D&D 5E What is a Monster
- Thread starter Athinar
- Start date
steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
Then would it be a monster at all, if it is friendly and helpful? That is a NPC.
All NPCs are Monsters. But not all Monsters are NPCs.
the Jester
Legend
I'm not sure exactly what your point is. Is this just an interesting discussion? Are you a player trying to talk your DM into giving your medium wizard d8 for Hit Dice, or are you a DM trying to figure out why they get a d4 instead? You seem to be arguing pretty strongly that pcs should be treated as monsters. What's the perspective, here?
PCs are different from NPCs because they are PCs. NPCs are built like monsters in order to challenge the PCs. If you're looking for in-game-fiction reasoning, the numbers on the sheet don't exist in game, so just pretend that the npc wizard simply rolled max on all those dice, if it makes you happy.
PCs are different from NPCs because they are PCs. NPCs are built like monsters in order to challenge the PCs. If you're looking for in-game-fiction reasoning, the numbers on the sheet don't exist in game, so just pretend that the npc wizard simply rolled max on all those dice, if it makes you happy.
GreenTengu
Adventurer
Yeah, the issue arises out of two things about D&D that were not properly considered from the origins of the game. The fact that the original designers had these blind spots makes me despise OSR people to a certain extent because they are incapable of realizing it.
Originally in D&D you had a clear distinction between NPCs and monsters. NPCs were members of PC races controlled by the DM that only if you had the most psychotic of players would ever see combat. Monsters were generally designed to be mindless drones that existed as experience and gold bags to be popped by the PCs by dealing enough damage to them. In the earliest days, humans could be monsters-- but not Dwarfs, Elfs or Halflings.
Well, it belied an underlying bigotry. In fact, that bigotry hasn't escaped D&D to this day.
Ever notice how Dwarfs are primarily defined by their racial dislike of Elves, their hold-over of grudges from previous generations rather than judging individuals on their own acts, their genocidal hatred of about half the sentient races in the world, and their lust to acquire a few more ounces of gold and a few more gemstones even if it destroys the world? In what way based on an objective morality would this race be "Lawful Good"? Lawful, maybe, but a long, long, long way from "good".
But, since they are stamped a PC-race and the peoples they want to violently exterminate from the world are all labeled "monsters", the fact that every last one of them was in the first 3 editions so motivated by unreasonable genocidal hatred that they got an actual attack bonus to murdering any and all members of the races they want to wipe out, they are labeled "good". And the fact that they are possessed by an unforgivably reckless greed and they think it just to put an axe in your head for what your great great grandfather did to their grandfather is just swept under the rug.
And, as I eluded to earlier, the binary definition of alignment just doesn't work if you give it even the slightest bit of thought and try to make the world a living one. A society in which every single last living being is evil in all deeds, all thoughts and all acts could not possibly function as a society-- even one as base as some of the "monster" races are given. Moreover, many of those "monster" races are stated to have material possessions that a society where everyone is constantly motivated to harm everyone else in the world at all times could not possible produce. In addition to having made these races sentient in the story and acknowledged that humans too can be evil.... well... a lot of those mindless bags of experience and gold suddenly take on whole new dimensions and need to be drastically adjusted to fit into a rational, reasonable, ongoing, living world.
Maybe zombies can crave to eat brains, but those Orcs and Hobgoblins cannot possibly be as unreasonable and unyielding as previously implied or their peoples would have been purged from the world or entirely enslaved long ago. Again, I feel even by 5E this hasn't been remotely properly considered or approached.
Similarly, although a creature as utterly heinous as the Dwarf has never properly been reclassified in terms of alignment, at least it has been recognized that the idea that every Dwarf, every Elf and every Halfling is going to be some sort of irreproachable angel would mean that these races are so entirely without dimension that there is no story to be told there. What the hell does it much matter what PCs do if the races are just incapable of being classified as "evil" regardless of the way they live their lives?
