Turning numbers into flavor

[SDOgre]

After reading the article by James Wyatt on design development it continued a thread I had been thinking about since the first KotS session I ran with the pregen characters.

Just looking at the MM entries makes me drool, with all of these cool powers monsters have. This is something I've wanted for a long time. No longer are kobolds and goblins and orcs just a few hit points in difference.

But as I began to run the monsters I found that their powers didn't translate as being as cool as I thought they were. The players didn't really understand what was triggering the dragonscale kobold's shifting power and figured all kobolds could do it. They weren't seeing behind the DM screen and saying, "Oh, that's cool."

After reading the article it convinced me that I really need to work on not only giving the players a fighting chance by describing a monster power so they can understand it but also describing as much of the cool powers going on as possible.

• Are you finding this difficult in your game?
• Are you making more of a conscious effort to do it in this edition?

 

[kouk]

You pretty much have to draw some kinds of distinctions, at least in the beginning while players are not used to monsters doing all kinds of rule-breaking things.

An easy way to do it would probably be to relate the actions to a monster's equipment or obvious physical features, so the players can learn to tell them apart with experience and get the idea that there is a reason for the different behavior.

In the case of the Dragonshield though, just having a shield wouldn't really explain the Dragonshield Tactics ability. In the absence of meaningful physical qualities, you can then turn to behavioral quirks which may be unique to the monster type.

For kobolds, I might say that they seem to constantly be hopping around, forward and back, and/or swaying constantly and ready to move at the drop of a hat. Something to get the idea off that they are exceedingly mobile and ready to move at a moments notice. The Dragonshields would appear to be more focused on the PCs' footwork, and seem ready to take advantage of the slightest opening.

 

[SDOgre]

For kobolds, I might say that they seem to constantly be hopping around, forward and back, and/or swaying constantly and ready to move at the drop of a hat. Something to get the idea off that they are exceedingly mobile and ready to move at a moments notice. The Dragonshields would appear to be more focused on the PCs' footwork, and seem ready to take advantage of the slightest opening.

Good advice.