Wandering Monsters: Trite Trickery

Wandering Monsters takes a break from monsters this week to talk about what exploration means and various dungeon “tricks”.

Starting things on a positive note, I actually agree with the definition of what exploration is, as well as the bullet list of activities (which could be broken up into travel, problem-solving, and investigation). The only thing I would add is that more than just a category of things that can occur in the game, I think it is also important for adventure pacing.

>In other words it is not only the glue that holds your encounters together, but it is also the padding that keeps the game session from being an endless
sequence of fights and dialogue.

Kind of like how meat binders keep every bite from being cheap meat.

Where I start to disagree is when it mentions how you will “more often” rely on your wits while interacting with the Dungeon Master.

I have never liked this disparity, where it is for some reason okay to roll your Strength to scale a wall or Dexterity to balance across a narrow beam, but not when you want to use Intelligence to solve a puzzle or Charisma to fast talk your way past a guard. That is kind of the point of playing a game where you allegedly can pretend to be whatever you want, so why potentially close those doors to characters who might not be as intelligent or witty (or conversely, benefit a player who is smarter or witter than her character)?

Like pseudo-Vancian magic I cannot remember any bit of fiction where the main character sits around and fiddles with levels for awhile before continuing on with actual the story. It might amuse some Dungeon Masters to grind the game to halt for an hour or so while the players poke and push statues trying to intuit the correct combination of actions required to get on with the fun parts of the game, but that probably means that they are either bad or inexperienced. In either case advice in the DMG on how to avoid that sort of thing could be helpful.

It would also be nice if there at least guidelines, optional ones even, that inform you how a character’s mental and social strengths can help them overcome those sorts of challenges. If nothing else, I would at least like a system where characters can make ability score checks in order to gain hints. If puzzles are worth XP, then you could reduce or even waive the reward entirely if the group decides to make a check to bypass it. It would still not be equal, but at least it help prevent players from getting stuck at puzzles that their characters should not be.

When it comes to tricks I have never really maintained an “arsenal”, at least not like the fountain described in the article, which just comes across as confusing and random. I get that there is a lack of context, but the first thing that comes to my mind when I read the description is not interest or excitement, but why. Why everything. Why is it there? Why would someone go through the effort of constructing an elaborate fountain, enchant a gargoyle to ask a riddle and spray you with acid if you fail, and also enchant a nymph statue to clue you in on some treasure?

It just seems like the kind of thing that would take a long time to construct, enchant, and program, and for what purpose or payoff? To randomly spray explorers with acid, or reward them for answering a riddle? Seems kind of extreme in either case, and not the kind of thing that I would expect a wizard to do, or even something that someone would pay a wizard to do. All it does for me is pull me out of the narrative, and remind me that this is just a game, with a dungeon specifically designed to be explored and conquered.

If I had to describe my arsenal, it would be more like how you write and use Fronts, Dungeon Moves, and Custom Moves in Dungeon World; a list of contextually appropriate events–which can include bits of dungeon dressing, traps, monsters, and effects specific to the dungeon environment–and locations to draw inspiration from, add to the game session if I have the time (or remind me of stuff to use later), and fall back on if the characters go off the rails or do something else unexpected.

Barring specific circumstances I do not see myself using any of the map-muddling tricks, at least not with the express intent to “foil” the characters’ mapping endeavors. In that regard they seem cheap and silly, and like the fountain drag me right back into reality. I have heard of dungeons where if the characters step in a circle–or even an unmarked area–and it teleports them into some ridiculous death trap, or pit trap filled with oozes that closes after you fall in. I do not understand the draw of randomly killing characters, and like map tricks consider them equally cheap and silly.

I am fine with trick categories. Not sure if they are needed, but can see the use of having things better organized for reference so that if I am looking for the obstacles I know where to look.

What surprises me is that the author is bold enough to even suggest that traps as depicted in older editions might not be necessarily good for the game. I do not remember how traps worked in 2nd Edition, but in 3rd Edition it used to be that if you found one and disarmed it you got XP. If you found it and failed to disarm it by a certain margin, or just blundered into it without noticing then it triggered, and the effects varied depending on if it was a dart trap, pit trap, teleporting trap, etc.

