You don't create outstanding creatures...

[Yora]

This is an observation I just made:

You never create a really outstanding fantastic creature that becomes a staple of fantasy or science fiction.

You create backstories and ecologies!

I was looking at the iconic creatures of D&D which do not go back to the generic standard of goblin, orc, ogre/troll, giant, dragon, skeleton, zombie, ghoul, vampire. In over 30 years, D&D has produced huge amounts of monsters, comming up with tonnes of retarded and forgetable ones. But on a few instances, someone hit gold and created creatues that endured.

Drow, yuan-ti, mind flayers, beholders, gnolls, githyanki, tanar'ri, batezu, and quori are the ones that come to my mind as monsters that show up over and over and over and are not forgotten somewhere in the last third of a monster manual. Some years ago I think some D&D dev posted an article about "monstes with traction" that adressed exactly this, but the overall message was "we don't know". And now I think I do!

And except for beholders and gnolls, they all have in common, that they have really solid and complex backstories. I would dare to say, few people ever looks at a stat block and says "this is so awesome! I want to make these guys one of the major factions in my campaign" and if it happens, it's more or less random. To get a large number of people to get exited about a creature, you have to give them a backstory, ecology, or whatever you will call it. Stats don't make the creature. It's the fluff that always does. And that's why nobody seems to care for all the beasties of the Monster Manual 2 to 5 and the PF Bestiary 2 and 3. There are some interesting ideas, but nothing to really hook you.

Looking beyond D&D inspired RPGs, other great iconic monsters would be the Aliens, the Borg, and the Zerg. But I say, again, one white skinned cyborg without emotion does not make anyone crazy. Trillions of white skinned cyborgs without emotion devouring entire planets are awesome! The Zerg are really not that cool, it's the Overmind and even more so Karrigan and their actions that create all the traction. And even the simple Alien that has virtually no backstory at all manages to capture because we know it's ecology. And not just three sentences describing a generic ambush predator, but we have seen how these things pick off entire groups of armed humans one by one. It's not a backstory or a society, but it's very rich fluff.

That's just a though I just had. What do you think of it?

Edit: Found the article I mentioned. And what immediately sprang into my eye was this:

Traction is our shorthand for the idea that you'll design a monster... and then someone will feature that monster prominently in an adventure... someone else comes up with a template version of the monster, a halfbreed version, a version suitable as a PC race... DMs all over the world start using the monster in their ongoing games -- and voila! The monster has traction. It has a grip on the D&D collective and it won't slip into obscurity.

And I say: "Wrong!" It might happen that a person picks up the stats for an obscure monster and repackes it with solid fluff, but it's still that fluff that people latch on. If you want to crowdsource that crucial part, it's unlikely that there will be any breakthroughs. Which I believe is the reason Pathfinder did't have any major success with indtroducing new creatures that got famous.

[Grinner]

I think you're absolutely correct, but the observation itself isn't unique to D&D by any means.

An intricate backstory creates complexity. Handled well, that creates depth and suspends disbelief. Handled poorly, it shatters any healthy disbelief supporting the audience's interest in the fiction.

I've thought that's why Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos has done so well. It wasn't just a few stories about a few chaps doing drugs. There was an entire, extremely well-detailed universe to explore.

[Yora]

I didn't mean to limit it to D&D, it was just te thing I was dealing with when I had the idea and it did remind me of a WotC article. And if I take D&D creatures as example, people here likely know them, as well as the thousands of pieces of garbage the game has produced over the deacades.

I suspect it applies to any kind of fictional creature. People don't see the physical being and just think it looks cool. They see the story of the creature and want to recreate that experience in their games and works.

[SgtCarnage92]

You have a good point with this. Playing pathfinder I have come to absolutely adore their version of goblins. Not because they're crunched any different than the standard 3.5 goblin, but because they gave them personality (hating horses and dogs, a fascination with fire, short attention spans, ect.) that really turned them into something awesome (not to mention to wicked artwork).

I think this is good advice for GMing in general. How do you turn encounters from being mundane to memorable? Have some fluff. Why is this monster here? what is it doing when the party sees it? How does it react to the party? How has it affected its environment? Details like that are awesome and really lend to something breathing in the world.

I propose a counter argument however. Is it possible that these heavy-fluff monsters are heavily fluffed BECAUSE they are popular and not the other way around?

[Grinner]

I propose a counter argument however. Is it possible that these heavy-fluff monsters are heavily fluffed BECAUSE they are popular and not the other way around?

I'd say that's quite likely, but things are rarely so simple as to have a single cause, yes?

