I think this could work if it was a table or two the DM could pick from when choosing a creature to use, but if tied to stat blocks we'd be right back to the issue of pigeonholing entire species into stereotypes. Maybe a separate table for sapient and non-sapient creatures, or tables for friendly/neutral/hostile attitudes? I'd use a system like that to customize the creatures I want to use in an encounter.
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I want motivation tables based on creature type with both good and evil options on each list.
I can get behind that idea. "Goblin Raider" is a more evocative name anyways. Nobody ever said "Oh no, we're in trouble - there's a bunch of humans on the road up ahead! Everybody grab your weapons!"
I can get behind that idea. "Goblin Raider" is a more evocative name anyways. Nobody ever said "Oh no, we're in trouble - there's a bunch of humans on the road up ahead! Everybody grab your weapons!"
Well, I am likely to say that, but I am weird that way.
These types of descriptors are a lot easier for me to role play as a DM (especially for NPCs and even more so for recurring NPCs) than alignment as a general rule, I feel they may have the same stereotyping issues as alignment (or worse, since people respond to these types of descriptors more strongly than the more abstract alignment designation) if applied to whole races, cultures, or species (at least those that can be played as PCs or have analogues to humans). But this is already my preferred method for designing individuals
I think one important thing is diversity of expression, even with large groups. Saying all of a race values x, y, and z motivations still opens up potential issues of stereotyping that could be hurtful if those align with the stereotypes of real cultures and races, just as much as saying that all (or a majority) of a race are "good" or "evil".
Well, it's only a raider if the goblin is engaged in raiding. An awful lot of humanoid encounters are basically just banditry in funny hats.
If the Goblin is not a Raider, this encourages the DM to think more about it.
If the stat block is for a Goblin and it says their alignment is evil, then that will naturally be the first thought for ANY goblin you run into, even a farmer or a child.
If the stat block is for a Goblin Raider, these qualities are less likely to be automatically transferred onto other Goblins one may meet. If the Goblin is not engaged in raiding, it is not a Goblin Raider, hence the stat block doesn't necessarily all apply.
Well, it's only a raider if the goblin is engaged in raiding. An awful lot of humanoid encounters are basically just banditry in funny hats.
If the Goblin is not a Raider, this encourages the DM to think more about it.
If the stat block is for a Goblin and it says their alignment is evil, then that will naturally be the first thought for ANY goblin you run into, even a farmer or a child.
If the stat block is for a Goblin Raider, these qualities are less likely to be automatically transferred onto other Goblins one may meet. If the Goblin is not engaged in raiding, it is not a Goblin Raider, hence the stat block doesn't necessarily all apply.
My point is that raiding is often not what monsters are engaged in; a lot of them are engaged in banditry and if the PCs are on the attack they may just be guards.
Well, it's only a raider if the goblin is engaged in raiding. An awful lot of humanoid encounters are basically just banditry in funny hats.
If the Goblin is not a Raider, this encourages the DM to think more about it.
If the stat block is for a Goblin and it says their alignment is evil, then that will naturally be the first thought for ANY goblin you run into, even a farmer or a child.
If the stat block is for a Goblin Raider, these qualities are less likely to be automatically transferred onto other Goblins one may meet. If the Goblin is not engaged in raiding, it is not a Goblin Raider, hence the stat block doesn't necessarily all apply.
My point is that raiding is often not what monsters are engaged in; a lot of them are engaged in banditry and if the PCs are on the attack they may just be guards.
If we can break down human NPCs into groups like Guard and Bandit, why not Goblins, Orc and the like?
I do the same thing, to the point where I seldom even use the monster stat blocks for most humanoid races (an orc blackguard or an orc champion is so much cooler and more intimidating anyway).
I don't now, even with the proposed "motives" or other discriptors there is, in my humble opinion, still the same margin of interpretation, as with alignements. So, I don't really see an adavantage of one over the other.
If we can break down human NPCs into groups like Guard and Bandit, why not Goblins, Orc and the like?
It's perfectly legitimate to just apply a racial template to a generic NPC template, though doing so isn't going to be very close to the monster stats and they wind up all somewhat boringly the same.
I don't think that like, a preset list of motives is necessarily more or less useful than the alignment, but the description of a monster/enemy should give some indication of that in its descriptive text for flavor.
