D&D General Why are there Good Monsters in the Monster Manual?

[Quickleaf]

Thanks everyone for the responses!

I think it's interesting thinking about this from a game design perspective. What does the inclusion of Good Monsters say about how the game is played?

To me, it seems to communicate that...

1) You can fight good monsters.

This definitely supports the huge amount of flexibility in how D&D is played. Even though most published adventures assume you will be fighting evil enemies, the MM provides you with the capability to fight Good enemies.

2) All monsters follow the same rules.

This one I find really interesting, and it's something I hadn't thought of before. If my Lawful Good paladin is interacting with a Gold Dragon, I most likely am not going to swing my sword at it. But I could. And if I did, the rules support it as much as they do me fighting an evil Red Dragon. There's something very satisfying about that, as a player.

I actually was formulating a more nuanced view than "no stats for good creatures like gold dragons", and I think a design approach that's less universal (while still maintaining stats to fight metallic dragons) would open up space to think about monsters more holistically.

A quick example: What if, instead of 4 stat blocks for each metallic dragon type (i.e. Ancient Gold, Adult Gold, Young Gold, Gold Wyrming, Ancient Brass, Adult Brass, etc), there were just 4 stat blocks for ALL metallics. So you'd have Ancient Metallic, Adult Metallic, Young Metallic, Metallic Wyrmling. All that would change are little things like movement types, resistances, breath weapon damage, maybe mention of polymorphing into human form worth a sidebar – but otherwise metallics are really similar.

That gives you the stats / verisimilitude / simulationist needs for when combat goes down with a metallic dragon, without going to the excessive stat "explosion" that we see for chromatics (which arguably need better mechanical differentiation, but that's another topic that ENPublishing, MCDM, and others are addressing).

Now we've freed up lots of page space to explore non-combat uses of the various metallic dragons, which is how they're more likely to be used at the table (in my experience at least) ...

Copper dragons are incorrigible pranksters whose pranks are meant to teach good lessons, right? They're the trickster spirits of dragon-kind. Why not present a handful of pranks that a copper dragon might spring on a party to test their worth for a potential quest, or to see if they're worth being pardoned for some offense, or simply for some comic relief.

Gold dragons often have their own massive quests of good, right? Maybe a couple sample quests & a table of "why the gold dragon can't complete the quest itself and needs help of humanoid allies?"

At extreme #1 is the traditional D&D route – all monsters have same stat blocks.
At extreme #2 is the kinda 4e approach – good monsters don't get stats.

One way to bridge those extremes is that some monsters – the real nasty villainous sorts & those who often appear as antagonists – deserve more complexity in their stat block. Because they are encountered more often. Because they have suspense/anticipation built up around their nastiness.

But other monsters – arguably many good-aligned ones - don't need the same degree of mechanical complexity. And instead their page count should devote equal or greater space (compared to the stat block) to the monster's intended use in negotiation, or whatever other non-combat encounter the designers envision for it.

In other words, what's interesting about the gold dragon is NOT its combat stat block, but the way its quest tugs at your heart strings & the twist about why such a mighty dragon needs your help.

 

[Stormonu]

Why are there Good Monsters in the Monster Manual?

I was thinking about how much space the Metallic Dragons take. All those Celestials. It's a lot of tree pulp used to stat out monsters most groups aren't going to fight.

So I was wondering: why are they there?

I can think of two ideas:

1) Verisimilitude.

The world of D&D is made up of monsters with stats and lore. There are Bad Dragons, and they exist because they have stats and lore. For Good Dragons to exist, they need stats and lore.

2) As Allies / Enemies of Evil

I suppose these Good Monster stats could be used when fighting alongside the adventurers, or as foes for evil groups. But these seem like edge cases.


So help me understand. Why are there Good Monsters in the Monster Manual? Were they always there? Do you use the stats, or just the lore?

For the same reason there are aquatic creatures in the MM, when most games will happen on land. Most folks won't need them, but for example, when playing my Saltmarsh game, I was sure glad they were there.

For actual use, sometimes good lends a hand, sometimes it becomes an obstacle. Sometimes the party is a bunch of anti-heroes, and those good guys might either deem you as much a problem as the bad guys or get in the party's way and need to circumvented or removed. Perhaps the party needs some good or service and the good creature is resistant or unwilling to step aside - or may need proof of the party's worthiness - not all encounters have to be to the death, after all.

 

[beancounter]

Why are there Good Monsters in the Monster Manual?

Because there are evil PCs.

 

[jgsugden]

1.) Summons. NPCs and PCs summon monsters, and some of these are great options.
2.) Differing goals. Good guys disagree, and sometimes fight. I've run a campaign where two nations led by LG rulers escalated into a war over ideology. LG is an ideal and alignment for PCs - but there are wide shades to be considered within the alignment.
3.) Corrupted heroes - One of my major reoccuring villains with a looooooong shelf life is a Fallen Deva. It survived and thrived in my world for 35 years before I reset the campaign.
4.) Bad PCs - Some PCs are bad, and they need foes.

 

[TerraDave]

Thanks everyone for the responses!

I think it's interesting thinking about this from a game design perspective. What does the inclusion of Good Monsters say about how the game is played?

To me, it seems to communicate that...

1) You can fight good monsters.

This definitely supports the huge amount of flexibility in how D&D is played. Even though most published adventures assume you will be fighting evil enemies, the MM provides you with the capability to fight Good enemies.

2) All monsters follow the same rules.

This one I find really interesting, and it's something I hadn't thought of before. If my Lawful Good paladin is interacting with a Gold Dragon, I most likely am not going to swing my sword at it. But I could. And if I did, the rules support it as much as they do me fighting an evil Red Dragon. There's something very satisfying about that, as a player.

The thread has pretty much got there.

All "monsters follow the same rules" also happens off camera. Things like Solars were added to give some idea of relative powers of good and evil (or at least to show it was mostly balanced).

And "all monsters follow the same rules" has another implication. You can--and always could--try to ally with, or at least talk your way past, evil monsters. Or at least enslave them with charm magic. There were rules for these things.

 

[Blue Orange]

As others have said:

1. Tradition--there have been metallic dragons since the little brown books, and dragons are in the name of the game. People want to see what the new editions of all the dragons are going to look like, and so on.
2. Evil PCs, or good ones gone bad or getting in trouble.
3. One I haven't heard: a lot of people buy these just to read them (I've done that), and it's fun to see what the stats for angels and the like are. I mean, there's a reason every licensed-property RPG has stats for the main characters.

 

[payn]

"how often do you actually use the stats of Good Monsters, rather than just the lore?"

When the players say "F' it, let's do him!"

So ... more often than you might think.

I had to return to the OP to make sure discussion was about the monster manual and not the book of erotic fantasy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I had to return to the OP to make sure discussion was about the monster manual and not the book of erotic fantasy.

Used correctly, every monster book is the BoEF.

 

[Stormonu]

Also didn't 4e cut metallic dragons out of the Monster Manual and there was an uproar about it.

Traditions are strong.

Honestly, I was more miffed that they cut all the aquatic creatures (as in pure aquatic - kraken, sharks, ixilitichli, eye of the deep, etc.).

 

[Willie the Duck]

I had to return to the OP to make sure discussion was about the monster manual and not the book of erotic fantasy.

And then when you said this I had to check if it was this was the thread that had the recent pic of the 3e Century Worm.