Some creatures were extremely intricate (such as the Lizard Man, page 62) while others were almost too cartoonish (such as Larva, page 59) to take seriously.Īll monsters came with a statistics column followed by a paragraph or two of descriptive text - a few monsters, such as dragons and giants, came with lengthier details while others such as the Axe Beak consisted of 2-3 sentences. (Yes, the possessive apostrophes were missing in both books.) The book’s interior content was black-and-white only and consisted of a mix of creature images from a small group of artists with varying styles.

There may have been earlier advertisements for the MM, but the earliest I can find is this December 1977 advertisement from Dragon magazine shown below.Īt $9.95, it was considered a supplement to the D&D rules and the first book released in the AD&D trilogy that included the Players Handbook (1978) and the Dungeon Masters Guide (1979). Unfortunately, most players I knew owned a copy, and it made it sometimes difficult to pull surprises - as a DM, I’d often describe a creature’s appearance if I didn’t expect the low level characters had encountered one, but sometimes a player would still recognize it. With over 350 monsters to choose from, there was always an opportunity to introduce players to a new nasty. My players usually dreaded seeing me pull the thin book out because it usually signified a special monster encounter versus one of the more common types (skeleton, orc, kobold, etc.) with easy to remember statistics.

Released in 1977, the AD&D Monster Manual was one of the most recognizable RPG books with two-thirds of its front cover filled with a red dragon, a unicorn and centaur… and even stranger creatures in the subterranean realm making up the lower third of the front cover.

D&d monster manual 5e