The point is that what they were usually for was just a way to deal a bit of random damage before being forgotten. I called this underwhelming method “nut-punching traps”, and like save-or-die effects they are not good for the game, but a way for the lazy DM to try and peddle tension and danger. I find 4th Edition’s way of utilizing them much more engaging because it is advised that you use them with other encounters, and almost everyone in the party can help deal with them; it does not just fall to the rogue and a single die roll.

In regards to the three pillars the only thing I would change is to add traps and hazards to the combat pillar, too, as in 4th Edition the more memorable traps were those that were so elaborate that the entire party had to deal with them, or just a piece of the bigger picture.

Wandering Monsters: Demonic Doldrums

You know I cannot think of a single column of Wanderings Monsters that I have liked, or at least not one that I have regarded in a mostly favorable light. I read them, wonder why they would try pitching something so bland, confusing, uninspired, and/or that panders to previous editions for no discernible reason, and just hope that the final draft is much, much better.

Frankly I think that the flavor I cook up as a reaction to these articles is better, and I am not a professional in this industry by any stretch. Not only have these guys been in the business for years, but they have a whole team working on it, so why are the results almost always so…bleh?

Part of the problem with summoning magic is the same problem that has plagued magic in general: it is too safe and predictable (and makes no sense).

Trying to summon something from the Nine Hells or Elemental Chaos could be a big deal–it depends on what you are going for–but really never is: just wait until you get to a certain level, take a certain spell, and voila; you will always be able to reliably summon the same creature in a couple seconds, it will always listen to you barring some specific corner-case ability or effect, and once the duration elapses it will disappear whence it came (again, barring some corner-case ability or effect).

I think that how summoning magic works should vary from class to class, and if I were in charge of design wizards would unfortunately get shafted because I see them needing to spend more time than most drawing a circle, preparing ritual components, tearing open the planar fabric so that they can either attract or draw a demon through, then either bargaining with or imposing their will upon it.

How long it takes and how hard it is to get the demon to do what you want would vary by the strength of the demon. It should be easy even for a relatively green wizard to conjure up and boss around a dretch, while a babau is going to take some convincing. I would also give a bonus for taking extra time, using exceptional materials, being skilled in certain schools of magic (like abjuration), or having people helping you out.

Conversely you could eschew these things or cut corners, but then you would take a penalty to conjuring and/or containment. If classes and subclasses were flexible and not small preset bundles then you could introduce features that made you better at it, granting bonuses so that you could take shortcuts while still retaining some measure of reliability. Of course if you could still go through the motions anyway, making it do more or getting something even better.

On the topic of sacrifices, I really do not like the notion that you have to give a demon something. For low-level lackeys it might be necessary, but what about a powerful conjurer who knows truenames and has plenty of experience bending reality? Is forcing a demon to obey her through sheer force of will any different than unleashing bolts of force, reducing a giant to a toad, controlling someone’s mind, or crossing vast distances in the blink of an eye?

In my system sacrifices would not be mandatory, but could still be used to sweeten the deal (as could places of power and certain events). This is where you get groups of cultists all working together to get a powerful demon to do their bidding, often in a corrupted temple, possibly during an eclipse or at dusk, but a particularly skilled and powerful conjurer could still do it by herself sans offerings.

Finally I do not think that demon summoners and the act of summoning demons should be an intrinsically evil act. Most people probably do it for less than altruistic reasons, but you could still have exceptions, and I think that leaving those options open makes it easier on storytelling. Kind of like how some people think that all necromancy no matter what should be evil, but then you get “official” good-aligned totally-not-undead undead in Eberron. Just do us a favor and let us decide what, if anything, has to be absolutely evil.

Well that went on quite a bit longer than expected, so let us move on to gnolls.

The backstory for gnolls is that Yeenoghu gets summoned into the world, kills the people that summoned him for absolutely no reason, destroys a bunch of stuff, kills a bunch of people, and maybe gets beaten up by a halfling god. Some of the demonic hyenas get left behind and for some reason ignored, growing up to become gnolls. Also they somehow spread to other “known worlds” in the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse, because I guess Spelljammer was right all along.

Awhile back I mentioned that it is not always necessary to explain a monster’s origins, and if this is the alternative I would rather have not known.

