Monsters alongside humanity

[TheSword]

As part of my ongoing re-read of the Witcher series (finished the first book and onto the number two) I was struck by how much I liked the weaving of monstrous creatures with ordinary people. Very few monster stories stood on their own… there was always a curse, human failing or attempt to use the monster for sinister reasons. The same applies in The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. As well as the novels.

In D&D, monsters can sometimes be seen as fire and forget. Just one of a dozen encounters in a dungeon or location to deplete resources from the PCs. Have you ever used monsters to bring out more human stories. Either in their creation or their raison d’etra.

An example from my game is of a clutch of Ankhegs attracted by poisoned pellets spread in a land dispute between two rival farmers. Both accuses the other of kidnapping and murdering the other’s farmhands/family but it is the burrowing insects that emerge from below upon unsuspecting farmers. Driving off the Ankhegs permanently means discovering what attracted them in the first place.

When have you used monsters in a way that illuminates the human condition rather than just as a speed bump in an adventures?

 

[JConstantine]

Examining the human condition through the eyes of a monster is exactly my goal with Vampire: The Masquerade (V5 especially), but that's probably a bit of a cheat (same could be said for the rest of WoD and CoD games), so I'll skip that.

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What I like about many situations in The Witcher is that it's often the humans who are the true monsters, while several monsters are the victims. It's very Greek myth. Eberron tends to humanise monstrous humanoids, and did so before WotC started following that trend in baseline D&D, so this is one of the ways I like to differentiate Eberron from other settings. For the Forgotten Realms, I lean into the tropes and clichés, while for Eberron I try to subvert them.

As one example: in both settings, I have a side quest involving a sculptor who produces remarkably lifelike statues. For FR, it's an unscrupulous failed artist with a captive cockatrice/basilisk/medusa (depending on party level). For Eberron, it's a medusa, but she's not using her petrifying gaze, she's just that skilled, having developed her craft to honour lost loved ones.
I also have some minor instances like a harpy lounge singer, and a theatre troupe comprised solely of changelings and doppelgangers.

 

[Distracted DM]

It seems like two things are being discussed here: giving monsters depth/"humanizing" them, and complex morality/shades of grey stories in your games.

Giving monsters depth is awesome, it makes the world feel more real. Does that require humanizing them? No. But humanizing them can also be rewarding, and inject some morality angles, if those are the types of stories you want to tell.

I think it's good to sprinkle in those "we found out afterwards that the orcs are only attacking because the villagers chopped down their god-tree; humans are the real monsters" moments, but it's also nice to have the "the Medusa really is the evil monster luring travelers in via harpies, thank you for saving our people from the monster" adventures.

Complexity and shades of grey are great to shake things up if your tables are used to the standard tropes and want something different.
But sometimes it's just nice to feel like heroes saving innocent villagers from marauding giants that were going to eat them.

 

[aco175]

I agree that making monsters into 'humans' should be a sometimes thing. I'm likely more pre-5e on this though. The world is violent and most of the time, might makes right. Nobody wants to have a tribe of orcs as their neighbor or a medusa living nearby. Same as why nobody wants to have a power plant built in their town. The power bases in town play on the fears of the locals. This elder might want to expand his farm into the orc territory or this mayor heard someone might have been turned to stone and everyone knows that they are evil and will steal your children.

 

[TheSword]

It seems like two things are being discussed here: giving monsters depth/"humanizing" them, and complex morality/shades of grey stories in your games.

Giving monsters depth is awesome, it makes the world feel more real. Does that require humanizing them? No. But humanizing them can also be rewarding, and inject some morality angles, if those are the types of stories you want to tell.

I think it's good to sprinkle in those "we found out afterwards that the orcs are only attacking because the villagers chopped down their god-tree; humans are the real monsters" moments, but it's also nice to have the "the Medusa really is the evil monster luring travelers in via harpies, thank you for saving our people from the monster" adventures.

Complexity and shades of grey are great to shake things up if your tables are used to the standard tropes and want something different.
But sometimes it's just nice to feel like heroes saving innocent villagers from marauding giants that were going to eat them.

Yes, I’m all for letting monsters be monsters but exceptions are always interesting à la Eberron.

I’m interested in how a monster or interaction with a monster can tell a tale about people rather than just be something to slay in a dungeon.

I think my follow up to your example is why is the Medusa luring travelers and what have the local people done as a response to that. The Medusa can still be monstrous and irredeemably wicked but where did she come from. Who benefits from the Medusa attacking that particular road. Who has a vested interest in prolonging or stopping it and how can they be woven into the story.

Maybe a merchant knows the truth about the attacks but covers them up to help eliminate his competition. Or perhaps he has a magic item or alchemical brew that will ward off the harpies which allows him to be the sole supplier and lets him hike up his prices. Finding this out might allow the PCs to gain a tool to make tackling the monsters easier.

 

[Reynard]

When have you used monsters in a way that illuminates the human condition rather than just as a speed bump in an adventures?

I had a long running campaign where gnolls start out as the bogeyman monster -- they literally hunted gnomes to extinction -- but as it went on and the PCs began to interact with them, they discovered that the gnolls were a complex society anchaored by warriors and shamans. Eventually, when the campaign transitioned from 2E to 3E, they became a player race and were fully integrated in.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Grendel's mom.

 

[TheSword]

Grendel's mom.

Because it was Hrothgars singing that proved Grendel, or because they slew her son?

 

[Tonguez]

In horror and grimdark games I like to give monsters Motivation, Compulsions and Fetters which should then be used in game to build personality and some predictable behaviours for the creature. While the Fetters were things that emotionally tied undead to their life/humanity, they can be expanded to apply to other creature types and alongside compulsions can be exploited by the PCs.

 

[JConstantine]

It seems like two things are being discussed here: giving monsters depth/"humanizing" them, and complex morality/shades of grey stories in your games.

@TheSword opened with referring to The Witcher, and the stories revolving around monsters tend to come in one of two broad varieties:
The first is "monster-as-menace". Some monster is a terrorising a local village and its surrounding environs, and needs to be dealt with. However, it's often a case that it's the result of some human action that provoked it: nest disturbed by loggers, lured in by a bitter person looking for revenge, etc. A real world equivalent might be a bear drawn into a town by human refuse, or a lion escaped from a zoo, who then goes on to maul a person. Yeah, it needs dealing with, but it's not really the creatures fault. For The Witcher, that's typically typically killing it rather than capture, because monsters aren't native to the world of the Witcher, but also, you know, they don't have tranquiliser guns.
The ankheg situation in the OP is an example of this style, as was my FR sculptor.

The second is "monster-as-victim", where a person is victimised because of their monstrous appearance/nature, but upon investigation, it's often found that they're rather humane, and the victim of a curse, very much in the vein of Medusa, or Asterion (The Minotaur), or the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. Sometimes, this overlaps with the previous, such as a striga terrorising a town, but it only exists because a pregnant woman was cursed.

Complexity and shades of grey are great to shake things up if your tables are used to the standard tropes and want something different.
But sometimes it's just nice to feel like heroes saving innocent villagers from marauding giants that were going to eat them.

For my own part, I love tropes; you can't subvert a trope without it existing in the first place, and I find subversion works best when the trope is fresh mind, so I like a mix. But also different settings have different expectations.