Voadam
Legend
How so?
Mostly I see undead type and afterlife cosmologies as fairly separate, any of the three types could work with a variety of afterlife cosmologies.
D&D General Curated monster lists - world building
Mostly I see undead type and afterlife cosmologies as fairly separate, any of the three types could work with a variety of afterlife cosmologies.
Older Beholder
Hero
Yeah, I think you’re right. I was thinking of how the choice of undead would influence world building in general, afterlife / cosmologies was a bad example.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Not really, I did a world which was all ghost - no corporeal undead - and the absence of zombies and ghouls etc wasnt all that noticable, though it did get me to consider other ‘degenerate’ humanoids like Grimlocks and Derro as alternatives to undead ghouls. Ghost have a more ‘psychological/psychic attack feel to them and being incorporeal and ethereal opens up a lot of space for lurking and suprise attacks too. However DnD isnt all that good at psychological horror …
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
This deserves its own thread. It would be an interesting discussion. In D&D the creation of undead can be performed by both arcane and divine magic. Yet healing is mostly limited to divine casters. Then again, D&D's magic system isn't particularly cohesive or logically consistent. I've toyed with the idea of running a campaign where anything related to creating undead would be limited to divine casters.
hgjertsen
Explorer
If I'm being perfectly honest, in all of my campaigns I have only ever stuck monsters I thought were cool, an appropriate mechanical challenge for the players, or fit the theme I'm trying to communicate via the game world in somewhat uncaringly and never obsessed over a sort of wikia-ization of my game world.
The game world exists primarily to communicate a theme or dramatic tension, as it is not a real place. If I am running a campaign about people coming to terms with their mortality, undead might be an obvious inclusion, but which types of undead specifically do not matter to me. I want the game world to feel consistent, so I'll use some common-sense discretion (i.e. nothing my table or I would find "silly") but other than that it's generally just a pastiche of whichever monsters fit the current adventure.
There is of course one exception: Sci-Fantasy, which I feel is more interesting if it's characterized by a feeling of having been extensively studied and catalogued in the distant past, with ancestral memories of biology serving as an accurate mythological account of all the beasts roaming the planet.
The game world exists primarily to communicate a theme or dramatic tension, as it is not a real place. If I am running a campaign about people coming to terms with their mortality, undead might be an obvious inclusion, but which types of undead specifically do not matter to me. I want the game world to feel consistent, so I'll use some common-sense discretion (i.e. nothing my table or I would find "silly") but other than that it's generally just a pastiche of whichever monsters fit the current adventure.
There is of course one exception: Sci-Fantasy, which I feel is more interesting if it's characterized by a feeling of having been extensively studied and catalogued in the distant past, with ancestral memories of biology serving as an accurate mythological account of all the beasts roaming the planet.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I think thats how most of us do it. The point was raised in another thread where it was used as a "gotcha" for DMs who didn't allow certain character classes in their campaign because to support their campaigns theme or world building. The argument was something along the lines of "well, if do you determine all the monsters that exist in your world up front? No? Well then what's the problem of allowing dragonborn or any other class concept and just working that into your world."
I don't want to rekindle that discussion here, as there is already a very long thread on this. But it did raise an interesting discussion in how important monster curation is to world building and for those DMs creating their own worlds or customizing existing settings, how much thought do they put into what monsters exist in their world up front.
hgjertsen
Explorer
I think it very much depends on whether or not you think you will be able to improvise a set of monsters which are thematically consistent with your world on the fly or if you would rather have it planned out. Of course, others may be of the opinion that the world needs to, in a sense, be more concrete in order to feel more real and engaging, I would be inclined to say that for the most part, it's common sense sort of stuff.
In a Lovecraft-esque game, creatures like Aboleths, Star Spawn, Fishmen, Kuo-Toa, and cannibals would probably feel appropriate and consistent to the setting and aesthetic of the campaign.
Alternatively, if you're running a high fantasy campaign replete with dragons, dwarves, elves, goblins, ogres, and trolls, it might be prudent to shy away from things like Illithids, Grung, Xvarts, and Beholders.
Probably comes down more to how much you like to have things planned out in my opinion.
Remathilis
Legend
I still find it a valid point when it comes to curation. Most DMs spend lots of time explaining the intricacies of player facing elements, but far less rigid work DM facing elements. Harengon was a new fey race introduced in Witchlight and later MotM. If they were another Monster in a supplement, most DMs would not give it' much more thought than that. It could exist as an interloper from the feywild, or in hidden communities deep in ancient woods like other humanoids. But outside the few DMs who will ban it on sight due to personal preference or strict theming (like running Athas for example) most DMs would not consider the implications of yet another animal-based humanoid monster.