Gnolls could be a race of hyena-like humanoids that dwell in ruined cities or gather around ancient, bloody shrines dedicated to some sinister hyena god. If anyone gets too close they just kill and eat them, so no one has learned much about them, and after while I would hazard a guess that no one wants to. They would not necessarily be evil, just territorial, but still work as antagonists for basic dungeon- or hexcrawling. Simple and straightforward.

Now if you want them to all be evil you can do that too, in a much more interesting, visible way. What if gnolls ventured forth from their ruined cities to pillage, destroy, and capture prisoners. They eat some, but not all, forcing them to fight each other for survival in bloody arenas surrounded by grinning obelisks, watched over by demonic gnoll rulers. Unfortunately the “winners” of these bloody, brutal contests, those willing to do whatever it takes to survive, are transformed into gnolls. Think the Firefly episode Bushwhacked, just a much more overt physical change.

Not working for you? How about hyena-like demons that possess humans and transform them into gnolls? The gnolls gather the necessary sacrifices, open a gate to the abyss, and allow them to possess mortals. This way you get evil gnolls that you can kill without having to think about it too much, and even better you could mix up cults of Yeenoghu with hyena-like demons, gnolls, and un-transformed humans. Think about an isolated village where humans secretly eat travelers, wield flails or claw bracers, and are lead by gnolls.

Of course nothing says gnolls have to be evil. They might be strange looking, territorial, and worship one or more strange hyena gods (some good, some evil), but otherwise have a culture, history, and varying personalities and goals. This is what I would do in a campaign setting where I wanted to allow gnolls as characters.

I do not even know what to say about Orcus‘s story. It takes place in Forgotten Realms, which has become the Naruto of campaign settings because it will never end. Actually given that it just keeps getting changed over and over with each edition despite no one doing anything remotely interesting with it, a more appropriate comparison might be Nintendo, who refuses to invent new heroes within their existing properties and just continues to keep recycling everything, sometimes adding a new gimmick.

I would like to see an Orcus backstory divorced from a specific setting, or that at least takes place in an interesting one.

Legends & Lore: Medusa? More Like Medon’tsa

One thing that I have been critical of with Next, aside from virtually everything involving mechanics, is the flavor, which I guess means pretty much everything. Normally it is the Wandering Monsters column that tries to pitch confusing, contradictory, and/or boring backstories, but today Legends & Lore takes over with the medusa.

The Greek Medusa was a beautiful woman who was cursed by Athena for the “crime” of being raped in one of her temples by another god. Her hair was transformed into snakes, her gaze turned anyone that saw it to stone (no save), and in at least one version of the story she is eventually beheaded by Perseus.

In both 2nd and 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons the medusa is by default not a unique creature, but a female-only race that mates with humanoid males to produce offspring. Unless you count their save-or-die gaze attack (which I do not) there is nothing interesting about them: they are hateful, live in caves, and depending on the Dungeon Master utilizing them might inexplicably leave statues around to make sure adventuring parties know exactly what to expect.

4th Edition kept them as a race but provided several unconfirmed origin stories; cursed elven worshippers of Zehir, a yaun-ti slave race created from mingling other yaun-ti and basilisks, or humans or dragonborn corrupted by Zehir. There is also a bit of flavor content tying them with yaun-ti, which makes sense what with all the mention of Zehir. As an added bonus they get some actually decent combat mechanics.

You have got the gamut of evil monster that pretty much lives in caves and exists to be killed, and a variety of stories to pick, modify, combine, and/or ignore, so what does Next do with all of this flavor content?

Since the backstory of an ugly humanoid monster that is always evil was not compelling enough, they decided to add more depth by having them be created from a curse. That is actually surprising in a good way, since it is not only not just what was done before, but it also sounds a lot better than a snake-haired woman that dupes men into heading back to her cave.

Really the only problem is that the curse makes absolutely no sense at all:

“Medusas are created by a curse whereby a human trades a decade of great beauty and personal magnetism for an eternity of a visage so wretched that it turns onlookers to stone.”

