Boss Monsters? I Just Say No!

The video game focus on “boss” monsters doesn’t make sense for tabletop RPGs. Video gamers are disappointed if the climactic monster doesn’t kill them several times; in RPGs, once you die, you (usually) don’t respawn.

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First a little history. Jeffro Johnson asked me if I'd used the monsters I contributed to the D&D Fiend Folio back in the late 70s as bosses. Most of my monsters in FF were minor, but the Princes of Elemental Evil were really powerful, and they also have stuck around in various ways (see Wikipedia: “Archomental”). For example, for the fifth edition of D&D, an entire large adventure module was titled after the Princes of Elemental Evil. I told Jeffro that my campaigns were never high enough level for the Princes, though I did run into one of them once as a player. (Imagine how annoying THAT is.) We fled posthaste because we wanted nothing to do with the fire Prince.

I realized that I've never thought in terms of boss monsters for tabletop D&D, that it's part of the video game mentality, and I asked myself why? In tabletop D&D, unlike video games, if you die you don't have a save game to go back to, and you don’t respawn automatically. You are dead when the party’s wiped out, unless somebody else uses a Wish. You can’t get killed a lot and succeed. On the other hand, video game bosses are designed to be really tough, to kill you many times before you succeed. You gradually have to figure out what to do to beat them. You could play tabletop RPGs that way, but would it be practical? The key is that there's no save game/respawn. Consequently a video game boss tends to be much tougher than the monsters you meet at a climax in tabletop RPGs, relative to the strength of the party.

Video gamers would be disappointed if virtually every time they had a climax they won the first time; they’d feel cheated. This is a matter of expectations. The video gamers expect the boss monster, and they expect it to be so tough that they're going to die several times before they finally succeed. Bosses are really a video game phenomenon because they are too dangerous for tabletop RPGs. You can't lose a computer RPG thanks to save games, while you can lose a tabletop RPG by dying just once.

I tend to use numerous monsters of several different kinds in a climax rather than one super boss, it varies of course, but I think this gives the players a better chance to develop strategies (and tactics) than if there is one super-powerful monster. And it makes tabletop RPGs different from video game RPGs in yet another way.

Groups of several different kinds of monsters can rely on a synergy between their capabilities, more or less like combined arms in military terms. The players may not immediately recognize what’s really dangerous when they face more than one monster. In this way, single monsters are too easy, too straightforward, quite apart from often not really fitting the fictional reality well.

I like temples as climax for a level because it fits my notions of the D&D world as a war between Good and Evil. In a temple you might have some priests, some low-level minions, some more powerful sidekicks, some monsters that have the same religion, some animals that are controlled by the religion. There are a lot of different capabilities there, and it won’t necessarily be clear which of the priests are most powerful, or even if it’s the priests that are most powerful rather than some of the sidekicks. If there is a straight magic-user present he or she will probably have lots of guards or at least obstacles between himself and the players.

This is likely to be a lot more interesting than a confrontation with one monster. Yes, you can use a single powerful monster, but it can’t be nearly as powerful in comparison to the player characters as it can be in a video game. Unless you want the players to fail, and if you do there are more subtle ways to do it.

This is as always descriptive, not prescriptive; how you GM is up to you.

This article was contributed by Lewis Pulsipher (lewpuls) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!

 

[Reynard]

"Boss monsters" have been with D&D since the beginning, long before video games came about (remember: D&D was the inspiration for the first video adventure games, not the other way around!). Early classic modules had player characters moving up the chain of command, as it were, until they were facing off against the Fire Giant King or the Queen of Spiders or Acererak himself. It is a function of the way western storytelling traditions work, from Homer to Hollywood: the climax demands the biggest bang for your storytelling buck, and that means the villain of the story (the "boss") usually needs to be more powerful than their minions or henchmen.

All that said, the point about failure versus the boss is well taken: one struggle in tabletop RPGs in general is how to balance the needs for that powerful "boss monster" against the desire to create a compelling story for the PCs where they might just eek out a victory.

