D&D 5E (2014) Wandering Monsters: Morons and Salads

[Thotas]

Modrons go past quirky, in my opinion. From everything I've ever seen and heard, when they show up the tone of the game doesn't just get lighter, it gets slapstick. And I'm not saying I would mind a slapstick game, but I prefer a slapstick game not call itself D&D.

 

[Celebrim]

Modrons go past quirky, in my opinion. From everything I've ever seen and heard, when they show up the tone of the game doesn't just get lighter, it gets slapstick.

This is a DMing decision. It's not inherent to the concept.

Seriously, I can use modrons a a horror concept no problem. In fact, one of the BBEG's in the background is a Secundus, the 'Prelate of Submission'. Modrons aren't evil, but they are amoral and they are ruthless if provoked. The Borg have nothing on them. Let's just have an army of single minded monodrones roll down on you chanting, "The One Knows. The One Is. All are One, and The One is All.", and excrete crystal tipped glaives from their metalic bodies and cystal ball eyes and see how slap stick you find it.

 

[Thotas]

In theory, I know this. I've always kind of wanted to run something where I pit players against creatures that have the exact same game mechanic stats as modrons, but change the name and describe them as looking completely different than the modrons of the books. But even if that did work, I've changed them from really being modrons at that point. I've just found a really easy way to get rid of them, is all.

 

[Celebrim]

In theory, I know this. I've always kind of wanted to run something where I pit players against creatures that have the exact same game mechanic stats as modrons, but change the name and describe them as looking completely different than the modrons of the books. But even if that did work, I've changed them from really being modrons at that point. I've just found a really easy way to get rid of them, is all.

I don't see the need. I'm departing here to a very very small degree from what is found in the books. About the only difference is I explicitly call out the arms and legs as being robotic like extendable appendages of the modrons, rather like R2-D2, and I'm highlighting the robotic quality highlighted in 2e. So if you encounter monodrones at rest, they'll be piled in pyramids like cannon balls (often with a quadron or tridrone supervisor at their center). They'll roll around, extend legs and arms as needed, etc. An encounter with monodrones on their home plane might be something like:

"In front of you is a pile of spherical steel black objects, each about 3' in diameter, and piled in a tetrahedron 4 to a side. The objects aren't simple spheres however, as closely examining them shows incisions and groves of various sorts in their forms, forming a complex pattern on their surface."

Followed by something like...

"The pile of spheres elegantly begins to slide apart, so precisely it is almost noiseless, as each sphere begins rolling and turning along with its neighbor and forming up in ranks on the floor these roll toward you in a tide of steel gray spheres. At the center of the tetrahedron, you can now see that the balls concealed a solid tetrahedron, 6' on a side which rests on the ground."

Followed by something like...

"As the spheres get about 15' from you, they begin to extend spindly limbs so that they roll to what can now be only called feet. Simultaneously, as a cordinated action, a sharp point extrudes from one side of the sphere and lengthens on metal rod very quickly like a needle being pushed through cloth by some unseen sewer. The spear is followed by an arm, and within moments the mass of balls is transformed into a phalanx. At the same time, a metalic eyelid on each sphere opens with a click revealing a crystal ball like eye which glows with a dim blue light. In a low droning voice, the phalanx chants in unison, "The One Knows. The One Is. All are One, and The One is All." Likewise, the tetrahedron now sprouts limbs and flicks open eyes on each of its sides, and from the passages and ramps leading into the room, more spheres are rolling into place. The entire chamber echoes with a hum and drone."

Have I changed them from being modrons?

How would you have them look? One of the advantages of the original modron design, whether optimal or not (mostly I'm only unhappy with the pentadrones, whose appearance doesn't seem to fit with either the drones or the heirarchs, or even meet either halfway), is you are never going to mistake them for having a human outlook.

 

[Thotas]

How would I have them look? I never figured that out. Part of why it never happened.

