10-22-2007, 10:53 PM
Monsters
COLIN FORBES deconstructs a hatstand ...
DESIGNING worlds has long been one of my hobbies. In fact, I can't remember a time when I wasn't doing something similar in one way or another, be it childhood dreamworlds, my first ventures into a Dungeons & Dragons game world or coming up with a setting for a play-by-mail game. I am sure many readers will have done something similar, in which case you will appreciate that one of the most important aspects of this sort of game design is the need to populate your world. Aside from the civilised places (towns, cities and so forth), I don't think it's too much a cliche to suggest that most wilderness regions in games, whatever the setting, are usually full of monsters of one description or another.
Woodland dryads, marsh serpents, bug-eyed monsters from Omega Centauri - all need to be carefully thought out and detailed so as to provide players with a challenge or some interesting reason to venture forth from the beaten track.
I've decided to illustrate this article by means of a monster taken from the Midhir Bestiary, published by my own Timewyrm Games around ten years ago. Midhir was in many ways a fairly standard fantasy world, originally designed as a setting for a roleplaying campaign that failed to get off the ground, and later adapted as the background to a PBM empire-building game (although voted Game of the Millennium in Flagship #88, the game is no longer running).
After Midhir had been running for about a year, it became pretty clear that the game not only needed some way of collating the various creatures which had started to appear in players' turns, but that mages were becoming overly powerful and needed some check on their powers. Furthermore, some players had expressed a desire to have more written text with their turns. The answer? The Bestiary! Obviously, such a sourcebook would fit in the creatures that had already been brought into the game, but it also occurred to the GMs that introducing spell components for the mages would not only limit magical power but also provide an opportunity for adventure. For example, a mage might need powdered unicorn horn for a certain spell, leading to a quest to find the required item. What didn't occur to the GM was quite how many monsters the Bestiary would need - one hundred and fifty in all!
Of course, it would have been pretty easy just to adopt the monsters from an already existing game system, but Midhir being what it was, things just didn't work like that. To start with, many of the players had ideas for creatures - boy, did they have ideas! One person covered about twenty sides of A4 in small, cramped, handwriting: and that was just a description of three semi-related monsters. Obviously this was too detailed for the Bestiary, though useful information all the same. Other players wrote in with some absurdly powerful creatures, or simply with monsters that were just not going to fit into the game without major tweaking. Some thought clearly had to be put into the sort of monsters we would have, and how they should be designed.
Firstly, the vast majority of the monsters needed to be killable or, if they were effectively immortal, there needed to be some reason for their existence other than slaughtering player-controlled adventurers. I rather liked several suggestions for this latter type of monster. There were a couple of generally benign creatures who had some weird power which was guaranteed to bug players in some way, for instance a sort of astral bookworm which was particularly partial to spellbooks and a sphinx-like creature which really couldn't be killed, but existed primarily as a sort of oracle which gave rather obscure answers to questions posed by players.
In the main though, it was a rule of thumb that any monster which was aimed at engaging player-controlled characters in combat, whether purposefully or in defence of some treasure or territory, should be mortal, and furthermore should be killable by some means reasonably likely to be discovered. The monster which can't be hurt by any known weapons or magic and which tramples a party underfoot until, or unless, someone shouts 'Wimblefish', may be psychologically interesting, but really had no place in the Bestiary - nor, I would argue, in any game system of note. That is not to say, though, that any monster has to be killable to all comers; far from it, a weak (but intelligent) part of adventurers always has the option of simply running away.
The second thing to bear in mind, and this was often the case with player suggestions, is that any creature you want to put into your game world has got to be deployable. The ultra-powerful beast with all sorts of fascinating properties is likely to lead a solitary life in the nethermost regions of the world, so in actual fact may not be worth spending much time writing up in any detail. Hints and rumours of such creatures are often enough in themselves.
I should say at this point that both players and GMs came up with one type of monster with alarming regularity, and with hindsight I am afraid that many of them made it into the finished Bestiary. Too many creatures had been treated as though they were little more than a hat-stand - a few miscellaneous hats hung on the top (claws, bites, horns, tails and the like), arrays of coats and scarves hung from the pegs (gnats' eyes, dragon wings, snake tails) and a few umbrellas of mixed parenthood in the centre (magic resistance, spell use, petrification gaze, poison breath).
Anyone, but anyone, can 'create' a new monster by rolling on the random tables published in various games systems - and indeed anyone can create a set of tables. However, the result of such randomness is unlikely to be of more than passing interest simply because it is not going to be coherent. A monster should be vaguely credible and moderately self-consistent and of course it's always entertaining to come across genuine creative thought. Not that I am arguing against biological improbability per se, after all the very existence of magic is pretty improbable for a start, yet in most fantasy universes it is accepted without much question.
Finally, the best monsters were those which had surprising, even humorous, qualities. This of course can't be expected of all monsters, but is all the more welcome when some interesting ideas can be worked in along the road.
The final Bestiary was the product of some six months work (between running the game itself of course) by the GMs, sorting through players' suggestions, knocking around ideas between them and so forth. At a modest price (the idea was not to rip off players but to genuinely add something to the game) we published the Midhir Bestiary in a ringbinder so that additional creatures could be easily added in as the game progressed.
