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

[Laurefindel]

Same here. I always reserve dragons for the big bad, or a really meaningful encounter… I might have use one, once…

I take that back, I had a setting where dragons were cunning but otherwise animal-level intelligence, and mostly land creatures. They were all over the place and we had quite a few dragon encounters. Can’t believe I forgot about that.

 

[Mannahnin]

As I've been running OSR the last couple of years I've made a specific effort to include a few dragons. Previously I always wanted to "save" them as big/epic encounters, and I came to feel that I've underused them.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Wow, neat! Do you have anyone for earth, water, or fire?

(The chinese five elements/phases were wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.)

Yeah, Gnomes are earth, Undines are water, Salamanders are fire, and Sylphs are air/wind/heaven. It's a hybrid elemental framework that uses the Neoplatonist three opposed pairs of essential qualities, sharp/dull, subtle/dense, and mobile/immobile.

 

[Blue Orange]

Yeah, Gnomes are earth, Undines are water, Salamanders are fire, and Sylphs are air/wind/heaven. It's a hybrid elemental framework that uses the Neoplatonist three opposed pairs of essential qualities, sharp/dull, subtle/dense, and mobile/immobile.

Hm, interesting!!! Yeah, if you added the Eastern and Western elements you would get six--earth, water, fire, air, wood, metal. Which one is each pair? Theoretically you have up to 8 possible combos.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

Typically for my purposes, whether a single creature or a creature type is chosen to be excluded from my campaign/world tends to depend on if I find said creature uninteresting from a world building and lore standpoint.

For example, I don’t find aberrations who’s only purpose is to be an evil overlord (Mindflayers, Beholders, Aboleth, Neogi, etc.) or who’s only purpose is to be mindless horrors controlled by an terrible eldritch abominations (Core and Star Spawn) all that interesting. It’s not that I can’t garner any inspiration for them, but it’s not how I typically use aberrations. My favorite aberrations are those who act as alien animals that can be dangerous and horrifying when pushed to aggression but are otherwise non-hostile like typical beasts, or sentient alien-like races. The aberrant sea creatures from Call of the Netherdeep are good examples of the former, and my D&D conversion of the Rachni from the Mass Effect series is an example of the later.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Hm, interesting!!! Yeah, if you added the Eastern and Western elements you would get six--earth, water, fire, air, wood, metal. Which one is each pair? Theoretically you have up to 8 possible combos.

Each quality gets three elements. So, you get six triads:

Blunt - Air, Earth & Water
Sharp - Wood, Fire, & Metal
Subtle - Air, Wood, & Fire
Dense - Earth, Metal, & Water
Mobile - Air, Fire, & Water
Immobile - Wood, Earth, & Metal

 

[pogre]

For me, when I use D&D rules I have given into a kitchen sink philosophy along with the gonzo elements that go along with it. I embrace all of it!

If I want to run a game that has a more limited bestiary and is less "gonzo" I run Ars Magica or WFRP or even Runequest (yes, I know there are ducks!)

I totally understand folks do not have to run that kind of game just because they are using D&D rules - that is just the way I do it. It's what works for my mindset and my table.

 

[Greg K]

There are so many that I exclude. For starters, I exclude Dragonborn, many Gygaxian monsters (e.g. beholder, cloaker, drow, mimic, mind flayer, myconids,piercer), dinosaurs, and nearly anything originally from AD&D Fiend Folio.

 

[Azuresun]

Orcs. As people here demonstrate, say you use them as written and you risk getting dogpiled for being racist. But how else can you use them? The default seems to be the "noble savage" being oppressed by them mean old humans, which is a cliche in its own right at this point. Or the insipid and bland route where they're just green humans.

Drow. Much the same as above, just too much baggage on the one hand and utterly defanged nice-guy drow on the other.

No verbeeg (running RotF). Kind of specific, but frost giants are right there if we want giants, and I want giants to stay rare and impressive. Also, no chibi mind flayers.

 

[JohnF]

No monster is ever off the table for me.

Now, half-orcs and half-elves are a different matter. I've never been a fan of some of their parentage implications.