D&D 5E The Minds of Monsters

[Minigiant]

Not to derail another thread, I wish to have a discussion of monster type and their minds. Very often we discuss the physical and spirtual differences of different types of monsters. Rarely do we discuss the mental differences of the types of monsters. Do humaniods,and giants think the same? If you take away their alignment, lifespan, and history with other races, would an elf and a pixie process information the same?

Well let us see my post that spawned this thought.

How about this

Humanoids use humanoid morality and logic. They have free will and can make culture of any alignment.

Giants use giant morality and logic. They have free will and can make culture of the alignment based on their place on the ordning.

Beasts use animal morality and logic. If intelligent, they still act like beasts just smart.

Fey use fey morality and logic. Their will and culture is bound to their lord. Their logic is weird but still logical. Their culture is warped reflections of those of humanoids. Only fey with no master like a hag or royal fey, has free will.

Fiendd use fiendish morality and logic. Their will is tied to their alignment and their morality barely exist. Their cultures are always stolen and corrupted from others. LE devils are always LE. CE demons will always revert to CE. NE Yugoloths never stay from NE.

Celestials use the morality and logic of the gods. Their brains are always in tune with the god their serve.

Aberrations use use alien morality and logic. It is too alien to anyone but them and their kin. Attempting to understand them is a foolish sacrifice of one's mind.

So if your world has you elves and/gobliniods be fey instead of humaniods,how does that change their minds (other than charm immunity)? Does if warp their logic,morality, and/or culture around any plant, animal, stream, or season that they are tied too? Does it bind their mind around the will of their superiors? D&D rarely goes full on fair folk on you with fey. The dryad entry suggest that powerful fey dominate and punish lesser fey is ways different from regular humaniods. A fate worse that death might be different for a pixie than a halfling.

Maybe giants of D&D aren't just big humaniods. The mind of a giant might be similar enough to a humaniod for advanced social interaction between the two types. Internally they might be enough differences to confuse a novice psion probing a stone giant for the combination for a chest. A D&Dism is the Ordning were the giants are ordered in social rank between subtype, within subtype, and withing family. The word "Equal" might be an unfathomable concept to a giant. Someone is better and someone must get more. Maybe a DM might force the players to negotiate down when speaking to a cloud giant over the possible rewards for a quest. A giant might rather not get what they want than willingly make a deal where an inferior being obviously gets more from it that them.

"'You DARE ask for more, small one!' the giant roars. Does a 24 hit?"

So what are your thoughts?
Do the various types of monsters think differently?
If so, how do their minds differ?
Is my favorite class obvious?

 

[Helldritch]

I would say that race, alignment and culture should matter. For me it is obvious that a giant will not have the same approach to a problem than the pixi you mentioned. That much is obvious. A fire giant will not have the same approach than a cloud giant and two cloud giants from different tribes will probably not act in the same way either.

But the most important thing is to make sure that the players are aware of this.

 

[Kurotowa]

Let's start with another question. Is an owlbear a wild animal that's part of the natural ecosystem, an unnatural result of magical fleshcrafting that was set loose and is now invasive, or a monster that was spontaneously generated by negative magical accumulation? Because those three scenarios describe very different worlds, and the same question applies to other creatures. Is an orc a free willed humanoid with its own society and culture, an implacably hostile creation of an evil god with an unquenchable rage and bloodlust, or are you trying to somehow have it both ways at once?

With some creatures it's easy to say that they're fundamentally different from the mortal races that your typical PC comes from. Fiends and celestials, sure, easy call. Fey are also easy to classify as inherently different in their thought process and life cycle. But the "monstrous humanoids" category has always been a murky one with a dark past. There's a lot of baaaad history to declaring that someone from a different race who looks like a person and acts like a person is a non-person.