The effect on the game was immediate and profound. At least half the players immediately sent characters off to investigate some of these new creatures (often for profit, but sometimes out of sheer curiosity). This gave the GMs plenty of opportunity to write tales of derring-do and heroic battle, whilst (it must be said) also providing a nice way to pad out a rather sparse turn - there's nothing like a description of a monster sighting to make a turn more interesting and maybe draw a previously quiet player more into the game.
Of course there were mistakes and things which I wish had been done better - for instance it would have been wonderful to have had original artwork for all the creatures instead of just one or two. On the whole, however, the addition of monsters added greatly to the richness and diversity of the game.
Lokithraal
Other names:
Leo Vulgaris Lokium (Official classification by the Great
Library at Stardeep)
Snow Demon (Common name in the N. Wastes)
Khorazaak (Dwarven name)
Description:
A powerfully built creature bearing a passing resemblance to the lions of southern climbs. However, the Lokithraal is much larger, stronger and has a large, almost reptilian tail. Usually golden yellow in appearance the Lokithraal have razor sharp claws and long fangs. They can grow to a length of fifteen feet, standing five to six feet high at the shoulder.
Habitat:
Found exclusively in forested and mountainous regions in colder areas. Lokithraal will often live in caves, although narrow ravines are also a favourite haunt.
Range:
The mountainous region of the north-west Northern Wastes, notably to the north of the old Ramdallian Empire. They also roam the heartlands of the Empire of Stronnmark and nearby Hastaburg. More recently a breeding pair has been spotted as far south as Trollmark.
Known Abilities:
A ferocious creature which will without exception attack on sight. It will fight with claws, fangs and its powerful tail. The claws have been reported by some as having ripped through stone, and it is not unusual for a dwarves to be bitten in half by the massive jaws. Lokithraal have a very keen sense of smell and excellent hearing, though surprisingly thir eyesight is fairly poor except at close range.
Social Structure
Solitary creatures for the most part, the Lokithraal seem to gather together once every twenty or thirty years. Much speculation has been forthcoming about the purpose of these gatherings, but no-one has ever returned from observing one too closely!
Value:
The claws are valued for their extreme sharpness, some skilled dwarven smiths have made weapons out of them in past times, though the skill now seems to be lost. Of late the Academies at Sarathos and Stardeep have been making inquiries as to the availability of Lokithraal claws. The reason why the mages are interested is unclear, though it is rumoured good prices will be paid to any brave enough to hunt and kill a Lokithraal!
COLIN FORBES deconstructs a hatstand ...
DESIGNING worlds has long been one of my hobbies. In fact, I can't remember a time when I wasn't doing something similar in one way or another, be it childhood dreamworlds, my first ventures into a Dungeons & Dragons game world or coming up with a setting for a play-by-mail game. I am sure many readers will have done something similar, in which case you will appreciate that one of the most important aspects of this sort of game design is the need to populate your world. Aside from the civilised places (towns, cities and so forth), I don't think it's too much a cliche to suggest that most wilderness regions in games, whatever the setting, are usually full of monsters of one description or another.
Woodland dryads, marsh serpents, bug-eyed monsters from Omega Centauri - all need to be carefully thought out and detailed so as to provide players with a challenge or some interesting reason to venture forth from the beaten track.
I've decided to illustrate this article by means of a monster taken from the Midhir Bestiary, published by my own Timewyrm Games around ten years ago. Midhir was in many ways a fairly standard fantasy world, originally designed as a setting for a roleplaying campaign that failed to get off the ground, and later adapted as the background to a PBM empire-building game (although voted Game of the Millennium in Flagship #88, the game is no longer running).
After Midhir had been running for about a year, it became pretty clear that the game not only needed some way of collating the various creatures which had started to appear in players' turns, but that mages were becoming overly powerful and needed some check on their powers. Furthermore, some players had expressed a desire to have more written text with their turns. The answer? The Bestiary! Obviously, such a sourcebook would fit in the creatures that had already been brought into the game, but it also occurred to the GMs that introducing spell components for the mages would not only limit magical power but also provide an opportunity for adventure. For example, a mage might need powdered unicorn horn for a certain spell, leading to a quest to find the required item. What didn't occur to the GM was quite how many monsters the Bestiary would need - one hundred and fifty in all!
Of course, it would have been pretty easy just to adopt the monsters from an already existing game system, but Midhir being what it was, things just didn't work like that. To start with, many of the players had ideas for creatures - boy, did they have ideas! One person covered about twenty sides of A4 in small, cramped, handwriting: and that was just a description of three semi-related monsters. Obviously this was too detailed for the Bestiary, though useful information all the same. Other players wrote in with some absurdly powerful creatures, or simply with monsters that were just not going to fit into the game without major tweaking. Some thought clearly had to be put into the sort of monsters we would have, and how they should be designed.
