Quote from: JeremyR;1083038The world isn't just a kitchen sink, it's a mansion full of kitchens.

Greetings!

LOL. Very nice imagery. So true.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: JeremyR;1083038Beyond that, I think people who even use the term "verisimilitude" in the first place tend to be narrow minded and don't realize just how big the world is.

Well it just means a feeling of truthiness, versimilitude is completely subjective and will vary by the individual.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1082972Pundit stated in another post a while ago that the simplest way to deal with this is to introduce all these as variants. I agree, as I think D&D has a long-standing problem with cookie-cutter monsters. (That isn't meant to ignore the opposite extreme: monster bloat. This remains an ongoing problem ever since the OGL came into effect.)

You could add a lot of different variants of monsters.  How many hundreds of different types and variations of Dragons have we gotten over the years?  The problem that I see is that the word "Dragon" for example may not actually be a varient on the same creature because there is no such thing as a real Dragon that every folktale is basing their descriptions off.  They just use the term Dragon for the monster that eats kids that dont listen to their parents.

QuoteIIRC, one of the supplements for Changeling: The Lost had a section which discussed this very issue and offered a variety of suggestions for how STs could deal with it. I don't know if it was presented as the default or not but the simplest suggestion stated: since fairy magic operated on legalese logic (as explained in the rulebook's fluff), then any substance with "iron" in its standardized name would qualify. So cast iron and wrought iron would qualify, but forged steel and stainless steel wouldn't.

Ha, legalesed Fairys.  That is funny.

Quote from: nDervish;1082977I tend to like DCC's answer to that:  There is no race of trolls.  The monster eating goats under the bridge is a troll, and Grendel is the Troll of Heorot, but they don't really have anything in common aside from being monsters which the locals have dubbed "troll".

The whole idea of having a taxonomy of monsters, each belonging to a specific, distinct, named type is pretty modern.  It's not essential to be so taxonomic, and it's much more true to both mythology and the medieval world to have vague, common names which the locals apply to whatever their neighborhood monster might be, without those names being standardized.  The thing they call a "troll" here might be called a "goblin" by the people in the next village, and vice-versa.

That is essentially the point I was trying to make.  How can we complain that the traditional Welsh "troll" is not accurately represented by the Gygaxian "troll" when there is no real standardized Welsh "troll" to start off with.  Take more modern creatures like the Loch Ness monster for example.  Even that has got conflicting eye witness accounts and photos so where would you start to accurately transcribe that into game terms.

I have no coherent insight to offer on the subject matter as defined in the Original Post, except that it inspires me to ask a related question : what is D&D in relation to tales of folklore ?

I have long mused that perhaps D&D is a modern continuation of folk tales: oral based, imaginative and dealing with deeply human matters. Like a modern take on telling stories by the fireside (of course, having said that I re-introduce the deadly storytelling/not storytelling discussion :-p [which is not really my point).

Damn, I will start my own thread on this very subject.

Quote from: JeremyR;1083038...
Beyond that, I think people who even use the term "verisimilitude" in the first place tend to be narrow minded and don't realize just how big the world is. .

You think wrong then. I am specifically referring to the implementation of folklore based monsters into an RPG setting.

Quote from: JeremyR;1083038...How much variation there is on species, how many different things are in folklore. The world isn't just a kitchen sink, it's a mansion full of kitchens.

But That's just folklore, translating that into an RPG fantasy world is a whole different matter.

And we are specifically discussing monsters, which are often placed on top of a functional real-world setting (Which is already full of variation)...

Quote from: Shasarak;1083060You could add a lot of different variants of monsters.  How many hundreds of different types and variations of Dragons have we gotten over the years?  ....

And this relates to my main point:

How many different types of Dragons, Giants, Orcs/Goblins, plus vampires, werewolves etc.. Before the world would be rendered virtually uninhabitable By pseudo-medieval peoples with actual towns, villages and castles..?

If you try to fit the whole Monster Manual into a setting it would render it uninhabitable... Unless you start to bring in big magic, and at that point you are running a kitchen sink gonzo setting.

Nothing wrong with running a kitchen sink gonzo game. People do it all the time. It is the default D&D setting.

Quote from: Shasarak;1083062That is essentially the point I was trying to make.  How can we complain that the traditional Welsh "troll" is not accurately represented by the Gygaxian "troll" when there is no real standardized Welsh "troll" to start off with.  Take more modern creatures like the Loch Ness monster for example.  Even that has got conflicting eye witness accounts and photos so where would you start to accurately transcribe that into game terms.

I Would't try.

I would pick one 'Truth' or interpretation of the monster and stat that. Then include the various versions of the monsters 'Lore' that the players would hear. Add a little mystery to some monster encounters...


But most of this discussion I think is about personal setting preferences.

And I have found most RPG players/Groups like their game worlds Fantastic, with a capital F!

People like me who prefer a more down to earth approach are in the minority.

Quote from: Jaeger;1083107How many different types of Dragons, Giants, Orcs/Goblins, plus vampires, werewolves etc.. Before the world would be rendered virtually uninhabitable By pseudo-medieval peoples with actual towns, villages and castles..?