I guess that this was the best that they could come up with? What is surprising in a bad way is that more than a few of the comments on the page think that this is in anyway interesting or even reasonable. Ten years of beauty for an eternity of snakes and murder-eyes? How does it work? Do you pray to a god of horrible bargains? What does the being that fulfills these curses have to gain? Why is the curse and period of time so oddly specific? Like, what if I just need a few points of Charisma? Where do snakes fit into the whole theme?

You know what makes more sense and still retains everything good about the concept? Having the curse be levied by the gods as punishment for vanity. I am not even necessarily talking about those that dare to compare themselves (or be unfortunately compared to) to a god of beauty, though that is certainly an obvious use. Anyone that is excessively vain could be a potential target, particularly those that use their looks to deceive people, which plays with the snake theme.

With this origin they can still be in positions of power, especially if they were rich beforehand), but whether the curse is placed on bad people that deserve it or innocent people unaware of the ramifications of their boasts (or the boasts of others), it will help rationalize their hatred and possibly make them sympathetic villains.

If These Stones Could Scream: Region Map

Victor is normally tasked with taking my crude line drawing and making them into something that you can understand without patience and a magnifying glass, but since he has been busy I thought I would take a stab at it and see what I could do.

This is the region map for If These Stones Could Scream another Dungeon World adventure I am working on:

Not quite satisfied with how the mountains blend, and I’ll need to texture the grassy areas some more, but otherwise it is almost done. Then I will try my hand at polishing up Khajra (city map), and then the Serpent Ziggurat (dungeon map).

Numenera: First Impressions

So I finally got a chance to actually play a game for once, and Numenera at that. We spent a good chunk of the night building characters for about half the table (there are seven of us), establishing who knew who, getting fed setting information (since we are not using the “official” Ninth World), and joking around (did I mention there are seven of us?).

Since we did not get a chance to actually play much, this is more of a first impressions from the player’s side of things. Once the game got rolling we were in a mostly underground facility owned by Beth’s character, a wealthy nano that specialized in dimensional science (and the cause of the incident that pulled my character mostly into the Ninth World).

While we were milling about a group of looters (ie level 2 bandits) broke in and were spotted, and I was surprised at how fast combat started and ran despite seven characters. I think all told it maybe lasted about half an hour, and that is counting six baddies and the time spent explaining Edge, Effort, cyphers, how damage works, and pondering what to do and how many points to spend doing it.

We beat them pretty easily (Randy erred on the side of caution because he had no idea what sort of stuff we could be expected to handle), with Beth’s character and possessions taking the brunt of damage due to a natural 1. Once the dust settled and the fires put out we discovered that they had taken some sensitive information from her character’s super-secret vault, somehow using said vault’s door to make an exit by throwing it through a wall.

Though we had the foresight to detain a few of the looters for interrogation, not even Ort could get anything out of them, and he is a charming fellow with Intellect points to spare. So I guess the next session will involve some legwork, which is fine because he also has legs to spare.

Behind the Scenes
We actually used the Cypher Deck, which gave us some appropriate results for a band of looters: speed pills and a sound dampener, the latter of which they really should have used in hindsight.

I have decided that Ort will sound like Zoidberg, so I need to work on that voice.

Wandering Monsers: The Little Guys

When and how do you use kobolds and goblins?

For the most part I agree with the article when it comes to the bulleted basic elements, though I would expand the list to include a draconic heritage and sorcerer elements for kobolds, and goblins lairing in the wilderness (not necessarily just in caves or ruins). If a setting associates goblins with fey (or just makes them fey), then I would also make them adept at illusion or “shadow” magic to further differentiate them from kobolds.

“I’ve got a case of kobolds.”
I really do not like the idea of an innkeeper comparing kobolds to rats. If kobolds manage to tunnel into a cellar and start raiding your food stores that is nothing to shrug at, while waiting for two copper-piece adventurers to show up and tackle. After all rats are not going to prepare traps and ambushes for anyone that comes after them, nor will they sneak into your home at night and eat your face off.

Most of the time.

I am also not too keen on the comic relief angle; if anything having goblins be the violent product of excessive abuse seems more tragic than anything else.

While I do not deliberately play them up as comedic, natural 1’s happen and I do not mind having them trip up, hit someone else, or cause something to explode. However I extend that possibility to every monster, as well as across the screen. It just depends on what you were trying to do and what is going on. Making this a trope for either just unnecessarily downplays the threat they pose.