My go-to has been to cut out the middle ground. Monsters of all shapes and sizes are manifestations of dark magic, spontaneously generated out of thin air and driven to attack the mortal races. No baby monsters, no monster society or ecology, just "here's a monster for the brave heroes to defeat". Everything else is a natural part of the world; the magical animals act like animals that fear fire and don't attack on sight, and anyone that wears clothes and has a language is a member of the mortal races with free will and the assumption that they're a person just like you. Which might still mean they're an naughty word ready to stab you for your wallet, but they're not on the Kill On Sight list like monsters.

 

[the Jester]

I don't even think two humanoid species/races should think the same. Elves, for instance, should have a vastly different perspective than humans. Just as one example, I once played a Cha 18 female elf who was extremely attractive, and very sexually liberated. She'd happily sleep with anyone she liked, once she got to know them a bit. But "getting to know them a bit" took longer than many of the shorter-lived types, like humans, could live (at least, without magical aid). And in my campaign, getting an elven polity to come to a decision is- well, let's just say that it takes a while (shades of Tolkien's ents!).

Then when you get into other types of creatures, I am a fan of even bigger differences. Aberrations, for example, think in ways that are just alien to us. 2e had a couple of great products that served as wonderful examples of this- I, Tyrant (on beholders) and The Illithiad (on mind flayers, natch). They tried hard to depict just how weird and inhuman their thought processes were. Fey morality is nearly impossible for humans to wrap their heads around. Dragons typically see humanoids in the way humanoids see insects- they just don't matter, for the most part. And so on.

 

[Minigiant]

Let's start with another question. Is an owlbear a wild animal that's part of the natural ecosystem, an unnatural result of magical fleshcrafting that was set loose and is now invasive, or a monster that was spontaneously generated by negative magical accumulation? Because those three scenarios describe very different worlds, and the same question applies to other creatures. Is an orc a free willed humanoid with its own society and culture, an implacably hostile creation of an evil god with an unquenchable rage and bloodlust, or are you trying to somehow have it both ways at once?

My answer is "it depends on their subtype". The wild animal owlbear would be a beast and subject to a druid or rangers magic. The magical owlbear would be a monstority and be immune as they have 2 different halves of animal brains struggling for control. It's crazy and your level 1 animal charm wont work.

With some creatures it's easy to say that they're fundamentally different from the mortal races that your typical PC comes from. Fiends and celestials, sure, easy call. Fey are also easy to classify as inherently different in their thought process and life cycle. But the "monstrous humanoids" category has always been a murky one with a dark past. There's a lot of baaaad history to declaring that someone from a different race who looks like a person and acts like a person is a non-person.

That's why to me, they should act like people. A minotaur who wear pants and brews beer isn't a monstrosity or monstrous humanoid. It's a humanoid (minotaur). It's a person with a bull head.

Now the crazy giant bullheaded savage who eats children and needs to be trapped in a maze? That's a monstrosity. It's brain is a fusion of cattle and man and it wasn't clean. It's a monster created by a god with a brain unlike a man

I don't even think two humanoid species/races should think the same. Elves, for instance, should have a vastly different perspective than humans. Just as one example, I once played a Cha 18 female elf who was extremely attractive, and very sexually liberated. She'd happily sleep with anyone she liked, once she got to know them a bit. But "getting to know them a bit" took longer than many of the shorter-lived types, like humans, could live (at least, without magical aid). And in my campaign, getting an elven polity to come to a decision is- well, let's just say that it takes a while (shades of Tolkien's ents!).

I wasn't even going to that level yet. I was going to the top where beings of the same type function in the same way. Culture, age, and experince might change how they think but barring mental illness, their brains work the same.

But a beast and a humanoid think different. A dog wont think like a man. Even if you cast awaken on the dog, it would be just a smart dog. An awaken cat would still think the house is actually theirs but now they can go get the paperwork filled out under your nose.

Dragons typically see humanoids in the way humanoids see insects- they just don't matter, for the most part. And so on.

A silver dragon swarmkeeper ranger but the bees are actuaally human paladins.

 

[Bawylie]

In terms of game elements, I’m not sure it matters too much. This pile of numbers has this flavor text associated with it. Use this or change it. Whatever.

