I'm writing a homebrew campaign for some friends and I had planned to use a Mind Flayer and a handful of Intellect Devourers as a main encounter; however, one of my players is going to be running a campaign that uses these same creatures and has been reading up on them.
My question is: in your experience, does knowing about a creature make it less fun to encounter? Or does knowing what it can do raise the stakes and make it more interesting?
I'm trying to decide whether I should change the encounter to use something else before it's baked into the campaign
This is a case of player knowledge vs character knowledge. Some call it meta gaming cause the player know what it is their character doesn't.
It's ok to use the same creatures regardless. It's your game and make things up as you go. If you're concerned that your players are going through then change it up. Our characters over time will know about certain monsters.
Thing is that you can have a visual of a monster and change everything about it. It can look like a mind flayer but have totally different abilities.
First of all that's meta gaming. in my games i'm fine with meta gaming, it can make for interesting stuff. In this case I would say it's more fun, the player get's to experience the fight and not just plan one like it for you. He'll know what strategy will work and can take charge rather than just wail on it with a sword for 5 hours. I would talk to him if you're not okay with meta gaming and clear up what he can and can't do.
You can always RP character ignorance. Just think of what your character would do if he didn't know the monster's strengths and weaknesses.
Let the other players who don't know the monster's stats figure it out.
If everyone is getting hammered, and the battle is on the verge of being lost, you can then have your character "save the day" with a great idea that you just thought of.
At some point during this game, you play through enough of the monsters you gain a baseline familiarity to many of them. It's a problem that will eventually be dealt with in every group but it is a meta knowledge situation where separating character and player knowledge is important. Still, if you are worried about the surprise of the encounter becoming dulled because of the knowledge of what the creature at the end will be, consider the story angle. Think of who the original Alien movie was such a horror classic because you never saw the creature until near the end. You could plant different bits of evidence along the way through the dungeon or game that leave the party guessing as to what they are going to encounter at the end.
The fun for this comes from trying to figure out what the creature is. Even if the party knows how to deal with a Mind Flayer, they would still be excited to find their guess that the boss at the end is a mind flayer was correct and if you leave enough of a trail of other red herrings, they may prep for the wrong thing. This could make the encounter with the Mind Flayer just as challenging as if they were facing it for the first time.
Thank you all for your answers. I wasn't really worried about the meta gaming aspect, I know the player well and I don't think that would be an issue, it was more about the enjoyment of the encounter. After reading your replies and thinking about it some more I think you are all right, so I'm going to keep the Mind Flayers. The campaign has a major mystery element to it, so Legendary_Resist_Dance's point about leaving clues and letting the players figure it out was especially helpful.
I think just tweaking monsters a little bit is a good way to freshen it up. Give it a magic item or a singular class ability. For example, I wanted my hobgoblins to be more like romanwarriors, using their shields to their full potential. So I just gave them all the protection fighting style, representing the defensive shield lock they were making. Another time, I gave a kobold a vorpal blowgun (Stolen from some crafty gnomes) It was an interesting encounter to say the least. I rolled openly that encounter. I never rolled a Nat 20, but the threat was there, and it completely changed the tone of the battle.
Always look at the stat block and see an open baseline for you to build off of. Some of the magic of 5e is that it's simple. It's so easy to tweak stat blocks and adjust monsters to your needs.
Encounter building is an art, full of endless possibilities. It is the duty of the artist, or the DM to explore them.
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I'm writing a homebrew campaign for some friends and I had planned to use a Mind Flayer and a handful of Intellect Devourers as a main encounter; however, one of my players is going to be running a campaign that uses these same creatures and has been reading up on them.
My question is: in your experience, does knowing about a creature make it less fun to encounter? Or does knowing what it can do raise the stakes and make it more interesting?
I'm trying to decide whether I should change the encounter to use something else before it's baked into the campaign
This is a case of player knowledge vs character knowledge. Some call it meta gaming cause the player know what it is their character doesn't.
It's ok to use the same creatures regardless. It's your game and make things up as you go. If you're concerned that your players are going through then change it up. Our characters over time will know about certain monsters.
Thing is that you can have a visual of a monster and change everything about it. It can look like a mind flayer but have totally different abilities.
First of all that's meta gaming. in my games i'm fine with meta gaming, it can make for interesting stuff. In this case I would say it's more fun, the player get's to experience the fight and not just plan one like it for you. He'll know what strategy will work and can take charge rather than just wail on it with a sword for 5 hours. I would talk to him if you're not okay with meta gaming and clear up what he can and can't do.
You can always RP character ignorance. Just think of what your character would do if he didn't know the monster's strengths and weaknesses.
Let the other players who don't know the monster's stats figure it out.
If everyone is getting hammered, and the battle is on the verge of being lost, you can then have your character "save the day" with a great idea that you just thought of.
At some point during this game, you play through enough of the monsters you gain a baseline familiarity to many of them. It's a problem that will eventually be dealt with in every group but it is a meta knowledge situation where separating character and player knowledge is important. Still, if you are worried about the surprise of the encounter becoming dulled because of the knowledge of what the creature at the end will be, consider the story angle. Think of who the original Alien movie was such a horror classic because you never saw the creature until near the end. You could plant different bits of evidence along the way through the dungeon or game that leave the party guessing as to what they are going to encounter at the end.
The fun for this comes from trying to figure out what the creature is. Even if the party knows how to deal with a Mind Flayer, they would still be excited to find their guess that the boss at the end is a mind flayer was correct and if you leave enough of a trail of other red herrings, they may prep for the wrong thing. This could make the encounter with the Mind Flayer just as challenging as if they were facing it for the first time.
Thank you all for your answers. I wasn't really worried about the meta gaming aspect, I know the player well and I don't think that would be an issue, it was more about the enjoyment of the encounter. After reading your replies and thinking about it some more I think you are all right, so I'm going to keep the Mind Flayers. The campaign has a major mystery element to it, so Legendary_Resist_Dance's point about leaving clues and letting the players figure it out was especially helpful.
Thank you all again!
I think just tweaking monsters a little bit is a good way to freshen it up. Give it a magic item or a singular class ability. For example, I wanted my hobgoblins to be more like romanwarriors, using their shields to their full potential. So I just gave them all the protection fighting style, representing the defensive shield lock they were making. Another time, I gave a kobold a vorpal blowgun (Stolen from some crafty gnomes) It was an interesting encounter to say the least. I rolled openly that encounter. I never rolled a Nat 20, but the threat was there, and it completely changed the tone of the battle.
Always look at the stat block and see an open baseline for you to build off of. Some of the magic of 5e is that it's simple. It's so easy to tweak stat blocks and adjust monsters to your needs.
Encounter building is an art, full of endless possibilities. It is the duty of the artist, or the DM to explore them.