Do you monster?

[Drawmack]

I tend to write and enjoy, playing and running, people centric adventures and campaigns. It is a couple of things that make me enjoy this.

One of the main reasons that I enjoy using humans and demihumans is because your players never know what they are no matter how long they've been playing. Is that elf in the red robes with the staff a wizard or a rogue in disguise and what level is he anyway? Sure I can throw an orc or kobold with class levels at the PCs and I do that sometimes, but it's playing dirty in my book. However if the PCs see a beholder or a dragon they know it's tough. Using human and demihuman characters makes the encounters more variable and keeps things fresh even for experienced PCs.

Another reason that I like people centric adventures and campaigns is versimlitude (sp.). Sure the creatures from the MM exist and some of them in quantity. The monster that I see running rampant are the goblinoids, kobolds and things like that. Creatures that are roughly equivolent to the PC races for power level. The animals also run rampant. Dire Animals are also pretty prevelent. However, when you get into the more fantastical beasts these should be rarities. When an adventurer conqueres a horde of zombies that should go on his, but you haven't done this list. When an adventurer conqueres a beholder he shouldn't even have any idea what he's seen, let alone a commoner having a name for it or knowing what it is. If a dragon flies into town everyone should be cowering in the hovels because one of those hasn't been seen around here for centuries. These more powerful monsters are very rare and not every day occurance. Therefore to have a monster centric campaign quickly breaks the versimlitude for me. (Mind you that I'm not discounting infestations like an abandon building that has been overrun by vampires or something like that - acctually vampires aren't all that rare, people just confuse them with humans and demiumans)

Another thing about monster centric campaigns that turns me off is the ease of turning the game black and white. I have seen many a game degenerate into we're adventurers that means that we kill monsters and the PCs kill everything they come up against. Whereas with a people centric campaign there are many more shades of gray available and it is much more dificult to slip into the take no prisoners mode of play. If you have an ogre mage who is stealing the children from a town the PCs are fairly likely to just run and kill the ogre mage (then the nasty GM has the problem not stop but that's another point) whereas if it is an elf hiding out in the woods surrounding an elvin village that is the bad guy the PCs are probably going to try diplomacy or at least figuring out why first instead of just running in with swords drawn and spells readied. (I know I'm going to get arguments on this one but it is my experience that it is easier for the game to degenerate when the advesaries are monsters then when they are human or demihuman.)

I was just wondering what other people's thoughts on this are. Do you monster or human/demihuman and why?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I prefer an even mix of the two. I have noticed though that quite often when a DM prefers humanoid foes on the average it is a hint that he is going to run a low magic campaign.

 

[Drawmack]

Well I am currently running low magic, but I have run people centric high magic as well and I prefer people centric in low and high magic settings.

 

[kengar]

In the campaign I am currently playing in, the four main races are humans, fey (elves), goblins (orcs) & kobolds. Most of our encounters have been against evil goblins that have been building up an army and raiding more often.

However, we recently encountered an ogre. These are mythical creatures in our world, so we weren't sure how the DM had "tweaked" the stats. We managed to beat him, but as he got down to 0 hp in the middle of an Entangle spell, he offered a ransom and dropped unconscious. So our party then had a whole moral dilemma about killing a helpless foe that had basically surrendered our letting this thing go that apparently tried to catch and eat people. It was a very different situation from "Monsters = Bad. Me PC, me kill monsters!" and a lot of fun, IMHO.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

No moral dilemma at all. Most military people will tell you that you do not accept the surrender of someone who mere moments before was trying to kill you and only offers to surrender once they are about to die or are out of ammo etc.

The ogre only surrendered after doing as much damage as he could. That is enough reason to slit his throat while he is unconcious.

In the campaign I am currently playing in, the four main races are humans, fey (elves), goblins (orcs) & kobolds. Most of our encounters have been against evil goblins that have been building up an army and raiding more often.

However, we recently encountered an ogre. These are mythical creatures in our world, so we weren't sure how the DM had "tweaked" the stats. We managed to beat him, but as he got down to 0 hp in the middle of an Entangle spell, he offered a ransom and dropped unconscious. So our party then had a whole moral dilemma about killing a helpless foe that had basically surrendered our letting this thing go that apparently tried to catch and eat people. It was a very different situation from "Monsters = Bad. Me PC, me kill monsters!" and a lot of fun, IMHO.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I like my monsters, thank you very much - though I have no problem at all with human henchmen of powerful monsters...

The trick is, in my mind, to make each monster unique. Either I steal the ideas for a monster from a source that my players aren't familiar with (Delta Green: Countdown is my personal favorite), or I find ways to tweak existing monsters to make them interesting (what do you get if you give monstrous spiders human intelligence and a few level in the psychic classes? A memorable foe, that's what!).

I my adventures, the PCs tend to be part of humanity's defense against alien threats - even if they aren't always all that effective. Any human villains they encounter have usually sold out either their souls, or their fellow human beings out to these entities for the sake of their own power...

 

[0-hr]

I simply refuse to use the word "monster" as a verb.

 

[kengar]

No moral dilemma at all. Most military people will tell you that you do not accept the surrender of someone who mere moments before was trying to kill you and only offers to surrender once they are about to die or are out of ammo etc.

The ogre only surrendered after doing as much damage as he could. That is enough reason to slit his throat while he is unconcious.

That was part of the debate. For myself, the choice was accept his surrender and honor the bargain or just kill him outright. Some of the other characters wanted to bind his wounds, have him lead us to his lair, take the gold he offered as ransom, THEN kill him. Which I, at least, saw as dishonorable & less than good. The "discussion" went from there.

 

[Drawmack]

I simply refuse to use the word "monster" as a verb.

Thank you for the very insightful post that enlightens us all to your position on this issue. I love it when someone reads a thread and then posts in the spirit of that thread instead of taking a small piece and ripping on that. I really appreciate the fact that you did just that.

In the future I will be sure to give my threads titles like, ''When you are designing an adventure or campaign do you prefer to use more monsters, humans/demihumans or an equal mix of both?'' Who cares if it is long and therefor less reader friendly as long as webster's finds it correct.

 

[Psion]

First off: Don't verb nouns!

I typically use creatures with civilizations and societies as villains in my game, and very often those are humans. Evil within your own society blends in and is often harder to fight than the most terrifying monsters. Even when not running humans, I tend to use creatures like Hobgoblins, Drow, as well as some less humanoid civilized creatures like Mind Flayers.

That said, I do run monstrous and asocial creatures, things like dragons, capricious spirits, restless dead, and ravening beasts. It is a fantasy game, the presence of such creatures is part of what makes the fantasy, and these creatures serve as a reminder for what a chaotic world lies beyond the city gates -- or sometimes, lurks in the shadows. PCs probably see such creatures much more than NPCs do; such creatures tend to be the center of adventures. Further, you can have engaging games about problem solving regarding non-humanoid creatures; it doesn't have to be a hack-em-up.