Monster Inflation

[Echohawk]

One of the things about most game worlds that troubles me is the sheer number of monsters. At what point does even trying to conceive of an ecology in which they all fit become ludicrous? How many is too many?

Well, by my count, D&D has between 8600 and 9000 distinct creatures detailed across all of the editions. Obviously, the exact number depends on what counts as a "creature", but that's about the ball-park we're talking about.

For comparison, Earth has around 1.3 different species described so far (out of an estimated total of 8.7 million species), and the monsters of D&D cover not just one planet, but many different planets, worlds and even planes.

It seems like it would be a stretch to put all known D&D creatures on one planet, or even to use all of them in one campaign, but I think there is still plenty of scope for interesting new D&D monsters to be described in the future.

 

[JeffB]

I alter things to taste. Have done so since 1978. I have never used every crtter available (frankly, I feel alot of dnd monsters are stupid), and if I am running a published campaign setting, I alter it to taste as well. Currently my OGB FR game has more of a WOHF thing going on than the high fantasy muck up it has become.

I dont understand the reason why anyone would not change something they do not like in a fantasy game or feel the need to find justification. Its been implied since they were first published to do your own thing , and change/alter what you do not like. Its a game of make believe.

 

[Jester David]

One of the things about most game worlds that troubles me is the sheer number of monsters. At what point does even trying to conceive of an ecology in which they all fit become ludicrous? How many is too many?

This is a problem only as long as monsters are part of the ecology and a full species.
Some monsters might be unique. There might only be two hydra in the entire world. Every medusa and Minotaur might be a cursed individual.

 

[DragonLancer]

One of the things about most game worlds that troubles me is the sheer number of monsters. At what point does even trying to conceive of an ecology in which they all fit become ludicrous? How many is too many?

Unless your world is different than most, the standard beasties such as orcs, dragons, ogres, trolls...etc exist. But everything else only exists when it makes an appearence in your game world.

 

[Li Shenron]

One of the things about most game worlds that troubles me is the sheer number of monsters. At what point does even trying to conceive of an ecology in which they all fit become ludicrous? How many is too many?

It's your responsibility as a DM.

If your campaign world is overcrowded with monsters, it's your fault

But generally speaking I think this problem is more in the imagination of those who read too much and then run a kitchen-sink campaign. OTOH those gaming groups tend to be the same gaming groups that also level up fast and quickly reach the "save the universe" campaign-end-point. If they ever looked back, they'd notice that of all the thousands of monsters they thought they existed, probably they've actually met just a couple dozen.

 

[nijineko]

not to mention all the summoning, or flat our experimenting new things into existence (jermalines among others) and interbreeding that goes on.... plus, there are a whole lot of planes to fill and spill over into any overlapping plane/world.