Today's Topic is "Monster Humanoids, What About Them?" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month!
Many/most of us have these creatures in our games whether it is the old standbys of Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Bugbears, Ogres, Trolls and many others or we we have ones we have created ourselves or borrowed from other games, books and movies.
I have varied how I run these many different ways at different times. The OD&D three LBBs provide rules for having a number of different orc tribes, with orc villages or cave dwellers. The villages have a ditch and palisade defense. (Are your human and demi-human villages this well protected?) As well they may have a strong leader in residence, suggested are a 7th-9th Level Fighting Man, an 11th Level Magic-User, a Dragon, 1-6 Ogres, or 1-4 Trolls.
I have used that and many variations of it. Now I have never had this occur in games that I have run; however, if you hang around most forums you will eventually hear someone say, "but what about baby orcs" or other baby monsters and usually in the context of talking about Paladins or other Lawful Good characters. That is, there is usually an agenda attached to the question. Some people hate Paladins and some people think it is stupid to play Lawful or Good and insist that all players view the world through there lens and usually they will not accept other viewpoints.
My solution to this, if I were to encounter it with my own players would be to simply have no baby orcs or other baby monsters. This, of course, assumes that I would be willing to run a Murderhobo game style which personally I am not interested in but many people enjoy that.
Here is what I would do (some of this was borrowed many years ago from a fellow gamer and I dis-remember where at this point): Humanoid monsters are formed through abiogenesis; however, this is an unnatural process and it is the interaction of Chaos and Evil acting on the slime, muck, manure and decayed things giving rise to the spontaneous appearance of the humanoid monsters (Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Bugbears, Ogres and Trolls). This is the leading reason why they are at odds with player character races and why they are implacable foes and can never be redeemed, that is all evil all the time. Sometimes it is possible for the PCs to bluff and bargain their way out of situations if the monsters are not confident of victory.
They form as full fledged adults. They have no concept of family or rearing children, since they have no families or children. They rarely show any empathy towards other lifeforms and respond well only to signs of strength. This is what makes them so dangerous: they are mostly psychopaths. Oddly enough they do cooperate with each other against the rest of us, but are known to turn on each other as well. They are sexless and do not breed. All are Chaotic and will detect as evil. From time to time you can find any or all of them working together.
Goblins & Kobolds are the most numerous, followed Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls, with the larger Bugbears, Ogres and Trolls being fewer in number.
While I have run these monsters as all completely Evil, I usually do not and did not even back in 1975. The reason was the implication in the rules that there would be talk, negotiation, trade, truces, alliances, swapping of prisoners and all manner of interaction going on and; therefore it did not make sense for them to be completely evil.
Now the OD&D rules indicated some monsters were lawful, some neutral and some chaotic and some could be of any two or even all three alignments. We always played that all of the humanoid monsters could be neutral or chaotic. This always worked well of us and there was never a time when we were trying to wipe out a village or a whole tribe. That kind of gaming was of no interest to those I gamed with back in the '70s.
One of the changes I have made to the game is that my trolls are mindless hungry unintelligent eating machines that operate on instinct. Trolls, like dragons, are immortal unless they die by violence. Although extremely rare there are rumors of trolls that are 10's of thousands of years old or even older. But it is said that if they live long enough that their intelligence begins to grow and grows to the point that they become sentient and thus obtain the skills and craftiness to grow even older. Trolls come in many varieties, some are very hairy and some have a rubbery glossy hide. If pieces of a troll are separated by at least a mile each piece will grow into a complete troll. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me.
As I currently run them Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls have tribes that live in villages and cave complexes. Bugbears and Ogres may be found in smaller family groups in lairs (usually cave dwelling) and sometimes living with Orcs or Hobgoblins. Trolls as I mentioned, prey on anything they can catch and hold long enough to eat and usually have some type of a lair where they sleep.
Tomorrow's topic will be "What about Giants?"
Many/most of us have these creatures in our games whether it is the old standbys of Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Bugbears, Ogres, Trolls and many others or we we have ones we have created ourselves or borrowed from other games, books and movies.
I have varied how I run these many different ways at different times. The OD&D three LBBs provide rules for having a number of different orc tribes, with orc villages or cave dwellers. The villages have a ditch and palisade defense. (Are your human and demi-human villages this well protected?) As well they may have a strong leader in residence, suggested are a 7th-9th Level Fighting Man, an 11th Level Magic-User, a Dragon, 1-6 Ogres, or 1-4 Trolls.
I have used that and many variations of it. Now I have never had this occur in games that I have run; however, if you hang around most forums you will eventually hear someone say, "but what about baby orcs" or other baby monsters and usually in the context of talking about Paladins or other Lawful Good characters. That is, there is usually an agenda attached to the question. Some people hate Paladins and some people think it is stupid to play Lawful or Good and insist that all players view the world through there lens and usually they will not accept other viewpoints.
My solution to this, if I were to encounter it with my own players would be to simply have no baby orcs or other baby monsters. This, of course, assumes that I would be willing to run a Murderhobo game style which personally I am not interested in but many people enjoy that.
Here is what I would do (some of this was borrowed many years ago from a fellow gamer and I dis-remember where at this point): Humanoid monsters are formed through abiogenesis; however, this is an unnatural process and it is the interaction of Chaos and Evil acting on the slime, muck, manure and decayed things giving rise to the spontaneous appearance of the humanoid monsters (Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Bugbears, Ogres and Trolls). This is the leading reason why they are at odds with player character races and why they are implacable foes and can never be redeemed, that is all evil all the time. Sometimes it is possible for the PCs to bluff and bargain their way out of situations if the monsters are not confident of victory.
They form as full fledged adults. They have no concept of family or rearing children, since they have no families or children. They rarely show any empathy towards other lifeforms and respond well only to signs of strength. This is what makes them so dangerous: they are mostly psychopaths. Oddly enough they do cooperate with each other against the rest of us, but are known to turn on each other as well. They are sexless and do not breed. All are Chaotic and will detect as evil. From time to time you can find any or all of them working together.
Goblins & Kobolds are the most numerous, followed Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls, with the larger Bugbears, Ogres and Trolls being fewer in number.
While I have run these monsters as all completely Evil, I usually do not and did not even back in 1975. The reason was the implication in the rules that there would be talk, negotiation, trade, truces, alliances, swapping of prisoners and all manner of interaction going on and; therefore it did not make sense for them to be completely evil.
Now the OD&D rules indicated some monsters were lawful, some neutral and some chaotic and some could be of any two or even all three alignments. We always played that all of the humanoid monsters could be neutral or chaotic. This always worked well of us and there was never a time when we were trying to wipe out a village or a whole tribe. That kind of gaming was of no interest to those I gamed with back in the '70s.
One of the changes I have made to the game is that my trolls are mindless hungry unintelligent eating machines that operate on instinct. Trolls, like dragons, are immortal unless they die by violence. Although extremely rare there are rumors of trolls that are 10's of thousands of years old or even older. But it is said that if they live long enough that their intelligence begins to grow and grows to the point that they become sentient and thus obtain the skills and craftiness to grow even older. Trolls come in many varieties, some are very hairy and some have a rubbery glossy hide. If pieces of a troll are separated by at least a mile each piece will grow into a complete troll. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me.
As I currently run them Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls have tribes that live in villages and cave complexes. Bugbears and Ogres may be found in smaller family groups in lairs (usually cave dwelling) and sometimes living with Orcs or Hobgoblins. Trolls as I mentioned, prey on anything they can catch and hold long enough to eat and usually have some type of a lair where they sleep.
Tomorrow's topic will be "What about Giants?"
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