or giant lynxes which are intelligent and not simply oversized creatures. Importantly, this does not mean creatures will need to be deleted from the page. Using brackets like any creature can be hidden from appearing on the page, which I demonstrate below.

As you can see, that generates a table where the "commented out" creatures do not appear:

This method should make it easy to add or remove creatures from the list by simply adding or restoring the brackets, and makes it unnecessary to permanently remove any entries.

As far as which creatures to include in the list then, for starters I have seen in multiple AFDs last year that even the people pushing for deletion would have been fine with seeing anything with at least one secondary source on the list. As to which sources are best to allow inclusion, that is debatable. I also think we have some wiggle room to include anything for which it seems likely that there could be sources in existence. I personally favor inclusion rather than exclusion, but I also agree it is unnecessary to document every single creature that ever appeared (most, perhaps, but not all).

That said, I don't think it is necessary to define or even discuss here all the parameters on what creatures to include; if you agree that my plan is a good one, what I will do is set up a draft page to work on, merge all of the old lists together and this one as well, and then we can work out exactly what to do as we go? Tell me what you think. BOZ (talk) 19:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Wow, a big plan and I get so many thoughts
 * We have to improve the site so not to have it deleted, and I am happy about any idea that get's us the other lists back. And a list of monsters in D&D will certainly be easier to defend than a 2nd edition list alone. Indeed its not great to have only one edition list, though one point for it is that 2nd edition has the most monsters of any edition. On the other hand I am sad about all content we have to excise for that. I personally use it check what creatures appeared where, and it's now near-complete for 2nd edition and reducing it will limit its usefullness in that regard, even if it's excluding animals and such.
 * About excluding animals: One of the points of critique in the deletion discussion was that there are so few blue links to make this list worthwhile. I have started linking to the underlying creatures, not only those which have a specific D&D article to show that there are indeed many. Not having the animals would weaken that point.
 * On the other hand, if we generally limit the list to anything that (potentially) has a secondary source, we probably don't need that point. But even with The Monsters Know What They're Doing covering a lot, we would still loose a big portion in that case, however.
 * I am all for the plan to only show the creature when it first appears and avoid all the duplication. Would we keep or get rid of the page numbers, then? Would we keep the variants in general? (Again, I would be sorry about anything that has to go.)
 * Generally I am happy if we can keep content for future use by commenting stuff out. I am concerned about the size of the list, though. If we throw out the duplicates, that helps of course, but within this list this will mainly be the Monstrous Manual and part of the Planescape content. On the other hand we will import all monsters not appearing in 2nd edition (and all the respective books). And, as could already be seen in the last weeks, adding all the secondary sources will significantly increase size. So overall I expect the planned list to be bigger than it is now, except if we delete quite a bit. Can the size still be handled?
 * One other way to help with size might be shortcuts or notes for the different books in the "Other appearances" section, but I don't know how far that would get us and in what way it would still be clear enough to the reader.
 * So how much can be saved? Within the framework of Wikipedia's rules I think it's a great plan, if we have to give that much ground in order to save the list. The part that we have to cut stuff at all is what I have come to around to emotionally. Daranios (talk) 21:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

On the bright side, the edit history of the 1E and 2E edition monster lists will still be intact, so you can always go back and check that, plus under my plan you can always click "edit" under a particular section to see everything published in a particular book, it will just be commented out for easy access. I don't think a list containing every appearance of every monster in every book will last long, as it will be descended upon rabidly like raw meat and destroyed utterly. :o

I won't presume to exclude anything without discussing it first, so the examples I brought up above are not set in stone; in fact, that's not even any kind of formal proposal. :)  In fact, I will probably just merge all the lists together and leave it up to the discretion of others to figure out which creatures to leave out.  Not leaving anything out will ultimately lead to a renewed negative reaction (although that may be truly unavoidable, thus is always the risk when trying to appease someone hostile to what you are trying to do).

I plan to leave it a book-by-book list, so I think keeping the page #s would still be helpful. So, just to make up random numbers, you might have 30 from the white box, 20 from Greyhawk, 20 from Blackmoor, 50 from the 1E Monster Manual, 50 from Fiend Folio, etc... Does that make sense?

