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Help on running a Monstrous Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 725785" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>The first question I ask whenever I start any campaign is 'Why?'</p><p></p><p>Specifically, what do I hope to accomplish by employing a particular theme. If you are employing the technique of having all the PC's be monsters, then you probably are doing so for one of several reasons:</p><p></p><p>1) To be comical. Monsters allow use to explore the notion of 'the fool'. 'The monster' can be the lovable old grover, the grouch, the creature of power who is nonetheless helpless in the face of his significant shortgivings. A campaign like this is probably a light hearted change of pace from more serious campaigns. A darkly comical romp through the 'seedy side' of fantasy.</p><p></p><p>2) To enjoy the feeling of power. Unfortunately, most White Wolf games devolved down to this. At this level, you are not so much really playing 'a monster', but a demi-god or super-hero. The goal is not to explore what it is like to be a monster, but what it is like to be so powerful that you can stride godlike across the world heedless of mere mortals and thier petty social restrictions like murder. The purpose of this game is to provide relief from the day to day concerns and stress that comes from not always being at the top of the social ladder.</p><p> At most, a campaign like this satisfies me as a one shot, but YMMV.</p><p></p><p>3) To explore what it really means to be a monster. Ideally, this is the Hunchback of Notre Dame/Frankstein/Beauty & the Beast/Bladerunner campaign. Beauty is not skin deep, and in fact it isn't even related to ones skin. The real monsters are clothed in beautiful forms, but the monsters possess love, devotion, and compassion perhaps because of thier very monstrous form. Note though that in are pseudo-angsty society, this sort of thing is so fashionable that it has really been done to death. Particularly, if you are going to do this I really wish that you'd really do it. It is not interesting to say that the monsters aren't monsters if in fact they are still engaging in monstrous behavior.</p><p></p><p>4) To explore the tension between the choice of being a monster and being 'human'. To me this is the deepest and most satisfying reason for playing a monsterous campaign. This is at least to start what Vampire seemed to be intended to be. Unfortunately, it wasn't that popular and WW really started pushing #2 and to a lesser extent #3 above in thier latter products. And of course, you really don't need to play a monster to do this style of campaign. You can have humans on the verge of becoming monsters, just as easily as you can have monsters on the verge of becoming human. </p><p></p><p>Talk to your players about what sort of character that they want to play and decide on a theme, and maybe also where you want to steer the campaign in its overarching storyline. You might start out in a comical theme if that suits your players demeanors and slowly and carefully shift them towards something more intellectual by introducing characters and situations with more depth than they first appear. And of course, you can always fall back on your lighter hearted fare if the players start finding a diet of deep stuff a little too heavy.</p><p></p><p>If you are going to have Bugbears or hobgoblins integrated into the society, then I think it is unfair to the bugbears and hobgoblins to even call it a monstrous campaign. There is nothing more monstrous about them than an elf or a dwarf, and the challenges that they have in integrating into the larger society are no larger. In fact, they would probably be smaller than the challenges faced by an elf, and much greater than any race trying to integrate into a society if it was culturally issolated from that society. In order to really have a monstrous campaign you have to have a subsegment of the population divided off from the main society for some legitimate reason - either because the subsociety has monstrous behavior or the society itself does. Or I suppose you could have a campaign where everyone behaved horribly to everyone else and horrid looking to boot - but I think that would get old in a hurry.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 725785, member: 4937"] The first question I ask whenever I start any campaign is 'Why?' Specifically, what do I hope to accomplish by employing a particular theme. If you are employing the technique of having all the PC's be monsters, then you probably are doing so for one of several reasons: 1) To be comical. Monsters allow use to explore the notion of 'the fool'. 'The monster' can be the lovable old grover, the grouch, the creature of power who is nonetheless helpless in the face of his significant shortgivings. A campaign like this is probably a light hearted change of pace from more serious campaigns. A darkly comical romp through the 'seedy side' of fantasy. 2) To enjoy the feeling of power. Unfortunately, most White Wolf games devolved down to this. At this level, you are not so much really playing 'a monster', but a demi-god or super-hero. The goal is not to explore what it is like to be a monster, but what it is like to be so powerful that you can stride godlike across the world heedless of mere mortals and thier petty social restrictions like murder. The purpose of this game is to provide relief from the day to day concerns and stress that comes from not always being at the top of the social ladder. At most, a campaign like this satisfies me as a one shot, but YMMV. 3) To explore what it really means to be a monster. Ideally, this is the Hunchback of Notre Dame/Frankstein/Beauty & the Beast/Bladerunner campaign. Beauty is not skin deep, and in fact it isn't even related to ones skin. The real monsters are clothed in beautiful forms, but the monsters possess love, devotion, and compassion perhaps because of thier very monstrous form. Note though that in are pseudo-angsty society, this sort of thing is so fashionable that it has really been done to death. Particularly, if you are going to do this I really wish that you'd really do it. It is not interesting to say that the monsters aren't monsters if in fact they are still engaging in monstrous behavior. 4) To explore the tension between the choice of being a monster and being 'human'. To me this is the deepest and most satisfying reason for playing a monsterous campaign. This is at least to start what Vampire seemed to be intended to be. Unfortunately, it wasn't that popular and WW really started pushing #2 and to a lesser extent #3 above in thier latter products. And of course, you really don't need to play a monster to do this style of campaign. You can have humans on the verge of becoming monsters, just as easily as you can have monsters on the verge of becoming human. Talk to your players about what sort of character that they want to play and decide on a theme, and maybe also where you want to steer the campaign in its overarching storyline. You might start out in a comical theme if that suits your players demeanors and slowly and carefully shift them towards something more intellectual by introducing characters and situations with more depth than they first appear. And of course, you can always fall back on your lighter hearted fare if the players start finding a diet of deep stuff a little too heavy. If you are going to have Bugbears or hobgoblins integrated into the society, then I think it is unfair to the bugbears and hobgoblins to even call it a monstrous campaign. There is nothing more monstrous about them than an elf or a dwarf, and the challenges that they have in integrating into the larger society are no larger. In fact, they would probably be smaller than the challenges faced by an elf, and much greater than any race trying to integrate into a society if it was culturally issolated from that society. In order to really have a monstrous campaign you have to have a subsegment of the population divided off from the main society for some legitimate reason - either because the subsociety has monstrous behavior or the society itself does. Or I suppose you could have a campaign where everyone behaved horribly to everyone else and horrid looking to boot - but I think that would get old in a hurry. [/QUOTE]
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