I think removing the distinct classification of "NPC" and instead referring to all beings that exist in the world with the PCs as "monsters" is somewhat of a half-measure... it recognizes these fundamental flaws with the D&D mentality without actually fixing anything.
Originally in D&D you had a clear distinction between NPCs and monsters. NPCs were members of PC races controlled by the DM that only if you had the most psychotic of players would ever see combat. Monsters were generally designed to be mindless drones that existed as experience and gold bags to be popped by the PCs by dealing enough damage to them. In the earliest days, humans could be monsters-- but not Dwarfs, Elfs or Halflings.
Well, it belied an underlying bigotry. In fact, that bigotry hasn't escaped D&D to this day.
Ever notice how Dwarfs are primarily defined by their racial dislike of Elves, their hold-over of grudges from previous generations rather than judging individuals on their own acts, their genocidal hatred of about half the sentient races in the world, and their lust to acquire a few more ounces of gold and a few more gemstones even if it destroys the world? In what way based on an objective morality would this race be "Lawful Good"? Lawful, maybe, but a long, long, long way from "good".
But, since they are stamped a PC-race and the peoples they want to violently exterminate from the world are all labeled "monsters", the fact that every last one of them was in the first 3 editions so motivated by unreasonable genocidal hatred that they got an actual attack bonus to murdering any and all members of the races they want to wipe out, they are labeled "good". And the fact that they are possessed by an unforgivably reckless greed and they think it just to put an axe in your head for what your great great grandfather did to their grandfather is just swept under the rug.
And, as I eluded to earlier, the binary definition of alignment just doesn't work if you give it even the slightest bit of thought and try to make the world a living one. A society in which every single last living being is evil in all deeds, all thoughts and all acts could not possibly function as a society-- even one as base as some of the "monster" races are given. Moreover, many of those "monster" races are stated to have material possessions that a society where everyone is constantly motivated to harm everyone else in the world at all times could not possible produce. In addition to having made these races sentient in the story and acknowledged that humans too can be evil.... well... a lot of those mindless bags of experience and gold suddenly take on whole new dimensions and need to be drastically adjusted to fit into a rational, reasonable, ongoing, living world.
Maybe zombies can crave to eat brains, but those Orcs and Hobgoblins cannot possibly be as unreasonable and unyielding as previously implied or their peoples would have been purged from the world or entirely enslaved long ago. Again, I feel even by 5E this hasn't been remotely properly considered or approached.
Similarly, although a creature as utterly heinous as the Dwarf has never properly been reclassified in terms of alignment, at least it has been recognized that the idea that every Dwarf, every Elf and every Halfling is going to be some sort of irreproachable angel would mean that these races are so entirely without dimension that there is no story to be told there. What the hell does it much matter what PCs do if the races are just incapable of being classified as "evil" regardless of the way they live their lives?
I think removing the distinct classification of "NPC" and instead referring to all beings that exist in the world with the PCs as "monsters" is somewhat of a half-measure... it recognizes these fundamental flaws with the D&D mentality without actually fixing anything.
What is your basis for this?
Moldvay Basic was already quoted upthread. Gygax's PHB, p 103, says "A 'monster' can be a kindy wizard or a crazed dwarf, a friendly brass dragon or a malicous manticore." There is no clear distinction drawn between NPCs and monsters. Generally the term "NPC" denotes a monster who, in virtue of race and class, would also be a candidate to be a player character. But I don't think anyone would balk at describing an orc chieftain, or King Snurre of the Fire Giants, as an NPC.
transtemporal
Explorer
Humans are the real monsters
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
It's funny that you should ask this question. On the Adventurer's League Facebook group we recently had this discussion only because in AL, the rule is that you do not give out gold for weapons or armor that are looted off of monsters. Someone suggested that monsters were things that were imaginary and therefore humans could be looted and their equipment sold for half price.
The admins for AL showed up and pretty much said everything not the PCs was a monster according to their definition.
The admins for AL showed up and pretty much said everything not the PCs was a monster according to their definition.
Similar Threads
