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!

 

[77IM]

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.

Uh, no, that's pretty blatantly wrong. It's so wrong, it invalidates the entire hypothesis of this article. The only way a person could make a statement like this is if they were badly misinformed. Video games have many ways of ramping up the intensity and drama without just killing the player character, and a tough boss fight can be very satisfying even if you are successful on your first try.

Even in games where you do die a lot, I would argue that lives in video games are merely a resource and that a tough boss monster therefore consumes more resources and that since D&D is, in large part, a resource-tracking game, tough boss monsters who consume more party resources should fit right into the game just fine. And there's abundant evidence to back up that stance (see the comments before mine for some great examples).

 

[Shiroiken]

As others have said, "boss monsters" is a concept that's been around for a long time. In high school, we referred to them as the MFIC, and their defeat was the ultimate goal of a given adventure.

Part of the problem has become the action economy; single monsters can't compete with output the way an entire party can. Legendary Actions help to alleviate the problem, but even then I still suggest using a higher CR than the party. I generally suggest "boss fights" include several henchmen and allies, if only to keep the party from swarming the boss in the first round.

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm going to leave this here.

For those who don't want to click the link:

• (Good) Bosses aren't about difficulty, but they are a test for everything the game/dungeon was about up to that point.
• The entire dungeon/adventure/game/campain outside of and before the Boss fight is where a player learns how to fight the Boss
• Boss fights should be a story unto themselves, with story beats and progression points.
• Dungeons and Dragons introduced the concept of a Boss into the video game world.
• You probably should think of Boss monsters like a video game designer, your Boss fights would be better for it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

Seriously? You actually believe that?

When I play a Final Fantasy game, I expect a boss monster to have a couple of surprises, such that I need to react thoughtfully as they come up. I expect them to have better stats, to have a ton of hit points, and to hit hard enough that I need to actively manage my healing over the course of the fight. It should be a fair test of my preparation and ability, though.

If a boss has some gimmick that there's no way to predict, and I do everything right but still lose, then that's a cheap boss. If I need to go online to look up the right strategy, because only one weird approach has any hope at all, then that's a super cheap boss, and a mark against the entire game.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Never mind.

 

[Frankie1969]

Well this is ironic. The climactic boss battle against the Princes of Elemental Evil in Egg of the Phoenix was the first time I killed PCs (above 1st level). They were grand heroic deaths, and I think everyone went home satisfied that they had done what was necessary to save the world.

 

[Nagol]

"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.

There are two types of 'boss monster' in video games: there is the climatic encounter with something tougher and there is the climatic encounter with an opponent that uses different rules than the game has used until this combat.

The first, as you've pointed out, is extremely common in TTRPG and is generally well-received and even expected.

I despise the second.

Acererak and to a lesser extent [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]Munafik from I3 fall into this category. The players are expected to find arbitrary vulnerabilities with very limited environmental feedback.[/FONT]​

 

[Celebrim]

I despise the second.

Acererak and to a lesser extent [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]Munafik from I3 fall into this category. The players are expected to find arbitrary vulnerabilities with very limited environmental feedback.[/FONT]​

I thoroughly agree with you regarding Acererak, and I've stated in the past that 'Tomb of Horrors' one really serious flaw is that it doesn't provide anything in the way of hints or (with one creative exception) the means for defeating the Demi-lich. Manufik is a much less clear case, in that just before you reach Munufik, there is a room that contains a direct clue and Munafik is not nearly as threatening as Acererak. The problem of course is that with a bit of bad luck, the hints could be completely undecipherable which is a good example of failing at the 'three clue' rule. However, if the party does fall back against the 'invincible' Munafik, there is a very good chance they'll find the back door and at that point it doesn't take much to figure out what is up.

 

[MarkB]

There are some video games where boss monsters are crafted so that a character may die repeatedly as the players learn their attack patterns and weaknesses. A lot of MMORPGs do it this way.

But it's far from universal, or even that commonplace, especially in single-player games. In the majority of videogames, the tactics for the boss fight are presented to the player such that they can grasp them as they play. Either the first attacks will be heavily signposted, with tutorialised indications of what to do in response, or the player will face a Final Exam Boss - one which uses similar tactics to several of its previously-fought minions, but is tougher and deadlier. In this case, the players have already learned the required tactics, but must now apply them all together to defeat this challenge.

And yes, these approaches allow players to beat the boss the first time around if they're quick, careful and lucky, and no, they don't feel at all cheated - they feel a sense of accomplishment.

It's entirely possible to use some of these techniques within a D&D game. If the boss creature has a special attack, let them unleash it upon a hapless NPC first. If they're a more powerful member of the same race or organisation the PCs have been fighting through to get there, have them use similar tactics and tricks, but with higher DCs and more powerful effects.

 

[Nagol]

I thoroughly agree with you regarding Acererak, and I've stated in the past that 'Tomb of Horrors' one really serious flaw is that it doesn't provide anything in the way of hints or (with one creative exception) the means for defeating the Demi-lich. Manufik is a much less clear case, in that just before you reach Munufik, there is a room that contains a direct clue and Munafik is not nearly as threatening as Acererak. The problem of course is that with a bit of bad luck, the hints could be completely undecipherable which is a good example of failing at the 'three clue' rule. However, if the party does fall back against the 'invincible' Munafik, there is a very good chance they'll find the back door and at that point it doesn't take much to figure out what is up.

Oh I agree Munafik is much more tolerable. I remember him clearly though because when I did run I3, not only did the player miss the clues heading in, it was almost a TPK when they first hit him because they couldn't figure out how he wasn't taking damage so they ran through a large number of wrong guesses in the fight. Maybe fire! OK maybe cold! I know! He can only be hurt by weapons found on site! Hmm what about disbelieving? Much of it was the players' fault, of course.