I think one of the main issues with the way the monsters' text areas (not statblocks, but descriptive text) are written -- and this is Gygax's fault, I guess, since he started it -- is that it is wall-of-text. Often a wall of badly written text, but that is another issue. What I have to do as GM, is then boil it down to some short bullet points. I shouldn't have to do this. The writers should do it by default. If they want to have a wall-of-text too, for greater elaboration, fine. But I don't need a 750-word essay on goblins to RP a goblin, I just need the bullet points.
One reason alignment *can* be helpful, to a DM who is not trying to turn it into a nuanced question but just needs the damn bullet points, is that alignment is a bullet point, along with size and creature type.... "Small, Humanoid, Chaotic Evil" is fairly easy to figure out how to RP, if you don't try to get yourself all tangled up in the technical aspects of what "real chaos" or "real evil" are, but keep them relatively simple.
So what I would really like to see is bullet points. Again, I will use Ironsworn as an example, the creatures called Varou, which are kind of like werewolves. His page on them has the following bullet points:
Features:
Yellow eyes, shining in the moonlight
Pointed ears, snout-like face
Drives:
Take their land
Defend my kin
Keep the blood-drive at bay
Tactics:
Strike at night
Leap into combat
Let loose the bloodcall
Now... Shawn (the writer) also does have a half-page of text to explain some of these things like what the "bloodcall" is. But the bullet points are super helpful for RPing a Varou NPC, and you don't have to read the whole text wall to get the sense of the thing. It would be helpful if the D&D writers did more of this kind of thing, than the wall-of-text way they have been doing it for, oh, the last 5 editions.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
If we can break down human NPCs into groups like Guard and Bandit, why not Goblins, Orc and the like?
I already do this on occasion. I just take the NPC stat block and add PC racial traits.
One of my favorite things to do is make certain NPCs half-orcs and give them the Relentless Endurance trait. This makes it (almost) impossible for the party to one-shot an NPC enemy even if they are on the weaker side.
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One of my favorite things to do is make certain NPCs half-orcs and give them the Relentless Endurance trait. This makes it (almost) impossible for the party to one-shot an NPC enemy even if they are on the weaker side.
RAW, adding a PC race to an NPC doesn't change CR. This is particularly hilarious for half-orcs and dragonborn.
How does this fit in the ever-popular "Great Wheel" cosmology where planar denizens are defined by a range of alignments?
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
One could associate the planes with philosophical concepts/lifestyles rather than rigid alignments (which is kind of halfway where they are already, otherwise we wouldn't have over a dozen of them).
Something else that intrigues me. This is being offered as a solution when it doesn't seem to actually address the problem.
Replace systems as you wish, but as long as there is any hint that "so-and-so is more likely to do such-and-such", the problem will exist.
So, I'm curious to what this exercise is seeking to achieve. The problem is less the system but more those who use it. 5e has bent over backwards to try to tell people they can fix whatever they don't like, but for some reason, people are still choosing not to do it. No new system will fix that.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Something else that intrigues me. This is being offered as a solution when it doesn't seem to actually address the problem.
Replace systems as you wish, but as long as there is any hint that "so-and-so is more likely to do such-and-such", the problem will exist.
So, I'm curious to what this exercise is seeking to achieve. The problem is less the system but more those who use it. 5e has bent over backwards to try to tell people they can fix whatever they don't like, but for some reason, people are still choosing not to do it. No new system will fix that.
I don't know if any system will ever perfectly fix this issue, but remember that there still something to be said about making something better, even if its not perfect. "Better" is still an improvement, and to me this exercise seems to be one in "Hey, don't you think this could be better?" rather than "Hey, don't you think this fixes everything?"
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Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
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I think this could work if it was a table or two the DM could pick from when choosing a creature to use, but if tied to stat blocks we'd be right back to the issue of pigeonholing entire species into stereotypes. Maybe a separate table for sapient and non-sapient creatures, or tables for friendly/neutral/hostile attitudes? I'd use a system like that to customize the creatures I want to use in an encounter.
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I want motivation tables based on creature type with both good and evil options on each list.
I can get behind that idea. "Goblin Raider" is a more evocative name anyways. Nobody ever said "Oh no, we're in trouble - there's a bunch of humans on the road up ahead! Everybody grab your weapons!"
Please do not contact or message me.
Well, I am likely to say that, but I am weird that way.
