Solutions to MM-itus?

K · Post by K » Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:27 am

So I was looking through some MMs, and I realized that I would feel stupid describing or fighting about 90% of the monsters listed. I mean, I love new monsters as much as the next guy, but I really can't get behind the various plant-men, oozes of no particular note, the magical beasts that are "it's two animals and a magic power!" and undead who are nothing more than "it's a guy with a power, but with less skin!"

That's before you get to the truly weird stuff or the blatant rip-offs.

Is the conceptual space really so small that making good monsters is just going to be doomed to failure?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:56 am

So I was looking through some MMs, and I realized that I would feel stupid describing or fighting about 90% of the monsters listed.

What's wrong with: it's a giant buglike thing, snakelike thing, flesh-eating ape, [evil]-tagged forehead alien, chimeric combination critter, dragon but this one's different, golem made out of something you shouldn't be able to make a golem out of, new type of dead guy who casts spells, different colored flesh eating blob, or yet another mind-flayer experiment ?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:02 am

The problem why nobody likes most of the new monsters is because they have no mythological or literary pedigree, not even one as simple as 'they were the mooks in Sleeping Beauty'. But while creating a mythos for a monster is difficult, it's not impossible. I mean, look what you guys did with Tome Monsters; I never would've given sahugin or kuo-toa a second thought without your punchy description on it and now they're kind of a staple for my campaigns.

If I had my druthers, I would schedule monster manuals like this:

Monster Manual: This book has all of the classic D&D monsters, like the illithids and gelatinous cubes and the orcs. You seriously don't need more than a paragraph of description to them because they already have strong memetic power; you're basically just saying how D&D trolls are different from Harry Potter and LotR trolls. This book needs to come out one week before the Dungeon Master's Guide and one week after the Player's Handbook--the first print run of the monster manual will obviously have a 'Quikstart' primer in the back (monster manuals tend to have this anyway) and the player's handbook will have a link to the webshite where you can download some starter adventures/encounters.

Enemies and Allies: Yes, this is a monster manual. Aside from having actual NPC villain iconics for you to fight (and thus probably having a high chance of it being your most popular manual, even moreso than the MMI) it also needs to have a way to jazz up monsters now and in later monster manuals. Examples:

Level-based templates. Not just stupid shit like Half-Dragon, but also things like Death Knight, Titanic, Zombie, Horde Monster, etc..
Army lists. 4E was on to something with having example encounters for monsters but they didn't take it far enough. I should be able to roll on the 'assault' table and procedurally generate a squad of brutes and soldiers with a leader thrown in. Not useful on its own, but see below:
Feat and equipment packages. It's a small thing, but dictating that a pack of Level 5 Mook Skirmishers all fight on Tigers with spears and Magic Missiles can add a lot of pizzazz. It helps to give monsters a theme, especially disparate ones. An Umber Hulk, a Slaad, a Succubus, and a Hobgoblin Sorcerer don't fit together well on their own, but when they all use +2 Flaming Weapons, have a feat that lets them use Fireball 1/day, and are kited out in Fire Resistance equipment it adds personality.
Finally it should also generate lifepaths for monsters. They don't have to be complex ones or mandatory. Sometimes the only thing of relevant interest to you is 'these are assassins from a smuggling ring'. If you feel like it you can roll backwards and also get results like 'deserters from an army right before the country collapsed' and 'cook and eat their victims and wear their body parts on their form' which can have other game effects as you want. The point is that it should jazz up five orcs in the field to something memorable or at least notable.

This absolutely means that if the book is to be of any use you can't do that disassociated mechanics shit that 4E did. If you apply a monster from an earlier book or a later book to one of the jazzing-up functions that this book did it should work. This book should come out like 3-6 months after the edition comes out, that way it will have a chance to hit the market before peoples' campaigns crystalize too much.

Monster Manual 2: This is where you put in monsters that have some memetic power to them but aren't as well-established as the staples, like slaad and poltergeists and the like. This is also the stopping point for palette swaps of pre-existing monsters. I can accept Gold Golems and Crystal Golems but Wood Golems and Shell Golems are taking things too far. The density of monsters will be smaller than the Monster Manual I despite palette swaps because you have to put in more description for the monsters. Everyone knows what a fucking wraith is and what makes them tick, morhgs not so much. This book needs to come out around a year to a year and a half after the edition comes out, that way you have enough time to playtest the previous two books and tweak any problems that they had.

Monster Manual 3: Half of the book consists your brand new Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot monsters like your Corpse Gatherers and Worms that Walks. Though 'cool' is a rather vague statement, I think pretty much anyone can agree on what monsters are lame and what have some potential cool power. Artwork is extremely important in this case; you probably want to spend more money on artwork here than in any other book. The other half of the book consists of new critters that you can extrapolate into societies, like Myconoids and Beefolk and Dragon Youkai. It is extremely helpful for you to be able to spend 8 pages outlining a Myconoid Society and people being able to grok the function of 20 usable monsters because you have your Dragon Prince Myconoid, your Myconoid Monk, your Myconoid Engineer, etc.. If you can run it through the Enemies and Allies filter all the better--I'd like to strongly emphasize that it's extremely important that you do not have disassociated mechanics for your monsters because it'll make them go stale a lot more quickly. This book comes out 3 years into the edition.

