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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 6152768" data-attributes="member: 554">The implication behind the questions is that if I don't think monster PCs are always and everywhere a bad idea ("monsters are for slaying, not for playing"), I should want rules for monster PCs in the game. I think this implication is dumb.Sometimes the best way to handle rules for something is to invite game masters to make up the necessary rules themselves. This is especially true if the things you want rules for are (a) hard, if not impossible, to cover with a set of relatively simple, balanced, universally applicable rules; and (b) will seriously mess with the flavor and trajectory of a campaign if not handled intelligently and in cooperation with the whole gaming group. Except for the dirt-simple humanoid races, monster PCs are pretty obvious examples of both (a) and (b).I'm sure some games are much enriched by allowing, say, minotaur or mindflayer PCs. But having rules for them means (i) many DMs will feel forced to allow these PCs if they don't want to come across as heavy-handed; (ii) players who aren't completely indifferent to optimization will have a bunch more options to consider in character-generation, and may feel some pressure to create characters they will have more less fun role-playing; and (iii) designers will have to take the possibilities created by monster PCs into account when creating new material. None of these results are attractive. The best way to avoid them is to leave it to individual groups to handle monster PCs on case-by-case bases.</blockquote>

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