Essays on Game Design

[Jack7]

Thanks for the help Charles.

I also took a look at your blog and decided to add it to my blog linkage list.
It was interesting and well done.

 

[roguerouge]

"For instance orcs and kobolds can often be found in the same dungeon, no explanation given as to why they would tolerate each other rather than slaughter each other. "

I tend not to see this in published adventures. I tend to buy Goodman Games, Paizo and the very best of 1st edition modules, so perhaps its selection bias on my part. But usually, they explain themselves.

 

[Loonook]

Read your post and cross-posting between blog and site to support your thread.

Good stuff, will be setting to receive some information.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Jack7]

I tend not to see this in published adventures. I tend to buy Goodman Games, Paizo and the very best of 1st edition modules, so perhaps its selection bias on my part. But usually, they explain themselves.

It's certainly not as bad as it used to be, (and in this case I'm speaking specifically about "Crawls," not overall monster design, because I think the Monster Design elements are still very weak in most fantasy RPG's for the reasons I outlined above - not necessarily weak in philosophy, per se, weak in technique and execution) but I also agree with you about the crawl, I think it depends a lot upon the designer, and the professionalism of the product. How the adventure is arranged, and on what basis design is construed and constructed.

Read your post and cross-posting between blog and site to support your thread.

Good stuff, will be setting to receive some information.

Thanks LN. The next essay I put up in this thread will deal with Real World Historical Elements in the development of Milieu and Adventure Design.
I may or may not post that next to my blog.

I'll also check out yours.

 

[jmucchiello]

ESSAYS ON GAME DESIGN

Another thing that bothers me about D&D is the fact that once you meet a monster, or have read about it in the Monster Manual, from then on, it is far too often simply just a matter of encountering hit point variants of the same creature.

I think you need to rename this Essays on Campaign Design. There is nothing new about taking MM entries and modifying them in order to surprise your players. But, how can the MM be anything other than a list of statistics? Sure there could be more ecology/motivation info, esp. in the 4e MM. But ultimately, the MM is a book to help the DM create his world and as such it needs concrete statistics for the monster or it just is not going to sell.

What your article describes makes a lot sense as advice for DMing and campaign building. But it does not address any game design concepts at all. Game design is how do I know a group of PCs can handle a fight against 3 of these monsters? In 1e, it was strictly HD (with "bonus HD for special attacks"). In 3e it was CR. In 4e, it's level. These are design issues.

Your advice is great. It is merely mis-titled.

 

[Jack7]

Hot Blood and Ichor

Your advice is great. It is merely mis-titled.

Well JM, this is just one particular essay, focusing on just one narrow aspect of Monster Design in fantasy RPGs. However I do plan other essays on other subjects, including overall game design. I didn't want to narrow the subject matter too much at first, but rather open the title wide enough to accommodate everything I eventually intend.

I think you need to rename this Essays on Campaign Design. There is nothing new about taking MM entries and modifying them in order to surprise your players. But, how can the MM be anything other than a list of statistics? Sure there could be more ecology/motivation info, esp. in the 4e MM. But ultimately, the MM is a book to help the DM create his world and as such it needs concrete statistics for the monster or it just is not going to sell.

However you raise a very good point. I'm not anti-Monster Manual. You're right, you need a basic set of information, encounter and description parameters from which to base or design your own "monsters" (I'm using that term in the widest possible sense). Otherwise everyone would have to create every monster as they went along. and without a Monster Manual, which I often use in a "Template sense" you'd have no real comparative method, set of common aspects, or common paradigm that would allow commonality between various games. (I didn't mean commonality between gaming genres, but between one D&D game and another D&D game down the block.) The game itself must strike a balance between "commonality" which allows everyone to understand basic aspects of the game, and originality and individuality which prevents the game from becoming stale, predictable, and uninteresting.