But WotC provided PC stats for them, and that changed everything. Because someone might pick them one day, and that requires effort to either nip it in the bud or integrate them into the world ahead of time. I'm sure there are kitchen sink DMs who don't consider that until someone asks to play one, but the previous discussion was an exploration of how curated PC options are superior to kitchen sink worlds, so it would follow that if curation is good for player options to keep consistent to a theme, vision, or design principle, the same thing would be true of DM options. A world based on Tolkien does not fit the Gothic monsters of Horror, Norse myth loses its theme when you're fighting Cthulhu. A grimdark world doesn't have a place for a rabbit-fey humanoid, PC or monster.
What I suspect is that most DMs do informally check monsters when designing an adventure, but make that call only at the time of design. Thus, a monster lives in one of two states: existence (been used in the game before) and potentially (has not) with some exceptions for definitely doesn't (orcs on Krynn) whereas PC options are defined ahead of time in a hope to avoid hard feelings when a player asks to play X and the DM says no.
I'm framing my argument in more neutral terms here because I do feel there is a point beyond gotcha with this. If internal consistency was the primary factor, it would apply to all aspects of the game, monsters included. But I suspect it has more to do with expectation control than world building the vast majority of the time. Few players get upset when they don't meet or fight orcs, but do get upset if told they can't play as one.
Voadam
Legend
Different issues arise with PC options and DM options. A PC option is there for the character's life in the campaign week after week. A monster can be there for one encounter. A PC option from a story perspective is much more important and impactful and for a race option should be more fleshed out than a monster option. If you have a PC rabbit folk it is generally more important to figure out how rabbit folk fit into the world so the player can play off of that more with their character. For a DM it is less impactful to have a one off rabbit folk encounter with the explanation made up on the spot to fit the situation or the explanation to be left a mystery.
Remathilis
Legend
That doesn't excuse the lack of world-building though if the goal is an internally consistent world.
A group of PCs encounter a gang of haregon bandits along the road. Ok, why are the bandits haregon? Are they natives of the area? If so, why have the PCs not encountered them before? If they are not natives, why are they here and where did they come from? Are the just refugees from a distant land, exiles from the feywild, or just a couple unlucky sods who stumbled through a portal from Gods-know-where? Why are they hostile? Are they feared, hated, or misunderstood? Could they have gone to the next town and gotten honest work if they wanted, or would they be perpetually shunned to a life of banditry on the outside of town? Are they inherently evil (or have a reputation to be)? What do the PCs know about them: lore, rumors, legends, or are they completely clueless? What happens when the PCs stop and parley with them or capture and interrogate them?
All that stems from one encounter. I guess if they act as one-dimensional HP sacks that fight to the death and exist to be defeated and looted, it doesn't matter. Haregon bandits replace goblins, orcs, elves, or human bandits and it works the same. But if the goal is internal consistency, it SHOULD matter.
Now, I think the same situation could easily apply to any PC as well. If a player came to me and asked "Can I play a haregon" I would have to ask the exact same questions. Are the natives or foreigners? Where do they come from? How do others think and react to them? There is trivial difference except perhaps the PC might need a greater amount of depth. (Or they may not, if the answer is "you fell through a portal" then the answer of where you came from is immaterial. What matters is you're here now.)
Which leads to a situation where most DMs punt on the question on where the NPC haregon bandits come under the hopes it won't matter, but don't on the PC haregon because it always will matter. My argument is "if you are curtailing things because they don't fit if your vision for the world, that vision should contain monsters as well." Otherwise, such curation isn't being made for consistency or vision as much as for personal taste masquerading as such. Which is a nice way of saying "if you're going to ban haregon, do it because you hate furries and not because you feel they don't match the tone of Greyhawk".
I have made (and will continue to make) exceptions for a world where there obviously IS a vision that is stated out the gate and is handshook on by all parties involved. If I say I'm running Theros, I'm under as much obligation to not put in a beholder as the PCs are in not playing a gnome. The goal is to keep to MTG and Greek myth species, and that should be respected. In such cases, the DM is under as much limitation in his options as the player is. This thread is really a good test to see when DMs opt to do this vs ones who use world building as a tool to limit player options without likewise limiting their own.
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