Well, I made it through finals and I got my BA in history,
and tomorrow I leave on a whirlwind trip through Iceland, Scotland, and Italy,
so now is as good of a time as any to squeeze in a blog update.
~~~
One of the first things I noticed about Dungeons &
Dragons, while I was browsing through the books at my buddy Marc’s house way
back in jr. high, was the vast array of crazy monsters. I recognized some of them from Baldur’s Gate
and some of them from mythology, but most of them I was honestly baffled
by. Beholders? Locathah? Those cheesy
ice-skating dragons from Monster Manual IV? As I became more acquainted with
the game, I quickly grew more appreciative of (some) of these monsters because
of their history, their abilities, or the niche they fill in the game
world.
But familiarity can sap some of the mystery and marvel from
the monsters themselves. This is a
problem many GMs face, even if they don't realize it. For the most part, experienced players and
GMs alike are pretty familiar with the contents of the monster manual. Even players who are usually quite good at separating
player knowledge from character knowledge can fall into the trap of recognizing
a monster their characters have never encountered and immediately shifting
tactics to account for what they know of the beast from the Monster Manual.
One of the simplest remedies to this is for the GM to describe
the monster the PCs are facing, rather than naming it outright. Describe it in terms of other monsters or
animals the PCs would already be familiar with.
The players will likely immediately begin the guessing game anyways, but
just having the monster described rather than named clues them in that this
beast is completely alien to their characters.
It might just trigger some more in-depth role-playing.
One of the easiest things to forget, when there are so many
crazy monsters in the game already, is that many real-life animals would appear
just as monstrous to the PCs as a beholder would to our eyes. Try to give your players the same sense of mystery
when encountering new animals as real-world explorers had encountering the
strange beasts of our own world. Keep in
mind the regions your players come from and what animals they would be familiar
with. If your party of adventurers from
the southern grasslands journeys north to the frozen sea, don't tell them they
see walruses, tell them they see tremendous, fat sea monsters with tusks like
elephants trumpeting noisily on the stony shore. If your party of northerners makes its way
into the steaming jungles, don't tell them they see a troop of gorillas, tell
them they see what looks like brutish, bestial men, covered with thick black
fur and beating their thick chests menacingly with their leathery fists.
Let me regale you with a story from my GMing experience:
The party was employed by a wealthy aristocrat who collected
a menagerie of exotic animals. He was
worried because a shipment he expected was late, and bandits had been sighted
on the roads. The party was given the
task of finding the bandits and retrieving the cargo: a tiger from far-off lands. The aristocrat was familiar with the foreign
beast, and gave the adventurers a detailed description. The party went off into the woods, located
the bandits’ cave hideout, and began the attack. They came to a chamber where the bandits were
waiting for them, along with the tiger in its cage. The bandits were up on a ledge surrounding
the room, gripping ropes attached to the cage door. As the party entered, the bandit leader gave
the command:
“RELEASE THE LION!”
 |
"Put it back! PUT IT BACK!" source
|
That incident became the most memorable moment from that
session, simply because of the bandits’ misunderstanding arising from their
ignorance of exotic beasts. Keep in mind
the knowledge your PCs and your NPCs have of the world, and you will make it a
more immersive and enjoyable experience for your players.
~~~
For an added bonus, research archaic names for animals and
use them to inject a sense of exoticness to animals that would otherwise be
familiar to the player. For example:
call a sperm whale a “cachelot,” an orca whale a “grampus,” or a porpoise a
"mereswine." Call a giraffe a “cameleopard,”
as it was once called because it seemed to the foreign observer to combine the
traits of the camel and the leopard. Medieval
bestiaries called mongooses “ichneumons” and whales “aspidochelons.” Or just make something up; that’s what people
have been doing with unfamiliar animals for millennia!
~~~
-Your leonine d20 despot
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