Three Characteristic Behaviors Per Monster

[mmadsen]

In the Little Changes with Big Flavor thread, Maldur came up with a little idea I like: Characteristic Monster Behaviors. His examples:

Trolls hunch over and stomp their feet like sumo wrestlers before they attack. Orcs beat great drums before they go on a raid. These drums can be heard over a very long distance, making the villagers panic days in advance.

We already have Three Plot Hooks Per Monster. Let's see Three Characteristic Behaviors Per Monster!

[hong]

1) Eat
2) Crap
3) Bonk


Which reminds me....


Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: XP for avoiding combat
From: Hong Ooi <hong.ooi@maths.anu.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 05:45:11 +1100
--------
On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 11:16:51 -0600, "Sir Bob" <proko@dlcwest.com> wrote:

>
>Hong Ooi <hong.ooi@maths.anu.edu.au> wrote in message
>news:o9liqs0k3dc1p4r24nir07vm4jrkqci74k@4ax.com.. .
>>
>> Survival, of course. D'oh!
>
>Simple survival is insufficient for these purposes. PCs don't gain
>experience for sneaking past just any sleeping ogre, doing so has to aid in
>some larger goal. Likewise, an ogre gains no experience for avoiding combat
>with adventurers unless it serves some purpose beyond simply staying alive.

This, of course, begins to get into questions of just what the ogre's
"goals" might be, compared to those of the average adventurer (to the
extent that such a beast exists). We shall assume the ogre to be a typical
specimen of its kind: nasty, brutish and big. It doesn't seek to promote
high-minded ideals, mostly because it doesn't have the imagination to be
altruistic. Nor does it seek to accumulate wealth and power, mostly because
it isn't smart enough to be avaricious. No, the ogre's goals can be
considered to boil down to those of most low-intelligence creatures, viz:
consume, excrete and procreate; or in the vernacular, eat, crap and f*ck.

It appears quite reasonable that avoiding a potentially fatal encounter
with a group of heavily armed, homicidal PCs constitutes at least indirect
pursuit of these goals, because it is quite impossible to eat, crap or
f*ck, if one is dead. (It should be mentioned that this is, strictly
speaking, hypothetical, since there exists no evidence that physically dead
beings cannot eat, crap or :):):):) on that particular plane of existence they
may be in. However, such things Man Was Not Meant To Know, so we shall
assume the truth of the hypothesis for now.)

This is all the more important because the ogre's natural instincts would
most probably be to try to beat the tar out of the PCs. Therefore, an ogre
who comes to the conclusion that its eating, crapping and f*cking prospects
are enhanced by playing dead should be awarded _bonus_ experience points,
because it has managed to deduce that it is, in fact, lower on the food
chain than might first appear. Only by such feats of intellectual wizardry
can the ogrish gene pool be enhanced, and no DM worthy of the name would
want a maladapted menagerie of monsters.


Hong "playing too much DungeonKeeper" Ooi
--
Hong Ooi | "It's not an extortion, it's called
hong.ooi@maths.anu.edu.au | 'technology transfer'"
http://www.zip.com.au/~hong | -- G. J.
Canberra, Australia |

Edit: No workarounds on spelling out naughty words even for you, Hong.

[rounser]

Word. But your universal theorem of monster motivation falls apart at one particular juncture, hong: what about undead?

Ghouls only score 1 out of 3. Vampires slightly better; 1, maybe 2 out of 3. Most of the rest aren't interested in eating, crapping, or bonking. Thus, while your hypothesis shows promise, I suggest that it needs revision and further analysis. Might be a good topic for a thesis.

[mmadsen]

We already have Three Plot Hooks Per Monster. Let's see Three Characteristic Behaviors Per Monster!

Goblins -- Insult humans in broken Common, make rude gestures, throw filth on them, etc. -- but only from out of reach. Break fences, steal livestock, etc. to extort cookies from human farmers.

Hobgoblins -- Goose step. Always march in order with magnificent battle standards and symbols of power. Shout a battle cry in unison before charging.