And the humans around here are fairly sketchy
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
These types of descriptors are a lot easier for me to role play as a DM (especially for NPCs and even more so for recurring NPCs) than alignment as a general rule, I feel they may have the same stereotyping issues as alignment (or worse, since people respond to these types of descriptors more strongly than the more abstract alignment designation) if applied to whole races, cultures, or species (at least those that can be played as PCs or have analogues to humans). But this is already my preferred method for designing individuals
I think one important thing is diversity of expression, even with large groups. Saying all of a race values x, y, and z motivations still opens up potential issues of stereotyping that could be hurtful if those align with the stereotypes of real cultures and races, just as much as saying that all (or a majority) of a race are "good" or "evil".
Well, it's only a raider if the goblin is engaged in raiding. An awful lot of humanoid encounters are basically just banditry in funny hats.
Well, the DM designing the encounter gets to decide if it is a "raider" or just a "farmer", but the statement is accurate.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
If the Goblin is not a Raider, this encourages the DM to think more about it.
If the stat block is for a Goblin and it says their alignment is evil, then that will naturally be the first thought for ANY goblin you run into, even a farmer or a child.
If the stat block is for a Goblin Raider, these qualities are less likely to be automatically transferred onto other Goblins one may meet. If the Goblin is not engaged in raiding, it is not a Goblin Raider, hence the stat block doesn't necessarily all apply.
My point is that raiding is often not what monsters are engaged in; a lot of them are engaged in banditry and if the PCs are on the attack they may just be guards.
If we can break down human NPCs into groups like Guard and Bandit, why not Goblins, Orc and the like?
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I already do this on occasion. I just take the NPC stat block and add PC racial traits.
I do the same thing, to the point where I seldom even use the monster stat blocks for most humanoid races (an orc blackguard or an orc champion is so much cooler and more intimidating anyway).
I don't now, even with the proposed "motives" or other discriptors there is, in my humble opinion, still the same margin of interpretation, as with alignements. So, I don't really see an adavantage of one over the other.
It's perfectly legitimate to just apply a racial template to a generic NPC template, though doing so isn't going to be very close to the monster stats and they wind up all somewhat boringly the same.
I think one of the main issues with the way the monsters' text areas (not statblocks, but descriptive text) are written -- and this is Gygax's fault, I guess, since he started it -- is that it is wall-of-text. Often a wall of badly written text, but that is another issue. What I have to do as GM, is then boil it down to some short bullet points. I shouldn't have to do this. The writers should do it by default. If they want to have a wall-of-text too, for greater elaboration, fine. But I don't need a 750-word essay on goblins to RP a goblin, I just need the bullet points.
One reason alignment *can* be helpful, to a DM who is not trying to turn it into a nuanced question but just needs the damn bullet points, is that alignment is a bullet point, along with size and creature type.... "Small, Humanoid, Chaotic Evil" is fairly easy to figure out how to RP, if you don't try to get yourself all tangled up in the technical aspects of what "real chaos" or "real evil" are, but keep them relatively simple.
So what I would really like to see is bullet points. Again, I will use Ironsworn as an example, the creatures called Varou, which are kind of like werewolves. His page on them has the following bullet points:
Now... Shawn (the writer) also does have a half-page of text to explain some of these things like what the "bloodcall" is. But the bullet points are super helpful for RPing a Varou NPC, and you don't have to read the whole text wall to get the sense of the thing. It would be helpful if the D&D writers did more of this kind of thing, than the wall-of-text way they have been doing it for, oh, the last 5 editions.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One of my favorite things to do is make certain NPCs half-orcs and give them the Relentless Endurance trait. This makes it (almost) impossible for the party to one-shot an NPC enemy even if they are on the weaker side.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
RAW, adding a PC race to an NPC doesn't change CR. This is particularly hilarious for half-orcs and dragonborn.
How does this fit in the ever-popular "Great Wheel" cosmology where planar denizens are defined by a range of alignments?
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
One could associate the planes with philosophical concepts/lifestyles rather than rigid alignments (which is kind of halfway where they are already, otherwise we wouldn't have over a dozen of them).
Something else that intrigues me. This is being offered as a solution when it doesn't seem to actually address the problem.
Replace systems as you wish, but as long as there is any hint that "so-and-so is more likely to do such-and-such", the problem will exist.
So, I'm curious to what this exercise is seeking to achieve. The problem is less the system but more those who use it. 5e has bent over backwards to try to tell people they can fix whatever they don't like, but for some reason, people are still choosing not to do it. No new system will fix that.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I don't know if any system will ever perfectly fix this issue, but remember that there still something to be said about making something better, even if its not perfect. "Better" is still an improvement, and to me this exercise seems to be one in "Hey, don't you think this could be better?" rather than "Hey, don't you think this fixes everything?"
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!