Boxed Set Monster Manual Compendium: You are running boxed sets, right? I mean, you fucking should. And if you release one for each 'range' of play (one for level 1-5, another for 6-10, 11-15, etc.) you'll be able to fleece your fanbase. But anyway, the boxed sets should have rules and expansion material you can't get strictly from 'main' books. You'll obviously have compiled a lot of monsters from them by them. By the time you released your fourth boxed set you'll have enough material for another monster manual. Fancy that.

Monster Manual's Greatest Hits: Spell Compendium has showed us that repackaging things for convenience is very popular and can move product. That said, this book should primarily collect popular monsters from other non-A List sourcebooks and setting books (like Eberron or Forgotten Realms) and smush them all together. If this book came out during 3E it would have totally had Warforged in it, for example. This means that you need to have the boss monsters and elite critters of Red Hand of Doom, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, and whatever other popular modules/adventure paths you made. This is also a great chance to get the playerbase excited by running a monster creation contest. This book comes out six years into the edition.

There. That's six monster manuals, more than enough to get you through an 8-year edition life cycle. Obviously you need to seed the edition with new monsters in your modules and Dungeon content, but as far as main product goes that's seriously more than enough.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:59 am

That would work well. I would probably also add that every book needs to introduce at least one type of bear. People love bears.

MM1: owlbear, black/brown/polar/dire bear

E&A: BEARENSTEIN, Zod the Loyal Ursine Steed, Vojtek

MM2: Dire Polar Bear, bearhound (less MM3, more actual megafauna), ironclad mauler

Weeaboo Adventures: panda, dire panda

MM3: SPACE BEAR, dire tardigrade

Best of: Paragon Bear

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:01 am

Also every book needs at least one kind of dwarf and one kind of Ork. Ork, not orc.

On a slightly less Koumei-trolling note, you did hit on an important aspect of Monster Manuals: megafauna. If you want to have that kind of stuff in the game it really needs to be in the first book. Fighting T-Rexes and Dire Tigers can be kind of cool, but doing that after taking on dragons and colossal zombies is kind of weak and sad. I personally don't care for fighting vanilla critters, even legitimately dangerous ones like lions, grizzlies, and honey badgers because after cleaving a clay golem in two it makes your characters seem like bullies instead of badasses. There's a reason why the Big Game Hunter gets portrayed as an egotistical gasbag in contemporary works.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:08 am

Monster Manual's Greatest Hits: Spell Compendium has showed us that repackaging things for convenience is very popular and can move product. That said, this book should primarily collect popular monsters from other non-A List sourcebooks and setting books (like Eberron or Forgotten Realms) and smush them all together. If this book came out during 3E it would have totally had Warforged in it, for example. This means that you need to have the boss monsters and elite critters of Red Hand of Doom, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, and whatever other popular modules/adventure paths you made. This is also a great chance to get the playerbase excited by running a monster creation contest.

Quibble: This sort be multiple books, split by tier (or whatever you want to call it)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 3:21 am

I'd be kind of dismayed personally if the edition's Greatest Hits spanned more than one book, unless the edition was really long-lived. Like 12 years old, not six years. After about six years of modules, sourcebooks, and contest submissions you should have enough to cover all level ranges anyway--though admittedly it would bulge a lot towards the low and high ends of the spectrum unless you took some care.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 4:10 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:If you want to have that kind of stuff in the game it really needs to be in the first book.

Yes. Punching elephants out should seriously be low-level shit, quickly escalating into evil, sentient opponents with power more threatening than "is big".

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 5:01 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Also every book needs at least one kind of dwarf and one kind of Ork. Ork, not orc.

Ork/Orc... difference being more than the spelling I'm imagining?

also:

Dire Tardigrades = Winning. Thats awesome

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:25 am

Orc: racism by Tolkien.

Ork: racism by GW, and annoying players.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:49 am

So what's the politically correct term for Ork/Orc?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:54 am

It's not supposed to be a comment on political correctness or anything, I was just making a lighthearted jab at Koumei since her dwarf and WH40K Ork hate is pretty infamous. Sort of like my hate for Chrono Cross or PhoneLobster's of GNS or whatever.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:05 am

TheFlatline wrote:So what's the politically correct term for Ork/Orc?

Goblin.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:22 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:It's not supposed to be a comment on political correctness or anything, I was just making a lighthearted jab at Koumei since her dwarf and WH40K Ork hate is pretty infamous. Sort of like my hate for Chrono Cross or PhoneLobster's of GNS or whatever.

a lighthearted jab at Koumei since her dwarf and WH40K Ork

Koumei since her

her

Koumei's a girl?

