Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 9448584" data-attributes="member: 7635">50 years of familiarity has drained much of the strangeness out of the bog standard MM creatures already. Orcs in D&D were more stupid henchmen than unstoppable force, it took Warcraft to really rehabilitate them from stupid pig men into something compelling. But ultimately, any arguments against the cantina come down to the fact that regardless of genre or setting, we can only conceptualize sentience in the framework of humanity so any sentient creature is going to end up humanish the more we are exposed to it. Even something as alien as a mind flayer becomes less alien the more you try to design a culture, society and other aspects.In the end, the "nightmare creature" is only frightening because we don't know much about it. The more we learn and understand, the less frightening it becomes. Which is why many iconic D&D monsters have become playable or spawned a playable version: the fact we define them means we understand them and that leads us to want to explore their stories. And not everyone wants to do that in the context of the DMs chair. Plus, monsters are cool and people like to play cool things. Never underestimate the power of wanting to play the bad guy.</blockquote>