The two in-game modron bits that I've run into where first, playing "The Great Modron March" adventure. We played it as part of the series, and I don't think we actually finished it, because I know we went on from there but I don't remember any kind of resolution to the problems ... we just moved on. Before any modrons even showed up. And I was glad, because the whole scenario just seemed idiotic anyway. I don't know that the DM can be blamed, since I never saw the actual text of the adventure. The other was someone telling me of a game they'd played, so I don't know if it came from published material or not. The scenario was a big laughfest, though, which confused and conflated "lawful" with "legalistic/bureaucratic". It vaguely seems like it might have been part of "Castle Greyhawk", which from what I hear is pretty much in that vein, and used all sorts of creatures in silly parody mode.

The thing is, you can rightly point out that anything in the game is what we make of it. But going against the grain of how the material is presented is work, especially if you want to go somewhere with something and they players already strongly see it in a different light, because you've got to "unteach" before you teach. Imagine for a moment that we are playing, and you're DMing. You do exactly what you describe in post 92. Fine. As a player, I know that these things can hurt my character, that they have stats and they can hit me and do damage and have all manner of defenses that I don't have memorized. I know you are taking a serious approach and have a serious story. But in my mind's eye, I'm still fighting the Disney cartoon looking things that Ranger Wickett posted a pic of on the previous page, that are part of a silly redundantly inefficient extraplanar red tape generation system. I can't take them seriously in my heart. Reskin them, though, and maybe I could fear them they way I would the Borg and the Cybermen.

 

[Celebrim]

The thing is, you can rightly point out that anything in the game is what we make of it. But going against the grain of how the material is presented is work, especially if you want to go somewhere with something and they players already strongly see it in a different light, because you've got to "unteach" before you teach.

Here's it the thing: I'm arrogant. It's one of my flaws. Ninety-five percent of the time when I look at something, my first thought is, "I could do better." The rest of the time it is, "I'm in awe." But as a result, good or bad, I've never met a game system that I didn't want to change from how it was presented. I hardly ever meet anything that I don't want to 'improve'.

So this problem you are talking about? It's everything for me. Modrons and Slaad are just examples of the general trend, but they aren't oultiers. It's not like I look at them and think, "Those are worse than normal." I think, "There are some good ideas here, but a lot of it is just junk... just like everything else."

I'm equally annoyed with say, the portrayal of goblins or kobolds or dragons or demons or well lots of things. Don't get me started on the drow, or elves in general. At best, these things are done in a way that is 'not wrong', but even then it is 'not what I want' (arrogance again). So in my opinion, everything needs redacting. I can't help it. I do it to everything. System rewrite. I have to put my stamp on it.

Thing is, IME, most DMs are like this. They have their own way. The real test of a system isn't, "Is this what I want?"; it's, "How much effort do I have to do to make this usable?"

Reskin them, though, and maybe I could fear them they way I would the Borg and the Cybermen. Reskin them, though, and maybe I could fear them they way I would the Borg and the Cybermen.

One of the easiest ways to reskin something is just change the name it is known by. Sure, some few scholars in their ivory towers writing learned books know them as 'modrons'. Most people know them as The Auditors. I reskin the name, and you'd be surprised out little I need to reskin the thing. For example, I haven't changed Sahuagin really at all. But, simply by calling them by their 'vernacular name' - Deep Ones - I've totally changed how people respond to them.

 

[Thotas]

Here's it the thing: I'm arrogant. It's one of my flaws. Ninety-five percent of the time when I look at something, my first thought is, "I could do better." The rest of the time it is, "I'm in awe." But as a result, good or bad, I've never met a game system that I didn't want to change from how it was presented. I hardly ever meet anything that I don't want to 'improve'.

So this problem you are talking about? It's everything for me. Modrons and Slaad are just examples of the general trend, but they aren't oultiers. It's not like I look at them and think, "Those are worse than normal." I think, "There are some good ideas here, but a lot of it is just junk... just like everything else."

I'm equally annoyed with say, the portrayal of goblins or kobolds or dragons or demons or well lots of things. Don't get me started on the drow, or elves in general. At best, these things are done in a way that is 'not wrong', but even then it is 'not what I want' (arrogance again). So in my opinion, everything needs redacting. I can't help it. I do it to everything. System rewrite. I have to put my stamp on it.

Thing is, IME, most DMs are like this. They have their own way. The real test of a system isn't, "Is this what I want?"; it's, "How much effort do I have to do to make this usable?"

