Why we need new monsters

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I had a similar discussion with my cousin's husband last year around Christmas - his two boys are a Senior in High School and a sophomore in college and he mentioned how when Jaws came out in 1975, it terrified millions of people and many were afraid to go for a swim in the ocean for years - my other cousin had weeks of nightmares of a shark tugging on her leg. However, he said, because the kids had seen so much and their horror movies were more intense (non stop action) and more visual, they don't think Jaws is scary at all.

So, that is part of it as well.

Well Jaws is cheesy now, that's the point I made in my post above. It's not believable, you can tell it is fake and that it was old technology. Think back to your old sci-fi movies, they are cheesy now with their old "state of the art" abilities and 20 years from now our best state of the art sci-fi movies will be just as cheesy even though they are more "believable" to us right now. Just a sign of the times with what we can tell is fake and real.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Well Jaws is cheesy now, that's the point I made in my post above. It's not believable, you can tell it is fake and that it was old technology. Think back to your old sci-fi movies, they are cheesy now with their old "state of the art" abilities and 20 years from now our best state of the art sci-fi movies will be just as cheesy even though they are more "believable" to us right now. Just a sign of the times with what we can tell is fake and real.

True - I remember a few years back, my brother & I were at my parent's house and The Wizard of Oz was on TV. We both noted how cheesy the effects looked, but both noted that they were probably awesome back in 1939 when the movie was in theaters.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

True - I remember a few years back, my brother & I were at my parent's house and The Wizard of Oz was on TV. We both noted how cheesy the effects looked, but both noted that they were probably awesome back in 1939 when the movie was in theaters.

Exactly, I remember watching some old sci-fi movies from when I was a kid that I loved and then seeing them again and I'm like "wow that's cheesy, you can totally tell that stuff is fake." I think you can say the same thing for pretty much any genre that tries to use the current technology of the time it was created to fool our senses, sure it works at that moment of time, but it's just aging cheese for us to look back on in the future to laugh at and remember fondly as being awesome when we first saw it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So in other words, somethings variant or new monsters are cool, but you might have a jerk who ruins it because he either knows too much or is taking educated shots in the dark, thus negating the "mystery factor".

OTOH...playing a monster expert can be a good schtick. So can playing a know-it-all who usually errs in his IDs.

*running*"DO YOU EVER GET TIRED OF BEING WRONG?"*running*

As a side note, I have to say that a pleasant & unexpected side effect of my not wanting to ever DM 4Ed is that my metaknowledge of critters is almost nil. I don't have to roleplay my lack of knowledge...I genuinely don't have it.

Which is hilarious, since my current PC is somewhat of an expert in aberrations & other critters.

 

[The Shaman]

Put the fear of death into the players and your monsters will remain scary!

There's an old saw that the only things old school D&D players fear are petrification and level drain.

The most colorful description in the world won't scare anyone if they don't feel there's a credible threat to their characters.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

OTOH...playing a monster expert can be a good schtick. So can playing a know-it-all who usually errs in his IDs.

*running*"DO YOU EVER GET TIRED OF BEING WRONG?"*running*

As a side note, I have to say that a pleasant & unexpected side effect of my not wanting to ever DM 4Ed is that my metaknowledge of critters is almost nil. I don't have to roleplay my lack of knowledge...I genuinely don't have it.

Which is hilarious, since my current PC is somewhat of an expert in aberrations & other critters.

Great schtick ideas, I may have to steal those. Good points on how to interject a bit of humor into the game because it doesn't always have to be scary.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

There's an old saw that the only things old school D&D players fear are petrification and level drain.

The most colorful description in the world won't scare anyone if they don't feel there's a credible threat to their characters.

Yes, but at the same time if they don't know what the monster is capable of and don't know exactly what it is from your crazy scary description, that can still instill enough fear in them that they aren't sure of what the beastie's abilities are or are not.

Maybe you give some more of your monsters the abilities that can scare the players and make them tentative. It all comes down to how the DM wants his/her campaign to go and what level of scary or challenge they want the players to experience.

 

[NewJeffCT]

There's an old saw that the only things old school D&D players fear are petrification and level drain.

The most colorful description in the world won't scare anyone if they don't feel there's a credible threat to their characters.

Agreed on that - I'd rather have had my PC die in 1E/2E than have him drained a level or two. I was honestly depressed about that once when it happened.

 

[Hand of Evil]

There's an old saw that the only things old school D&D players fear are petrification and level drain.

The most colorful description in the world won't scare anyone if they don't feel there's a credible threat to their characters.

How many DM's say, "you see a bugbear!" This is tell the players, it is a bugbear and basicly saying the characters know what a bugbear is. Maybe they know, maybe they don't...as far as they could tell it could be a yeti. Both big hairy humanoids, rather ugly, kind of smelly, claw like hands, sharp teeth and look rather mean.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

How many DM's say, "you see a bugbear!" This is tell the players, it is a bugbear and basicly saying the characters know what a bugbear is. Maybe they know, maybe they don't...as far as they could tell it could be a yeti. Both big hairy humanoids, rather ugly, kind of smelly, claw like hands, sharp teeth and look rather mean.

I think that it comes from laziness that DM's just tell players what it is instead of describing the monster. I've done it before and I'm sure most other DMs are guilty of it too. It's probably a good practice to go back to the basics and remember to give all of our NPCs a bit more personality and flavor, I bet doing this would really reap us great rewards when our players' eyes go wide and they are talking quickly amongst themselves trying to figure out their next move when confronted with things that are actually scary as described if not in practice.

The only caveat to this being if they've already encountered these NPCs previously, you don't need to describe them in great detail all over again, that's when you can say, "you see a party of bugbears approaching."