Local Monster Flavors (Topic Split)

[Mobius]

Local Monsters

I'm interested in another point which was side-lined near the top of this discussion: further alignment of critter stats/vitals. I understand that each Chapter wants to be its own beautiful and unique snowflake, but it strikes me as somewhat odd that Fortannis is supposed to be this gigantic planet with myriad Mist separated continents, and yet there is almost no continuity between various bits of flora and fauna.

While I certainly believe there should be some latent differences between critters (colouring, cultural affectations, cosmetic frippery, etc) when comparing Chapter A and Chapter B, I don't see why there should be such a huge shift in base template that Goblin A is totally incomparable to Goblin B. Trolls are a good example: I've fought trolls in half a dozen chapters and the only similarity seems to be the word "Troll" at the top of the monster card; elementals, goblinoids, Vampires, all are similarly dissimilar. I understand that a large cat from South America will look different from a large cat in Africa, but they're still gonna have whiskers, a long tail, a penchant for culling the herd, and an aversion to fire - no such standard similarity can be said for nigh any creature in Alliance.

I think it would create a much stronger sense of unity and cohesion if one knew, for example, that any troll anywhere in Alliance took double-damage from flame, any fiendish blood-sucking Vampire couldn't wander days without a Cloak of Darkness, and any goblin is going to be a piddly annoyance best left to younger adventurers looking to cut their teeth. There will, of course, be limited exceptions (the Vampire with a heart, the goblin with a zillion column) but these exceptions will have greater meaning and resonance if they are unique and special.

The current standard actually limits roleplay and world interaction because there is no standard for comparison, hence no history for reflection. Any NPC wandering toward you is no longer identifiable or comparable to other experiences, it's not a single chain in a greater taxonomic ecosystem - it's simply a pair of shortys, a couple packets, a handful of treasure. Every encounter changes from "Wait! I've fought these before! Try an Ice-Blast and finish it with an Earth sword in the gullet!" to "Oh, another something - Bind! nope. Web! nope. Damagaedamagedamage! ok. Oh, another something - Bind! nope--"

And, paradoxically, the more normalized the standard critter list becomes, the more variety and invention a plot team can exercise. The sturdy knowledge of a solid framework offers greater vitality and strength to the muscle and bone. Plot can concentrate on personality since they don't need to worry abotu statting. PCs are a prime example of this. Every high orc you meet has the same base card and progression, and yet no two high orcs are alike and no two Chapters have the same high orc history - the similarity in build doesn't hamper creativity in the least and in fact encourages it. When chatting on the boards, my character can recognize trends and personalities in the other PCs because of their race and vice versa; our roleplay is bulwarked by an understood and shared taxonomy.

Not to mention, a more legitimate monster database will make Monster Camp's (and Plot's) life infinitely easier. And, happy Plot makes for happy players.

 

[jpariury]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

I don't know how a standardized db would make Monster Camp's job easier, at least in Oregon. They don't sit around with the database and a printer and wonder what they should be printing out or go rooting around through it. All cards that will be used during the course of the weekend are printed before we ever get to site, and the people in Monster Camp who are allowed to assign cards to NPCs have instructions on what is appropriate to send out where, when, and why. By the same token, I already pointed out that for me, having pre-gened monsters is near-worthless, so it definitely doesn't make my job as plot any easier.

If happy plot makes for happy players, then non-standardized is the way to go, at least in Oregon. Because the standardized monsters make me sad.

 

[Mobius]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

There is, undoubtedly, an important place in every Chapter's Monster DB for unique monsters. That being said, such uniqueness should not be at the expense of a greater awareness of Fortannis unity. Just because the Koala can only be found in southern Australia doesn't mean the snakes, road-runners, wild dogs, and seagulls of that continent can't be found elsewhere; nor does the fact that a specific wild dog in Australia -- the dingo, which has certain tufts of hair and spot patterns -- is any less recognizable as a wild dog in Central America.

You're treating a unified Monster Database as a strait-jacket when, in reality, it's a launching platform. The fact that ALL PC races are arranged the same way doesn't hamper or derail any of your local PC plot, it enhances it; similarly, a more regulated and recognizable series of "Fortannis-wide monsters" would enhance the feeling that Fortannis is "real".

My personal feeling is that any possibly way to unite multiple chapters under under a more coherent world-view should be persued. If stepping through the mists from one chapter to another is akin to rift jumping or stepping through unrelated parallel-dimensions it further isolates each group to the detriment of the whole.

 

[jpariury]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

It's less a function of strait-jacket, and more a function of distinct style, which includes local variation of monsters. I prefer distinct world-views and flavors. I would not want to participate in a franchise game, where every McMonster® is identical at each franchise. I think there are plot teams that would suggest that disallowing local-only races has hampered them from running the stories that they want to run (Seattle having been one of those in times past).

