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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 4661285" data-attributes="member: 2629">ROLE. Playing game.If you play the monsters with a personality, then this all washes out and you end up giving your players a greater experience.You're a monster. A squishy thing in a tin can is swinging a metal stick at you, and it hurts when that stick hits you. What do you do?To me, the answer should depend on the creature that is fighting. Most orcs, giants and ogres in my game come at you hard and try to dish out as much damage as possible, as fast as possible - willing to risk being hit to deliver the damage.A kobold will generally try to hurt you without getting hurt itself. Get in, hurt you and get out befoer that stick skewers you.An ancient dragon will evaluate the situation and make an informed decision: Risk the hit to deliver damage, or be more defensive and make a less optimal attack.Techy beasts that like to grab a foe and run? Well, they do that!Run monsters with personality, and the mechanics thing becomes secondary. You'll heed them when running a monster that would heed them and you'll ignore them in decision making when the monster would ignore them.This approach gives the PCs a greater variety in the games (getting to use certain abilities in some battles where a monster has to be 'dumb' to be in a position to use the power, and getting to use other abilities that are only really useful against intelligent foes against the brainiacs of the monster world).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 4661285, member: 2629"] ROLE. Playing game. If you play the monsters with a personality, then this all washes out and you end up giving your players a greater experience. You're a monster. A squishy thing in a tin can is swinging a metal stick at you, and it hurts when that stick hits you. What do you do? To me, the answer should depend on the creature that is fighting. Most orcs, giants and ogres in my game come at you hard and try to dish out as much damage as possible, as fast as possible - willing to risk being hit to deliver the damage. A kobold will generally try to hurt you without getting hurt itself. Get in, hurt you and get out befoer that stick skewers you. An ancient dragon will evaluate the situation and make an informed decision: Risk the hit to deliver damage, or be more defensive and make a less optimal attack. Techy beasts that like to grab a foe and run? Well, they do that! Run monsters with personality, and the mechanics thing becomes secondary. You'll heed them when running a monster that would heed them and you'll ignore them in decision making when the monster would ignore them. This approach gives the PCs a greater variety in the games (getting to use certain abilities in some battles where a monster has to be 'dumb' to be in a position to use the power, and getting to use other abilities that are only really useful against intelligent foes against the brainiacs of the monster world). [/QUOTE]

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