Firstly, the vast majority of the monsters needed to be killable or, if they were effectively immortal, there needed to be some reason for their existence other than slaughtering player-controlled adventurers. I rather liked several suggestions for this latter type of monster. There were a couple of generally benign creatures who had some weird power which was guaranteed to bug players in some way, for instance a sort of astral bookworm which was particularly partial to spellbooks and a sphinx-like creature which really couldn't be killed, but existed primarily as a sort of oracle which gave rather obscure answers to questions posed by players.
In the main though, it was a rule of thumb that any monster which was aimed at engaging player-controlled characters in combat, whether purposefully or in defence of some treasure or territory, should be mortal, and furthermore should be killable by some means reasonably likely to be discovered. The monster which can't be hurt by any known weapons or magic and which tramples a party underfoot until, or unless, someone shouts 'Wimblefish', may be psychologically interesting, but really had no place in the Bestiary - nor, I would argue, in any game system of note. That is not to say, though, that any monster has to be killable to all comers; far from it, a weak (but intelligent) part of adventurers always has the option of simply running away.
The second thing to bear in mind, and this was often the case with player suggestions, is that any creature you want to put into your game world has got to be deployable. The ultra-powerful beast with all sorts of fascinating properties is likely to lead a solitary life in the nethermost regions of the world, so in actual fact may not be worth spending much time writing up in any detail. Hints and rumours of such creatures are often enough in themselves.
I should say at this point that both players and GMs came up with one type of monster with alarming regularity, and with hindsight I am afraid that many of them made it into the finished Bestiary. Too many creatures had been treated as though they were little more than a hat-stand - a few miscellaneous hats hung on the top (claws, bites, horns, tails and the like), arrays of coats and scarves hung from the pegs (gnats' eyes, dragon wings, snake tails) and a few umbrellas of mixed parenthood in the centre (magic resistance, spell use, petrification gaze, poison breath).
Anyone, but anyone, can 'create' a new monster by rolling on the random tables published in various games systems - and indeed anyone can create a set of tables. However, the result of such randomness is unlikely to be of more than passing interest simply because it is not going to be coherent. A monster should be vaguely credible and moderately self-consistent and of course it's always entertaining to come across genuine creative thought. Not that I am arguing against biological improbability per se, after all the very existence of magic is pretty improbable for a start, yet in most fantasy universes it is accepted without much question.
Finally, the best monsters were those which had surprising, even humorous, qualities. This of course can't be expected of all monsters, but is all the more welcome when some interesting ideas can be worked in along the road.
The final Bestiary was the product of some six months work (between running the game itself of course) by the GMs, sorting through players' suggestions, knocking around ideas between them and so forth. At a modest price (the idea was not to rip off players but to genuinely add something to the game) we published the Midhir Bestiary in a ringbinder so that additional creatures could be easily added in as the game progressed.
The effect on the game was immediate and profound. At least half the players immediately sent characters off to investigate some of these new creatures (often for profit, but sometimes out of sheer curiosity). This gave the GMs plenty of opportunity to write tales of derring-do and heroic battle, whilst (it must be said) also providing a nice way to pad out a rather sparse turn - there's nothing like a description of a monster sighting to make a turn more interesting and maybe draw a previously quiet player more into the game.
Of course there were mistakes and things which I wish had been done better - for instance it would have been wonderful to have had original artwork for all the creatures instead of just one or two. On the whole, however, the addition of monsters added greatly to the richness and diversity of the game.
Lokithraal
Other names:
Leo Vulgaris Lokium (Official classification by the Great
Library at Stardeep)
Snow Demon (Common name in the N. Wastes)
Khorazaak (Dwarven name)
Description:
A powerfully built creature bearing a passing resemblance to the lions of southern climbs. However, the Lokithraal is much larger, stronger and has a large, almost reptilian tail. Usually golden yellow in appearance the Lokithraal have razor sharp claws and long fangs. They can grow to a length of fifteen feet, standing five to six feet high at the shoulder.
Habitat:
Found exclusively in forested and mountainous regions in colder areas. Lokithraal will often live in caves, although narrow ravines are also a favourite haunt.
Range:
The mountainous region of the north-west Northern Wastes, notably to the north of the old Ramdallian Empire. They also roam the heartlands of the Empire of Stronnmark and nearby Hastaburg. More recently a breeding pair has been spotted as far south as Trollmark.
Known Abilities:
A ferocious creature which will without exception attack on sight. It will fight with claws, fangs and its powerful tail. The claws have been reported by some as having ripped through stone, and it is not unusual for a dwarves to be bitten in half by the massive jaws. Lokithraal have a very keen sense of smell and excellent hearing, though surprisingly thir eyesight is fairly poor except at close range.
Social Structure
Solitary creatures for the most part, the Lokithraal seem to gather together once every twenty or thirty years. Much speculation has been forthcoming about the purpose of these gatherings, but no-one has ever returned from observing one too closely!
Value:
The claws are valued for their extreme sharpness, some skilled dwarven smiths have made weapons out of them in past times, though the skill now seems to be lost. Of late the Academies at Sarathos and Stardeep have been making inquiries as to the availability of Lokithraal claws. The reason why the mages are interested is unclear, though it is rumoured good prices will be paid to any brave enough to hunt and kill a Lokithraal!
Colin Forbes
2004-12-06
2004-12-06