D&D General Classic Monsters - Retired Roll Call?

[Retreater]

My wife and I watched the D&D movie yesterday. Don't worry - I'm not including any spoilers here. But she and I had a discussion of some of the "iconic" monsters she hasn't encountered since starting the hobby 7 years ago, and maybe why that is.

My thought is that many of the classic creatures from her list harken back to an old style of play that has disappeared amongst 5e players (which is when she started the hobby).

Here's a selection from the list we made this morning (and the reason why I think she hasn't encountered them) ...

D&D isn't in Dungeons anymore...
Black Pudding
Gelatinous Cube
Carrion Crawler
Mind Flayer
Intellect Devourer
Roper
Umber Hulk

D&D doesn't like to trick players anymore...
Mimic
Roper
Gelatinous Cube
Rust Monster

Mid-Range CR creatures have limited windows of use...
(You can't use them like goblins in large numbers, and a single one isn't a challenge. They don't really have a place in encounter design.)
Displacer Beast
Intellect Devourer
Carrion Crawler

By the time you get to that level, the campaign will end or else the monster won't be a challenge...
Beholder
Marilith
Tarrasque

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I've used most of those apart from the Marilith, Tarrasque and rust monster in game fairly recently, and they show up often enough in WotC adventures - just prepped a beholder for a Radiant Citadel adventure.

Sick of mariliths after Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous in any rate.

What doesn't appear very often: goblins.

 

[the Jester]

My game still has a lot of focus on dungeons.

Maybe that is why I have used all of those monsters (except the tarrasque and rust monsters) in 5e!

I haven't used rust monsters on screen, but they are a part of a plot point and a secret resource of my dwarven community.

 

[GuyBoy]

I’ve either used or encountered all of these in the last two years, except the intellect devourer.

 

[Voadam]

Monster palette is a very DM and adventure specific thing that will vary a lot.

 

[the Jester]

A similar thing I was observing is how each edition has had certain monsters that saw lots of use that later editions used a lot less or even pretty much forgot about. For instance, I remember a lot of giant ants in Basic adventures, 4e pushed foulspawn pretty hard, etc.

I'm sure part of this is my own perspective, but we haven't had, for instance, the giant ant in the primary MM since 2e. So there's some degree of veracity to it.

 

[Clint_L]

My wife and I watched the D&D movie yesterday. Don't worry - I'm not including any spoilers here. But she and I had a discussion of some of the "iconic" monsters she hasn't encountered since starting the hobby 7 years ago, and maybe why that is.

My thought is that many of the classic creatures from her list harken back to an old style of play that has disappeared amongst 5e players (which is when she started the hobby).

Here's a selection from the list we made this morning (and the reason why I think she hasn't encountered them) ...

D&D isn't in Dungeons anymore...
Black Pudding
Gelatinous Cube
Carrion Crawler
Mind Flayer
Intellect Devourer
Roper
Umber Hulk

D&D doesn't like to trick players anymore...
Mimic
Roper
Gelatinous Cube
Rust Monster

Mid-Range CR creatures have limited windows of use...
(You can't use them like goblins in large numbers, and a single one isn't a challenge. They don't really have a place in encounter design.)
Displacer Beast
Intellect Devourer
Carrion Crawler

By the time you get to that level, the campaign will end or else the monster won't be a challenge...
Beholder
Marilith
Tarrasque

This is about the way your DM likes to build games, not about D&D in general. Almost every single one of those is a go-to monster for me (except tarrasque for obvious reasons, which is also why you seldom saw them back in the day, either, and the marilith because...meh). And almost all are prominent in published adventures and many of them in marketing and other media as well. Beholders are as iconic as it gets, gelatinous cube is prominent in both the current film and in Onward, a de facto D&D movie, mind flayers are at the heart of the new Baldur's Gate video game and, conceptually, Stranger Things, intellect devourers and a mimic both have prominent gags in the current film (no spoilers; they're in the trailers).

Also, look at any published adventure and tell me the game isn't in dungeons anymore. Every single published WotC adventure focuses on dungeons (or dungeon corollaries like caverns and ruins) as the primary setting for the action.

I appreciate that your individual experience is valid for you, yet I think your sample size is much too small to make assertions about the overall state of the game.

 

[Mad_Jack]

I haven't had any real chance to play in a long time, nevermind run an adventure, but I've had a real urge to throw some of those classic monsters into an adventure for a while.

Which is why, now that I'm doing the Dungeon23 thing, I've decided to include an aboleth hiding out in the lowest bowels of the dungeon... The whole place used to be a dwarven stronghold that sank underground when the Underdark cavern beneath it collapsed and water rushed in to form a swamp over the top of it, so it seems appropriate to have some sort of Underdark creatures having made their way up into the place.
I'm kind of leaning into the classic monsters with the whole thing, really - Besides the aboleth in the dungeon, I've got a tribe of lizardmen, a green hag, a nest of wyverns, aquatic elves, a dryad so ancient that she's become an entire forest, and a giant turtle...

Damn, now I want to figure out a way to put some tasloi in the local forest and add one of those pretender-things, I forget the name, that looks like a harmless bunny sitting on a stump...

 

[iserith]

I've used all of these recently in my Dungeons & Dragons games and played in an adventure involving a tarrasque only a couple years ago. (There was a bio-dungeon inside the tarrasque.) The displacer beast was on a random wilderness encounter chart and more than one of them were encountered for a tier 1 party. The PCs ran away.

 

[LordEntrails]

Every single published WotC adventure focuses on dungeons (or dungeon corollaries like caverns and ruins) as the primary setting for the action.

I pretty much agree with all your comments but this one. Dragon Heist is the exception that immediately comes up. And though I don't have, isn't Chult/ToA pretty much an outdoor exploration adventure?