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View Full Version : DM Help Opinion poll: D&D monsters, real world monsters or generic "Darkspawn" knockoff?



chainer1216
2014-10-09, 11:40 AM
so, soon i will be running a D20 Modern game set in the real world in the near future where portals have opened up all over the world letting "monsters" pour in and wreck stuff, with them came magic and the game will mostly be about how we have adapted to all this.

so i'm looking for opinions as to how to handle the "monsters", do i just use standard DnD monsters because they are already stated out, i'd just need to figure out where to put each type of monster and how that'd effect a certain region, or do i research real world mythologies for monsters, stat them and then put them in the correct regions? or should i go with a less diverse set of monsters that are more or less mindless, but i can make up stats on the fly, so we can have more of a monster of the week kind of feel?

golentan
2014-10-09, 11:51 AM
PLAY SHADOWRUN!

But more seriously, depends on what you're going for. I'd go for real world mythological monsters, native to the regions they appear in. That way you can have an initial horror phase where people can be skeptical about it (oh, that's just a legend) and still get grabbed in the woods.

Scots Dragon
2014-10-09, 12:22 PM
The mythological monsters work. And to be really fair for a moment, most of the folkloric stuff has already been done in D&D 3.5e so converting them shouldn't be too difficult on that front. Even on the d20srd alone, you've got angels, archons, barghests, basilisks, bugbears, centaurs, chimeras, cockatrices, couatls, demons, derros, devils, dire animals, doppelgangers, dragons, dragon turtles, dryads, dwarves, giant eagles, elementals, elves, ettins, gargoyles, genies, ghosts, giants (all types), gnolls, gnomes, goblins, golems, gorgons (they ought to be called khalkotauroi, mind, but it's the same idea), griffons, hags, harpies, hell hounds, hippogriffs, hobgoblins, homunculi, hydras, kobolds, kraken, lamias, lammasu, liches, lycanthropes, manticores, medusas, merfolk, minotaurs, mummies, nagas, nightmares, nymphs, ogres, ogre mages, orcs, pegasi, rakshasas, rocs, salamanders, satyrs, skeletons, spectres, sphinxes, sprites, tarrasques, titans, troglodytes, trolls, unicorns, vampires, wights, will-o'-wisps, wraiths, wyverns, yeth hounds and zombies. All of those derive from mythological and folkloric origins.

Sith_Happens
2014-10-09, 12:27 PM
Just keep in mind D20 Modern is much lower power than D&D. A CR X in the latter does not equal a CR X in the former.

Scots Dragon
2014-10-09, 12:28 PM
Just keep in mind D20 Modern is much lower power than D&D. A CR X in the latter does not equal a CR X in the former.

If he's running a horror campaign, that's not a bug, it's a feature.

chainer1216
2014-10-09, 12:42 PM
If he's running a horror campaign, that's not a bug, it's a feature.

well, not so much horror as survival. this whole game is in the preplanning phase, the game might be in a city that has tried peacefully integrating with some of the monsters to form an actual society, and the PCs are a sort of task force dealing with magic and monster related crimes, or it might be the PCs scavenging and surviving in a ruined city, or maybe a bit of both, where they are the advanced scouts checking out areas to see if they can be cleared and repopulated.

in any case, real danger and challenge is a good thing, i want my PCs to have to use real tactics to win, after all, these monsters have to be scary in order to wreck humanity as they have.

Honest Tiefling
2014-10-09, 02:17 PM
A lot of this depends on you and your group. Are you willing to put in the work to make your own monsters, or do you have jobs/children/life getting in the way? Do you LIKE mythology, and do your players like it? What is the force behind these monsters invading?

Given your themes, I would suggest that monsters come into the world...Slowly. A satyr appears in a club, seeking a good time. A nymph decides to inhabit a park. At first, the monsters are simply rumors that are easily discounted. Then the numbers slowly build up and up...And tensions rise. The nymph doesn't want mortals gawking at her beautiful trees, and winds up murdered as she saw a crime happening in a park. People are afraid of monsters they do not recognize, and mistake friendly ones for more aggressive ones. This would be the crime part of your story.

And if the PCs investigate, they learn that this doesn't add up. These monsters might not remember or know where they came from. They might have memories of the region they appear in. They don't appear in the same region as where they are 'native' to.

Then, something happens. Maybe there are omens of something wrong happening. They act strangely, such as staring out into the ocean before wandering in, never to be seen again. They gather into rooms, sitting down, never eating and waste away. Some break into hospitals, and rush into rooms with infectious patients and refuse treatment. Just as they appeared, they die.

The living ones act strangely. They start chanting an unknown language that causes headaches, nausea and hallucinations in humans. Eyes appear where there shouldn't be any. Their skin turns pale and moist. Those capable of speaking normal languages simply repeat that something has found them. Some seem to have escaped whatever has happened, but they are always under suspicion.

Then, types of monsters who have no reason to work together are. They appear mindless individually, fighting recklessly and poorly, but appear in such numbers that it seems...Directed. A few attacks wipe out communications and government. There is no way to see if these attacks are common elsewhere. Now, the PCs must survive against the hordes of these...Things, which barely resemble the creatures of myth anymore. And here you have your survival aspect.

