Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1022600If you REALLY want to wind me up, just insist that the ONLY POSSIBLE reason I play OD&D is for "nostalgia," and that I cannot actually possibly enjoy the game for its own sake.

  I would guess it is like musical taste.  Most people have their musical tastes cemented to a degree at certain points in their lives.  I have a feeling RPG taste is similar.

Let's be honest though both are "fuck you" style monsters imo. In my anecdotal gaming experiences. Almost no one has evey thanked me for using them. Using the classic monsters like Orcs, Ogres, Goblins, Lizardfolk. The group enjoys seeing them. If they actually existed they both would be hunted to extinction animal rights activists be damned. I'm not saying never use them. Use them in moderation.

Might be.  I think background matters too.  I was a wargamer before I ever played in Greyhawk; I was a wargamer before there WAS a Greyhawk.  I came to D&D as an interesting if odd variant on skirmish wargames.  This will affect how I view them, especially pseudomedievalish fantasy.

Just like I cut my comic book teeth on the four-colors of the 60s and 70s, and that affects how I view superhero RPGs.

After a calm bit of retrospect, I don't think I'd have as much of an issue if the game was set up like a Dying Earth sort if world, but in the 15 or so years of gaming nobody has run a setting like that.  It has always been relatively mythological not-earths where that sort of "a wizard did it" seems more like a flimsy excuse than something that actually happens in game.

Might be worth turning some of those assumptions on their head soon...

Quote from: sureshot;1022603Let's be honest though both are "fuck you" style monsters imo. In my anecdotal gaming experiences. Almost no one has evey thanked me for using them. Using the classic monsters like Orcs, Ogres, Goblins, Lizardfolk. The group enjoys seeing them. If they actually existed they both would be hunted to extinction animal rights activists be damned. I'm not saying never use them. Do not expect your players to be happy.

Interestingly, many referees I know like them because they shake the players up.  And I still dispute the 'fuck you monster' designation.  Do I like having my character drained a level?  Hell no.  But I'd feel cheated if the referee's undead did not drain levels.  As a player I WANT disenchanters, rust monsters, level draining undead, save vs die poisons, and all the rest.  I don't see them as "fuck you monsters" at all.  I see them as part of a dangerous world.

Just like somewhere on this very site I had this conversation a few years back about WW2 gaming.  If I'm playing the Americans, no, I don't like having my Sherman reduced to flaming scrap iron at 1500 yards by a Panther, a Tiger, or even a Mark IV or StugIII with the long 75.  But I expect the Germans to have them, and if it turned out all they had was Mark Is and 38(t)s I'd feel cheated.

Quote from: Manic Modron;1022605After a calm bit of retrospect, I don't think I'd have as much of an issue if the game was set up like a Dying Earth sort if world, but in the 15 or so years of gaming nobody has run a setting like that.  It has always been relatively mythological not-earths where that sort of "a wizard did it" seems more like a flimsy excuse than something that actually happens in game.

Might be worth turning some of those assumptions on their head soon...

Interesting point.  We'd all read Dying Earth, and Gary's Greyhawk was VERY MUCH reminiscent of it.

Just like "cursed items."  Dying Earth is full of wizards talking about unsuccessful experiments.  Try to enchant your birdbath, get one syllable wrong, there's your Bowl of Watery Doom.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1022549Well, that may be true.  IN that case, we're back once again to "make expectations clear beforehand," which I have ALWAYS said is vital.

One of the differences, of course, in a wargame is that the "other side" is players too; "we shot that son of a bitch down and here he comes again?  What the fuck?"

You can play easy mode if you want, that's your right.

One can play D&D or a rpg any which way the want. Onetrywayism does not have it's place in the hobby. I can respect a fellow gamer for defending certain elements of a rpg. Going into a thread to troll I won't respect.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1022631You can play easy mode if you want, that's your right.

