A monstrous campaign

Has anyone run a monstrous campaign, especially with Volo monsters-as-players?

Looking for ideas for running a one-off (4-6 hour) adventure where the party is either monstrous or temporarily in monstrous form (adventure ideas needed). Looking at whether players enjoyed the diversion from the norm, issues with balance, immersion, role-play and so on.

I ran a monstrous Holiday 1-shot a couple of years ago.
Players were all monstrous races from VGM, and I set them up to rob a town. The townsfolk were all werereindeer and actually killed one of the PCs. They fought a snowman and met a ranger named Kringle. They were eventually captured by Krampus and taken into the mine where he has slaves, mostly elves, putting together trap/toys.

toucanbuzz said:

Looking for ideas for running a one-off (4-6 hour) adventure where the party is either monstrous or temporarily in monstrous form (adventure ideas needed). Looking at whether players enjoyed the diversion from the norm, issues with balance, immersion, role-play and so on.

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Well, getting the right mix is key. Some monsters work better when in groups of their own kind, like a tribe of Gnolls or Hobgoblins. Others can work in mixed groups if they’re part of an organization that makes them work together, like a unit in an overlord’s army.

How many players?

toucanbuzz said:

Has anyone run a monstrous campaign, especially with Volo monsters-as-players?

Looking for ideas for running a one-off (4-6 hour) adventure where the party is either monstrous or temporarily in monstrous form (adventure ideas needed). Looking at whether players enjoyed the diversion from the norm, issues with balance, immersion, role-play and so on.

Click to expand...

Not in 5E, but I did it once in 3E. It was a blast, albeit really crazy.

If you're going to do a one-off, I wouldn't limit yourself to the Volo's "monster races." The whole point of a one-off is that you can go absolutely freakin' nuts and to hell with the long-term campaign consequences. So go all-out! Give your players a CR limit and let them pick any danged monster* they please. If they pick something with CR lower than the cap, let them make up the difference by adding sidekick levels per the recent UA.

[SIZE=-2]*Well... almost any. They probably shouldn't be allowed to pick legendary monsters, just because that would slow combat to a crawl.[/SIZE]

Ran a monster campaign way back in 2E, using the Humanoid's Handbook. It was an absolute blast. But it was, as I said a full campaign (albeit not too long of one), not a one-shot.

That campaign actually served as a loose basis for The Goblin Corps. (Emphasis on "loose." You cannot directly transform a campaign into a viable novel, but if used as the seed of a new adaptation of the idea, it can be made to work.) So, yeah, as long as you have some idea what you're getting into, a monster campaign can be a fun change of pace.

Some very basic advice is, make sure the monsters have a reason to be working together. You think it's hard getting normal adventurers to cooperate!!! Make sure they're working for a boss they're too scared to disobey, or need to work together to survive a common threat, or the like.

I was the only one in my group to use the 2Ed Humanoid's Handbook. I ran a Minotaur named Tu-Maa Ghostwalker.

The character was initially inspired by M:tG’s original Hurloon Minotaur art.
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And I bought the mini, too.
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So he was an albino or leucistic (hence “Ghostwalker”). This, in turn, reminded me of Lakota legends about the Great White Buffalo. I figured an analogous person in Minotaur society would be a quasi-messianic figure, a “Golden Child” of some kind. Some kind of leader with a connection to the supernatural. So I figured he’d be a paladin-like or priestly, but that wasn’t an option in 2Ed; he could either be a Witch Doctor or Ftr/Mage. I opted Ftr/MU.*

Tying further into the legend, I imagined his people had a society resembling that of the Lakota, which inspired me to make him an archer and- nodding both to Lakota and Greek myth- an axeman. But how to make him a mounted archer was problematic, given the relative sizes of Minotaurs and horses.

So Tu-Maa’s people became charioteers. Problem solved.

The character was a blast to play, not just because of all that stuff above. He WAS a L sized creature, so his arrows, fired from his strength bow, hurt.

(Of course, that size and his shoddy AC also opened him up to some damage...)

For added giggles: I played him with an Austrian accent.**



* Mooooooo!

** Because of the inevitable mispronunciations of his name. Duh!
[sblock][video=youtube;OaTO8_KNcuo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTO8_KNcuo[/video][/sblock]

You could take a look at the Zeitgeist campaign and player's guides for inspiration. The nation of Ber is formed of gnolls, kobolds, minotaurs, and the like working on forming a society that can exist with the other nations.

It's theorycrafting for running a table at a convention, so likely 4-6 players and a 4 or 6 hour block. Like the idea of having a stack of CR (whatever) monsters, including traditional races like goblins, and a McGuffin explaining how everyone can talk and work together. Could be silly (escape from the zoo), reversal of roles (defend your dungeon), or an adventure (players transformed into monsters for the purpose of getting behind enemy lines), and so on.

Yes, I've run them. 4 years ago I even created two modules specifically for this purpose.

Wrath of the Goblinoids
and the sequel, Payback

I could see this as a cool gladiator style campaign. This way people can play more normal races and easily include monstrous races.