What I'm saying is that for individual games, or in this sense, as you pointed out, for individual campaigns, neither the DM nor the way in which the game is designed (to provide basic, common formulae and descriptions for monsters) should limit monsters and monster design to being "as is."

The game designers of course have to create (well, they don't have to, they could have just created a loose set of guidelines, but a lot of people would have wanted most of the work done for them, that's why they buy product, to avoid work, just as you buy a car so you don't have to build your own) a Monster Manual, but it is just a manual and once it replaces the very idea of what a true monster really is, then the manual becomes not a book of monsters, but a book of mere statistics. The monster becomes not a Lethal Danger, and a Dangerous Adversary, but only a Mathematical Obstruction (or Construction, take your pick), and a Paper Tiger.

I'm saying, as a part of this essay, yes, use the Monster Manual, or myth, or religion, or any source you wish from which to draw a base of ideas about various monsters, but you're not hamstrung at that point, not limited to that expression. You can build entirely new kinds of monsters by unique reinterpretation, by redesigned methods of construction, and by re-evaluating the very idea of, "what is a real monster and how would it behave if it really existed?"

And monsters would not act and react as a set of statistics, but as a set of desires, motivations, and objectives. They would be every bit as unique (by very definition of being "monstrous") and unpredictable, and dangerous, as would be a very dangerous, unpredictable, and evil man. Monsters would be driven by their personal attributes, their peculiar modes of behavior, and their innermost intentions, not by their number of hit points, AC, or a set of predisposed and easily predicted tactical maneuvers. Yes, in some respects everything and everyone is predictable (at least to a degree) but one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of being "monstrous" in fantasy games is the very fact that being monstrous makes you far more unpredictable, dangerous, and lethal than would be the case with a typical, routine-oriented, heavily-habituated man. Just as criminals are violent, unpredictable, and cunning (though not necessarily very bright) so would be a monster. Monsters, if they were real, in order to be a real monster, would not be "common," ", ordinary," "typical," or "predictable."

Ordinary is the very opposite of monster, and yet far too often fantasy games confuse the idea that because monsters are visibly apparent and perhaps even populous, they would also be "common, predictable, and unremarkable."

So I'm saying, "no, they wouldn't." They would be many things, but they would not be "common, predictable, and unremarkable." Monsters would be full of hot blood and acidic ichor, not full of mild manners, and easily understood.

Monsters should be truly monstrous, not just scaled, fanged, and full of hit points.
Instead they would be cunning, dangerous, and full of fury.

If you make a monster in that way then you've made a real and lasting threat, not just a run of the mill, easily dispatched nuisance.

 

[GlaziusF]

Ordinary is the very opposite of monster, and yet far too often fantasy games confuse the idea that because monsters are visibly apparent and perhaps even populous, they would also be "common, predictable, and unremarkable."

So I'm saying, "no, they wouldn't." They would be many things, but they would not be "common, predictable, and unremarkable." Monsters would be full of hot blood and acidic ichor, not full of mild manners, and easily understood.

Monsters should be truly monstrous, not just scaled, fanged, and full of hit points.
Instead they would be cunning, dangerous, and full of fury.

If you make a monster in that way then you've made a real and lasting threat, not just a run of the mill, easily dispatched nuisance.

Point of order.

The modern DC Occult line, especially under Alan Moore, advances an idea present in many occult comics but brought into stark contrast in Astro City's Shadow Hill: the paranormal can and must be understood by the normal.

Since the world itself is not a teeming mass of chaos, since civilization does exist, it exists because to some degree people understand the monsters.

This isn't to say that some horror from beyond the stars can't show up one day and wreck everything. But it must both try to wreck everything (up to and including other horrors) and have something extant to wreck.

If you're relying on player ignorance to make your game difficult or plot meaningful that's a narrow line to walk, since once people know things they can know them forever.