Exactly. I agree, absolutely. It's just that in the case of the modrons, my answer to that last question could very well be "Too much". The reskinning of the look of the thing would, for me anyway, have to be extensive enough that I don't recognize them as modrons in a metagame fashion, or I'll just pop the aforementioned Disney cartoon mental image back in their place.

My other solution to the problem I have with the modrons that doesn't completely do away with them is to create something else that is the living embodiment of Law ("Archon" would've been a good name but they used it already for something else) but say that those creatures have created mechanical servitors -- the modrons, obviously -- to perform certain duties for them. In context of the rest of the conversation on this thread, it would then clearly they would be considered extraplanar constructs.

 

[Celebrim]

Exactly. I agree, absolutely. It's just that in the case of the modrons, my answer to that last question could very well be "Too much". The reskinning of the look of the thing would, for me anyway, have to be extensive enough that I don't recognize them as modrons in a metagame fashion, or I'll just pop the aforementioned Disney cartoon mental image back in their place.

My other solution to the problem I have with the modrons that doesn't completely do away with them is to create something else that is the living embodiment of Law ("Archon" would've been a good name but they used it already for something else) but say that those creatures have created mechanical servitors -- the modrons, obviously -- to perform certain duties for them. In context of the rest of the conversation on this thread, it would then clearly they would be considered extraplanar constructs.

I can sympathize with all of that. In my case though, I'm content to have the living embodiment of Law be 'The Heirarch [Modrons]' and other than some cosmetic changes leave the whole thing more or less be. It's less work that trying to create a complete alternative. And I can always ammend things by way of elaboration, as when I gave the Secundus the title, "The Prelate of Submission", highlighting him as The Auditor overseeing submission the way say the Slaad Lord Loarsraol is the living embodiment of paradox.

 

[GSHamster]

Stepping back from the specific cases of modrons and slaadi, I wonder if there is a more general question here:

What should we do with polarizing monsters?

Some monsters are loved and hated in equal measure. Keeping them as is caters to the people that love them. Changing them caters to the people that hate them. Either way, someone is going to be unhappy.

I think that, for monsters, the default option should be to keep them as is. This is because the people that hate those monsters always have the option of using different monsters. If you absolutely hate modrons, you can use Inevitables or similar monsters in their place. If you hate Slaadi, you can substitute demons instead.

 

[Celebrim]

Stepping back from the specific cases of modrons and slaadi, I wonder if there is a more general question here:

What should we do with polarizing monsters?

Some monsters are loved and hated in equal measure. Keeping them as is caters to the people that love them. Changing them caters to the people that hate them. Either way, someone is going to be unhappy.

I think that, for monsters, the default option should be to keep them as is.

I think that that should certainly be the default option. But I think that there is some wiggle room between "keeping them exactly as is" and "making them still recognizable in their essential features but altering them sufficiently to address particular concerns". Sure, a few people will be like, "I'm not accepting that change, Death Slaad are definately not CE", but more people might go, "Ok, that makes sense. I can accept them now." Both Slaad and Modrons have this history. Planescape Slaad and Modrons are very recognizably Slaad and Modrons, but they are definately not exactly their 1e versions either.

Fundamentally, I've always thought that the guy in charge of making the latest version of D&D - even Gygax - was just a DM who got to priviledge his own house rules. Hopefully, he's got an interesting take on things. But, as a rule, you are better making small changes than big ones out of simple humility. The less recognizable your game, the bigger your changes, the more hubris you seem to have about the one true way, the more all of your fellow DMs are likely to go, "I'm not accepting your changes, and its too much work to adapt all your changes into my game."

Another problem is that the longer the game goes, the more official versions there have been, and the more different DMs have built off some conception. The best example of this is probably Mind Flayers, who between different examples of canon, different editions, and Dragon magazine have probably had more backstories and more elaborate and contridictory secondary invention than anything else in the game. But, they are all still Mind Flayers and recognizably so. But as time goes on, each new edition has a heavy burden of deciding what color was right and canonical from all the prior editions, or trying to reconcile all the conflicting statements.