Full of hints about what to expect (and what not to expect) in the first monster manual (Note: not the only core monster manual), the best part of Podcast Episode 16 is near the very end. Totally off the cuff with nothing more than the list of monsters in front of him (still in binder form, apparently) one of the designers populates (i.e. picks the monsters for) 4 random encounters fed to him by the host in the space of a few minutes. Assuming that you can use the monsters as written for those encounters, that’s going to make for really fast encounter design.
But for big WotC news items I get so many heads ups from people that it may not be feasible to always give credit to one particular person. I just didn’t want you to think I had stolen your idea and posted it on the front page.