It's perfectly sensible for it to be common knowledge that, say, trolls are "vulnerable" to fire and acid. How many folk legends could there be, about a little girl in the dark forest, trying to keep her torch burning? Instead of "monsters are mysterious", start from "people know trolls are vulnerable to fire and acid, and trolls know they know".

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's perfectly sensible for it to be common knowledge that, say, trolls are "vulnerable" to fire and acid. How many folk legends could there be, about a little girl in the dark forest, trying to keep her torch burning? Instead of "monsters are mysterious", start from "people know trolls are vulnerable to fire and acid, and trolls know they know".

GlaziusF, I rather agree with your post. It is definitely true that, were I to somehow run into a werewolf tomorrow, I would know to at least try to get some kind of silver bullet. Or, that failing, a Coors Light.

 

[Jack7]

Instead of "monsters are mysterious", start from "people know trolls are vulnerable to fire and acid, and trolls know they know".

I didn't say all monsters should be mysterious Glaz, I said all monsters should be dangerous and unpredictable, as I was employing the term monster. (I mean as Sinecure pointed out, a sewer rat can be a monster for purposes of game classification, I'm talking about the point of what really constitutes being a monster).

But both my observations and your observations can be true, and without being mutually exclusive. A monster can be both an unknown quantity, and quality, and he can know that about himself in relation to his own enemies. That is to say if a human knows a troll can only be killed by acid or fire then chances are the troll knows this about himself, as I said, and he will know that perhaps others know this about him as well. That's why I said this:

Furthermore it knows where it lives, how it moves, what its tactics are, what techniques it will employ far better than the players.

And this:

Of course historical records could account for certain knowledge about monsters in fantasy game settings, but otherwise because they are monsters they should be unknown or at least little-known entities; a shock to the system, a surprise, and a real danger.

Which are other ways of saying that monsters also have no incentive to allow people to escape with good ideas about how to fight, damage, harm, or kill them. (Of course as I said, with my world setting that is not a real problem because monster designs are mostly unique, meaning there is only one Troll, one Hobgoblin, and so forth. And even if another Troll were created then it might appear just like the original troll, but it would have different and unique characteristics of both capabilities, and conduct. That is you could say, "That looks like the Troll I once killed" but in this case it might be practically invulnerable to fire, rather than susceptible to it. And it might be cunning and secretive, rather than fierce and directly aggressive.)

But you also raise a very good point about gathering intelligence. Over time, because monsters are real in a world such as we are describing, more and more information would leak out about them. More and more data gathered. However if there were only one Orc, and that Orc operated in secret and in the shadows then it would be much harder to know anything real about it than if there were thousands, or ten of thousands of orcs that had been encountered throughout various stages of history, and in large numbers. So when fighting unique monsters intelligence is much, much harder to come by, and it is much, much more susceptible to being inaccurate and misleading, or at the very least incomplete. (Also if you're the only one of your kind then you have an incentive to remain in the shadows that the army of Orcs lacks.)

Most such monster would operate in the dark, or underground, as would criminals, and neither monster nor criminal has any interest or incentive to allow leaked or compromising information out to the public at large. They would try to control the flow of information, or simply kill or block that flow altogether. Because the less the knight coming to hunt the Hobgoblin knows about the Hobgoblin then the more likely the Hobgoblin is to kill the knight before the knight even knows what happens. But even in a world full of monsters, few if any monsters have any incentive to tangle openly with most enemies unless they are sure they can destroy those enemies, or they are simply forced or tricked into fighting those enemies through no fault of their own. Orcs will not make a habit of raiding people they cannot kill, and if they can kill those people, then only a few survivors will be able to convey any real, accurate information. The survivors will be too busy trying to escape. A man is attacked by a Troll at night in ambush and killed, he leaves no information to transmit. A man is attacked by a Troll at night in ambush and barely escapes, how accurate will what he says actually be? Will he have had more important things to consider than observing, "he didn't seem interested in the rabbit I was roasting on the fire."

