As a GM, which monster do you find the most difficult to role-play?

[Imagine That TTRPG]

For me, it’s orcs and goblins and hobgoblins and bugbears and kobolds. Because they’re pretty much the same archetype all around for me. Most of the time it’s not really a problem because they’re minions. But occasionally I’m portraying some sort of orc or hobgoblin warlord and they’re all just one note to me.

I’ve definitely felt that sameness too, especially early on. they can all start to feel like variations on mean and green with weapons. Over time, I ended up creating full nations and distinct cultures for each: hobgoblins with martial academies and rigid diplomatic codes, kobolds who view engineering ambushes as religious expression, orcs with honor-bound nomadic traditions, and so on. I still use tribal variants elsewhere in the world, but now each group has their own internal logic and voice. It helped me keep warlords from feeling like generic bosses, and made even small encounters feel like a peek into a larger, living culture. But yeah, it definitely took work to break the mold. Ogres and trolls can feel the same, too, minus the regeneration. I bet you have fun with that hyena laugh, though. XD I think most of us do. Most of my orcs sound like the ones from Warcraft II lol! “Lok’tar!”

 

[Imagine That TTRPG]

Gelantinous Cubes.

Ah! The Grim Roomba of the classic dungeon. Visually iconic, mechanically simple… but why are they doing what they’re doing? It’s hard to make a slow-moving cube of acid feel like more than a hallway hazard. Some things just aren’t misunderstood. You don’t really roleplay a gelatinous cube any more than you’d roleplay a paramecium. That said, they’re still a blast to deploy creatively. I love using them at the bottom of pit traps. Beats the quotidian spikes.

 

[aco175]

Smart monsters like some already mentioned are harder to run. Also some of the PC races like elves who are long-lived. A bit like the Hobbit movie and the elf king not wanting to waste elf lives since normal human and dwarf lives are gone so soon that it makes an elf life so much more precious, to him at least.

 

[Imagine That TTRPG]

Smart monsters like some already mentioned are harder to run. Also some of the PC races like elves who are long-lived. A bit like the Hobbit movie and the elf king not wanting to waste elf lives since normal human and dwarf lives are gone so soon that it makes an elf life so much more precious, to him at least.

That’s a great observation. Long-lived beings like elves aren’t just smart, they have scale. It’s not just strategy you’re role-playing, it’s perspective. When a hundred years is a short memory, urgency feels entirely different. I’ve always loved how Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman describe elves. It doesn’t exactly redeem them from a human point of view, but it does help contextualize their worldview. Measured, distant, sometimes cold, but rarely without reason. I really like your example from the Hobbit films too. The idea that the brevity of other lives makes elven life feel more precious, even fragile in its rarity. It’s not arrogance, exactly. It’s caution wrapped in centuries of life that can be cut shorter than it otherwise might. Definitely not easy to convey at the table, but incredibly rich when you do.

 

[payn]

Nilbog. I cant ever remember what the encounter was like, nor can I find my wallet.

 

[Tonguez]

For me, it’s orcs and goblins and hobgoblins and bugbears and kobolds. Because they’re pretty much the same archetype all around for me. Most of the time it’s not really a problem because they’re minions. But occasionally I’m portraying some sort of orc or hobgoblin warlord and they’re all just one note to me.

I tend to base these creatures on Gang culture stereotypes
Orcs - Standard Thugs, Violent Biker Gangs. The Elder Orcs are a bit more jaded and struggling to keep the young thugs in line.
Goblins - Weasley scavengers, who steal anything not nailed down and then run and hide (these are the undersized junkies out for their next fix)
Hobgoblins - Intelligent Gangsters running organised crime. The Godfather is a Hob

Kobolds - pure minions they tend to only be encountered in rat swarms

Bugbears I merged with Su-Monsters as proto-simian Ambushers lurking above, ready to snatch victims up into the trees

 

[Voadam]

The dragon as Smaug variant is specifically a D&D-ism and it's one of very few things that I dislike about D&D (I mean, I really dislike it). I play dragons more like those of Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar novels. They can have pretty high intellect (and some may even talk), but they don't project that English Gentleman in a Smoking Jacket vibe. Also, there's almost no way that a party of five or six characters will be able to defeat them in combat (some prophesied destiny being the sole exception) .

There are other examples, the Temeraire Napoleonic Wars with Dragons series with a British naval officer and his talking dragon as protagonists comes to mind as well as this guy from He Man.

That said I really enjoy bestial dragons and have a bit of a hard time including D&D dragons (and giants to an extent as well) as integrated world elements.

The Eberron approach of there is a far off continent of dragons and there are renegades and exiles and loners who have made there way to the main continent works conceptually but I don't really care for it.

 

[Rabulias]

I really like that Magenta is kind of a mystery.

Magenta = Schadenfreude

 

[Aldarc]

this guy from He Man.

View attachment 413099

Granamyr is one of the oldest beings in Eternia.

 

[Tonguez]

as well as this guy from He Man.

View attachment 413099

According to the He-Man Writer Larry DiTillio Granamyr was lifted from a Tunnels and Trolls module that DiTillio wrote - The Isle of Darksmoke. Darksmoke is also the name of Granamyr's tower in the Ice Mountains of Eternia.

DiTillio said that he used Granamyr because he wanted to have an antagonist that He-Man couldnt defeat by force alone, instead he'd have to use smarts.

also - I've always been amused by Granamyrs helmet