When we get to the setting/lore level, I think we need to address some fundamental order of the universe before we begin answering the deeper questions of agency and morality and free will.

Speaking about my game setting only, celestial creatures do not have free will. The Law comes from They Who Dwell Above And is given to order the chaotic energies of creation into form and substance. The celestial creatures created by the deities are not mortal and exist to carry out the Law.

Meanwhile, mortals do have free will, being composed of the chaotic energies of creation, ordered by the Law, and animated by a spirit of life. Their impermanence and mutability mean they can choose and change. And things that are eternal or immortal cannot change, and so cannot choose to behave in a way that is contrary to their existence. A fire elemental must burn, for example, and can’t just chill out for a bit.

 

[Helldritch]

It all boils down to free will. Who got it and who did not. Depending on the setting and personnal tastes, an orc might not have much to say about his free will. Where in an other setting, the orc could be a devout paladin of lawful good. The same logic could be assigned to any races in a setting. I know a DM in which all elves must be good or they turn into drops and are thus removed from play as a player character. They become in essence NPC. A bit extreme to my tastes but it works quite well for his group and they are happy about it.

I, for one, do not mind the occasional exception to the rule but a good aligned orc will face mistrust and racism to a very high degree if I play in Greyhawk. If I play in Eberron, the same good orc will be a likable fellow that does not face racism or ostracism at all. In fact, he might even be a pillar of a community that is appreciated by all.

As I said, the setting is influences how the races should work. As Bawylie said, the only creatures that should not have a say on how they act in any setting are planar creatures. I could admit an exception here and there but it should be rare to the extreme and a physical change should imply the modification in behavior. Take the fallen angel for example. As they fall, their form is twisted to reflect the evil in their heart. Likewise, a reformed pitfiend should be transformed into a more reassuring appearance.

 

[Shiroiken]

To me the different races are completely different species. Their thought process would be alien to humans, which I try to play up to when I play a non-human. Most players seem to just play them as humans with a quirk or two. Culture should be represented by sub-races (which I refer to as ethnicity) and the campaign specific homelands.

I liked the AD&D concept of probable alignment. Every creature had an alignment that was the average. However, there was a probability of how often an individual creature would be outside of the alignment norm. While the specifics used I might have disagreed with, I think the concept was a good one. With the exception of some outer planar creatures (who are supposed to be the paragon of their planar alignment), everything should have at least some who breaking away from the norm, even if it's very, very rare.

 

[Tonguez]

The reknown philospher KRS-1 once said “Culture is Conciousness, Conciousness and Perception are the roots of identity”

Different races and creatures ought to have entirely different worldviews and I do like to have these at play via cultural quirks rather than ineffective labels such as good vs evil.

For instance gnomes are small eusocial burrowers, their perception of the world is linked to the need for clans to work together to interact in a big world. Gnome tinkering is entirely a result of their ’’swarm syncrenicity’

Giants on the other hand think at a much slower pace than other races, they spend longer sleeping (an extra hour for every foot above 10 - ie a Frost giant sleeps 18 hours per day) and tend to move ponderously (though not slowly). Giants thus dont see the point of all the hubbub and debate that small races do, instead they’ll take time to ponder, make a decision and then just do it, then once done they settle down and rest again.

Orcs imc arent evil but they do have a culture that believes that the first Orc ripped his way out of his mothers belly and then turned to rape his sister. She however beat him and threw his body off the sacred mountain where he was forced to wander in the wilderness. Orcs thus see life as a violent struggle where every individual must take what they desire and even mothers are ready to be slain by their own children.

Then there is my take on a Gnolls Courtship poetry (they are suprisingly romantic)
“My bitzh your scent is like fresh killed meat
that is hung up upon a tree.
many are those who fight with me for your attention,
but with bare teeth I will tear at their throats and throw them down before you,
I will offer you their liver and together we will eat the contents of their stomachs!”

 

[Krachek]

I like your idea,
so in the other thread it would be simple to propose
Orc, medium humanoid
vs
Orc, medium fiend