Monsters with humanity

[TheSword]

As part of my ongoing re-read of the Witcher series (finished the first book and onto the number two) I was struck by how much I liked the weaving of monstrous creatures with ordinary people. Very few monster stories stood on their own… there was always a curse, human failing or attempt to use the monster for sinister reasons. The same applies in The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. As well as the novels.

In D&D, monsters can sometimes be seen as fire and forget. Just one of a dozen encounters in a dungeon or location to deplete resources from the PCs. Have you ever used monsters to bring out more human stories. Either in their creation or their raison d’etra.

An example from my game is of a clutch of Ankhegs attracted by poisoned pellets spread in a land dispute between two rival farmers. Both accuses the other of kidnapping and murdering the other’s farmhands/family but it is the burrowing insects that emerge from below upon unsuspecting farmers. Driving off the Ankhegs permanently means discovering what attracted them in the first place.

When have you used monsters in a way that illuminates the human condition rather than just as a speed bump in an adventures?

 

[JConstantine]

Examining the human condition through the eyes of a monster is exactly my goal with Vampire: The Masquerade (V5 especially), but that's probably a bit of a cheat (same could be said for the rest of WoD and CoD games), so I'll skip that.

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What I like about many situations in The Witcher is that it's often the humans who are the true monsters, while several monsters are the victims. It's very Greek myth. Eberron tends to humanise monstrous humanoids, and did so before WotC started following that trend in baseline D&D, so this is one of the ways I like to differentiate Eberron from other settings. For the Forgotten Realms, I lean into the tropes and clichés, while for Eberron I try to subvert them.

As one example: in both settings, I have a side quest involving a sculptor who produces remarkably lifelike statues. For FR, it's an unscrupulous failed artist with a captive cockatrice/basilisk/medusa (depending on party level). For Eberron, it's a medusa, but she's not using her petrifying gaze, she's just that skilled, having developed her craft to honour lost loved ones.
I also have some minor instances like a harpy lounge singer, and a theatre troupe comprised solely of changelings and doppelgangers.

 

[Distracted DM]

It seems like two things are being discussed here: giving monsters depth/"humanizing" them, and complex morality/shades of grey stories in your games.

Giving monsters depth is awesome, it makes the world feel more real. Does that require humanizing them? No. But humanizing them can also be rewarding, and inject some morality angles, if those are the types of stories you want to tell.

I think it's good to sprinkle in those "we found out afterwards that the orcs are only attacking because the villagers chopped down their god-tree; humans are the real monsters" moments, but it's also nice to have the "the Medusa really is the evil monster luring travelers in via harpies, thank you for saving our people from the monster" adventures.

Complexity and shades of grey are great to shake things up if your tables are used to the standard tropes and want something different.
But sometimes it's just nice to feel like heroes saving innocent villagers from marauding giants that were going to eat them.