MONSTER MANUAL - Terrible Writing Advice
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
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TWA unleashes a terrible and monstrous video on writing monsters! Learn all the tricks for creating horrible monsters to menace the heroes of your story or tabletop game. Said tricks mostly consist of cheap shots and short cuts, but I never said I wasn’t the monster here.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro to Monsters
00:58 Why we love monsters
03:19 Overall considerations
05:19 Invincible monsters are boring
06:00 K.I.S.S. applied to monster design
06:24 Monster abilities
07:14 Gimmicks can be bad
07:36 Gotcha monsters and how I hate them
08:35 No one likes getting hit by a cheap shot
09:02 Monsters killing dumb characters doesn’t sell them as a threat
09:18 Damage sponge bosses can be really boring
10:00 The classic monsters and balance concerns
10:42 Monsters still need buildup for a decent payoff
11:34 Hone descriptions with a focus on immersion
12:38 Monsters need characterization as well
13:10 Smart monsters are dangerous monsters
14:42 Conclusion
15:23 Sponsorship Wars - The Great Backstory War
18:01- Outro
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In modern storytelling, if you're finding it kinda hard to design a monster or what it represents, when in doubt, call it "Lovecraftian", pat yourself on the back, and call it a day.
Man, I feel called out.
This is a personal attack
Bonus points if you've never actually read a word of Lovecraft.
Or just use 1 of his monsters he made up anyway. It's OK, they're public domain now! One of them was a villain on DOCTOR WHO, and another was the last boss to fight in the 1st QUAKE game.
Ironically Lovecraft did that with the word "eldritch".
Monster manual rule number 1: whatever you try, someone will find the monsters cute or sexy
Gobbo😊
You mean make a girl version of it? No nobody does that, ridiculous
[Looks at the dragon quest slime plush sitting on top of my NES] what? Noooooo, no way.
Rule number 2: the more a monster becomes a cute or sexy monster girl, the more likely it's going to end up becoming a succubus. If you've been around monster girl media on the internet for long, you'll know that monster girls becoming succubi is basically the monster girl equivalent of animals evolving into crabs. For proof of this, look no further than dragons, they're normally scaly winged behemoths, but the monster girl genre turns them into succubi with thicker wings and tail.
Isn't that rule number 34?
First rule for making monsters, base them on real life mythological monsters without doing a single bit of research, that's a perfect way to show how talented you are
Or just base on a creepy bug, rodent, cute animal for deconstruction purposes, or a freakish experiment gone horribly wrong
Greek and Norse only, though. You might consider Egyptian, but surely mummies alone should be good enough for anything desert-themed.
Google what D&D thinks a gorgon is and prepare to be utterly baffled. I'm convinced it was a typo that never got fixed.
@@teddyhaines6613 Egyptian mummies and cacti, they go together perfectly!
@@teddyhaines6613usually those are somewhat accurate. Anything outside of that is a random monster with an unfitting name slapped on.
My favorite thing about the xenomorph is that it grows to full size without ever eating anything and therefore gains all that additional mass to grow from nowhere.
Allegedly there was a deleted scene in the first movie that had the alien rumaging through the ship's pantry.
was it ever confirmed that it was gaining mass? i thought the small form was just really dense
@@noyz-anything Considering that someone was able to walk with one inside them, yeah, it being really dense isn't likely.
@@brianpembrook9164 That seems plausible. But then again would an alien be able to digest human food? Just a thought experiment.
@@mariustan9275 Well, this alien in particular had semingly no trouble growing inside a human. When you can eat human flesh, than there is not much stoping you from eating cows and pigs.
Remember, never question why monsters are carrying loot crates.
Every wolf carries gold coins, dungeon keys and mithril daggers, but only 1 in 17 has a tail.
If you had to work in a damp cave, untouched by civilization, you'd also want something to comfort you, even if it's just a box of coins and +5 Swords of Almostultimateasskickery.
I remember some browser game that had a quest of knocking forest critters out and giving them money for adventurers to loot. I assume that's how it always works.
More games should have them using the weapon so you have the knowledge that you'll be using the weapon that was kicking your ass moments ago.
Hats
Honestly, the fact that the bit between 0:59 and 3:12 is just an actual, unironic love-letter to the history and lasting appeal of monsters is actually probably my favorite part of the video. It shows that, even if the focus is mostly on the comedy, these videos still come from a place of love for the craft. Great work as always, TWA!
ua-cam.com/video/xy0A2vdSNnc/v-deo.htmlsi=VRArR0t1F1r-9qPB
I think this video(along with his ealier video on the Lions of Tsavo) also do a great job both not just telling a true story(give or take minor exagerations and/or narative liberties/gaps that need filling) about what more ir less were actual monsters, but also talking about this same idea, that modern man has somewhat forgotten just how dangerous nature can be even with our modern technology, and what that must imply about our ancestors who had to deal with much worse things with far less.