So yes, absolutely, adventurers would know there are monsters, that they are dangerous, and could maybe gain some limited, or even on occasion very good intelleugcne about them. But they would probably not be privileged to detailed information like exactly how they can be killed, if they regenerate, exactly where they live, how much gold they have as treasure, what their Armor Class is, if they are immune to herbal poisons, etc. All of which they know now if the DM does nothing more than use the typical Monster Manual entry as a guide to writing monsters into his campaign or milieu. (Look at it from the monster's point of view. If a monster were real would he let detailed information about himself circulate freely, and if he suspected such information were already floating about freely then what would he do to correct a problem like that? If he's got any brains at all then he'd do everything he could to solve such a problem. His very existence relies upon the fact that his enemies cannot predict his behavior or know beforehand his exact attributes and capabilities. If you were a monster then how far would you go to save your own life? Disguise yourself? Wear different armor? Move around? Build traps and defenses? Set up hiding placates and retreats? Dig tunnels? Set up false identifies? Gather Intel on your own enemies? Set up alarms? Get better weapons? Try to make peace? Trick your enemies? Build mock-ups and fake models of yourself? Distribute false rumors and disinformation? All of these things? - If monsters are real then they have to act like they are real, not act like they are made of sterile numbers and paper statistics.)

Let me use an modern analogy. Most everyone has seen a TV in the modern world. Most everyone can change the channel with a remote. Few people, coactively speaking know exactly how a television functions, how to improve reception, or could build a television. Televisions are well known. Being able to either explain how one operates, or to build one are very different matters (given time and research in the modern world this ignorance could be easily resolved, but not so easily in a world without internets and free information.)

Now, in a fantasy world most people would probably have heard of a dragon, though very few seen one. Far fewer still would be one who could accurately describe one, or the properties of the dragon's real physical descript. Far fewer still those who had observed one carefully enough to know something of its general behavior. And extremely few people who could accurately describe how to kill or fight one. Even in a setting where dragons are numerous, unless they are often encountered, and very good and very public records made freely available to most everyone (unless there were good and easily accessible libraries, plenty of sages to consult, or a magical version of the internet available to every adventurer who decided he wanted to hang a dragon head above his hearth) then very, very few people, only those who had actually fought and killed a dragon, could tell ya how to most easily fight and kill a dragon and still survive the process.

Without easily available information to grease the skids, assuming some fellas decide hunting dragons sounds like great fun, they are likely in for a real shock or at elates a very tough period of trial and error before they take any real trophies. In a paper game it might be as easy as knocking down 3000 hit points with a bum-rush and a fireball cannon. But if one assumes monsters are real, even in just game terms, in a world where monsters really had no incentive in being dissected and studied for sport, it would be a helluvah lot harder to know how to really kill one, or even where to find one, than it would be to just know they existed. Or put in military terms, no plan ever survives the first encounter with the enemy. The enemy had plans of his own, and he's not interested in you making him fight your fight. He's fighting to kill, not fighting out of a sense of justice and fair play. He's a monster, not a gentleman dandy. So there's a real difference between the way a real monster would operate, and how a fantasy game might fantasize them behaving.

As different as the difference between knowing there is such a thing as a television, and knowing how to build one.

I wouldn't argue that real things wouldn't be known about monsters in a world in which they actually existed. But how much would really be known, by how many, and just how accurate would that information really be? Would you wanna bet your life that the local storyteller or the old tome you consulted told the gospel truth about something that could knock down city walls, or murder dozens in their sleep like a living shadow?

I've seen some real human monsters in my time, and if other kinds of monsters are anything like that then they're not playing around.
And they don't win at the games they actually bother to play by being straight down the middle, or up-front about their intentions.

 

[Jack7]

Or, that failing, a Coors Light.

The one in the Silver Can?

Hey, speaking of real monsters, I got a joke for you guys. Whaddaya get when you cross a Gremlin and a Ford Pinto?

A car that you can't drive far enough to explode.