Well, that was a bit of a problem for me, given that my setting is a fantasy world with only bored, spiteful, evil gods to watch over. So it was clear from the outset that it would have demons, undead and other monsters in droves. But I think it can be combined with a faux-medieval society, if done with care. The big problem with the combination of entry-level gamers and kitchen sink fantasy settings is that those gamers are ill-equipped to do it with care.

But, yeah, powerful flying creatures and flying creatures that can be mounted, for example, need to be rare or else castles become moot. Same with magic that can render them worthless.

Quote from: ShasarakYou could add a lot of different variants of monsters. How many hundreds of different types and variations of Dragons have we gotten over the years? ....

Quote from: Jaeger;1083107And this relates to my main point:

How many different types of Dragons, Giants, Orcs/Goblins, plus vampires, werewolves etc.. Before the world would be rendered virtually uninhabitable By pseudo-medieval peoples with actual towns, villages and castles..?

If you try to fit the whole Monster Manual into a setting it would render it uninhabitable... Unless you start to bring in big magic, and at that point you are running a kitchen sink gonzo setting.

I think this is assuming large populations of each monster type. But the idea with folklore is that there usually isn't a population of identical monstrous creatures. Instead, the troll of Widow's Peak is different than the troll of Redstone Gulch.

A setting could easily have the whole Monster Manual if each creature type were rare - possibly even unique. So there is a dragon turtle in the world, and it's name is Crusher, and it lives in Lake Bakalin. There is a Titan in the world, and it lives on the southernmost peak of the Silvercoast Mountains.

Quote from: jhkim;1083132A setting could easily have the whole Monster Manual if each creature type were rare - possibly even unique. So there is a dragon turtle in the world, and it's name is Crusher, and it lives in Lake Bakalin. There is a Titan in the world, and it lives on the southernmost peak of the Silvercoast Mountains.

AEG wrote a product The Worlds Largest Dungeon which had every monster from the SRD in it.

Quote from: Shasarak;1083136AEG wrote a product The Worlds Largest Dungeon which had every monster from the SRD in it.

Just the Monster Manual, though.  Not MM2, MM3, MM4 or MM5.

That's not too overboard, honestly.

Quote from: Shasarak;1083136AEG wrote a product The Worlds Largest Dungeon which had every monster from the SRD in it.

Having every monster from the Monster Manual in a single dungeon does seem gonzo, but having them all just somewhere within a world is easily feasible.

Quote from: Jaeger;1083107And this relates to my main point:

How many different types of Dragons, Giants, Orcs/Goblins, plus vampires, werewolves etc.. Before the world would be rendered virtually uninhabitable By pseudo-medieval peoples with actual towns, villages and castles..?

If you try to fit the whole Monster Manual into a setting it would render it uninhabitable... Unless you start to bring in big magic, and at that point you are running a kitchen sink gonzo setting.

Nothing wrong with running a kitchen sink gonzo game. People do it all the time. It is the default D&D setting.

I remember reading a breakdown of what would happen to a game world if undead creatures like Shadows really existed and essentially it ended in game world wiped out by Shadows.

To me it is not important to have every creature existing and plotted out in the world but rather to have the potential for any creature to exist.  Schrodingers creatures so to speak.  In a world with Wizards, planar travel and other magic there is no real reason why you could not have anything that you needed arrive at exactly the speed of plot.

QuoteI Would't try.

I would pick one 'Truth' or interpretation of the monster and stat that. Then include the various versions of the monsters 'Lore' that the players would hear. Add a little mystery to some monster encounters...

That was my impression of what @BoxCrayonTales did not like about DnD monster design, that they did not follow the historical depiction of the monster in question.

I agree with your stance of picking one variant and going with that.

QuoteBut most of this discussion I think is about personal setting preferences.

And I have found most RPG players/Groups like their game worlds Fantastic, with a capital F!

People like me who prefer a more down to earth approach are in the minority.

To be honest I am one of those people not interested in down to earth settings for playing DnD.  Even settings like Middle Earth seem excessively boring to play in.

Quote from: jhkim;1083139Having every monster from the Monster Manual in a single dungeon does seem gonzo, but having them all just somewhere within a world is easily feasible.

Yeah over 800 pages worth of gonzo.

Quote from: kythri;1083138Just the Monster Manual, though.  Not MM2, MM3, MM4 or MM5.

That's not too overboard, honestly.

It reminds me of the stories of kids sitting down to fight their way through the monster manual alphabetically. *ohmy*

Quote from: jhkim;1083132I think this is assuming large populations of each monster type. But the idea with folklore is that there usually isn't a population of identical monstrous creatures. Instead, the troll of Widow's Peak is different than the troll of Redstone Gulch.

A setting could easily have the whole Monster Manual if each creature type were rare - possibly even unique. So there is a dragon turtle in the world, and it's name is Crusher, and it lives in Lake Bakalin. There is a Titan in the world, and it lives on the southernmost peak of the Silvercoast Mountains.

Yeah, that would be the intelligent and folklore-consistent way to do it. Monsters could be eg the unique offspring of the Mother of Monsters, not each a separate species.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1072853I've been saying a variation of this argument for a while. D&D and its derivatives (mostly Pathfinder) has an odd fixation on removing the most interesting parts of mythology and fairytale that it copies. I have an entire series on my blog about how to make monsters more interesting using their original myths and beyond.

Link to your blog?