Jay R
2014-10-09, 09:47 PM
so, soon i will be running a D20 Modern game set in the real world in the near future where portals have opened up all over the world letting "monsters" pour in and wreck stuff, with them came magic and the game will mostly be about how we have adapted to all this.

so i'm looking for opinions as to how to handle the "monsters", do i just use standard DnD monsters because they are already stated out, i'd just need to figure out where to put each type of monster and how that'd effect a certain region, or do i research real world mythologies for monsters, stat them and then put them in the correct regions? or should i go with a less diverse set of monsters that are more or less mindless, but i can make up stats on the fly, so we can have more of a monster of the week kind of feel?

That depends. Where are your monsters coming from? Is there any connection between that and where the legends came from? Have these portals ever opened before?

Until you answer these questions, you don't have the information to answer the ones you're asking.

chainer1216
2014-10-10, 10:14 AM
That depends. Where are your monsters coming from? Is there any connection between that and where the legends came from? Have these portals ever opened before?

Until you answer these questions, you don't have the information to answer the ones you're asking.

where? from another dimension! i actually feel this is the LAST question i need to answer, if its the "real" world monsters, its
some mythic realm of yore! if its DnD monsters its from some generic DnD setting, if its the darkspawn ripoff they're from some awful hellscape.

and since this worlds history is supposed to be the same as ours, so no, these are brand new to the world.

and to clarify, the game will take place in the year 2035, and the portals opened up in 2015, so the "fall" of human society has already taken place and humanity is just starting the thrive again, there are established, relatively safe cities, large governing bodies are becoming a thing again, though i really need to flesh out HOW those things are building, i know i want the USA to have split into three distinct nations, the North who are isolationists focused simply on surviving and protecting what they have, the South who have gone into a full fledged crusade against the monsters, and the east which is trying to integrate the monsters into society, the exact amount of "hippie" depends on the type of monsters i suppose. then there's china which, due to reasons, gets hit extremely hard and completely collapses, japan doesn't fare well at first either, but due to its small landmass, a late influx of Chinese refugees and a quickly advancing level of tech, it makes a surge back and even helps to retake a decent amount of Chinese coastline cities.

the game itself will most likely take place in one of these coastline cities because it'd let the group and/or I do anything we wanted within the setting. this also makes the question of real world myth monsters Vs DnD monsters more relevant.

Jay R
2014-10-10, 10:19 AM
and since this worlds history is supposed to be the same as ours, so no, these are brand new to the world.

Then they aren't mythic monsters, since there would be no reason for the myths that developed on earth to match them.

TandemChelipeds
2014-10-10, 10:49 AM
You should totally rip off the plot of Kamen Rider Gaim. There's a parallel universe where creatures called Inves live, and someone's been selling devices made from the fruit of that world to teenagers, who use them to summon Inves and battle them like Pokémon. However, gates to the other world have been opening up on their own, and if you let go of the device, your Inves does this (http://i.imgur.com/Y5FwiS1.png) and rampages until it's put down. Major spoilers follow.
It turns out the Inves are former humans who have eaten the fruit of this parallel universe and been transformed by it, losing their sense of self. This is a problem, because the plants from the universe in question(Helheim) have been spreading through the portals and growing on Earth, and their fruits are inexplicably enticing to anyone who doesn't have a Sengoku Driver(the transformation trinket in this show). The result is that Helheim is set to engulf the Earth, infesting the entire planet with its plants and turning the population of Earth into Inves. Helheim itself was once a world like ours, which suffered the exact same fate; nobody knows where the plants originally came from. There is an organization, Yggdrasil, that has plans to deal with this... but their plan is to wipe out most of the world's population and give the rest Sengoku Drivers, which should allow them to subsist on Helheim's fruits without being transformed.
Except that they totally transform you anyway. They just do it slowly and let you build up an immunity to the identity-erasing effects, transforming you into one of the god-like, monstrous Overlord Inves, several of which already inhabit Helheim and all of which are either unbelievably evil or a well-intentioned extremist who wants to put humanity out of its misery.

Honest Tiefling
2014-10-10, 01:04 PM
Why are the hippies not on the west coast? Also, I'd be interested in how Japanese culture changes, given that they don't have a very open immigration policy and yet must rely on a completely different people.

chainer1216
2014-10-11, 01:12 AM
Why are the hippies not on the west coast? Also, I'd be interested in how Japanese culture changes, given that they don't have a very open immigration policy and yet must rely on a completely different people.

Right, west, that's what I meant, sorry, I was writing that on 4 hours of sleep in two days.

I don't think Japanese culture would change too much, they'd view the Chinese as a honorable and important second class, the brawn to their brains. In case I haven't made it clear the Japanese have the highest tech level in the setting, going by D20 future they'd be at PL6 compared to the rest of the first worlds PL5. The thing is that they lacked the manpower to produce and effectively implemented these things without help. After Japan cleans up most of its land it started having over population issues and decides to take back land in China for its refugee population. So in the end the Chinese wouldn't be treated badly, but they wouldn't be allowed to be put in positions of power either. I'm sure that there'd be more than a little talk about reforming China properly from the refugees sent back to the mainland. Heh maybe it will play out similar to British colonization of North American.