D&D 5E Which common monsters/creature types do you exclude from your campaigns?

[Burnside]

I don't exclude dopplegangers, but I use them very selectively and carefully, and generally for a limited duration or area. I like them, but overuse can bog down or even derail a campaign.

 

[Burnside]

Aberrations. I don't like Lovecraft or related by-products.

This stuff feels really over-used at this point. I get it, we gazed too far into the abyss.

In terms of the official adventures, I think they should probably lay off both hags and duergar for awhile - especially hags. So many hags.

 

[el-remmen]

So many hags.

funny. I never used hags in the previous 35+ years of playing/running D&D - but the recent resurgence in their use has got me finally using one as an antagonist ally or perhaps a better description is a potential antagonist who is willing to help the party if it furthers her own ends.

 

[delericho]

None. My campaigns will tend to emphasise certain monster types, with different campaigns going for a different feel, but I tend not to explicitly exclude any.

I had thought I was done with Drow, but then I hit on an alternate take for them that I liked, so they're back on the table (though probably not as enemies, actually). I guess it's unlikely I'll make much use of giants again after SKT - too much of the "big bag of hit points" for my liking.

 

[billd91]

funny. I never used hags in the previous 35+ years of playing/running D&D - but the recent resurgence in their use has got me finally using one as an antagonist ally or perhaps a better description is a potential antagonist who is willing to help the party if it furthers her own ends.

I’m thinking the resurgence of hags and “everything is fey” are related.

 

[Burnside]

funny. I never used hags in the previous 35+ years of playing/running D&D - but the recent resurgence in their use has got me finally using one as an antagonist ally or perhaps a better description is a potential antagonist who is willing to help the party if it furthers her own ends.

They're great. There is no inherent issue with them, but if you run a lot of the official campaign books as I do they are prominently featured a LOT. It's almost like there is a style guide that says every adventure has to have them.

 

[the Jester]

The only things I actively exclude are those that are either too campaign specific for my tastes (especially monsters deeply tied to a given god or culture) or that have been destroyed in play- I can't recall the latter having happened, but I can see that it could happen, and I have seen gnomes (f'rinstance) driven to extinction in someone else's campaign.

 

[Mercurius]

I exclude every monster that I don't use in game play, but every monster is "on the table." Whether or not it exists in the world, well, who knows.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I exclude most non-core races from my games as I prefer human-centric games. The old school standards are there, of course, but a lot of the newer races and (formerly) monster races are not permitted. Non-standard races are often met with curiosity, wonder, fear, or suspicion depending on the people they interact with and how they do it. The reason is I don't want a menagerie of intelligent races running around in areas which are more established. I might pull out a (formerly) monster race in the far reaches, but generally unless the player has a darn good convincing backstory--no.

The one exception was an all-monk all-animal-humanoid game I ran online during Covid. But in that setting the idea was that there was a "Zootopia"-type continent in the world with ONLY animal-humanoid races. So, the PCs were an aarakocra, tabaxi, and tortle. That as fun for what it was, but not something I would want to do long-term.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Orcs, and that's from long before recent issues.

They're just REALLY BORING and really overused, and have been overused since the mid-1990s at the latest. They have nothing going on, and 5E trying to make them have something going on by that thing being "RACISM" (unintentional as it may be) did not help matters.

Aberrations. I don't like Lovecraft or related by-products.

I don't hard-exclude them myself, but they're really over-used, so I very rarely include them and tend to have them more as bizarre ancient creatures rather than having them be all "Lovecraftian" in the typical sense. The Far Realm is one of the more boring and trite takes on that sort of thing too.

I do have a soft spot for Beholders, who are technically Aberrations, though.

Also Giants who aren't Hill or Stone giants. I'm just not into these like, "IM A RED VIKING WHO IS 14' TALL AND ON FIRE LOLOLOLZ!!!!!"-type giants, they're so... tacky! So kitsch! So like, ugh... no. No. Just no. They're like something out of a bad videogame, and I've felt that since the '80s! We might as well be fighting sports mascots, but at least that would be kind of funny.