D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[TiQuinn]

As an explanation: I tried to run Masque of the Red Death and while I love the setting flavor, it's an absolute nightmare to run in AD&D. One race. Four classes, crippled spell casting (spells took multiple full rounds to cast) no armor and Ravenloft rules on top of it (powers checks, etc). And bog standard (or Ravenloft enhanced) monsters. It's punishingly brutal and not a single thing was given to the players to make up for it. The game lasted one module (Red Jack) and when they were tpked at the end by the villain, we all agreed we weren't having enough fun to try again and did a regular AD&D game.

Man, I loved Masque of the Red Death. We ran it for about 6 months when it came out - probably had about level 5 characters when we were done. Cover and guns were the important differences in battles and we played it not that different from Call of Cthulhu in that if you resorted to fighting, you probably messed up somewhere. We treated it as a more investigative game and found it to be very fun. I think there’s a question of whether or not it’s better than just plucking the CoC rules and putting that into a 1890s Gothic horror setting versus playing Masque rules, but I didn’t find the game boring or unplayable.

 

[Remathilis]

Man, I loved Masque of the Red Death. We ran it for about 6 months when it came out - probably had about level 5 characters when we were done. Cover and guns were the important differences in battles and we played it not that different from Call of Cthulhu in that if you resorted to fighting, you probably messed up somewhere. We treated it as a more investigative game and found it to be very fun. I think there’s a question of whether or not it’s better than just plucking the CoC rules and putting that into a 1890s Gothic horror setting versus playing Masque rules, but I didn’t find the game boring or unplayable.

I ran the module that they gave in the box set and got the above results. Today I'd rather run something like Stokerverse than try to adapt D&D to 1890s Earth, unless I was going full urban fantasy steampunk with it.

 

[TiQuinn]

I ran the module that they gave in the box set and got the above results. Today I'd rather run something like Stokerverse than try to adapt D&D to 1890s Earth, unless I was going full urban fantasy steampunk with it.

I will be googling this Stokerverse today.

 

[billd91]

Could you though, really? Like, let's be realistic. If you're making low fantasy you're chopping the wizard, the dwarf, the elf, probably the halfling, I'd say you want to chop the cleric as well. That's already 3/4 of the most basic races and 2/4 of the basic classes. You're excising a lot of stuff right off the bat, to say nothing of how many creatures just aren't ending up used. How many items are being thrown on the chopping floor. So much of the work is being thrown away I'd easily say its at least 80% even when we're talking the most basic books of Basic, not even going into the expanded line.

Well, that's the thing, right? If you approached it with that attitude, it was never going to work for you. But if you had buy in from all the players and DM, it would work just fine.
Just because D&D has stuff in it doesn't mean it's gotta be deployed in every campaign. The fact that it's present doesn't imply that it's necessary.

 

[Flying Toaster]

I find the biggest hypocritical element DMs who champion limitations as a vessel of creativity make is that they often find reasons to limit what players can play, but so not likewise limit what they can use as far as monsters and magic. Lots of DMs find it perfectly acceptable to ban the race section from Monsters of the Multiverse but then don't likewise ban themselves from using the Monster section of the same book.

Show me the DM who says they will only use the monsters from the Monster Manuel and nothing else and I'll show you a DM who actually values limitations as creativity. Anything else is "Limits for Thee, but not for Me!"

If a DM wants to run a strongly themed campaign that restricts or bans some of the familiar PC options, I would expect that they would offer some other options unique to that setting. Using monsters appropriate to that theme seems like a natural next step.

I am interested in running campaigns with a strong flavor derived from history and mythology, using ideas from 1E Legends & Lore, the 2E green historical splatbooks, and so on. I would probably restrict or discourage some options that do not fit the setting while offering plenty of others instead, and I would definitely use monsters that supported that setting flavor over ones that distracted from it.

For instance, sometime I would like to run a game based on ancient civilizations - Egyptian, Greek, Mesopotamian, etc. I have the 5E Theros book and the Southlands books for the Kobold Press Midgard setting, and if I add in stuff from the 2E green splatbooks there should be plenty of player options. The Southlands books include things like gnolls and cat people, and if someone ever wanted to play a satyr bard who plays the pan pipes, well here is the perfect opportunity. Obviously it would take some homebrew work to make it all fit together, but that is part of the fun.

D&D has had monsters based on the lore of ancient civilizations ever since the white box era, and I would definitely use those creatures (sphinxes, griffons, pegasi, etc) instead of those from other cultures, or the unique D&D monsters like beholders and umber hulks. If celestial beings show up they might be lamassu or shedu, but probably not couatl or kirin. Powerful undead would be mummies or other tomb dwellers, not Transylvanian vampires.

I am also interested in running a “Northlands” campaign, and KP will be publishing a setting book by that name. It would have an early medieval flavor with Celtic, Norse, Baltic/Slavic, and Finnic influences. The classic D&D “Tolkien races” would make perfect sense there, since that is where JRRT got so many of his ideas (including dwarf names) in the first place. IIRC the KP Midgard setting has both ravenfolk and bearfolk.

On the other hand I can also see the fun in running an old school gonzo campaign that has lots of disparate elements, like European knights going dungeon delving with samurai and witches. I would only try to run a strongly themed campaign if I could get significant player buy-in right from the start.

 

[Remathilis]

I will be googling this Stokerverse today.

Let me help: https://share.google/pmIzV3KVUiohedgyv

 

[Remathilis]

Well, that's the thing, right? If you approached it with that attitude, it was never going to work for you. But if you had buy in from all the players and DM, it would work just fine.
Just because D&D has stuff in it doesn't mean it's gotta be deployed in every campaign. The fact that it's present doesn't imply that it's necessary.

I mean, if you got buy in from your players, you could limit character options to only Lawful Good human fighters and say you are running Camelot. But realistically I question why you are using D&D at that point.

 

[Distracted DM]

But realistically I question why you are using D&D at that point.

To be fair, that question comes up for just about every modification of DnD rules, and the answer is almost always “because we want to play DnD, not OSE/Shadowrun/Shadowdark/Deadlands/40k,” which translates to “we like/know the dnd system and don’t want to learn anything else.”

 

[SkidAce]

It does get into the vibe though that D&D is its own setting. D&D isn't a generic fantasy toolbox, its a Dungeons and Dragons toolbox, and has a set of its own tropes and expectations that come with it. One of those D&D Things is just, a bunch of random races running around. That's going to be a player expectation

I haven't had orcs in my world since it was created around '86 or so.

No problems with the players at all.

 

[Remathilis]

To be fair, that question comes up for just about every modification of DnD rules, and the answer is almost always “because we want to play DnD, not OSE/Shadowrun/Shadowdark/Deadlands/40k,” which translates to “we like/know the dnd system and don’t want to learn anything else.”

Which to me is like changing the rules to Axis and Allies because all you have is a Clue board.