A monstrous campaign

[doctorbadwolf]

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 did in 4e, and it was a lot of fun! I'm planning on bringing it back in 5e, but I'll have to do some homebrewing first so we can have a kobold that isn't terrible (ours was a Paladin!), and a playable Gnoll. The Goblin, Drow, Bugbear, are all fine.

Instead of a playing them as monsters, we played them as people just like other races, in a world that views them as monsters/second class citizens at best. Very, outcast group of underdogs. Not a game for people with low tolerance for using games to explore issues of racism, classism, and building community while trying to survive oppression. Very fun in the Robin Hood/Leverage style of adventure. Heists, getting the common folk on their side by helping them first, bringing down rotten nobles and merchants and officials through underhanded means, etc.

I found that people really got into their characters to a degree that they normally take much longer to do, right away. It probably helps that most of the group is from marginalized groups, and so has a lot of history with these themes to draw upon and work through, but it also never became directly about modern day politics. Informed by it, sure, that's pretty much unavoidable, but never was it the focus.

For a 5e relaunch, I am a bit worried about balance. The monstrous races are simply less well balanced in 5e than their "freep" counterparts. I think they're still within acceptable power bands, though. Bugbears are really good ambushers, but they don't do much else, so I think it'll be fine.

I still haven't found a kobold or gnoll that I'm as happy with as I was with their 4e presentations.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Plucky heroes from cultures that are treated as beasts and monsters by pretty-but-evil "civilized" colonizer races is a fun option, too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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

Or, using a more popular variant these days, instead of gladiators, they’re convicts become “heroes”, a la The Dirty Dozen or Suicide Squad.

 

[5ekyu]

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.

Goliath, Water Genasi, Tiefling, Lizardfolk and one human... solo session warm-ups and char-gen ends Tuesday, first sessions Thursday.

All looking forward to it.

Oh and three of the five have negative bonus charismas and the other two are bards so... Fun times ahead.

 

[Eltab]

A unique dragon breathes on the PCs and KOs them and … they wake up the next morning, turned into Kobolds.

Just to see if anybody will sacrifice himself by running into the middle of a group of enemies to Grovel Cower and Beg, so his friends get advantage to (hopefully) take down all the enemies faster than they can clobber the one guy flat.

 

[gargoyleking]

Kobolds are interesting, although their ability can be curious as it doesn't seem to allow for a save. Not sure how it balances out.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The PCs are mercenaries or slave soldiers in a war between giants and dragons. The are sent, or running away, to a new zone to be explored, ruled by the shadar-kais and dark lord fays, with a look like Pinehead and the cenobites from "Hellraiser" fighting against a rebellion of werebeasts, mutants created to eat the undeads from a zombie apocalipse in a past age. Then new factions are added to the battlefield, abbominations from the Far Realm summoned by a cult and constructs from an crashed extraterrestial space ship.