This is the whole premise of DCC monsters.  So they have a few classic ones in the core book, but there are lots of tables for randomization of abilities for undead, dragons, etc.  And nearly all their published modules have new and/or unique monsters.  They finally caved and kickstarted a monster book this year to get all those in print, but if this is what you're pining for, look no further than DCC.

Yeah, I like the DCC module approach. Every monster seems to be unique or a twist on some existing monster.

On a related note, I feel a lot of D&D and derivative monster books feel this bizarre urge to give their monsters pseudo-naturalistic ecologies and discard the more fantastical aspects of the original myths and bestiaries that inspired them.

For example, in myth/folklore the griffin could "smell" precious metals and used these to line their nests, laid eggs with agate shells, their feathers could cure blindness, and their claws could be made into drinking horns that changed color when containing poison (thus alerting drinkers to assassination attempts). None of this made its way into D&D or derivatives in any form. Griffin feathers aren't a component for the spell Cure Blindness, there's no magic drinking horn that detects poison in drinks made from griffin claw, griffins cannot dowse precious metals, etc.

Same for the basilisk/cockatrice. While it still turns you to stone, its origin as a "cock egg" incubated by a snake or toad (or vice versa) isn't present in any form. Admittedly it would be difficult to explain the preponderance of basilisks if every single one needs to be created by an alchemist beastmaster, but it makes the basilisk/cockatrice that much less fantastical.

Or the Medusa, Minotaur, etc being turned into naturally reproducing species rather than individualized divine curses with very specific backgrounds. D&D5 tried combining both approaches, but as with most of the 5e MM lore it ends up coming out half-baked. Especially compared to their more creative pre-release blogs (now defunct, and nigh-impossible to find in wayback machine) where the writer shared various ideas.

In my brainstorming, I tried to rectify this. For example, with Minotaurs I took inspiration from the original myths plus Mazes & Minotaurs. Minotaurs originate from a divine curse on a royal bloodline, the exact story of which doesn't survive to the present. The original Minotaurs are the Golden Minotaurs, the immortal kings and their descendants now condemned to live within their own personal mazes on another plane that occasionally opens gates to the mortal realm. However, the curse is fickle and can now be contracted by anyone who traps themselves within a maze of their own devising even if its a metaphorical maze of byzantine legal arguments. Minotaurs start out human but steadily become more bull-like as their curse deteriorates and resistance erodes; the physical traits aren't uniform: this can manifest as the classic bull-head, the Renaissance bull-centaur, etc. The final stage are things like the bestial "gorgotaurs", whose hands have been replaced by hooves while still retaining a humanoid torso. Additionally, minotaurs can have unique powers like those in Mazes & Minotaurs: firebreathing, psychic powers, two heads, etc. Their physical appearance reflects their powers and their maze's architecture and landscape design reflects their personality and powers. In a unique twist on both the original myth where the maze trapped the minotaur and the D&D take where they auto-solve mazes, these minotaurs know the layout of their maze perfectly but cannot leave it: it is part of them. Minotaurs can also have minions: the various monsters inhabiting a dungeon that is actually the sovereign minotaur's personal maze. Some younger minotaurs whose curse hasn't completely limited their mobility can lead raids on the mortal plane, if you need those. Minotaur PCs searching for a cure to their advancing curse is a potential option too.

A relevant question I don't see being asked here is "just how often do you plan on having the party run into X?"

Are you, as a GM, going to ever include enough Medusa encounters in a campaign to even need to distinguish them? Ditto for beholders.

Are you planning for the PCs to encounter more than 5 dragons in a campaign? If not, then you've got a "unique" dragon for each of those encounters.

About the only things you're likely to face in multiples enough to make distinctions possibly warrented are the things that also appear in such numbers that war games traditionally averaged out their abilities into a single unit type... i.e. warriors of various humanoid races or undead hordes or demon minions (vs. demon lords who fall into the discussion above... just how many Balor encounters is your campaign going to have?).

Basically, I don't see the need for wide arrays of customization options unless the number of monster types available are so limited you can't otherwise populate your campaign world.

I mean, for me a full length campaign might have 100-200 encounters over its entire span. The 3e MM had about 500 monsters, meaning I could, in theory run two whole campaigns without repeating a monster type unless I wanted to. Why would I need to further customize them?

Only something very focused, like "Against the Giants" where most opponents are of the same type throughout would you need customization options... and many of those can be achieved by adding class levels atop them (i.e. giant fighter, giant cleric, giant wizard).

Basically, this feels a bit like one of those solutions seeking a problem for it to be applied to (with the "a bit" being because I can see a need in a very focused campaign for such options... but not for the average D&D campaign).

