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Why A GM Can Never Have Too Many Bestiaries
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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 7690695" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>A friend and I sat down with a stack of monster books, and we came up with a few categories that nearly every monster falls into. Basically, it's the "there are only 7 types of story" concept, applied to monsters:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dragons - big things that only big heroes slay (with the subset of Sphinxes - dragons that you can beat by talking)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ghosts - supernatural things that you need special items or magic to hurt</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cthulhus - weird things whose presence alters reality, controls your mind, and drives you insane</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Werewolves - people who are cursed, so you feel guilty killing them</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Orcs - people who look weird, so you don't feel guilty killing them</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dogs - realistic animals that you can scare away or befriend</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chupacabras - something that's basically just a normal animal but that looks crazy and attacks unrealistically, serving basically no plot purpose other than to make places dangerous</li> </ul><p></p><p>Most D&D monsters are chupacabras, and chupacabras are boring because there's no real story to them. If a dungeon has hook horrors, you could probably replace them with owlbears, or ankhegs, and the plot would basically stay the same, because those monsters only really exist to fight you.</p><p></p><p>What monster books need, I think, are sample encounters that ground the new critters in a world, and present a story more complex than just "you failed your Perception check, so it jumps out of the shadows and attacks."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 7690695, member: 63"] A friend and I sat down with a stack of monster books, and we came up with a few categories that nearly every monster falls into. Basically, it's the "there are only 7 types of story" concept, applied to monsters: [list][*]Dragons - big things that only big heroes slay (with the subset of Sphinxes - dragons that you can beat by talking) [*]Ghosts - supernatural things that you need special items or magic to hurt [*]Cthulhus - weird things whose presence alters reality, controls your mind, and drives you insane [*]Werewolves - people who are cursed, so you feel guilty killing them [*]Orcs - people who look weird, so you don't feel guilty killing them [*]Dogs - realistic animals that you can scare away or befriend [*]Chupacabras - something that's basically just a normal animal but that looks crazy and attacks unrealistically, serving basically no plot purpose other than to make places dangerous[/list] Most D&D monsters are chupacabras, and chupacabras are boring because there's no real story to them. If a dungeon has hook horrors, you could probably replace them with owlbears, or ankhegs, and the plot would basically stay the same, because those monsters only really exist to fight you. What monster books need, I think, are sample encounters that ground the new critters in a world, and present a story more complex than just "you failed your Perception check, so it jumps out of the shadows and attacks." [/QUOTE]
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