So many monsters ... way too many, in fact

[Driddle]

Don't let the header fool you -- I'm not taking a hardnosed position (yet). Just looking for other perspectives.

As I wandered through my local book store during lunch break today, as I sometimes do, I thumbed through a few "monster manual" source books. Looked at the wide variety arrayed on the shelf -- the classic MM, expanded monsters, campaign specific (viable for importation), demons/devils, etc. You know the products.

I had never before considered how many monsters are available in a D&D game to eat/kill/destroy a person. It really is ridiculous in some sense, when you take a look at your own life and count up the number of (excuse the term) bugaboos that you might find out in the wilds eager to rend a limb or two. On your worst nightmare camping trip, for example, you might be threatened by wolves and bears and angry deer with pointy antlers and maybe a rabid fox or badger or wolverine or stampeding buffalo or kamikaze eagle ... but the total number of critters (predatory or otherwise) that you could face in a lifetime still doesn't even come close to the variety of D&D monsters that PC heroes come across as a matter of casual adventuring.

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- I know, in REAL life, we've got car wrecks and financial-theft computer viruses and kidnapping sexual predators and whatnot. "Monsters" of a sort, each and every one. But not nearly as slayable as, say, a half-dragon dire bugbear barbarian loremaster.

I guess I'm just saying that I appreciate a little more how silly it is to try too hard to make D&D gaming sessions seem "realistic." Too many of the base assumptions simply can't be translated. Can't Be Done.

The only aspect of roleplaying that can really make the translation from REAL to FANTASY is human interaction -- I say This, you say That, and we pretend to do something together. Let's hear it for human spirit. (Yay!)

Still, though ... Way too many monsters.

 

[Henry]

It's not like a person's going to use EVERY one of them out there. A plethora of monsters to choose means that the DM picks and chooses which ones he wants, and puts them in.

Even back in the days of 1st edition, you had young DM's who threw monster after monster at the players: "Let's see... in room #1 you face... Three OGRES!... Ok, in Room #2 you see... 1 Bugbear! Room #3 you see... a beholder! OK, Ok, in Room #4 you see... A Vampire, a Catoblepas, and a Flumph!"

However, the choice of monsters means the ability to choose what's in or out of your ecosystem, too.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Since in reality we are near the top of the food chain it's not surprising that there are a limited number of creatures that could threaten us.

One of the assumptions of the fantasy world is that humans are closer to the middle of the food chain. It's more like we are ants. How many real world creatures would be monsters to an ant? How many creatures do ants in turn prey upon?

 

[Crothian]

The purpose of this many monsters is not to use them all. THat would vbe silly. THe purpose of all the monsters is to find the right ones, the perfect one, that fit with what your needs are.

 

[Flyspeck23]

The purpose of this many monsters is not to use them all. THat would vbe silly. THe purpose of all the monsters is to find the right ones, the perfect one, that fit with what your needs are.

You're calling me silly?


Just jokin'


I'm not a big monster book fan myself. Give me monsters (goblins, orcs, trolls) with class levels, or standard fantasy monsters, or more outsiders - but anything else is lost on me.

 

[Voadam]

Multiple monster books mean multiple options for creating challenges, (How many options do I have for CR 23 monsters) expanding a world's ecology and cosmology (new stuff to find here) or customizing a campaign to be world specific (this feels like dragonlance, there are draconians and minotaurs but I haven't seen an orc the entire campaign so far).

Even just using all the intelligent creatures in the MM together (start with dwarves, humans, goblins, kobolds, hobgoblins, gnolls, orcs, halflings, planetouched, gnomes, elves, ogres, giants, trolls, ogre magi, minotaurs, medusae, mind flayers, kuo toa, locatha, etc.) can make for a Mos Eisley cantina type of feel in a game, so what a DM chooses to use can make a huge difference in a game's feel.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Love monster books.

Reason why? Innovation.

Could you tell a story with no 'monsters'? Sure. Historical tales, no-magic settings and other more true to life settings could easily benefit from that style.

However, and this isn't true for everyone, sometimes players and the GM may become a tad jaded by the old orc-gnoll-bugbear-ogre-hill giant-frost giant-fire giant-storm giant tradition and want to throw some more pies into the mix.

There are still few things as satisfying as seeing the surprised look on a player's face when you break out a new monster to showcase that this isn't the same old kobold as before (althought you still need to watch out for Tucker's Kobolds man!)

 

[Wombat]

One experiment I am trying in my new campaign is to limit the number of "intelligent monsters" out there. The only intelligent races are the ones available to PCs (the choice is based on the AU races, so that might make some difference); all other monsters are of animal-level intelligence. Intelligent foes (as opposed to cunning foes) are NPCs. I am finding this helps make the world seem a bit more sensible, but we'll see how it plays out over time.

It's a thought, at least.

 

[Lamoni]

The purpose of this many monsters is not to use them all. THat would vbe silly. THe purpose of all the monsters is to find the right ones, the perfect one, that fit with what your needs are.

This is exactly what I want.

So, does anyone have a database of all the monsters, or at least all the free ones in the SRD? It would be much easier to find the perfect monster if I could do a sort. For example, I want a random encounter, the party is going through a forest, and are level 7 on average. It would be very convenient if I could sort the monsters by challenge rating, then by environment, and have a list of possible encounters. Of course it should also show the alignment so I could automatically remove good creatures if I wanted.

I have been considering creating a database myself of the monsters with just the name, type, environment, CR, and alignment. Before spending all that time, I just thought I'd ask in case someone already went through the effort and would be willing to share.

 

[Kalendraf]

Depending on your viewpoint/belief system/etc, some would argue there are a whole lot more lurking out there to get you. For example:

Ghosts
Demons/Devils
Angels (evil people need adversaries, right?)
Bigfoot
Vampires
Loch Ness Monster
Aliens
...and for kids...
The Boogeyman
That monster under the bed, or the monster in the closet

Sure, not all of these correspond to monsters in the MM, but the point is there COULD BE a lot more dangers out there than just animals and people.