When my players encounter a monster that's new to them, they'll often ask after the encounter something to the effect of, "what is that monster called?" (after all, they want to talk about it and tell others what they slew, etc.). I tried to come up with cool names, and sometimes they thought so too. It was ... fine.
In my latest campaign I have stopped answering that question, instead replying with the dreaded "who is your character asking?" And wow, this tiny change produced a much more profound effect on the game than I suspected.
Players of course had to name the monsters themselves in order to talk about them. And they did. Gloriously. With names that represent their own history and experiences with the monster. Their level of engagement leaped. Now when they talk about their exploits there isn't just boasting that they bested a creature everyone knows to be dangerous, there's also a much deeper pride that they know a thing -- named a thing -- in the world. They aren't just experiencing the world, they are discovering it. And being the ones to invent the name for their discoveries allows their characters' interaction with the game world to highlight that difference.
It's been awesome.
I go back and forth on this. There's pros and cons to both approaches. Finally, what I started doing lately was trying to do some of both, to enjoy the advantages of both sides. I have some monsters that are deliberately common. Everyone knows (or thinks they know) what they are. Then some more that are obscure, but a character who thinks and digs a little can make an educated guess on what the monster really is. Then there's the obscure stuff that they've got to figure out as you discuss.
This means that there is some grounding in the common things to kind of frame the world, and then the more obscure things have that effect where they name it themselves. However, the best part to me is the middle ground, when someone makes that educated guess and gets it wrong. Because now the monster has a name in their heads that really belongs to something else, and when they meet that something else, thinking has to shift. :D
Quote from: Zalman on February 18, 2023, 08:36:59 AM
When my players encounter a monster that's new to them, they'll often ask after the encounter something to the effect of, "what is that monster called?" (after all, they want to talk about it and tell others what they slew, etc.). I tried to come up with cool names, and sometimes they thought so too. It was ... fine.
In my latest campaign I have stopped answering that question, instead replying with the dreaded "who is your character asking?" And wow, this tiny change produced a much more profound effect on the game than I suspected.
Players of course had to name the monsters themselves in order to talk about them. And they did. Gloriously. With names that represent their own history and experiences with the monster. Their level of engagement leaped. Now when they talk about their exploits there isn't just boasting that they bested a creature everyone knows to be dangerous, there's also a much deeper pride that they know a thing -- named a thing -- in the world. They aren't just experiencing the world, they are discovering it. And being the ones to invent the name for their discoveries allows their characters' interaction with the game world to highlight that difference.
It's been awesome.
Player: "I'm going to strip nude so I have no penalties, then swim down to the wreck."
DM: "As you descend in through the hole in the hull, a creature suddenly moves to block your escape."
Player: "What's the creature called?"
DM: "A Rape-Clam."
Player: "...I have made a terrible mistake."
Quote from: Zalman on February 18, 2023, 08:36:59 AM
When my players encounter a monster that's new to them, they'll often ask after the encounter something to the effect of, "what is that monster called?" (after all, they want to talk about it and tell others what they slew, etc.). I tried to come up with cool names, and sometimes they thought so too. It was ... fine.
In my latest campaign I have stopped answering that question, instead replying with the dreaded "who is your character asking?" And wow, this tiny change produced a much more profound effect on the game than I suspected.
Players of course had to name the monsters themselves in order to talk about them. And they did. Gloriously. With names that represent their own history and experiences with the monster. Their level of engagement leaped. Now when they talk about their exploits there isn't just boasting that they bested a creature everyone knows to be dangerous, there's also a much deeper pride that they know a thing -- named a thing -- in the world. They aren't just experiencing the world, they are discovering it. And being the ones to invent the name for their discoveries allows their characters' interaction with the game world to highlight that difference.
It's been awesome.
Cool idea.
I imagine very common monsters will have a commonly held name. But unusual ones will likely have different names in every village and town you encounter. Maybe multiple ones. And then very rare ones will have...whatever the party comes up with.
I do this with undead when playing OD&D. Paralyzing touch, level drain, etc is terrifying. Not knowing if it is a factor or not, even more so.
Interesting points about common monsters vs uncommon monsters. In my campaigns, I tend to go with the medieval notion that news, culture, and knowledge doesn't travel very far -- often not farther than the next town or two down the road. That kind of changes what it means for something to be "common" knowledge about monsters.
Of course, if a certain "monster" is everywhere in the world, that's a different matter, but that doesn't feel too "monstrous" to me (more like a Race or an Animal), and I don't use that motif much for my campaigns.
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 18, 2023, 12:07:51 PM
DM: "A Rape-Clam."
;D Good counterpoint: using the name itself to strike terror in the hearts of players!
Quote from: Zalman on February 19, 2023, 08:32:11 AM
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 18, 2023, 12:07:51 PM
DM: "A Rape-Clam."
;D Good counterpoint: using the name itself to strike terror in the hearts arse of players!