I disagree that "any possibly(sic) way to unite multiple chapters under under(sic) a more coherent world-view should be persued(sic)". Chapter owners and plot teams did not sign up with the intent of being functionaries running a single nationwide plot. Chapters also run distinct flavors of games that standardized monsters do not lend themselves to. If Alliance Wabadash wants to run werewolves that are affected by normal and have only 10 body because that allows them to create the kind of story that is consistently entertaining to their players, more power to them. That is what they should do.

Could such a game exist and succeed? Sure. But I don't believe the Alliance is the game to succeed in that way.

 

[Tyson]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

I believe the counter-argument to that would be that the fine folks at Alliance Wabadash can have such creatures, but they shouldn't go around calling them Werewolves.

Wabadashian man-beasts has a nice ring to it.

 

[elliotbay]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

It should be noted that the name on the monster card doesn't get communicated to PCs in the normal course of things. Presumably, they can call such creatures whatever they want.

 

[jpariury]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

Culture is entirely at the heart of what you name things, which is solidly in the realm of local plot.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

I agree with JP, which makes this thread now an Official Sign and/or Portent. The only monsters which need to and therefore should be standardized are those which can transfer with a PC from chapter to chapter; to whit, golems. Everything else should be at the perview of the chapter's plot commitee and rules team. If the local plotters run an arc that involves aquamarine psionic goblins and their players love it, what is wrong with that? If it's hated, and they drop it, that's fine too. So long as there is a general understanding that chapter Alfa has blue-green psych goblins and chapter Bravo has blue-green goblins who are aquatic merchants and PC allies, it is good and fair that these differences be allowed and encouraged. If nothing else, it should get people to try and make friends right away after first landing in a new continent, to be sure they don't try and buy elixirs from the cyan dominate midgets.

 

[Mobius]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

It just strikes me as bad writing, like a Star Wars serial where the stormtroopers are bright green, or a Star Trek novel where Riker is a four-foot women with a clubfoot. If there's no continuity between Chapters, ¿what's the point of a National Game? If the term "goblin" doesn't have any meaning outside of this encounter at this exact time, ¿what's the sense of having the game on a single planet?

 

[jpariury]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

The general point of the game is that we agree on how things work (the mechanics of the game) and more or less what era we fit in to (late dark ages to early renaissance). We agree on things like transferability, but everything from there on is more or less up in the air. Basically, we're a bit more pedantic on rules and era than your local gameshop tabletop DnD game, but we're about as free-flowing on things like story and DM-style. It's a-okay that the goblins of Ravenloft are vastly overpowered, brutal and vicious compared to the goblins of Forgotten Realms. That very misunderstanding is a source of story and plot in and of itself.

 

[Wraith]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

The general point of the game is that we agree on how things work (the mechanics of the game) and more or less what era we fit in to (late dark ages to early renaissance). We agree on things like transferability, but everything from there on is more or less up in the air. Basically, we're a bit more pedantic on rules and era than your local gameshop tabletop DnD game, but we're about as free-flowing on things like story and DM-style. It's a-okay that the goblins of Ravenloft are vastly overpowered, brutal and vicious compared to the goblins of Forgotten Realms. That very misunderstanding is a source of story and plot in and of itself.

This is a great concept, but doesn't work as well when when the game as a whole dictates in-game laws and cultures to the chapters, such as Necromancy being illegal and the various race packets.

Personally, I have long been in favor of a more D&D-esque setup. The Mists are a silly concept, both in narration and in a live action game. There is an easy solution, though. Assume each chapter is it's own world, have available planeshifting (which is functionally identical to the mists, but without many of the in-game logical faults), and let LCO be LCO while still maintaining transferability and cohesion through a standard base ruleset, upon which any LCO additions function only in their home game.

 

[Dan Nickname Beshers]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

There are things living in Africa, Australia and South America that have a visual similarity to things found in Europe and North America but are astonishingly different in the details. Australia in particular is well known for its myriad native inhabitants which seem to be drawn from the nightmares of other peoples farther removed from the resting place of Cthulhu. I would point out that Australia is the only truly separate continent by any realistic definition, so its example is the most compelling. There can be wide, even unforeseeable variation amongst species. If monsters are unable to "travel the mists", it reinforces rather than reduces the argument that they would be different from place to place, not carbon mold perfect. Mist travelers spread and propagate their culture across continents. The Earth-bound cannot, and show sometimes significant aberration from the source species,

I mean, unless someone has an endangered troll relocation and breeding program, in which case I need to explain a few things to them about steps forward and backward.

