• JimLotFP
  • Lord of All Fevers and Plagues
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  • From: Helsinki, Finland
  • Registered: 2009-10-07
  • Posts: 275

Topic: Monsters

This would be tricky because... well...

The decision not to include a bestiary in Weird Fantasy Role-Playing was because I knew the game was going to be taken as D&D and played like D&D and having a bestiary of any kind was going to facilitate that instead of helping differentiate the game from the standards of D&D-as-usually-conceived play, no matter how odd or unsuitable the creatures.

In creating a game that's a hard break from that mechanically, the assumptions go out the window so I've got a little more room to flex.

First off, nothing from traditional myths and legends. I'm sure someone can draw up their own vampires and werewolves, no need for me to include them in such a thing as this - I'm not approaching this as a fantasy game.

The sort of monsters I'm after are... frickin WEIRD. Not natural to this world. Not just a nasty animal (no owlbear type things) or even "magic animals" like dragons. Nothing that communicates with humans per se. Not even tentacle monsters really... OK, maybe one generic "tentacle monster." (and if the concept works and takes off, the "Lovecraft Supplement" almost writes itself... which means keeping all of that out of the initial release so no using that stuff as an early creative crutch)

Just things that break reality and really hurt your brain thinking about them. Not "monsters" in the usual RPG terms of "Things PCs are meant to fight," but more like "things that completely screw everything up and must be overcome but good luck 'fighting' them."

The idea is each monster should have its own rules and ways it interacts with characters and the world. If it can be summed up in a stat line similar to an NPC, then the monster sucks and is completely unsuitable for the purposes of this game. How do I explain this... OK, you know in Arkham Horror, how you draw the big bad monster at the beginning of the game and the entire game plays differently depending on which Ancient One you're fighting against? That's how I envision the appearance of a Shot & Sorcery monster impacting play. (you'll see some of this approach in the Monolith adventure I'm releasing for Weird Fantasy in the coming months and people are going to bitch...)

But what about animals? Sharks and lions and horses and such are things which should be given stats somewhere, but they'd clash horribly with the general mood of the monsters in this book but if you put them somewhere else like the GM book then there'd be two separate places you're looking for the same sort of thing - stats. hmm.

JimLotFP's Website

  • Registered: 2011-12-29
  • Posts: 1

Re: Monsters

"But what about animals? Sharks and lions and horses and such are things which should be given stats somewhere, but they'd clash horribly with the general mood of the monsters in this book "

What if you use a blended approach? Suppose the book starts off with normal animals, but then the tone, art, and monsters gradually slide into the unnatural and the corrupt? I'm envisioning a book that is conceptually and visually night and day on page 5 and page 50. (Or whatever the last page ends up being)

So, the shallow end has sharks and lions and horses...the middle section maybe has a "halfway" point of maybe animals that are corrupted in some way... mutations, defects, normally herbivorous animals that instead crave human flesh and eyes, etc., and then the deep end has your tentacle horror, your reality-twisting nightmare fuel, your soul-sucker, your face-melting protoplasm or whatever it is that you have in mind.


edit: btw this is Ryan from Save Vs. Poison. Hallo!

Last edited by McWieg (2011-12-29 04:56:50)

  • Registered: 2011-02-21
  • Posts: 25

Re: Monsters

I like McWieg/Ryan's blended approach. As for the 'big bad', if you want to steer away from mythical beasts and anything remotely D&Dish, how about 'monsters' that are more concepts or embodiments of emotions, elements, ideas, that sort of thing? Or perhaps something like the antagonists from Sapphire & Steel, where Time was often the enemy and appeared in many forms (such as a Shadow, just darkness that could influence and take people over, but required extreme measure to defeat; sacrifices and that sort of thing)?

  • Registered: 2012-01-01
  • Posts: 1

Re: Monsters

Long time lurker but I just saw this post and registered.

How about this:

"Normal" creatures (sharks, tigers, etc) all have some sort of short stat block.

Monsters however, get a full-page treatment and are treated more like encounters, from the get-go. This is something I did when I ran D&D sessions at the ripe old age of 9, partly because I couldn't afford anything other than the red box and partly because I didn't totally get the rules. It also sounds like something sersa victory from save versus death is doing with wrath . Does that make sense?

Maybe give them a short, four or five line stat block with basic info like wounds, ecology and the like so it's easy to review and cross-reference if you're a dm on a deadline.

It's sort of a way of kicking most of the crunch out of a MM entry and replacing it with a paragraph of fluff tied to a mechanic.

  • From: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
  • Registered: 2011-08-09
  • Posts: 39

Re: Monsters

I agree that normal animals need no little more description than a stat block. Normal animals are known quantities and their behaviour is, just that: normal. Animals can be used without a big write up because the players already expect certain behaviours out of them. If someone needs to know the worst times of year to encounter a moose they can just google it.

  • From: Toronto, Ontario
  • Registered: 2011-10-07
  • Posts: 20

Re: Monsters

Have you seen The Bestiary (by Bard Games, 1986)?

http://sorcerersskull.blogspot.com/2011 … tiary.html

The body of the book is descriptions of fantastic creatures along with illustrations. Stats are in the back, and include stats for common animals as well (though those get no descriptive text or art). Many of these monsters are probably too mythical for what you are looking for, but you might want to consider the style and format.

http://untimately.blogspot.com/

untimately's Website