Size wise I actually expect the eventual list may wind up being even smaller than the current list. Keep in mind that there is a lot of repetition in this list between the Monstrous Compendium entries to the Monstrous Manual, for example, and more like that. BOZ (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2020 (UTC)


 * If you think the size is manageable, count me in. Then the criteria which monsters, for the time being, to include becomes central next. I would still like to see if this list of 2nd edition monsters as it is can be kept, too, I still have a very small hope for that. I will be adding more links here towards that goal. Daranios (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough - when this new list is ready to be published, I will not redirect this list there, but rather see if we can maintain the two as separate lists. I am sure that is likely to be challenged, but we will leave that up to the bitter partisans I suppose. ;) BOZ (talk) 16:11, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Man, I had every intention of starting this today but I was far busier than expected and I forgot. :( Oh well, I left myself a note to make sure to do it next week. :) BOZ (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, so I finally started Draft:List of Dungeons & Dragons monsters today! The draft page is huge, but of course the goal is to decrease its size substantially by "merging" upward. Keep in mind my ideas above about commenting out creatures rather than deleting them, and my ideas on how each creature should only appear on the list once by first appearance, with all other appearances listed in the column for listing that sort of thing, and merging all citations into a single entry. I gave suggestions on what sort of creatures can probably be omitted altogether, but at this point I turn the draft fully over to Daranios and any other interested users to use whatever discretion they see best to make the best possible version of this list. Let me know when you think it is ready to publish as an article, and I will take a look and move it over. BOZ (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Wow, it's so big! And beautiful to have everything together. I am a bit daunted by the work ahead and how to make it so that it will not be deleted and in vain. Hmm, so I have a number of things I would like to discuss, where would be the best place, here, or at Draft talk:List of Dungeons & Dragons monsters or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons? Daranios (talk) 20:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If you just want to talk about them with me you can do that here or on the draft talk page, but if you want to involve other people then you can do that at the WikiProject talk page. BOZ (talk) 21:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll do that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons, as soon as I get around to it, and would like to quote your outline - I hope that's ok. Daranios (talk) 12:34, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, yes, make the plans clear. Expect significant pushback if there are any responses at all, but at least you will get honest feedback. BOZ (talk) 12:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