The idea of traction does have merit. A single creature is featured prominently in a supplement. If people like what they see, they gravitate towards it. Writers, seeing the popularity of the subject, oblige the masses and expand upon it further. People continue to gravitate towards the most loved things, and writers continue to supply them with fresh material. That is until the audience grows bored and moves on to the next big thing. And the cycle repeats.

The real question is: "What sparks interest in the first place?" I can assure you that it is not the stat blocks.

[ArcturusV]

Well... the few times that I've flipped through books to find a monster... I can say the thing that usually grabs me first... Picture. Simple enough. Monster entries that have a picture, always end up standing out more than ones that don't. Even if the ones who don't actually have a longer, detailed description.

Maybe it's just me... But I think that it's not JUST me. I mean look at the Beholder. This was something that was on the cover of books, games, etc, for DnD Products even really early on. And it's still one of the most iconic creatures of the game next to the usual Elf/Halfling/Goblins/Orcs and such.

I mean I'll be looking for a cool monster to base a session off of or something. I'll flip through, flip through... and I'll see a picture of a Bog Hag. Or I'll see an undead lake monster... or I'll see the Gelatanous Cube... and bam. I want to make an adventure.

[nyarlathotep]

I would agree with this to a degree but would like to expand and make some of my own observations. It isn't just the fluff but all the little bits of tapestry that come with a monster that help, direct ecology and backstory are the most powerful of these, but simply having an exceedingly striking visual design or prominent role in a well remembered piece of media. Xenomorphs are in my opinion one of the better examples of this. Knowing their life cycle is only important to their traction because it builds off the horrific atmosphere that two exceptionally popular movies were utilizing. I cannot tell you the number of terrible to pretty good 60s-90s monster flicks that had super detailed life cycles, but failed to catch on because their films weren't popular.

[Kol Korran]

I agree with this. good monsters are not encounter/ combat monsters- but adventure/ campaign/ world monsters. and that means giving them enough fluff and interactions in order to integrate themselves into such roles.

which is the main reason behind my monster's compendium (see sig)- take monsters who have little to no fluff, and therefore little to no "Traction", and try and improve it by giving them more fluff and more complex interactions and a place in the world other than "this monster can do X in battle".

Pathfinder from the little I know is giving it's monsters more fluff than WoTC did, and it seems to work better? I really don't know enough about this, anyone has more direct experience?

also, there is another thread on a similiar subject

[Yora]

Well... the few times that I've flipped through books to find a monster... I can say the thing that usually grabs me first... Picture. Simple enough. Monster entries that have a picture, always end up standing out more than ones that don't. Even if the ones who don't actually have a longer, detailed description.

Good pictures certainly help. I am a very visually impressionable person myself. Good pictures can communicate a lot about a creature that can be hard to put into words.

But while it's good to grab attention, I think that's only a way to get a first foot into the door. To keep peoples attention, a creature has to provide more.

Here ar some examples:

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The behir and destrachan look awesome and because of the pictures I want to love them. But there really isn't much substance to them, that would inspire me with ideas how to include them in the world of the game.

Even better pictures are these:

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These two show the frost worm and the shield guardian in their native environments, and even more important showing their role and behavior in that environment, how the players would encounter them. That's almost best case scenario for how well artwork can be planned.

But again, one is a giant worm that explodes, the other is a golem but with a control necklace. Yeah, not really much substance to work with either.

Good artwork improves the chances of the creature being noticed. But that's only a hook, the work has to provide real substance with the fluff.

The Alien is in fact a very remarkable and outstanding visual design. Even when I didn't know the movies, the life-size figure in our comic-shop was very impressive. But I think without the story of the movies, people still wouldn't care for them.
Like the steel predator from D&D.

[Scow2]

But again, one is a giant worm that explodes, the other is a golem but with a control necklace. Yeah, not really much substance to work with either.

And yet, the Frost Worm gets a lot of love in arctic campaigns. Not only is it a worm that explodes, but also one that an entrancing trill and iconic appearance. Also - who doesn't like throwing giant tunneling, man-eating sandSnowworms at a party?

But they're also tied into Frost Giant society, and have an interesting relationship with Remorhaz, ultrahot arctic centipede-things. (Namely, they try to kill each other on sight, despite that being mutually destructive - The Remorhaz's heat kills the Frost Worm swiftly despite being much weaker and smaller, but it dies to the Frost Worm's explosion)

[Synovia]

An intricate backstory creates complexity. Handled well, that creates depth and suspends disbelief. Handled poorly, it shatters any healthy disbelief supporting the audience's interest in the fiction.