 

[Ezri]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

Personally I'm all for higher level monsters having a bit more local flavor, but I think things that were intended to be low level fodder should remain such. If I'm used to goblins being fairly easy to kill in Chapter A, even for little level 3 me, I can't imagine being steamrolled by APL 18 goblins in Chapter B is any fun at all. That doesn't exactly encourage chapter-hopping, which is kind of the whole point of being an Alliance.

It's hard enough for the little guys to be able to pick a winnable fight. I'd rather not mess with the things that are geared to low level players.

 

[Lurin]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

There can be plenty of things geared to lower level players without ruining the fun of chapter to chapter differences (for example SoMN replaces goblins with Boggles) Whenever a significantly different version of a critter is run it is of course important to telegraph those changes in advance, not that players always listen. In our case an NPC of significant power was near-by when they planned to go off 'off those goblins' quickly and warned them not to be foolhardy and that goblins were significantly dangerous creatures. The pcs where still suprised by the Goblin Necromancer (which really only had about 70 points of pc skills ^.^)

Ultimately Plot teams work hard enough that there is no need to force specifics upon them, in a BEST case scenario they don't use them so you gain nothing, and in a less-best case scenario they feel like the prohibition restricts them from running some fun plot.

 

[Mobius]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

There are things living in Africa, Australia and South America that have a visual similarity to things found in Europe and North America but are astonishingly different in the details. Australia in particular is well known for its myriad native inhabitants which seem to be drawn from the nightmares of other peoples farther removed from the resting place of Cthulhu.

Indeed, but those details are on a micro-scale, mostly cosmetic. A field-mouse in Europe will be, basically, the same as a field-mouse in Australia; a wild small cat from one region will be about the same as the other. There are specific and unique critters in Australia (oh gods, the deviltry of Australia) which don't exist elsewhere and vice versa, but the vast overlap of critters do, and these creatures all display the same fundamental traits. When a creature from one is so different as to be incomparable to a creature in another, it changes the fundamentals of the game. If the only trait a Goblin shares between chapters is the word "Goblin" at the top of the Monster card, ¿what's the point? As Chris/Wraith says, it changes us from a collection of kingdoms to a collection of parallel worlds.

And, while I agree it does demand that chapter-hopping players immediately align themselves with locals and it might lead to some nominal roleplay ("Wait, Bunnies aren't KOS here?"), it also dramatically increases the impediment to interaction. If I know that as soon as I leave my own chapter ALL bets or off: there is no uniformity or similarity of realm; I will neither hold nor keep any status or precedent from my previous kingdom; the fundamental social customs of my PC race will radically shift; and nothing I know about wild-life will apply ¿why would I bother leaving home base? Sure, some players are adventuresome and some chapters are so close together and interconnected that Plot/players make the two different chapters mostly similar, but ¿for the rest? It seems the unspoken movement is toward a series of Chapter-Islands and away from any meaningful interaction.

Now, it could be that, as you suggest, Fortannis is just a series of Australias: each Chapter/continent evolved in such isolation and with such little outworld interaction that they are akin to separate worlds. And, if that is the case, and is the preference of the players, let it go there. Have a chapter from the future, one from Feudal Japan, one on the Moon - if all that binds us together is Chapter-jumping and a set of Rules, let's cut away the pretense and make it a game of GURPS.

If monsters are unable to "travel the mists", it reinforces rather than reduces the argument that they would be different from place to place, not carbon mold perfect.

Side-note, ¿Monsters can't travel the mists? I knew armies couldn't (well, except in the cases where they can) but, ¿monsters? Is that a local flavour or did I miss something in the ARB?

 

[Lurin]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

I think this is a case of over exaggeration personally, if every difference is extrapolated to mean nothing is the same everytime, then things will indeed seem silly at times. On the other hand, generally plot teams will keep things similar, simply because it's easier if nothing else and the assumption that differences being allowed will ruin your ability to believe the lands are similar is to my mind, silly.

Of course there are other trains of thought that run counter to my mind, but I like to avoid absolutes in my arguements, I'm not running for office afterall.

 

[Ezri]

Side-note, ¿Monsters can't travel the mists? I knew armies couldn't (well, except in the cases where they can) but, ¿monsters? Is that a local flavour or did I miss something in the ARB?

It's not in the book, but several chapters have made agreements to put this aside over the years.

Monsters can travel the mists if and ONLY if the people running both chapters approve. It's happened a handful of times in recent memory, and when done right benefits both chapters greatly. For example, a few years ago my entire team chased a bad guy up to the Deadlands on a plotline that started at HQ with a NH character.

That rule/mechanic is there to prevent Chapter A from steamrolling Chapter B by bringing in a whole army or a really nasty monster or whatnot.

 

[jpariury]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

When a creature from one is so different as to be incomparable to a creature in another, it changes the fundamentals of the game.

I think your perception of what the fundamentals of the game are might differ significantly from mine.