The example of goblins trussing up a farmer and pelting him with apples is both confusing and pretty tame, especially for a monster that is also evil. It almost sounds like something George Lucas would do if he were to rewrite an adventure module, right up there with naming the bad guy Count Grimevildark and having the skeletons say ow as the characters bash them to pieces.

No, the goblins do not dress up a farmer like a hobgoblin and bully him; they use him for target practice, carve patterns into his flesh, or subject him to a variety of other goblin “games” before he eventually dies. When his body is discovered the characters are more likely to see a grim reminder of the destruction they can inflict, than they are to shake their fist at the sky and proclaim, “Oooh, those blasted goblins are at it again!”

I am fine with goblins riding wolves. It gives them something else to team up with and add variety to encounters, though I think it would also be cool for them to also ride Medium-sized spiders, bats, rats, and similar creatures.

Or rat creatures.

Kobolds should also have mounts, like dire weasels, giant lizards, or felldrakes. What about kobolds on a rage drake howdah?

The classic/traditional goblin and kobold gods are alright. Nothing to write home about, but I think there is the start of something interesting. James mentions that not every setting will feature them, and I think that rather than try to cram in some cliff notes in the monster entries it would be better to relegate them to specific settings where they can be properly fleshed out.

Ultimately a lot of the defining features are fine, but both creatures need more depth beyond being evil for evil’s sake (without a compelling reason), living underground, and just existing to be killed. I do not think that goblins should exist to be bullied, and neither deserves to be the assumed butt of jokes.

D&D Next: Wild Shape & Oaths

This for realsies last last playtest packet updates the druid’s Wild Shape and adds a new paladin oath, the Oath of Vengeance.

Wild Shape
You cannot do this at all until 2nd-level, but you can now do it once between short and long rests. At 8th-level you can use it twice between rests. There are many forms available at the start, including flying critters and a horse. The time limit is one-half your level in hours. Finally, Circle of the Moon grants access to more dangerous animals like dire wolves, tigers, and cave bears (oh my).

I still do not like it.

Shocking, I know.

You cannot change your shape at all until 2nd-level. Why? Wild Shape is a very unique and iconic class feature for the druid, so why make them wait while barbarians can still rage, monks can flurry, and rogues can sneak attack? Would it really unbalance anything to allow players access all of one level sooner?

The forms are also not made equally: unless you have a major need for Speed, owls are better than hawks, and anything weasels can do, cats can do better (at least until they inevitably start adding more animal forms in splatbooks). Why make each animal its own statblock? All you are doing is downplaying certain animals when they are not rendered obsolete. You could just as easily make thematic benefit packages for a druid to choose from, and let them determine what form they take.

EDIT: I am also opposed to the inclusion of animal statblocks with only slight mechanical variation. The time and space could be better devoted than giving us numerous blocks for cats, dogs, birds, and other critters that probably will only end up having differing skill bonuses, maybe a movement mode or special sense.

Again I am voicing my dislike of Druid Circles (and the whole paths thing in general). With the current system if I choose Circle of the Land then I irrevocably cut off access to “battle forms” for the rest of the campaign, even if I want to delve into them later. There is no reason why characters cannot make more choices, opting into certain concepts down the road if it suits them. The current model is just…lazy.

ANOTHER EDIT: The fact that forms do not scale is another problem. What if I want to make a druid of, say, a wolf clan? Right now I have to wait until 2nd-level before I can turn into a dire wolf, and…that is it. There are no other wolf forms beyond 2nd-level. If forms were based on your level you would not only not have to wait until you could become a triceratops, but if you wanted to stick around as a wolf it would still be viable.

Also, it would be cool if druids could pick up form-based “maneuvers”.

Oath of Vengeance
You gain access to a set of oath spells, including the very unpaladin-sounding misty step (short-range teleport). One Channel Divinity option lets you frighten a creature (with a bonus against fiends and undead despite undead being largely immune to fear), while the other lets you gain attack advantage against a creature that hits you or something else.

At higher levels you can move after making an opportunity attack against a creature affected by your oath, make an attack against a creature affected by your oath before they attack (assuming they are in range), and eventually transform into a angel with flight and a fear aura.

