D&D 5E What's a monster to do?

[Sunseeker]

It seems to me, there are two distinctly "monstrous" types of campaigns. I posted this in 5th because I want the discussion to remain focused on what this edition has to offer in order to play/run/create such a game.

Firstly: Playing opposite the players, creating lairs, setting traps and generally luring unwitting adventurers to their doom in order to increase your treasure hoard. Think DS9 v. Voyager, instead of going to the challenge, the challenge comes to you.

Secondly: Destroy all humans. Now this may sound a lot like a chaotic evil game, and you'd be right, but on that note I'm going to posit that chaotic evil games are actually monstrous games due to the inherently insane, violent and potentially NC-17 content of such a game.

You can of course, certainly play a "monster campaign" that is essentially your normal adventure, but that is not expressly a monster campaign, it is simply a campaign whose "adventurers" happen to be monsters. Instead of killing the Goblin King you help him build his army, instead of saving the village of stupid commoners, you raid them or possibly rescue a village of stupid monster NPCs.

I've been tossing around a monster campaign for several years now but I have been attempting to stay away from the "destroy all humans" scenario, but realistically when expanding groups of humanoids of various types seek to rid the land of anything that might challenge their rule, monsters are target #1. It's not an unreasonable stance to take for creatures facing hatred and extermination. However, due to the potentially NC-17 content of such a game, I really just don't want to go there.

So I'm trying to figure out a way to do something distinctly monstrous whose end-game is perhaps to destroy all humans but in a more humorous and less psychopathic manner. I like the idea of luring adventurers into lairs designed by the party, I want to keep some of the classic "adventure" in there but I am trying to really get a good grasp on how I can make "destroy all humans" less...murderous.

Here's some thoughts:
-Monsters are facing hate and extermination, so why not make more monsters? Breeding may take a long time, but humans are certainly plentiful and malleable too magic. Perhaps the party starts off with some sort of "monster elixir" and the purpose of luring humans to their dungeons is to get the adventurers to find the potion and take it home. This has some limitations: what's the point in making a dangerous dungeon if you want the adventurers to find the magic potion? Further, how do you distribute it widely among populated areas?

-Not all races are equally inclined to massacre monsters. Perhaps only a couple races or civilizations in the world hate monsters. This would allow me to present a little more grey area in things as monster-hate could be a product of the specific circumstances of the rise of these kingdoms and we can avoid baby-killing monster players because humans aren't naturally inclined to hate monsters, they're raised that way. This however means a lot of moralizing at the table and I know not everyone is interested in such things being a major game element.

-Subversion: The characters are respectively members of low-population monster types (and arguably more powerful ones), this would resemble most closely a normal campaign in reverse, instead of raiding monster lairs and caves, you're raiding castles and military bases. This would play well with the fact that the players would be higher CR monsters since castles and military bases would be more heavily fortified than your average goblin-infested ancient ruin.

All of these are obviously good elements to include but I'm looking for additional input. If you've run a monster game in 5th, let me know what you did, if you've run monster games in earlier editions, give me some ideas for what styles of play worked well, if you attempted to avoid wanton slaughter and what you did to do so, and how what you did then can be supported by the system now.

Thanks!

 

[iserith]

Check out Dungeon Magazine #10 for a humorous adventure called "Monsterquest." The players take on the roles of various bumbling monsters that have to go in and steal a magic item for an orc chieftain. Google it up. I played that back when Milli Vanilli was popular.

You could set up a situation where there are X number of adventurers that strike out to make their fortune per year (maybe randomize it a bit) and the monster PCs are tasked with figuring out the best way to lure those murder-hobos into the dungeon to be killed. Their purpose is two-fold: To collect the treasure adventurers are known to carry around on them and to cull the number of people inclined to kill their people. In order to do this, they must build a dungeon, fill it with nasty denizens and traps (which require money and quests to accomplish), and sow rumors of great riches to be had if only someone has the gumption to come and take it.

