D&D General Why do good monsters exist, from a game design standpoint?

[Desdichado]

You can summon them, you can ally with them, you can pit them against bad guys. But mostly, it's because Gygax was at heart a simulationist, and his "Gygaxian naturalism" as it's been called, meant that he had to have the rest of the world statted out, or at least an idea on how he would do it, so that the whole world operated under the same mechanical framework, because that's just how he rolled.

 

[nevin]

Okay, you asked about from game design, and then nothing you had to say had to do with game design (mechanics and rules) and everything about what purpose they have in-world for adventure and/or setting design. So I'm going to handle that.

You've mentioned allies, there's the flip side of patrons. They could be there to rescue or save. They could be not aligned with the characters but someone they could potentially convince or convert. They can simply be NPCs, there's little difference between a high level fighter and a storm giant, a king and a dragon.

Basically, we know that good-aigned NPCs are used for. I don't get a feel that you're saying that good aligned "monsters" are unfit for all purposes a good-aligned NPC is, so that exhaustive list should answer this question completely.

I'm a bit confused by the original question. Monsters and NPC's are there to be used to help drive the story. Good ones for good threads in the story,evil ones for evil threads in the story. Sometimes either for neutral or simply non important ones in the story. Why do we need lists of what they are for?

 

[Blue]

I'm a bit confused by the original question. Monsters and NPC's are there to be used to help drive the story. Good ones for good threads in the story,evil ones for evil threads in the story. Sometimes either for neutral or simply non important ones in the story. Why do we need lists of what they are for?

"List" was used in the exact way you just did: listing out ways they are used. You listed good threads in the story, etc. It wasn't referring to any formalized list.

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm a bit confused by the original question. Monsters and NPC's are there to be used to help drive the story. Good ones for good threads in the story,evil ones for evil threads in the story. Sometimes either for neutral or simply non important ones in the story. Why do we need lists of what they are for?

Well, when I think of their mechanics, the question becomes why publish the mechanics of good aligned monsters if they're primarily for story reasons and not fight?

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can summon them, you can ally with them, you can pit them against bad guys. But mostly, it's because Gygax was at heart a simulationist, and his "Gygaxian naturalism" as it's been called, meant that he had to have the rest of the world statted out, or at least an idea on how he would do it, so that the whole world operated under the same mechanical framework, because that's just how he rolled.

Naturally my favorite side of the man.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I'm not going to talk about game design. I'm going to talk about culture.

Children's media started taking off heavily in the 1980s with many toylines getting animated tie in TV shows and movies. The linkage of the animated medium and the toy became solidified in the early part of the decade, which coincided with d&d's meteoric rise as a children's IP rather than a game played by adult wargaming nerds who read adult fiction like Conan the Barbarian and Lovecraft.

In lots of animated shows and movies around this time, you'd see a kind of "ugly cute comic relief monster sidekick". Think Snarf from Thundercats (... Or Snarf from Elmore), Orko from He-Man or Slimer from Ghostbusters. I think it was a marketing attempt to appeal to both boys and girls: a gross monster but make it kinda cute and childlike for the little sister to latch on to. Either way, these characters has naughty word MERCH out the wazoo left right and center.

So we learn that good, cute monsters mean beaucoup bucks. And hey, when do we see "good" monsters like flumphs start proliferating in the DMG? After d&d gets its toy contract with LJN.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Sometimes I have them as allies...but I don't think they need to serve a game design purpose.

Their role in world-building is sufficient explanation. As DM, knowing about them helps me understand how things work in the setting, in the same way knowing things about evil monsters that never end up actually in play does.

I completely reject the idea that monsters that aren't designed to be fought don't need stats. Now, if they really aren't likely to make any sort of combat appearance for some rare reason (such as because they are so powerful they always win or so weak they always lose) they may not need a stat block. But you'll still need to write some notes.

"Arch-solars are so powerful that no denizens of the Outer Planes have a chance against them in a fight, except for the deities themselves," still needs to be followed up with notes on their knowledge, communication abilities, travel powers, etc. You probably might as well make a statblock. Same applies for "Wee-est folk fey are so tiny and frail that they are always slain by any act of physical hostility".

Fundamentally though, it gets back to supported use case for a game. If a game has no focus on any sort of worldbuilding considerations or sandbox play, it can get by with much less content. A game like D&D, that has traditionally aimed to encompass a wide range of play style agendas needs significantly more stuff than a smaller more focused game.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

this is where you are going wrong.

Monsters exist due to the logic of the world.

Monsters just designed to be mechanical challenges is cheese

The question being asked isn't wrong. You're answering a question, but you're presupposing that your answer is the only correct answer, which suggests to you that asking the question is wrong.

Your answer is valid... except for the part where you think it's the only possible valid answer.

 

[Rabulias]

In addition to what everyone has mentioned above, shapeshifting monsters and the shapechange spell may need the stats of good creatures.

I am also reminded of a high level AD&D game where we journeyed to a remote valley where an artifact we needed was supposedly hidden. As we explored the valley, we saw a brilliant gold dragon flying above the valley. Our party's paladin was very enthused to converse with such a magnificent and noble being, so he flew up and greeted it. The dragon blasted him with fire breath and we rolled initiative. The paladin was hurt but was able to fly back down to the forested valley floor, where the rest of us were taking cover. From a nearby cave, we heard a gravelly voice call out, "Quickly, in here! The dragon won't follow you into the caves!" We made a mad dash into the cave and were startled to see a beholder motioning with its eyestalks to a tunnel that led deeper into the caverns. Warily we followed it. It turned out that a helm of opposite alignment had been incorporated into a trap in the dungeon hiding the artifact, and the dragon and the beholder had come to the valley over time seeking the artifact. Very fun to fight a gold dragon with the aid of a beholder.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The question being asked isn't wrong. You're answering a question, but you're presupposing that your answer is the only correct answer, which suggests to you that asking the question is wrong.

Your answer is valid... except for the part where you think it's the only possible valid answer.

That's true, but I personally have no interest in any other answer in an RPG.