el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I was thinking about my current homebrew, which unlike the top down homebrew I ran for 20 years, I am making up as I go along based on the needs of the two current games I am running there, and how there are certain monsters I have not used in it and with a little more thought realized that I tended not to use in general. As such, I thought perhaps I should straight up decide to exclude them from these games.
While I know it is not the framework for settings that WotC is using for their current setting linked projects (and the ones to-come) where they want to include as much as possible, I think what you don't include in a setting is as important as what you do include. In fact, it is easier to lay out a few things that do not exist than to try to list everything that is allowed. It is like the 10 Commandments which were groundbreaking in making sure that the majority of them (8 of 10) are things to NOT do, as opposed to things you MUST do (only two).
Anyway, with that in mind, I realize that a monster I have rarely used and have no interest in using in any game that is not specifically a horror themed game, are cursed lycanthropes. While, I may choose to include some kind of "true lycanthrope" shapechanging animal people - like ratfolk or werebears. I am not into the full moon, body horror, loss of control, thing.
Another exclusion are dragonborn, which I just don't like as an idea - and replace with lizardfolk.
Tritons are another creature type I have excluded, because between sea elves, sahuagin, koalinth, merfolk, and locathah, do we really need yet another aquatic species? Esp. since I like the idea of sentient dolphins.
There are other creatures that I exclude until such time that I think they might become setting appropriate due to the events of the campaign. Thus, no githyanki unless the PCs go plane-hopping, no girallons unless I decide it is a one-off wizard experiment gone wrong, probably will never use djinni or efreeti etc. . . unless they are thematically appropriate to a place in the setting that has been uncovered, and so on.
So which creatures do you exclude and why? And is it something you decide on ahead of time or something you decide as you prep events/adventures?
While I know it is not the framework for settings that WotC is using for their current setting linked projects (and the ones to-come) where they want to include as much as possible, I think what you don't include in a setting is as important as what you do include. In fact, it is easier to lay out a few things that do not exist than to try to list everything that is allowed. It is like the 10 Commandments which were groundbreaking in making sure that the majority of them (8 of 10) are things to NOT do, as opposed to things you MUST do (only two).
Anyway, with that in mind, I realize that a monster I have rarely used and have no interest in using in any game that is not specifically a horror themed game, are cursed lycanthropes. While, I may choose to include some kind of "true lycanthrope" shapechanging animal people - like ratfolk or werebears. I am not into the full moon, body horror, loss of control, thing.
Another exclusion are dragonborn, which I just don't like as an idea - and replace with lizardfolk.
Tritons are another creature type I have excluded, because between sea elves, sahuagin, koalinth, merfolk, and locathah, do we really need yet another aquatic species? Esp. since I like the idea of sentient dolphins.
There are other creatures that I exclude until such time that I think they might become setting appropriate due to the events of the campaign. Thus, no githyanki unless the PCs go plane-hopping, no girallons unless I decide it is a one-off wizard experiment gone wrong, probably will never use djinni or efreeti etc. . . unless they are thematically appropriate to a place in the setting that has been uncovered, and so on.
So which creatures do you exclude and why? And is it something you decide on ahead of time or something you decide as you prep events/adventures?