If the only trait a Goblin shares between chapters is the word "Goblin" at the top of the Monster card, ¿what's the point?

The same point as playing any other different campaign with the same character sheet - to try out someone else's flavor of game.

As Chris/Wraith says, it changes us from a collection of kingdoms to a collection of parallel worlds.

I've played it more or less that way pretty much since I started with Alliance, so it's not seeming like that dramatic of thing.

If I know that as soon as I leave my own chapter ALL bets or off: there is no uniformity or similarity of realm; I will neither hold nor keep any status or precedent from my previous kingdom; the fundamental social customs of my PC race will radically shift; and nothing I know about wild-life will apply ¿why would I bother leaving home base?

As you say - adventure, discovery, exploration, the thrill of the new. You sound an awful like some hick who never wants to leave home: "Dang it, Pa, it's dif'runt out thar in thuh world. Imma stay here where I know wut's wut.", or some guy who eschews Carl's Junior because they do all sorts of weird stuff with their burgers, and dang it, McDonald's is what you're used to.

I'm not even necessarily saying it's bad to just want to play one campaign/flavor/setting/style. But I do think it's bad to insist that all the other chapters play the same campaign/flavor/setting/style.

Side-note, ¿Monsters can't travel the mists? I knew armies couldn't (well, except in the cases where they can) but, ¿monsters? Is that a local flavour or did I miss something in the ARB?

Correct, monsters don't travel. More specifically, NPCs don't travel from chapter to chapter without agreement by both plot teams. That includes common character race NPCs as well as beasts of harrowing horror. You could, for instance, declare that Monster X came to the region via the mists from "somewhere else", however, you should not have Arch-lich Duke Moriarty from Ashbury popping up in the Golden Horn without clearing it with the Ashbury plot team first. Otherwise, Ashbury would be entirely in their right to turn around and go "Musta been a doppleganger".

(Side note, can one of the mods split off this discussion?)

 

[Mobius]

Re: Redefining and Reviewing

As you say - adventure, discovery, exploration, the thrill of the new. You sound an awful like some hick who never wants to leave home: "Dang it, Pa, it's dif'runt out thar in thuh world. Imma stay here where I know wut's wut.", or some guy who eschews Carl's Junior because they do all sorts of weird stuff with their burgers, and dang it, McDonald's is what you're used to.

And you sound an awful lot like a small-minded bigot. For shame, John. While I may be thick-skinned enough not to take you seriously there are plenty of people who would read what you wrote and be highly offended. There is absolutely nothing "weird" about the Beauty that is Carl's Jr. and I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from saying otherwise.

Here's the bottom line. The primary reason Alliance is different from Sharded or Live Effects or Dying Kingdoms or whatever backyard game is its National Scope. You can take your character to any chapter across the continent and play a game where the world and the rules are the same. Or, at least, should be the same. With LCO effects rampant, plot-lines compartmentalized by local-Plot teams, no over-arching conversations regarding "National Plot", and a Monster Database which is the laughingstock of GMs everywhere, that sense of National Scope is falling apart. The main reason Alliance is different from cops and robbers is dying away.

While I'm not silly enough to think the Monster Database will stem the tide of isolationism stealing over the game, I do think it would at least help to create a larger vision and perhaps knit together these drifting isles. And, so far, about the only rejection I'm hearing is not the more obvious "it'd be a helluva logistical nightmare" (which it would be), but is "I like MY game the way it is, and I'll hornswaggled if any National Group tells me how to run it".

 

[Toddo]

I agree with Mobius. While every plot team can (and should) make up their own unique antagonists, my feeling is that there should be some consistency in the basic monsters if for no other reason than to encourage chapter hopping and reduce the feeling players can get when coming to a new chapter that the people who play there consistently are the only ones who have any idea what's going on or if that kobold is suddenly going to start blasting them with Arcane Deaths. Just as there are certain conventions in our game that players learn (if someone comes into town looking for help they usually only need 5-8 people, necromancy is bad in PC kingdoms, etc) there should be a reasonable expectation that a player from another chapter will not be killed by a Bullywug just because the chapter they're visiting has turned them into froghemoths. I'm behind expanding the database, reaching out to all the chapters to see what they have that could be added and especially putting more monsters in in the middle APL range, which is sorely lacking. This isn't to say that I'm in favor of making a required DB for all chapters to use with no option to make new monsters, but having more rabbits in the hat is going to make every desk person's job easier. New monsters are cool, fun to encounter and usually fun to fight, but if every monster is unique then there is no impact when you encounter something new. The Rules/Conventions/Tropes serve to bind the game together and if there were greater consistency coupled with added variety of things you could encounter anywhere means that if you hop chapters you still feel like it's the same world and it makes the things unique to that chapter stand out even more.

-toddo