D&D General How do you use giants in your game?

[Demetrios1453]

In my opinion, hill giants are the only ones that you might normally find wandering about. The rest tend to stay in their element (underground, tundra/glacier, volcanoes, high mountains and floating in the sky, and deep in the sea), so in most cases (with some exceptions), adventurers need to go to them instead of them coming out to the adventurers. But even if they are fairly reclusive, there will sill be some friction with neighbors, and on rare occasions a group of frost or fire giants might go out on a raid for fun or loot.

 

[Ancalagon]

After playing Storm King's Thunder, my thinking on giants has evolved. Giants are humanoids touched a bit of a divine - a giant is not a "mortal" per say, but they are not gods either - although, in some cases, they have contested with the gods.

I see the roll of giants to be a counterbalancing forces to the dragons. There is no doubt that a single dragon is often more powerful than a single giant, but 2-3 giants throwing boulders can put a serious dent in a dragon's day.

I've also thought of a kingdom where giants lived in harmony with mortals. Hill giants for example usually work with human peasants, lending their enormous strength to various tasks or the defense of the village in exchange for significant amount of food.

 

[Ancalagon]

Also after playing SKT's tactically giants are a huge challenge. Their ranged attack capability completely changes the dynamic of a "boss" monster. However, some care has to be taken, as a level 5 party can defeat a hill giant in a single round with a good control spell.

 

[Lanefan]

I use Giants if I want two things to happen: lots of characters to die and the survivors to gain lots of xp.

Giants are usually nice simple opponents, which can provide a pleasant change of pace now and then from devious plotting types or undead or tentacles (undead and tentacles are far more common foes in my game these days).

Giants bleed xp in 1e but over the years they're also one of the most dangerous foes in terms of how many character deaths they cause. I've toughened them up considerably from their glass-cannon 1e-as-written cousins: they get their strength bonus to hit and damage, they have more hit dice (which means they fight better), more hit points, and so forth.

Not the sort of things low or even mid-level parties want to meet in any numbers.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

When I ran Storm Giant's thunder, the party was a Star Gate crew requested by locals to deal with the giant activity.

I used Ultramodern 5 for the PCs.

They had local tech support from the Gnomes and drove around in a Green Studebaker across the Realms

While we never finished it, the giants had started getting access to the technology and would as time progressed.

Hense I had renamed the adventure Storm Giant's Shotgun to give you a clue what the giants had managed to scrounge that they had to deal with at one point. <evil grin>.

 

[Yaarel]

I am currently thinking about how to implement Giants for a 2024 setting.

Ideas include:

Giants are like the ghost of a mountain (or rock formation, volcano, lake, etcetera).
They manifest out of nowhere then vanish again. Often thru mists.
The mountain projects its mind outward.
This projection travels via the Border Ethereal Plane overlapping and interacting the Material.
When the mountain projects, its mind takes on any form, such as humanlike or beastlike.
Usually the mountain has a preferred form, but some can express alternate forms.
Whatever the form, there is always some kind of hint of its mountainous origin.
Giants typically take on a humansize form. Only certain individuals manifest a larger form.
The size a form can achieve depends on magical power (level tier) upto the size of mountain.
All creatures with a Giant creature type function this way, they are a specific feature of nature.

 

[Hriston]

In the default cosmology I like to use, giants (and titans) are the offspring of primordials who begat them for the purpose of contesting with the "gods", spirits from outside creation, who sought to subdue and shape the world according to their will. Once defeated, the giants withdrew to the liminal spaces of the world to make way for the world of mortals, from whence they occasionally cause trouble.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Just saw this

Giants are neat but are underplayed in the world of gaming. they are almost like mecha that they are unfeasible. Even in my Hodgepocalypse I stick to giant animals over giant humanoids. So based on your own favorites and experiences, how do you use giants in the game of your choice?

This video helped me so much in finding a better direction for Giants. Because they are incredibly hard to work with as a whole. Sure, a single giant or a tribe of giants can be plopped into a game with relative ease, but connecting giant-kin to true giants to the wider cosmos is REALLY hard to do in a way that is interesting. I'm currently leaning more towards the "we laid the bones of the Earth" style for them, and pulling back on the Ordning and leaning into the elemental themes.

A few side-tangents that matter.

1) Mildly stealing from Wandering Inn, Ogres are not Giant Kin, they are the last step in Goblin growth (goblin -> hobgoblin -> Ogre; Bugbears are fey) and they are not stupid or unhygenic. They are in fact UTTERLY TERRIFYING because they are 9 ft tall veteran warriors.

2) Hill Giants are reflavored to be far more like "plains giants" or "farmer giants". They are not stupid, ugly, or unhygenic. They are salt of the earth types living in log cabins and tending their fields, which are suitably massive. This then gives us some fun in terms of roles. Hill Giants farmer, Frost Giants Hunt, Fire Giants forge, Stone Giants create (Art), Cloud Giants are Nobles, Storm Giants are Kings, Priests, and Prophets. Much better than all of that except "Hill Giants are ugly stupid smelly ones that do nothing by eat and be lazy)

3) I don't use Ettins. They are just large, smelly, stupid and have two heads. I do not use Cyclops, they are large, smelly, stupid and have one eye. [Noticing a pattern?]

4) Trolls are Fiendish in origin, literally being lesser clones of Vaprak, and are not Giant Kin.

The bigger issue I've had for a while is connecting Giants to Goliaths and Firbolgs. I wanted to have a way to move from the PC species to the True Giants. I know have ideas for that based in the idea that Goliaths and Firbolgs are the least of their kin, born of elements and only when they awaken that spark of creation and power within themselves do they begin to achieve their proper size. This will be interesting, because it inherently makes all giants older. You won't find a 20 yr old giant, unless they are a genius prodigy. The youngest giant might already be 50 to 60 years old and have seen much of the world. Which gives them a fine way of being in the world.

 

[Tonguez]

Playable Giants stand 9 - 10 ft tall, average int, great strength, but low motility and metabolism - as a result they need more sleep (12 - 16 hours).

True giants stand over 50 tall and unique elementally infused beings, that might be sleeping beneath mountains, or in deep lakes until aroused to wreak catostrophic havoc on the surrounding region. They include the Legendary Storm Giants who bring hurricaine and lightning storms, the Craaghorn that causes massive earthquakes and sandstorms, the Magma giants that explode forth from volcanic craters and the sea dwelling Typhonus.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

I really do think a way to solve this disconnect is to allow young giants to be viable pcs.
When they get older, they get turned into NPCS.

suddently players have buy in because of projection and will do a lot of the busy work for you and it gives them a "retirement plan."