If they manage to kill off that year's crop of adventurers, then they get to engage in Downtime Activity: Breeding and increase the number of monsters of their particular race. When they reach a certain number of monsters after a few cycles of culling adventurers, they have enough to overwhelm nearby civilization and burn it to the ground.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Goblins
Goblinscomiccom

 

[Sunseeker]

Goblins
Goblinscomiccom

I'm actually a big fan, but the comic lies somewhere between destroy all humans (who are more often than not jerkwads and the party is poorly equipped to deal with) and typical adventure with monsters as player characters. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it doesn't strike me as much of a monster campaign.

 

[kerbarian]

I like your "monster elixir" idea -- instead of having it as a trap in their lair, the monster PCs could go out to kidnap humans to convert them into more monsters. If you want it to be less dark, you could make it so the elixir only works when drunk voluntarily and the monsters have to use trickery, seduction, or promises of power to get new recruits. All while killing off those pesky adventurers who try to stop them.

You could scale it up from the elixir only being available in small quantities initially (requiring individual subjects) to eventually being mass produced, where the players need to organize cults and such to recruit volunteers en masse.

 

[Sunseeker]

I like your "monster elixir" idea -- instead of having it as a trap in their lair, the monster PCs could go out to kidnap humans to convert them into more monsters. If you want it to be less dark, you could make it so the elixir only works when drunk voluntarily and the monsters have to use trickery, seduction, or promises of power to get new recruits. All while killing off those pesky adventurers who try to stop them.

You could scale it up from the elixir only being available in small quantities initially (requiring individual subjects) to eventually being mass produced, where the players need to organize cults and such to recruit volunteers en masse.

I was considering that perhaps one of the members of the "monster council" who developed the potion had some more sinister plans which cause the potion to go viral, so instead of selectively converting members of humanity who are most actively anti-monster we're now dealing with a full blown plague which while it sounds good to have more monsters than people, monsterdom is quick to realize a dragon eats a lot more than a person does and too many owlbears may be worse than too many people, especially if they're now intelligent owlbears with a bone to grind against monster-kind. Fighting an army of humans is suddenly less daunting than fighting an army of monsters.

Recruiting people into cults to become monsters almost seems too easy though. "Tired of your poor feudal life where everything you think, do and say is decided by your lord's mood that day, join "Monsters Inc"! We'll take that boring old farmland from you and give you a brand new life as something you didn't even know existed! Join now and fulfill your inner desire to hoard treasure and lure stupid adventurers to their doom!"

 

[Quickleaf]

An idea that I never got to run:

Kobold rebels exiled after a coup in Kobold Mountain puts another monster (or evil adventurer) in charge. They need to find a new headquarters to inhabit, ferret out the spy in their company, and oh yes they have a red dragon's egg they may wish to hatch.

The idea is that to start they would be kobolds straight from the MM, running them thru a DCC "death funnel" adventure in the first session, after which they determine which kobolds are their PCs (survivors gaining class levels).

Play up the zaniness of the kobolds and their mad traps. Eventually they can try to retake Kobold Mountain.

 

[Rhenny]

Nice ideas everyone. One part of the campaign could have prisoners escape inside the lair. They'll try to hide, fight, flee and group up wit other prisoners to become stronger. You can have some planned events that the monster pcs react to like the prison guard is found dead and cages are open and empty, a fire in one area of the lair set by some prisoners, sounds of battle in another area where some prisoners are fighting others, prisoners breaking into an armory, prisoners hiding and trying to surprise monsters, prisoners running to an exit of the lair, etc. I bet with a little planning this could be a chaotic and frightening experience. Like "Aliens" but with prisoners.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

There is a 2nd Ed Reverse Dungeon deal, where the players are the monsters defending their lairs from mean adventurers.

 

[kerbarian]

The players could be something like revenants, sworn to slay a human king for wiping out their tribe. Instead of fighting and planning to survive, they keep going, dealing as much damage as possible to superior forces before they die. Each time they gain more experience and claim new bodies.