I don't really think its this. (although its probably a part of it).


I think the important thing is that deep, interesting ecologies/backstories give you a way to use them in your plot, or to wrap a plot around them.

People look at something like a Hooked Horror, and just say "well, I'll stick this in a cave somewhere". People look at the Drow with Lolth, and all the backstory and say "I can do something with this. I understand this". Deep back stories often have plot hooks already built into them.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Sometimes, but not always. A creature needs to be interesting in some regard to gain an interesting ecology and background. A monster without a background is what I call the "Monster of the Week" concept. It works smashingly well, as evidenced by shows like Doctor Who, The Twilight Zone, and Supernatural, where you meet critters who don't necessarily have much in terms of backstory.

Case in point: Weeping Angels (or pretty much any Stephen Moffat monster from Doctor Who). They're iconic from their very first appearance, with no backstory whatsoever. They're terrifying and interesting because of what they are, not because of what they've done.

(Now, the other way 'round works too. Doctor Who's Daleks are not particularly menacing out of context, at all. They're trashcans with an eggbeater and a plunger. They're interesting because of their backstory, and because of their achievements, and that's what makes them--in my estimation--such formidable opponents.)

[Raimun]

So, monster traction is also about presentation.

An unknown monster is often way scarier and more impressive than one that has a detailed entry in a book.

For example, the first Alien movie. The scene where the chestbursters... well, bursts through a chest? I've heard that the actors didn't know what is going to happen and the reactions filmed are more or less genuine.

Also, who's afraid of werewolves anymore? Everybody knows they are humans who turn when the moon is full and you need silvered weapons to beat them.

Yet, the element of surprise is not always needed. People still read Tolkien's books beyond The Hobbit and LotR because they are interested in the creatures that inhabit that world.

[ArcturusV]

That, Raimun, is partly why I tend to homebrew about 99% of the "Monsters" I use in games I DM. Though by far the most common enemies are not "Monsters" necessarily but humanoids of some ilk who are intelligent, fight in groups, etc. So when I use a "Monster" it's something truly strange and unique that stands out from the rest of the encounters the player has been having.

So instead of a dungeon that was filled with 20 chambers, each of which had a unique creature in it which had nothing to do with the other creatures... I might have a Dungeon that consisted of 20 chambers, most of which were filled with Minotaurs along with servants/mercenaries of other races like Human, Elf, etc. Then one or two fights might feature a "monster" that was tamed by them or that they couldn't kill when they took over the place, so they kind of just locked it in and hoped it wouldn't get out before they were done there.

"Monster" rarity, combined with it not being something where a player can go, "Oh, it's a Slaad." or "Oh, it's a Wyvern" or something means that fights with them just get that much more memorable.

But that's my style. Which doesn't apply to everyone. Well, not even a good number of people based on my experiences. Only ever had one other DM who really ran a campaign like that. So there are probably others out there. Just clearly not a majority.

As far as the crunch for Monster entries in manuals... as I said, pictures are what draws me. Because when I'm looking for a monster I typically want to craft an image in my mind of what the scene involving it is going to be like. So after a picture, it's usually towards abilities/combat tactics I go. I want to make sure it fights in a way that creates a particular effect that I want to key in on. Like... one I cribbed from a book recently was the Yuki-Onna (In part because I knew some of my players would instantly fall for the Pretty Girl thing), and the idea of a monster that lured people off the beaten path, into a blizzard, wandering them around, getting them lost, exhausted, fatigued... seemingly caring and concerned the whole time even as they are dooming the party (Who were foolish enough to go along with it because one of the players wanted his character to be a Stud who hit on every pretty face that crossed them) through their own vices and flaws? It spoke to me. Whereas if the players were smarter, more focused on altruistically helping the Yuki-Onna they probably wouldn't fall for the trap, and she might in fact take pity on them as Good Souls and help them out instead.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Hmmm, I think, as I mull on it, an analogy is in order.

A good and memorable monster is like a good and memorable character. It's a great idea for them to have some background, but if there's pages and pages of backstory, that's waaaaaay too much work to sift through unless you really feel like doing it. There should be something on the surface to draw you in and give you a reaction, and there should be a story behind it.

[Grinner]

A good and memorable monster is like a good and memorable character. It's a great idea for them to have some background, but if there's pages and pages of backstory, that's waaaaaay too much work to sift through unless you really feel like doing it. There should be something on the surface to draw you in and give you a reaction, and there should be a story behind it.

That analogy applies to many things.

Take a teacher, for instance. A good teacher will not withhold information from her students. Similarly, she will not overload her students either. She will ration the information out, giving them only as much as they can handle.