In context of a zero sum wargame, that doesn't even make sense.  Zero out of five stars.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1022631You can play easy mode if you want, that's your right.

Sure it is. And it's other people's right to decide whether they want to play the game you're playing. IME, that tends to sort things out;).

(While it might look that I'm being smug with the above and implying easy mode is inferior, it's not what I mean. I literally mean that I've seen such processes at work between different groups. At the end, everyone, or almost, had joined a group that fitted his or her playstyle.
And we all were the happier for it).

Granted, it might suck if you get knocked out of a game on a convention because of it. In that case, I recommend using your smartphone to read a book until the next game begins:D!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1022398Oh, waa waa waa.  Your sword rusted.  Boo hoo.

So go find another, better one.

I fucking hate players who piss themselves and shit their panties about "fuck you monsters."  If you want the game to be on easy mode, go play My Little Pony.

Rust monsters, disenchanters, chameleon monsters, invisible monsters, level draining monsters.... bring 'em on!

The greater danger, the greater the reward in victory.

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all!"

James Graham, 5th Earl of Montrose
1612 to 1650
Royalist General during the English Civil War

No no no! According to village idiot in training...

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1022234We get it. You feel superior to people complaining about things being stupid in a thread where that is the entire premise. Is our beloved game that has endured over 40 years of scrutiny too effetely fragile to endure criticism, or did life just pee in your cheerios this morning?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1022413Either ALL monsters are "fuck you" monsters, or none are.

According to some. Yes.

Quote from: sureshot;1022633One can play D&D or a rpg any which way the want. Onetrywayism does not have it's place in the hobby. I can respect a fellow gamer for defending certain elements of a rpg. Going into a thread to troll I won't respect.

You don't hang out here often, do you?  Sometimes, it seems that's all people do.

Quote from: Manic Modron;1022440See, I don't mind monsters that are specifically set up to target characters.  That is fine.  Rust monsters (oxidation beasts, if you are looking for the Reaper mini)?  I'm alright with them.  It takes some extra tactics to work around the things and they are more scary to some characters than others, but otherwise, sure.  Disenchanters?  Okay, sure.  It is a high magic sort of place, something is going to want to eat the magic.  

The monsters I'm talking about are more ... I don't know... "meta" in their fuck-you-ness.  The ear grubs that do nothing except wait around in a door for somebody to listen to it.  The cloakers that just sit around on a hook and hope some passerby is cold enough to put one on.  The floating sporeballs that look so exactly like beholders that PCs are bound to shoot first and Negate Poison later.  The creatures who have an ecological niche so narrow that you couldn't shove a slip of paper through it.

Those are the monsters that cross a line in my imagination between "gonzo but believable world" right on over to "Now you are just jerking off on the graph paper."

Personally even if the game does not say so. I view some of these monsters as essentially organic traps that someone bred or outright created specifically to fuck with adventurers. And others are good ol mother nature style mimicry. And a few are probably not specifically targeting adventurers.

The ear grub for example. Could be some wizard created it. Or perhaps its just like some other predatory larva that wait for the right conditions and then strike.
Cloakers dwell underground and pounce on people. They may look like a cloak when resting but oddly the description does not mention them actively using it as a disguise or lure. They seem to be essentially underground flying mantas/rays.
Gas Spores are either created by someone or mimicry. I lean to mimicry as its a common tactic in nature. Could be its to ward off creatures. Most know to leave beholders alone.

Except that there are in the real world creatures with nigh impossibly narrow niches. They are few. But they do exist.

Also note some of these were inspired by creatures from books and real life examples of mimicry.

But at the end of the day the most logical answer really is. "A wizard did it!" and failing that. "A god/goddess did it!"

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1022678You don't hang out here often, do you?  Sometimes, it seems that's all people do.

I do hang out here often. I choose to ignore some of the bullshit that some RPG edgelords spew here, elsewhere or in the real world. For the most part I respect my fellow forumites. When it comes to onetruwayism I will not.