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 08, 2023, 12:52:36 PM
About the only things you're likely to face in multiples enough to make distinctions possibly warrented are the things that also appear in such numbers that war games traditionally averaged out their abilities into a single unit type... i.e. warriors of various humanoid races or undead hordes or demon minions (vs. demon lords who fall into the discussion above... just how many Balor encounters is your campaign going to have?).

Basically, I don't see the need for wide arrays of customization options unless the number of monster types available are so limited you can't otherwise populate your campaign world.

First of all, I agree there is no "need". One can have cool historical campaigns without having non-human monsters at all. Or one can have cool campaigns with only monsters exactly by the book of (X) edition of (Y) game. But I think it can also be fun to try out different approaches.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 08, 2023, 12:52:36 PM
Only something very focused, like "Against the Giants" where most opponents are of the same type throughout would you need customization options... and many of those can be achieved by adding class levels atop them (i.e. giant fighter, giant cleric, giant wizard).

Basically, this feels a bit like one of those solutions seeking a problem for it to be applied to (with the "a bit" being because I can see a need in a very focused campaign for such options... but not for the average D&D campaign).

Sure, one can go with the standard for the average D&D campaign, but it's fun to try stuff that isn't the average.

I'm picturing a Norse-themed game where there are only a handful of creature types - like giants (one race), dwarves/elves (which are also one race), and maybe a rare dragon or sea monster. Then there might be a more Nordic-flavored "Against the Giants" of taking on a series of giant fortresses.

If someone comes at this assuming existing D&D stat blocks, then they might be like "There's no variety there. We need ogres and drow and illithids and other monster types." But I think that's the same sort of thinking that PCs are boring if they're just dwarf/elf/human, and one needs kender, drow, tieflings, dragonborn, and other options for variety. There is lots of variety possible without bringing in ever-new monster types in a campaign.

Rather than being distinct by what creature types are there, the different fortresses could be distinct by who the giant ruler of the fortress is, what kind of troops he operates, the tactics and defenses he has, and so forth.

Quote from: jhkim on June 08, 2023, 01:53:23 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 08, 2023, 12:52:36 PM
About the only things you're likely to face in multiples enough to make distinctions possibly warrented are the things that also appear in such numbers that war games traditionally averaged out their abilities into a single unit type... i.e. warriors of various humanoid races or undead hordes or demon minions (vs. demon lords who fall into the discussion above... just how many Balor encounters is your campaign going to have?).

Basically, I don't see the need for wide arrays of customization options unless the number of monster types available are so limited you can't otherwise populate your campaign world.

First of all, I agree there is no "need". One can have cool historical campaigns without having non-human monsters at all. Or one can have cool campaigns with only monsters exactly by the book of (X) edition of (Y) game. But I think it can also be fun to try out different approaches.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 08, 2023, 12:52:36 PM
Only something very focused, like "Against the Giants" where most opponents are of the same type throughout would you need customization options... and many of those can be achieved by adding class levels atop them (i.e. giant fighter, giant cleric, giant wizard).

Basically, this feels a bit like one of those solutions seeking a problem for it to be applied to (with the "a bit" being because I can see a need in a very focused campaign for such options... but not for the average D&D campaign).

Sure, one can go with the standard for the average D&D campaign, but it's fun to try stuff that isn't the average.

I'm picturing a Norse-themed game where there are only a handful of creature types - like giants (one race), dwarves/elves (which are also one race), and maybe a rare dragon or sea monster. Then there might be a more Nordic-flavored "Against the Giants" of taking on a series of giant fortresses.

If someone comes at this assuming existing D&D stat blocks, then they might be like "There's no variety there. We need ogres and drow and illithids and other monster types." But I think that's the same sort of thinking that PCs are boring if they're just dwarf/elf/human, and one needs kender, drow, tieflings, dragonborn, and other options for variety. There is lots of variety possible without bringing in ever-new monster types in a campaign.

Rather than being distinct by what creature types are there, the different fortresses could be distinct by who the giant ruler of the fortress is, what kind of troops he operates, the tactics and defenses he has, and so forth.

Greetings!

I agree, Jhkim. I was reviewing some campaign regions in my world--specifically a huge Norse region--and while I made a point to establish some room for dwarves, elves, trolls, giants, and dragons--as well as sea monsters!--when I proceeded to really get into developing Norse culture, different tribes, then moved on to some Finns and Pagan Baltic tribal cultures, then the Russians, then the Western Slavs, as well as some Siberian and North Asian cultures--I came to a heretical and surprising realization:

Having a gaggle of hordes of intelligent non-human races really just is not necessary. Having animals, beasts, and monsters are good, but as for other civiliations and cultures, hah! You know? Just within a Norse-like sub-milieu alone--there is enough human variety for war, trading, cultures, and other drama to keep a campaign going for YEARS. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: GeekyBugle on June 06, 2023, 05:07:08 PM


Isn't that exactly what other games do according to the following paragraphs of your post?