To bring the analogy a bit closer to home, we can look at our very own homebrew forum. You know the guys that dream up a fantasy heartbreaker and then dump it into a thread, expecting it to be reviewed thoroughly? They're like bad teachers. Few people have the interest or time to review something presented like that. Often, it's the folks that slowly develop their games, taking community input along the way, that get meaningful responses.

[KillianHawkeye]

Case in point: Weeping Angels (or pretty much any Stephen Moffat monster from Doctor Who). They're iconic from their very first appearance, with no backstory whatsoever. They're terrifying and interesting because of what they are, not because of what they've done.

I actually have to disagree with this.

Yes, the weeping angels are terrifying because of what they are, but they are interesting because of what they do and how they work. While it's true that they were presented with zero backstory, we do actually learn a lot about how they act and why. They feed by stealing the energy of a person's life by sending that person back through time. Their immovability while under observation is an evolved defense mechanism that also aids in their ability to hunt. That quite clearly satisfies Yora's criterion for an interesting ecology.

Now, if they were JUST a random statue monster that killed you as soon as your back was turned for no reason, they would have been pretty forgettable (for the same reasons that gargoyles are pretty forgettable in D&D).

[Jay R]

Well... the few times that I've flipped through books to find a monster... I can say the thing that usually grabs me first... Picture. Simple enough. Monster entries that have a picture, always end up standing out more than ones that don't. Even if the ones who don't actually have a longer, detailed description.

...
I mean I'll be looking for a cool monster to base a session off of or something. I'll flip through, flip through... and I'll see a picture of a Bog Hag. Or I'll see an undead lake monster... or I'll see the Gelatanous Cube... and bam. I want to make an adventure.

I don't think you're disagreeing with her point. Yes, a cool picture inspires an adventure. A cool culture inspires a series of adventures, a region of the world, a political background, etc.

A cool picture of a spider god inspires a great dungeon crawl. But the story of Lolth inspires world creation.

[PetterTomBos]

Good thoughts! Perhaps, with this in mind, one would make monster manuals a bit different? With more focus on the picture and the ecology, and perhaps a longer, web-based, "the is how the monster is" booklet? Perhaps even an entire "monster manual of statting out things described wonderfully in literature" to make sure the fluff was allready there?

Perhaps some monsters in MM1 are iconic because they are in MM1 ? One of the things needed to be really well-known would be to be used a lot; With the other monster manuals more seldomly owned by people, and less often used in random encounter tables, they see less use.

[Yora]

With the 3rd Edition MM1, no. Those iconic monsters did have the status already in AD&D and were included in the MM1 because of that.

[duke_of_url]

Drow, yuan-ti, mind flayers, beholders, gnolls, githyanki, tanar'ri, batezu, and quori are the ones that come to my mind as monsters that show up over and over and over and are not forgotten somewhere in the last third of a monster manual.

Stats don't make the creature.

Looking beyond D&D inspired RPGs, other great iconic monsters would be the Aliens, the Borg, and the Zerg. But I say, again, one white skinned cyborg without emotion does not make anyone crazy. [/I]

I'll disagree. What make all the classic D&D monsters so outstanding is there lethality. Drow, mind flayers, beholders and such were the types of monsters that were almost always fatal for a character to encounter. In 0E, 1E, 2E and even D&D(Mystara) the outstanding monsters were deadly. Back in the day players feared a beholder, as one look from an eye stalk and their character was dead.

You can see this in most classic Forgotten Realms fiction, by Ed Greenwood or R.A. Slavatore. When they have a beholder or a mind flayer in a novel...it's a big deal. All the characters are worried and concerned.

And that is true of the other ones you mentioned. Why where the Borg popular? They were super powerful, evil killing cyborgs. Why are the Aliens popular? They are super powerful, evil killing monsters. And so on.

[SgtCarnage92]

And that is true of the other ones you mentioned. Why where the Borg popular? They were super powerful, evil killing cyborgs. Why are the Aliens popular? They are super powerful, evil killing monsters. And so on.

It doesn't help that Alien got two really good movies from two very proficient directors. One of which is my all time favorite horror movie, and the other one of my favorite horror-action flicks. (the other two Alien movies don't count, even if they both did have directors who are now considered world-renowned)

Both the borg and the xenomorph have unique life cycles and ecology (as I believe was mentioned earlier) and their deadliness and the fact that they are both "unknowns" when they first arrive on the scene adds to their popularity.

[KillianHawkeye]

Damn, now I wanna know what would happen if there were Borg xenomorphs.......