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:37 am

Koumei wrote:Orc: racism by Tolkien.

Ork: racism by GW, and annoying players.

Nice.

Koumei's a girl?

Yeah, they... they do exist, suprising I'm sure.

I'm not sure if youre saying orcs shouldn't exist, only goblins? Honestly I guess if there's hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears... orcs won't be missed too much, except there is a difference enought that people note it.
Hobgoblin~ Ork(c)

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:42 am

K wrote:So I was looking through some MMs, and I realized that I would feel stupid describing or fighting about 90% of the monsters listed. I mean, I love new monsters as much as the next guy, but I really can't get behind the various plant-men, oozes of no particular note, the magical beasts that are "it's two animals and a magic power!" and undead who are nothing more than "it's a guy with a power, but with less skin!"

That's before you get to the truly weird stuff or the blatant rip-offs.

Is the conceptual space really so small that making good monsters is just going to be doomed to failure?

I've generally felt so. Once you've picked all the low-hanging fruit, i.e. monsters from mythology, it's hard to come up with something that isn't either a variation on something familiar or some new random collection of abilities that no one gives a shit about. (Note, when I was a kid I thought the "random collection of abilities" monsters were awesome. I loved the AD&D Fiend Folio.)

malak · Post by **malak** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:26 pm

hogarth wrote:I've generally felt so. Once you've picked all the low-hanging fruit, i.e. monsters from mythology, it's hard to come up with something that isn't either a variation on something familiar or some new random collection of abilities that no one gives a shit about. (Note, when I was a kid I thought the "random collection of abilities" monsters were awesome. I loved the AD&D Fiend Folio.)

Well, there are a lot of great aberrations.

1. Take Monster
2. Add tentacles
3. Profit!

Also, there's the blood war. It needs to be fed a constant stream of demons and devils in all ways and forms. And then there are various kinds of yugoloths and slaadi...but yes, a niche. Sadly.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:57 pm

hogarth wrote: I've generally felt so. Once you've picked all the low-hanging fruit, i.e. monsters from mythology, it's hard to come up with something that isn't either a variation on something familiar or some new random collection of abilities that no one gives a shit about.

Well, I think part of the problem is that D&D doesn't go far enough in plundering the depths of mythology. Oriental Adventures for example. If D&D decided to steal examples from South American and Indian mythology, too, we'd have a lot more material. But we arbitrarily restrict ourselves to European and Middle East mythology for some reason.

Even if/when that well runs dry the next sets of monsters need to be those that form societies. Awesome fluff can save a shitty monster but that kind of thing takes up space; it's damn hard to write awesome fluff for a new monster if you only have a page to work with. This is why new monsters should be things like Beefolk or Goblinoids or Inevitables where monsters are all of base species but you have submonsters for it, that way instead of having to write 40 pages of fluff for 20 monsters you just need to write 8 pages of fluff.

K · Post by K » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:10 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
hogarth wrote: I've generally felt so. Once you've picked all the low-hanging fruit, i.e. monsters from mythology, it's hard to come up with something that isn't either a variation on something familiar or some new random collection of abilities that no one gives a shit about.
Well, I think part of the problem is that D&D doesn't go far enough in plundering the depths of mythology. Oriental Adventures for example. If D&D decided to steal examples from South American and Indian mythology, too, we'd have a lot more material. But we arbitrarily restrict ourselves to European and Middle East mythology for some reason.

Most mythology is stupid.

I mean, do you really want to fight an angel that is several spinning rings with eyes on them?

Chupacabra?

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:16 pm

K wrote:I mean, do you really want to fight an angel that is several spinning rings with eyes on them?

Um. Yes? Very yes?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:24 pm

What do you consider a cool monster then, K?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:42 pm

Mythology also updates in real time. Kuchisake Onna cycled into new updated urban legends during the peak of SARS, the Montauk Monster gained a notable amount of traction in 2008, and anyone looking for "new" monsters would do well to pay attention to such things.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 3:42 am

Josh_Kablack wrote:Mythology also updates in real time.

In particular, you should also take a look through the SCP Foundation stuff. It's mostly paraphrased and and parodied urban myth and creepypasta, so there are a lot of nifty and/or nightmare-inducing monsters in there.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:36 am

I tried to turn it all into templates and refluffing a while back. That fell to pieces when I realixed I could not make it work past level 10. Like, at all.

K · Post by K » Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:24 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:What do you consider a cool monster then, K?

1. It has to not feel stupid when I give people the one-line description.
"It's a brownish ooze that makes geometric shapes.... ummm, yeh."

2. Has to not confuse people with another monster immediately.
"So it's a lizardman..... with weird powers?"

3. As a DM, I have to want to tell stories with it.
"So the batpeople have decided.....aaaa, forget it.... I can't do this any more.

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