The flavor behind the oath of vengeance makes it sound like something that a paladin swears once they hear of something bad going down, and that once they handle said bad thing that they are free to swear another kind of oath. Of course oaths are just another path that you lock in at 3rd-level, so once you pick divine Batman from the list you are stuck with it for no discernible reason except that it is how 3rd Edition handled character advancement.

Being able to swear oaths and gain benefits from them would actually make paladins more interesting and diverse from clerics (or fighter/clerics). Dungeon World lets you do something similar: you gain benefits when undertaking a quest, and once you wrap it up you can gain new ones the next time around. In this instance oaths could be thematic packages to choose from, or the Dungeon Master could assign appropriate bonuses from a list.

Legends & Lore: Mildshape

One of the druid’s most iconic features is wildshape.

In 3rd Edition you had to wait until 5th-level before you could change your form into a Small or Medium animal just once per day. As you leveled up you could change more times in a daily period, and you gained access to more size categories and creature types. The only limitation was that the form’s Hit Dice could not exceed the druid’s level, which was not much of a limitation when you could still, say, change into a dinosaur capable of charging while still making multiple poisonous attacks.

A level before the fighter could make her second attack.

Assuming she does not take more than a 5-foot step.

Not eclipsing the fighter–or really any other class–as a melee combatant based on one choice is one of several reasons why 4th Edition’s take on the druid is by far my favorite, but what makes it really interesting is how dynamic it is. Unlike other classes a druid’s evocations require her to be either in a human or beast form, which you can change at-will from the start. This allows you to change up tactics on the fly: do you stand back and blast enemies from a distance, or do you get close and personal with your beast form? Daily evocations could grant you more bonuses, and there are even feats that get in on that form-based action.

The only drawback is that you are limited to Small or Medium size critters, and you do not gain any special features or movement modes. I mean, you could change into a Medium-sized bird, you just cannot fly. To do that you have to choose special evocations, which are generally limited to a per-day basis. I also recall that you could not manipulate objects in those forms, even if you changed into something like a monkey. This was an instance where I feel that they erred way too far on the side of game balance.

Currently 5th Edition’s stab at wildshape is that aside from your mental ability scores, you replace your stat block with that of the creature you change into. I guess each form will have its own hit points, and when those run out you automatically revert back. I do not mind any of this in concept. I think that just swapping out stat blocks streamlines the process while hopefully preventing 3rd Edition’s abusive forms (though I think 4th Edition made it much simpler by just enabling beast form evocations, assuming you took any).

The problem is that wildshape has per-day uses (makes no sense) and that the forms are limited by what the designers feel you should be able to change into, meaning that there is no customization: at 1st-level you get hound, at 5th-level you get steed, etc. I know that there will apparently be a menu to choose from, but I am guessing it will just be more of the same, which is boring and restrictive.

See, aside from re-skinnable daily evocations 4th Edition allowed you to determine what you were changing into, and even let you determine for the most part how much you cared about wildshape through evocation and feat choice. If you want to get in touch with your wild side, take beast form powers and load up on feats that give you benefits in beast form. Feel like wildshape is for the birds? Well you still have to take all of one beast form at will, but otherwise you are free to cultivate your nature magic.

I think druids should be able to not only choose whether they can wildshape at all, but do so whenever they please. I think it would also make sense to limit them based on terrain and/or season (kind of like how Dungeon World does it). You could let the druid determine what she changes into based on these parameters, as well as size and type (which are expanded upon via wildshape class feature selection).

Wildshape benefits could just be a package deal depending on if you are going with a combat/predator or exploration/prey form. Predator forms would make you tougher, stronger, faster, etc, while prey forms would make you faster, harder to hit, and give you skill bonuses. Druids could also have access to something like fighter maneuvers, they just need to be in a suitable animal form to utilize them.

If These Stones Could Scream: Khajra Map Take 2

My second stab at Khajra, the primary adventure site for our upcoming adventure If These Stones Could Scream. I made the area with the actual town a bit smaller and added an arena, while the snakeman pyramid is quite a bit larger and circular (at Josh’s request). 

