I was watching some RPG YouTube, and of course there was talk about Monsters. And with the recent OMG CONTROVERSY with the newest Monster Manual, I got to thinking about something that is more inherent in D&D and in fantasy games in general, why so many monsters? I’ve played various other games, and read many books, watched many movies, but it seems that fantasy games, with D&D leading the charge, seem to have more monsters than any other medium in the genre, or other genre’s in particular. So yeah, why are there so many monsters?
I just explain it as “LOL zombie apocalypse werewolf destroys your character if it puts them at zero hit points … but 2024 5e thinks it’s fine because they removed all its resists and regeneration”. Or
“It’s a Carrion Crawler, failing one saving throw means you are permanently afflicted … yes you get a new save every six seconds, but you automatically fail it forever”.
I actually do not miss the powerful save-or-suck mechanics as “roll the dice to see if you get to keep playing” is more randomly punishing than fun IMO.
But getting rid of damage type resistance doesn’t make any sense, as that’s one of the few ways weapon choice actually matters!
Giving monsters better initiative seems like a good idea, because otherwise they risk dying without getting to actually do much.
Making creatures like Gith and Gnoll, Aberrations and Fiends etc. makes sense, and gives a bit more meat to the creature types. But having them not be humanoids also seems really weird. Either they should be both, or “humanoid” should be renamed.
So it really seems like a mixed bag to me. Good well implemented ideas, good poorly implemented ideas, as well as oversimplifications.