Fixed it for you ;)
Quote from: Grognard GM on February 18, 2023, 12:07:51 PM
Quote from: Zalman on February 18, 2023, 08:36:59 AM
When my players encounter a monster that's new to them, they'll often ask after the encounter something to the effect of, "what is that monster called?" (after all, they want to talk about it and tell others what they slew, etc.). I tried to come up with cool names, and sometimes they thought so too. It was ... fine.
In my latest campaign I have stopped answering that question, instead replying with the dreaded "who is your character asking?" And wow, this tiny change produced a much more profound effect on the game than I suspected.
Players of course had to name the monsters themselves in order to talk about them. And they did. Gloriously. With names that represent their own history and experiences with the monster. Their level of engagement leaped. Now when they talk about their exploits there isn't just boasting that they bested a creature everyone knows to be dangerous, there's also a much deeper pride that they know a thing -- named a thing -- in the world. They aren't just experiencing the world, they are discovering it. And being the ones to invent the name for their discoveries allows their characters' interaction with the game world to highlight that difference.
It's been awesome.
Player: "I'm going to strip nude so I have no penalties, then swim down to the wreck."
DM: "As you descend in through the hole in the hull, a creature suddenly moves to block your escape."
Player: "What's the creature called?"
DM: "A Rape-Clam."
Player: "...I have made a terrible mistake."
Wife and I got a huge laugh out of this.
This is my favourite thread now.
Agreed! I do the same in my games.
However, I do show images... my players often recognize common monsters like ghoul, trolls, etc.
It is not a big problem, TBH - but I like re-skinning or adding new monsters from time to time (I wrote the Teratogenicon, my monster generator, for a similar purpose).
That seems fair, grants some better immersion and saves you a little bit of repetitive descriptions.
20-odd years back I was a player in a 3.0/3.5 game where when the monsters were introduced, another player at the table would open up his copy of the monster manual and read up on it...
Now THAT is metagaming!
... Or storygaming, not sure now.
Quote from: ClusterFluster on February 19, 2023, 11:25:32 AM
Now THAT is metagaming!
... Or storygaming, not sure now.
That makes me think about how it is that skills crept into the game in the first place. Trying to justify how your character knows about an incredibly rare monster in the first party's encounter would involve appealing to the fact that you didn't know how to put on an elaborate performance or craft something intricate until you'd already rolled well previously.
Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 19, 2023, 10:19:54 AM
Agreed! I do the same in my games.
However, I do show images... my players often recognize common monsters like ghoul, trolls, etc.
It is not a big problem, TBH - but I like re-skinning or adding new monsters from time to time (I wrote the Teratogenicon, my monster generator, for a similar purpose).
Good mention, I do show pictures as well. I don't have a recognition issue because I generally homebrew all my monsters, but I agree it's not a problem if the players recognize common monsters (and dovetails nicely with the apparently popular conceit mentioned above, wherein most everyone in the world is familiar with certain monsters).
Possibly worth mentioning in this regard is that for my players, a monster's
behavior is much more likely than a monster's
appearance to be a factor in naming the monster.
Quote from: Zalman on February 19, 2023, 05:57:47 PM
Possibly worth mentioning in this regard is that for my players, a monster's behavior is much more likely than a monster's appearance to be a factor in naming the monster.
Ergo: rape-clam
I'm almost entirely in the opposite camp, but for specific reasons. In the kind of games I run, I'm usually either dealing with monsters that have common types which would be known to the characters (trolls, elves, vampires etc.), or else I'm homebrewing monsters, and when I homebrew a monster, I tend to give it a descriptive name. So instead of calling something a "Flibbergoop" or whatever, I'll call it a "Winged Homunculus" or a "Clay Horror" or something like that. Those are names that the characters could reasonably come up with themselves on the spot, so by canonizing it as the DM, all I'm doing is avoiding the confusion that would be caused by five players misquoting my description of it back to each other later. Not to mention saving myself trouble by not having to repeat the description whenever I want to talk about it.
I also find that the style of how you name your monsters can be a big part of how you convey the tone of a setting. If you forgo that, you're giving up that tool. The same is true of items. I like most (if not all) of my magic items to be unique, and I will usually write a couple of sentences of lore to go with them. My current campaign is in a game that has no identify spell, so to find out what an item can do, the players often have to study or experiment with it. Doing it that way, the players would probably never find the lore out. I usually compromise by giving the item's name and history when they've figured out all its properties. It's not realistic, but it makes the game world more interesting.
To be clear, I totally see the appeal of doing it the other way, and occasionally I will leave a monster unnamed, but I do it pretty rarely. It's just one of those things where I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.
My homebrew monsters are almost always some kind of kitbash, but that's mostly because the antagonists in Selection campaigns (my homebrew system) use extensive genetic engineering. Alligator with electric breath? Sure. Spiders with hornet wings? Check. Vultures which vomit noxious fumes? Yup. Housecat with chameleon armadillo armor and telekinesis? Why not?
It's not like these monsters are really intended to have a name. It's something the antagonist cobbled together in haste to throw at the PCs, and the entire point of the game is that the PCs kill the monsters and pick up the DNA from them to become more powerful.