The town started out as a dig site for explorers investigating and/or looting the snakeman pyramid, but due to all the water after it was cleaned out it became a kind of resting stop for caravans crossing the desert. Eventually a would-be noble set up shop (and walls) and began charging people to stay and purchase water.

Wandering Monsters: Easy Answers

The focus of this week’s Wandering Monsters is less monsters and more questions that can all be answered with the following statement: it depends entirely on the Dungeon Master and her setting.

Is it okay to kill orc babies? Do orcs even have babies? Both depend on the setting. In a lot of settings they seem to be used as a convenient monster that players can kill and rob without having to think about it too hard. Kind of like zombies, just stronger, faster, and technically smarter. Simple and straightforward, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that because…

…you do not have to explain what they are or where they come from.

Orcs can just be destructive humanoids that randomly surge from beyond the mountains to plague “civilized” lands. Do they have babies? Who knows. Maybe they are corrupted elves, grow from Gruumsh’s lost eye, were cursed by a fiend (or angel), or worship a god of destruction. The point is if your players are never going to go over those mountains and try to put a stop to them once and for all, then why bother thinking about it too hard?

Well for one there are plenty of monsters that can already fill the role of guiltlessly-slayable humanoids, and do it better: most undead, fiends, and constructs come to mind. Lumping in orcs—and goblins, drow, gnolls, kobolds, etc—with them seems pretty boring and lazy. One of the many, many reasons I enjoy Eberron is because it made monsters more interesting, giving them a culture and involving them in the lives of the “civilized” races beyond ugly Medium-size humanoid bag o’ XP and cash.

My other gripe concerns D&D’s laughable alignment system: how does an “often Chaotic Evil” society even operate? There are plenty of parents in our society ill-suited for rearing children, but I cannot imagine that they would regularly perform worse than your average orc. If I wanted to throw orc babies into the mix and I had to use alignment (which I thankfully do not) I would make them Neutral/Unaligned; there are more creative ways to bring them into conflict than “because Evil!”.

I was unaware that in any Dungeons & Dragons source ever that someone tried to pitch the idea that dragons evolved from dinosaurs (which I prefer just being called behemoths, or something else). While I think there is a very good reason that both 3rd nor 4th Edition omitted that even as a potential theory (it sounds really stupid), does it really matter if dragons are reptiles, mammals, or something in between? Is it going to change anything? Who gains from either answer?

As with orcs, perhaps even more so because they are dragons, you do not have to determine where they come from. Their origins—and motivations, goals, capabilities, etc—could be a complete mystery, especially since it is very unlikely that a campaign is going to explore them: dragons just are, always have been, and will always be. Of course if I make the effort to establish an origin, you can bet that I am going to err on the fantastic side of things, having them born from gods, if not created around the same time that gods came into existence.

I really do not get the hangup on dragonborn. I have no problem with “dragonboobs” because like dragons—and really D&D things in general—they do not have to abide by real-world classifications. Again, does it really matter? Does anyone really care? My only issue with them is that they “officially” all look the same. In my campaigns Bahamut and Tiamat created their own race, which have scale colors, crests, horns, tails, etc similar to those of true dragons.

When it comes to combined monsters I am kind of on the fence. I have nothing against wizards doing weird experiments with weird results, I just find it hard to believe that a wizard created enough owlbears to make a self-sustaining species, though I would love to have a kind of chimeric toolbox to make it easy for Dungeon Masters to build one-off monsters to throw at their players.

Most of the time I see combined monsters as not combined at all, but just as “natural” as the animals that we expect to see in real life: griffons, hippogriffs, sealions, displacer beasts, owlbears, etc. If you had to create an origin, I would run with “naturally occuring”, nature spirit, god, or extraplanar transient before checking out the “wizard did it” angle. Maybe a magical event merged a bunch of stuff, but that might be stretching it.

Finally, races. The more the merrier. Make as many as you want, touch on their personality, appearance, and culture, but do not try to tell me which ones are common or unusual. In an upcoming setting I am working on dragonborn and devas are a pretty big deal, while halflings and dwarves are right out. Group them up thematically or whatever, but ditch the rarity system/unusual label; it serves absolutely no purpose except to potentially throttle the creativity of new DMs.