All this, of course, presumes a "story" in the first place, which is not a given at every table. Sometimes we play games that are exploratory in nature, without a structured plot -- an "open world" full of "side quests" to continue the video game analogy. I think, though, it is far more common for individual adventures to have structure, and usually that structure involves a villain, thereby making "boss monsters" an important consideration in adventure design.

 

[Blue]

The idea of reaching the leader of the foes - the most powerful - has been around since well before video game4s or even home computers. Well before we saw "BBEG", we saw things like "EHP" (Evil High Priest), finally reaching the Dragon, or just modules where the toughest fight was at the end when your resources were low. This is especially true in the competitive convention modules of early D&D.

In neither video games nor D&D must the final boss be a solo - in some video games they have hordes of minions. Trying to define it like that is moving the goalposts - to talk about how including multiple creatures is the "right" way to do it when really that's part of the standard trope all along.

 

[GMMichael]

We fled posthaste because we wanted nothing to do with the fire Prince.

This is awesome. Did your DM's jaw drop? "But, you're supposed to fight it!"

In tabletop D&D, unlike video games, if you die you don't have a save game to go back to, and you don’t respawn automatically. . . You could play tabletop RPGs that way, but would it be practical?

Why not? There must be one TRPG that has save-games. I've thought about using the concept a few times, but I just settled on playing a game that offers alternatives to perma-death. What's the high-mortality game...Hackmaster?...in which you create multiple characters in the beginning? That's effectively using save-games.

You can't lose a computer RPG thanks to save games, while you can lose a tabletop RPG by dying just once.

I realize you're referring to the average CRPG here, but Hellblade is a notable exception to this. And I think Darkest Dungeon requires you to say goodbye to your heroes when they die. And if I may go 88 mph here, Gauntlet didn't let you save, as long as you had enough quarters or free time.

Groups of several different kinds of monsters can rely on a synergy between their capabilities, more or less like combined arms in military terms. The players may not immediately recognize what’s really dangerous when they face more than one monster. In this way, single monsters are too easy, too straightforward, quite apart from often not really fitting the fictional reality well.

A well-designed single-boss is going to require just as much plotting as a group-boss. One big difference is the dividing line between success and failure. It's much easier, and potentially more rewarding, for a group to drop the single-boss and say "mission accomplished" than it is to know at what point to declare accomplishment when clearing the evil temple. What if an acolyte survives? What if the temple stands and another church moves in? What if everyone flees, just to congregate somewhere else?

I don't want to spoil anything, but Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice offers some interesting takes on what passes for a boss, too. Check it out.

 

[Celebrim]

"Boss monster" is just a new term for a very old concept. You would be hard pressed to find an old school module that doesn't have a boss monster in some fashion in it.

B2: Keep on the Borderlands - The minotaur, the priest of chaos, the chieftain of each tribe. Basically, every lettered section of the map has the expectation that investigation concludes with a fight against a potent adversary. Many of these would be vastly too powerful for a starting party if they just plunge ahead recklessly.

I6: Ravenloft - Strahd obviously. And Strahd even fits the definition you give of a video game 'boss monster' in that almost certainly they will not beat Strahd the first time, but instead will face him again and again as they strive to defeat him. Now, IMO, Strahd actually is too dangerous for the suggested level of play, because he's a Level X monster with every possible advantage of 'home turf' against a party that probably shouldn't even face a Level X in a fight for a level or two, but that hasn't stopped I6 from being a very popular module.

I3: Pyramid - The embalmed priest at the top of the pyramid.

I4: White Palm Oasis - The Efreeti noble.

T1: Village of Homlett - Lareth the Beautiful

S1: Tomb of Horrors - Acererak. Like Strahd, Acererak defies you assumptions about TRPG play by being an adversary that in general most parties are expected to lose to. In describing TRPG play, you are in fact describing a certain sort of TRPG play, and you've neglected the sort of competitive play scenarios that many of the old school modules were meant to provide. If your goal is to produce a winner, then having a boss monster that will winnow out the majority of groups that reach it is perfectly reasonable.