Gnolls -- Cackle eerily. Females dress like males, may be chieftains. Hate lions, even heraldric designs thereof.

[Maldur]

Ogres slam their clubs into the ground before battle ( to challenge and scare the opponent), When charging they throw around stuff laying about ( overturning tables, throwing pots and pans etc)

[Krug]

Fire Elemental

Sparks bursting along their body like sparklers

Shaped like a giant chicken with an overlong head, flapping flames towards the party.

Burns victims to the bone.

[Maldur]

minotaurs
Throw their head back , roaring in defiance.
Before charging scrape their hooves along the floor (like bull)
chase their prey at leisure, loud footsteps echoing through their mazelike lair ( they dont have to rush as they know where to turn)

[dreamthief]

Hill Giants
- Lick their rocks.. uh I mean boulders before throwing them. Love to throw with their mates in waves.

- Wear multicoloured kilts

- Clap their hands after hitting and holding up their fingers to give a rating of their throw.

[Conaill]

Kobolds

- The little buggers *never* stand still (except when they're lying in ambush, of course). Even in melee combat, they're continually taking 5' steps at the very minimum.

[mmadsen]

Displacer Beasts -- Usually napping. Watch birds, squirrels, and other game. Try to scare off enemies after making a kill (to eat safely).

[hong]

Originally posted by rounser
Word. But your universal theorem of monster motivation falls apart at one particular juncture, hong: what about undead?

Ghouls only score 1 out of 3. Vampires slightly better; 1, maybe 2 out of 3. Most of the rest aren't interested in eating, crapping, or bonking. Thus, while your hypothesis shows promise, I suggest that it needs revision and further analysis. Might be a good topic for a thesis.

Hmph. Some people are never satisfied.

How about:


1) Sex
2) Drugs and
3) Rock 'n Roll


Now while it's true that undead don't _need_ to have sex, we're not talking about behaviours that are absolutely necessary to survival here. It's entirely conceivable that undead, being appreciative of the finer things in life, would want to have sex for its own sake. For example, consider the aforesaid Count Dracula, who seems to have had a thing for cute young English chyxx0rs, in spite of being one of the living dead. Or consider any recent Anne Rice novel. 'nuff said, wouldn't you think?

As for drugs, that's clearly a metaphor for the many unholy substances that go into powering an undead being's actions. You don't become a slavering unliving horror just by eating your greens at dinner, after all. No, certain dubious substances have to be involved, and I see no contradiction at all in considering these substances to be the fantasy equivalent of modern-day narcotics. In fact, if we again think of Anne Rice's vampires, these guys seemed to consume an entire South American country's output of pharmaceuticals every month.

And rock 'n roll is surely a no-brainer. Go to any goth nightclub, and you will see hordes of pale, pallid creatures of the night, grooving the night away to the strains of the most chic music. Anne Rice is truly the queen of the vampires!


Hong "why, I'll even forgive her writing _Atlas Shrugged_" Ooi

[mmadsen]

Giant Owls -- Eat Were-Rats and Ratmen. Regurgitate giant pellets (maybe with treasure). Always looking around -- turning their heads 180 degrees.

[Hakkenshi]

I'm suddenly terrified at the idea of witnessing a Gelatinous Cube do anything but the first of hong's "3 essentials".

Athach - Does any number of obscene gestures, possibly including scratching in odd places; braces itself on third arm, pretending to be a flying dragon; crosses its arms in an intimidating (and impossible-seeming) manner.

Gibbering Mouther - Gibbers; mouths; mouths gibberingly.

Mind Flayer - Ties a braid in its tentacles; makes shadow-puppets with said tentacles using psionic powers as a light source ("Okay, now here's a Tarrasque!"); challenges PCs to impossibly difficult tongue-twister competitions.

Sorry, can't think of any serious ones right now

[mmadsen]

Treants -- (In tradition of Tolkien's Ents...) Live in geologic time. Speak slowly and laboriously, never succinctly. Remember ancient history.

[dreamthief]

Blink Dogs - Wag their tails before 'blinking'; like to stand on their hind legs; love to drive normal dogs crazy by blinking in and out.