I was watching some RPG YouTube, and of course there was talk about Monsters. And with the recent OMG CONTROVERSY with the newest Monster Manual, I got to thinking about something that is more inherent in D&D and in fantasy games in general, why so many monsters? I’ve played various other games, and read many books, watched many movies, but it seems that fantasy games, with D&D leading the charge, seem to have more monsters than any other medium in the genre, or other genre’s in particular. So yeah, why are there so many monsters?

  • Wugmeister@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    I personally think it’s three things.

    1. D&D is fucking old. Like, people who grew up on OD&D are dead now. It’s had a lot of time to accrue clooge and gunk as the genre of D&D shifted from 1st Person Wargame to Dungeon Crawler to Epic Fantasy to Heroic Fantasy to whatever 5e is, and this means a lot of different monsters to serve these different genres being carried forward into future editions because Gen X gets weird when the things they grew up with get changed or disappear.
    2. D&D has always fundamentally been about going out into the world, seeing weird things, and killing them. There’s only so many times you can kill zombies before you get bored of zombies. Also, a number of monsters have gimmicks that get old fast, like rust monsters eating your weapons as you hit them and gelatinous oozes being nearly invisible. The only counter to that is more monsters.
    3. Different monsters serve different purposes, even when they fill the same niche. For example, goblins and kobolds both are tiny little mooks that attack in large numbers and are inherently evil so we don’t have to feel bad about slaughtering entire families of them, but one is more likely to ambush you with ranged fire and Explosives while the other is likely to set up traps for you to wander into. Very different styles of play. Orcs and hobgoblins are both basically people, but while orcs allow you to hold up a mirror to the party by being essentially normal people but ugly, hobgoblins lead tactically complex multi-pronged attacks and are make very good scheming bad guys. Also, not every monster belongs everywhere. Imagine finding a stone golem in the middle of the feywild, or a treant in a dungeon. Attempting to make a monster for literally every situation is how AD&D ended up with the Monstrous Compendium’s fifteen volumes and appendices, so in reality the Monster Manual is an exercise in restraint.
    • Maestro@fedia.io
      0·
      6 days ago

      D&D is fucking old. Like, people who grew up on OD&D are dead now.

      What?! D&D isn’t thát old. It’s from 1974. So people who grew up on it are in their 50’s and 60’s.

      • Wugmeister@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        Gygax died in 2008, Arneson died in 2009, I don’t know how many of their cohort have gotten cancer or heart attacks or other stuff that generally get listed as “natural causes” on a coroner’s report. We are slowly losing that first generation of gamers who had to argue at length whether players should be allowed to read the rules, whether players should choose their character’s race and class, and whether they should roll their own dice.

        • redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Yes, however, to appease the pedants out there, saying Gygax and Arneson and the rest of the Geneva Lake crew “grew up on” DnD is a bit of a misnomer. They didn’t grow up on it, they invented it, and they were well into adulthood at the time.

    • dumples@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      Attempting to make a monster for literally every situation is how AD&D ended up with the Monstrous Compendium’s fifteen volumes and appendices, so in reality the Monster Manual is an exercise in restrain

      I love the strange monsters from AD&D. Its fun to see how weird they got. I am a big fan of having lots to draw on for inspiration

      • redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Agreed. It’s why I have all of Kobold Press’s supplemental monster books. Variety is the spice of life, and I’m constantly trying to find ways to make combat more engaging than just slugging it out with my players. Quirky stat blocks help me come up with scenarios.