In the past time I had focussed on the slow process of adding secondary sources, but in light of the recent discussion I am thinking of doing starting with small steps towards the other suggestions. Is it ok for you that I have removed the page numbers? Otherwise I am thinking about removing duplicates within the 2nd edition list after all, to really see how much leeway that would give us to incorporate other editions without increasing size too much. Currently, supplements containing monsters are divided from monster books independent of publication date. I'd thought to keep it that way, but still preserve the earliest publication entry. And I guess I would not added the Monstrous Manual under the "Other appearances" of Monstrous Compendium Volume One and Two to save space, as that would appear in all entries. Is that fine? Other comments? Another idea of mine is to replace the "Other appearances" entries with footnotes to save (a bit of) space. Not sure if that would be an improvement. Daranios (talk) 11:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with removing the page numbers, I'm not sure why we included those in the first place other than ease for the reader, but it was probably not really needed anyway. Rather than removing entries, one way of saving space on duplicated entries would be to only include the names and have everything else as a footnote (such as for Beholder, you would have all their information under their first appearance in the MC, and then for the MM it would be like "as per above, plus variants" or something like that). I'd say don't stop finding secondary sources. :) BOZ (talk) 11:08, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Here I have to say that I find looking at duplicates while adding secondary source commentary inconvenient myself. That would be solved by a generic "per above", but then that would safe only a little space. And I believe if there's any chance of merging with other editions in the future we should safe all the space we can, i.e. remove duplicates entirely. I would try to preserve any variants which are not duplicates, though. Minor point here would be, if the Monstrous Manual has a duplicate entry with duplicate but also new variants, would we only list the new variants? I'd say yes but have no strong opinion on this sub-question. Daranios (talk) 10:24, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Right, so in the beholder example, we would essentially just note that the standard beholder appears again, and then note the variants. For all of the reprinted monsters that had no new information, would you just remove their entries but somehow list them elsewhere in the section? Like "also featured reprints of chimera, manticore, unicorn..." in a box or something? I wouldn't want someone coming away thinking "If the Monstrous Manual was 300 pages, why does it only have 50 monsters in it?" :) BOZ (talk) 11:07, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, the latter is indeed an issue in the proposed/my approach. The suggested box would help, but personally I would still somewhat prefer to completely remove the duplicates. This would in my view be one step away from the criticism that this is more a monster book list than a monster list. My idea to work against confusion, I'd like to make a note at the beginning (like "Monsters published multiple times in this edition are only listed in their earliest appearance."), and again at those books which are mostly affected: Monstrous Manual ("The Monstrous Manual compiled all of the monsters from Monstrous Compendium Volumes One and Two, as well as many creatures from subsequent volumes, and revised, updated, and in some cases condensed the entries; these are not repeated here."), Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix ("... Many of them were republished from Monstrous Compendium – Outer Planes Appendix and are not repeated here") and Annuals (not yet sure how to best phrase that). Aside from the Monstrous Manual within MC Volumes 1 and 2, I would also like to make sure that the source of the removed duplicate does appear in the "Other appearances" of the remaining entry. So if someone cares and looks at that, they will know. Thoughts?
 * Oh yeah, and now that the lists have another respite from deletion I am planning to continue with secondary sources as time permits. Daranios (talk) 14:15, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I get what you're saying now. Since you are, and have long been, the main person caretaking this list page, I will leave it up to your judgement on the best course of action. :)
 * I do know that some people, myself included, would love to look at each section for each book and see a full list of what was in each book; I am wondering if there is some way to preserve this somewhere (on the talk page maybe?) while still saving space on the article and avoiding what some people see as serving solely as a table of contents. As you do this here, one bit of caution, make sure before you remove any sourced text from each entry that everything is included in the first mention; I have seen here or there where one source is included in a second or third mention but not in the first appearance on the page! We don't want to lose anything that way.
 * That said, if your approach is adopted wholesale it may eliminate the need for lists-by-edition while also allowing us to preserve a full list of all monsters from every edition. Something to consider. :) Really, the only reason that the by-edition lists existed in the first place was so we could have everything included without excluding everything. This is more of a long-term goal, I think, than something that needs to be done immediately. Maybe something for next year, or possibly even later.
 * The search for sources is paramount, let me not keep you from it. :) BOZ (talk) 14:26, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Speaking of long-term goals, I still have the crazy notion to make this an alphabetical table. But if this is feasible and a good idea is a discussion for the future. I plan to check so that I don't loose commentary in removal of duplicates. We will still have the history for having a complete picture with the duplicates, but I don't know the best place to link it except here:
 * List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters, full with duplicates as well as full list
 * User:Vaticidalprophet/List of Dungeons & Dragons monsters. Daranios (talk) 10:08, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * In case we need to go back and reference it at some point, here is the last version of the full list with all duplicates: BOZ (talk) 11:13, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Are you finished finished?? :) I wanted to know that because I periodically go through this article and copy the independent sources to the other drafts. It's going to be a challenge this time with everything being moved around, but when I have the free time to do it I'm going to need to go through the whole thing carefully to see what you've added and where. It might be easiest to do that by going through the edit history line by line, rather than what I would normally do, which would be taking a range of edits say like this and picking out the text you've added, which it wouldn't be possible to do that for the last couple of months since a lot of the text was moved around, but I will find a way. ;) BOZ (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I am finished with the removal of duplicates. I did not add anything else in the meantime, but have concentrated on the condensation from 24th of October till today. So in my view no need to check for new sources.
 * I have done those books that had a lot of duplication within 2nd edition. There are still some duplicates distributed, but I don't think they will amount to much size reduction, so I'd leave them to avoid making things more confusing. In the end the reduction did get us a good way away from the top Long Pages, but it did not quite save as much space as I had hoped. Switching over to an alphabetical listing would save some more space through throwing out the headers for individual books, but that might partially be eaten up again by listing that appearance. And be a lot of work. I am thinking about saving some more space by changing the individual mentions of other appearances into footnotes, but even that would only get us so far. I guess if necessary one could now accomodate the List of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition monsters and the tables from Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons without hitting the roof right away, but not have one page for all monsters. So I would leave that alone for the time being and continue with other things, like adding more secondary sources as discussed. Daranios (talk) 21:00, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a reasonable goal. :) To be honest, I never figured that shortening the article would be enough to appease those who want it deleted, but it might get less negative attention. BOZ (talk) 01:04, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

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