Quote from: Darrin Kelley;954460It's why my favorite D20 game was OGL Conan. Actual monsters were highly rare and extremely scarey. While the most common opponants you would meet were purely human.

I'm still waiting for Modiphius to release it:).

Quote from: Omega;954462Then you dont know myth very well. Monsters tended to be crawling out of the woodwork. Look at how many of the monsters in D&D are from those very legends. And there are tons more that werent used.

Because there were many legends.
But an individual character, barring Hercules' 12 Deeds, probably wasn't going to meet more than a handful of them;).

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;954446Actually. I think D&D has always made monsters seem way too common and mundane.

In myth. Monsters were things of epic and legend. The defeat of any monster was treated as both momentous and miraculous. Something stories would be told about into distant generations.

Both points are very true.

However, a myth is a story you can easily tell in a few minutes, maybe a two hour movie if you pad it heavily. But a RPG has to occupy many hours, then rinse and repeat over weeks, months or years.

I agree that most, if not all, the monster humanoids (orcs, goblins, etc) could be switched out for regular humans, but some people have an issue with chopping down humans in a RPG vs killing orcs.

Quote from: AsenRG;954541But an individual character, barring Hercules' 12 Deeds, probably wasn't going to meet more than a handful of them;).

Herc encounters more than just those 12 deeds. Jason and the Argonauts comes to mind as another where they run into alot of monsters.

but most other adventurers in Greek legend tended to go on just one relatively short adventure. So your example rather fails.

Quote from: RPGPundit;954073I'm not talking about super-rare monsters from some obscure module. I mean the classic monsters that became the most famous from Early D&D until today. Orcs and the other classic humanoids, mind-flayers, beholders, drow, dragons, zombies, ghouls, wraiths vampires and the other classic undead, gryphons and other typical monsters, etc etc.

Are there any that you either intentionally or just by circumstances you've never actually used in a game?

Well I've run very little D&D, so my answer will be skewed and I tend to forget what many D&D monsters actually are. I'll have to skim ahead to other answers to see or remind what I've been missing, but I don't think I have never used:

kobolds, brownies, gnomes, drow or most other special elf flavors/colors, gnolls, D&D-color-coded dragons, D&D-typed giants, humanoid-dragons
mummies, harpies, gorgons/medusas, cyclops, merfolk, leprechauns, satyrs
mind-flayers, (bug/owl/whatever)-bears, purple worms, beholders, Rust Monsters, D&D slime/pudding flavors

I have no idea what the following even are:

Bulette? Flumphs & Grimlocks?  bullywug? slaads?

I did use one gelatinous cube, in a D&D game in 5th grade.

I was wondering if this thread would make me go "Huh, yeah, never used that", but it's mostly just been a trip down memory lane.

Without knowing exactly which monsters definitely qualify (I have used everything mentioned on the original post), the only thing that comes to mind that I know I've never used are some of the metallic dragons, but that's only because I've just never run an adventure where it made the most sense to use them.

Otherwise there might be an odd slime I haven't gotten around to using, maybe a purple worm?

hmm. Dont think I've ever used an ankheg, catoblepas, dragon turtle or leucrotta. Nice to see the Catoblepas, Cave Fisher and Leucrotta return in Volo's Guide for 5e.

Never used the catoblepas but yeah this does stump me as I think we used pretty much all the classic monsters back when adventures were basically one big monster mash. No Flumphs or Crystal or Gem Dragons.

Quote from: Omega;954570Herc encounters more than just those 12 deeds. Jason and the Argonauts comes to mind as another where they run into alot of monsters.

Hence "probably", in my post;).

Quotebut most other adventurers in Greek legend tended to go on just one relatively short adventure. So your example rather fails.

How does it fail when you just confirmed it by the part in bold:D?
Go check my posts and what I was agreeing with, and you'll discover that my point was exactly that monsters were rare and dangerous, so you only needed to deal with one or a handful at most, and you became known as a hero!

Quote from: AsenRG;954877How does it fail when you just confirmed it by the part in bold:D?
Go check my posts and what I was agreeing with, and you'll discover that my point was exactly that monsters were rare and dangerous, so you only needed to deal with one or a handful at most, and you became known as a hero!

Because you previously were claiming.

QuoteIn myth. Monsters were things of epic and legend. The defeat of any monster was treated as both momentous and miraculous. Something stories would be told about into distant generations.

Whereas in more than a few of these tales the adventurer treats it like it was just another wild animal and carries on.

And some of thse tales are just part of a larger adventuring life as shown in the Argonauts and a few other examples. Or were also participating in wars and other things. Sometimes the monster is mererly a speedbump in a much larger story. Same in some other religions.

Harpies for example, they're treated as common monsters in the Argonauts.  And there's claims of Nymphs inhabiting and interacting with humans, like the Sirens in the Odyssey.  Satyrs and Centaurs are usually unnamed.

There are quite a few Grecian monsters that aren't considered 'epic' or singular.

Quote from: Omega;954958Because you previously were claiming.

Correction: I was agreeing with that. Personally, I wouldn't have called it "miraculous".
But I agreed with "momentuous".

QuoteWhereas in more than a few of these tales the adventurer treats it like it was just another wild animal and carries on.

In more than one myth, they are animals - just exceptionally big and tough ones, usually. The Nemean Lion, the Erymanthean Boar, Ysgithyrwn, Twrch Trwth and others from cultures whose characters aren't allowed on the forum, all fit this.
Furthermore, hunting and killing a dangerous animal was often an Event in the life of ancient people. Heroes just went a step beyond that, and dealt with the even more dangerous ones.

QuoteAnd some of thse tales are just part of a larger adventuring life as shown in the Argonauts and a few other examples. Or were also participating in wars and other things. Sometimes the monster is mererly a speedbump in a much larger story. Same in some other religions.

That's definitely the rarer case, though. Beowulf killed Grendel and his mother, becoming a king. Then he faced and slew a dragon, but this cost him his life.
Yet it's still an epic heroic poem, much better than many campaigns;).