G1-3: Against the giants - Each of the titular giant chiefs.


There are a few points you make that I agree with.

First, it's much easier to make satisfying climaxes with a group of creatures than with a single boss. In fact, in most examples you could site, whether from TRPGs or cRPGs, the boss isn't encountered alone, but with a number of minions or 'adds' that serve to provide distraction and tension to the fight. Certainly this is true in even many of the example I cited above, as for example each of the giant chiefs in the G series is encountered with one or more lesser giants, and the chieftains in B2 usually have bodyguards and allies with them (the Bugbear and the Minotaur being obvious counter-examples of solo bosses). But this is not usually because a single tough boss is too difficult for a D&D party, but on the contrary because a single tough boss often goes down like a chump against the combined novas of a D&D party, getting buried under the parties avalanche of advantage in the action economy and forced to try to survive not only a massive burst of focused damage but repeated save or suck challenges. It's only recently that D&D designers have ever really focused on what it would take to make a single powerful monster an effective but not overwhelming challenge considering the resources a party of PC's has.

And secondly, in general with most groups you play a TRPG on what would be a video games 'easy' mode, with the expectation that the players will face roll most of what they encounter. This is because restarting from death is usually (but not always) a very unsatisfying trope in a narrative. With very experienced players that 'step on up', have high system mastery, and so forth, you might ratchet up the difficulty, but only to keep that norm of deaths being relatively rare. In a video game, usually narrative is a relatively unimportant aesthetic of play - 'step on up' is all you've got - and so most players prefer to ratchet up the difficulty. Some however prefer to face roll the content just to experience the narrative or the sensations of play.

 

[Koloth]

Don't really care for the Boss Monster concept in video games either. Even with save games, which aren't always automatic, you often have to slog through the same set of minions multiple times just to get to the Boss so you can try Plan G or whatever. And far too often, I found out that I missed the room/encounter/whatever that has the key to killing the Boss. Or that my character build is sub-optimal. And too many video games won't let you bypass a Boss if you can't find the magic combo to kill it. So you are stuck. One advantage of a table top session is you can try weird stuff like Diplomacy instead of skull smashing. Or just saying pass and going to the nearby tavern to plan your next exciting adventure.

 

[Aguirre Melchiors]

here in the real world
We are more or less equal, we can die by falling, and our power come from resources or influence.
But in D&D you can have real powers, most creatures are not equal, so societys flock to the powerfull,
not only in resources or influence but in belic power.
Seems to me natural for people flocking to the guy that can destroy a castle in seconds, or can raise the dead.

 

[Aguirre Melchiors]

my english sh#t sorry folks

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

With my larger group (eight), I’ve found that the idea of an epic fight against a single powerful foe generally doesn’t pan out too well. Even when you put various minions against them, they tend to still focus fire on the “boss.” Lair and Legendary actions help balance the fight out, but with so many people getting a turn before the boss goes again, unless they’re fiendishly powerful, those HP drop pretty rapidly.

As much as it goes against my impulses, I’m trying to use more co-bosses. Going for more Ornstein and Smough than Seath the Scaleless, so to speak.

 

[Umbran]

The video game focus on “boss” monsters doesn’t make sense for tabletop RPGs. Video gamers are disappointed if the climactic monster doesn’t kill them several times; in RPGs, once you die, you (usually) don’t respawn.

*looks at the end of the second sentence*
*looks at rules through various editions of D&D ad the variety of ways to avoid and come back from death*

I think you are mistaken on the respawn thing.


The Boss Monster is *not* an artifact of video games, insofar as RPGs were using them before arcade and video games were. The Boss Monster is a simple example of the literary construction of "rising action", from which both RPGs and video games draw, and in that sense it is entirely appropriate in an RPG. The fictions that inspire our games have a beginning, middle, and end, and near the end of the story heroes typically face off against the most powerful things in the story, in some form of climatic scene, after which there is some drop of tension, denouement, and closing. And then the action starts rising again in the next story.

This is roughly how it goes in large part because, while not realistic, it produces stories we like.