I have an obsession with monsters, and especially with monster generators. The problem is that I have become disenchanted with them–they just don’t seem to produce the monsters that I want.
Why I Want Monster Generators
I love the idea that I can roll some dice and get unique creatures that don’t exist in any bestiary. Creatures that are different and have a feel all their own. Creatures that will surprise both the player and myself–that’s just cool!
That is also something that keeps the game fresh and exciting for everyone–the unknown. That uncertainty breaks up the assumptions that the players may have from reading the rules themselves. Random monster generators are just great for injecting that unknown factor into a given situation.
That is also something that keeps the game fresh and exciting for everyone–the unknown.
One more thing I love is the idea that I can take monster generation tables and automate the generation process, with some database tables, random numbers and a little code. I see it on other websites, so it has to be the way to go, right?
The Problem With Monster Generators
Well, one obvious problem with automating random generators is that you can get non-sensical results. While that in itself can drive a lot of creativity and fun, sometimes it is just bad.
(There is the same problem with using random hex generators to flesh out an entire campaign setting. It can be fun in its own way, but in the end you just get a bunch of, well, random hexes don’t make any sense).
That may work for one-off monsters, but what if you are looking for one that fills a more central part of your campaign or story? You are faced with either taking the results and modifying them to suit your needs or just re-rolling to get another creature. Either way it is not as simple as rolling some dice and getting an easy result.
What I am Doing In My Campaign
So what am I going to do? I think I am going to take the typical engineering answer and say "it depends." For lower level monsters, I am going to take existing monsters and give them random tweaks to make them unique. That will work especially well for my low fantasy, swords & sorcery campaign.
For one-off creatures where I want something bizarre or otherworldly, I will use completely randomly generated monsters. The weirder the better. That will work best in those situations–especially for demons.
For major monsters, though, I am going to use a combination of random monsters that I build by hand, with inspiration from random tables and existing ones that I tweak by hand. The reason for this is that for these important monsters, I want to have something that I can almost fully control–something that really fits with my vision.
Finally, I am going to still clutch to my dream of building a real monster generator that works for me–something that incorporates all of the ideas I want, and avoids the issues I listed above. That will take more time and be more complex than I want, to incorporate any logic to prevent the non-sensical results. It will probably never happen, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
Anyway, what kind of random monster generators do you use? Do you use any, or do you creature your own by hand? What problems have you found with them–and what solutions have you come up with? Let me know in the comments below!
Marko ∞
(Originally published on middle-lands.com, on 7/12/2019.)