You want it both ways, to have the Hydra as a singular individual and at the same time to have the Ogres as a race, but not really because they roll for everything.

Let's focus on intelligent monsters (because I think I know you a bit) for a moment and let's call them species (even if in Pseudo medieval settings the name makes no fucking sense):

Are all Ogres exactly the same? No, but they are alike enough as to be recognized as a species. As per the MM Ogre, Oni & Merrow are enough alike as to be considered of the same kin. http://dedpihto.narod.ru/games/Monsters1/MM00229.htm (Something I disagreee with since Ogre Mage/Oni are clearly trying to model a Japanese monster and doing a shitty job at it.

Even then and there you already had some Ogres with classes, which would solve the sameness issue you seem to have.

Now let's talk about IRL animals... There are about 10,000 species of birds, yet they all are birds, so what's the problem with green, red, bronze, etc Dragons?

Since Lions and Tigers can produce offspring (almost 100% of the time infertile) it seems reasonable to think that other species of Tiger can interbreed among themselves and maybe even produce fertile offspring. So, what's the problem with having Ogre, Ogre Mage and Marrow as the ecological diversity you seem to want?

As for the "but in mythology" thing... Well yes and no, this is only true of SOME mythological monsters not all, usually the more powerful ones, like the Hydra, Cerberus, etc. but even the greeks had Centaurs (which includes Cyprian and Lamian Centaurs), Cyclops, Griffin (at least 3), Hippocampus, Mermaids/Sirens, the Nereids (50 of them), among others.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in mythology, folklore and faerie tales humans, elves, faeries, ogres, giants, nymphs, titans and gods do a whole lot of fucking. Aside from Jason, it's hard to think of a Greek hero who didn't have gods or monsters as ancestors.

I think monsters are over-split. I understand why Gary Gygax did it: If you're trying to sell a hardback book of monsters (or three), you'll need to cram as many creatures into the text as possible. I never saw the need to create whole new monsters when all you really need to do is change a name, description or a few stats for an existing one. Want a new type of humanoid that lives in the hills and terrorizes villagers in the valley below? Just take the goblin, call it a sluagh (an old Gaelic name for goblins*), give them a different skin color, weapons, etc and you're all set.

* Creatures like goblins and elves are often described as spirits as well as living beings. In my example, you could spice up the sluagh by making them undead goblins. The possibilities are endless.

I tend to index on human conflicts and characters. For the rare monsters, I embrace my own version of them.

But I also play with what the game gives me. If I am playing D&D, chromatic dragons it is. In my home game, with my own system, I would stat out and create my own dragons. I currently do not have them in my campaign.

Don't name your kobolds, because you'll be sad when they die.

Quote from: Elfdart on June 09, 2023, 12:58:56 AM
Creatures like goblins and elves are often described as spirits as well as living beings. In my example, you could spice up the sluagh by making them undead goblins. The possibilities are endless.

I remember reading a d20 3pp about fey (IIRC it was Complete Guide to Fey) which gave them this curious origin as recycled souls that existed in a liminal state adjacent to and yet outside the cycle of life and death, the cosmological opposite of undead. In order for them to be born, they had to recycle an existing soul such as a ghost or elemental, a mortal who wasn't claimed by a deity (referencing the post-Christian folklore about baptism), or have sex with a mortal to get the necessary spark of life to conceive.

One of the issues with the D&D monster categories versus folklore is that D&D doesn't really have a coherent theology and doesn't reflect any single real cosmology/theology. The above cosmological explanation of fey probably doesn't fit most D&D worlds, and the closest comparison to real religion is a mix of some post-Christian beliefs about faeries between fallen angels who took no side in the war between God and Lucifer, the ghosts of dead folks, etc.

D&D's fey category is a hodgepodge of Scottish, British and Irish fairies (some of them anyway, as the Dullahan is undead for some reason) and a few Greek rustic divinities like dryads and satyrs. But Genies are typed as elementals even though from a comparative mythology perspective they're Arabic fairies and "fairy" was an accepted translation when Arabic fairy tales were first translated into English. And Yaoguai and Yokai got their own new type called "spirit" in the Oriental Adventures supplements. Trolls, a generic word for loads of Scandinavian fairies of variable sizes including what we would recognize as goblins, dwarves and wood-nymphs, are typed as giants.

It's a mess.