Recomendation: TWA-Fans assumedly would like Terrible-Book-Roasts, so why not check out Empress-Theresa being covered by UA-camr Krimson Rogue? And assumedly anyone who liked JP's speech around Minute 2-3 would like some scary stuff, sowhy not try Mr Creeps, Dark Somnium and Lighthouse-Horror?
I'm pretty sure even if the channel might have started as parody it has long since become legit writing advice first and foremost, with an abundant layer of comedy
Have your monster vaguely look like your political opponent. Its called nuance
No,nuance is the opposite of old uncles.
@@canaisyoung3601😭😭😭
Best monster encounter I had was when my character made up a fabric ghost to lie his way out of a situation, and 30 minutes later the DM revealed that the monster we were dealing with was indeed a fabric ghost.
oh how spooky!
Ah! The famous "Scooby-do" gambit.
the fabric of reality ghost
My favorite D&D encounter ever was a random, giant fish my PC caught in a pond. We had made camp and my guy went off to catch dinner for the party. The DM rolled up a giant fish and it almost swallowed my guy whole. The party ran down to the waters edge when they heard my character screaming. They found him half swallowed and they had to carefully beat the thing to death without stabbing my PC.
I remember when the resident Aquaman guy of the party had a really bad experience fighting some goat demon, and on the way back thru the pasture my dwarf joked “hey look, another goat demon”… only for use to be told it was clickity clackity we’re under attackity
We, uh, spent out sweet time exterminating the whole field after that
Most real life predators would run away as soon as they found out that the big shiny stick goes "ouchie", unless they were defending their young or desperate for food
8:19 That actually sounds like a funny idea. A wizard that makes monsters when they're drunk, and they are just completely weird and usually do not physically function or make sense in any way, at all. I'd write that lol
I mean, that's genuinely the most accepted in-universe or even outright explanation for a bunch of _D&D_ monsters already, like owlbears, several type of mimics, probably a bunch of the undead, etc.
@@MusicoftheDamned fair enough lol
@@MusicoftheDamned No, owlbears make perfect sense, if you actually think about it for more than two seconds.
@@VeryPeeved ...Weird response since I never said they or any of the other monsters made by wizards don't "make sense". I just said that wizards making them is more or less official. There *is* a difference.
Owlbears make more sense than platypuses, but unlike platypuses (as far as we know), only owlbears started out as artificially created animals. My comment was only about that much from the original poster's comments since they brought "what if (drunk) wizards made monsters" and they already do.
_A bored wizard once created a vizzerdrix out of a bunny and a piranha. He never made THAT mistake again._
-Magic the Gathering
For modern CGI monsters, make sure it's either 1) Gray 2) a cloud, or 3) both.
For added bonus, it appears only in heavy rain and at night.
I guess that makes the English weather the best CGI monster of all time
You're missing the key ingredient: "Make a replica of the Cloverfield monster with a different head."
4)NEITHER,just like in Bird Box!
Mermaid in the desert actually gave me an idea about oasis sirens that specifically make oasis nests to lure in prey with a source of water. This also likely makes them somewhat more akin to underground dwellers that live in deep cisterns, digging upwards to grab prey. The whole life cycle likely involves them starting in cisterns, before schools of them burrow through the sand and make small oasis areas and slowly develop small lakes and feed that way.
Just make it a transmissable(not zombie just puke your guts out fungus, that kind of thing is very much something a bunch of microbes would have a better time trying to do
Desert Mirages are suitable habitats for illusion monsters! I learned in physics class that mirages appear when funky physics stuff causes the air to refract light so intensely that it actually refracts around a complete curve and comes right back up. In other words, a refraction that looks like a reflection. The brain, processing incoming sensory input in ways that are the most likely to make sense based upon its past experience, perceives this false reflection as something that actually is reflective. Namely, a pool of water.
Monsters that are living illusions or which have the power to generate illusions probably enjoy desert habitats very much! The same is probably true of any other habitat that naturally distorts perception. Monsters that specialize in auditory illusions probably live in or gravitate to places with unusual acoustic properties. Monsters that influence shadows are probably most active at dawn and dusk, when humans are likely to be awake and active but with compromised color vision because of the poor lighting (assuming that this is a monster that preys on humans; its timing would vary depending on preferred prey species).
Ooh, you could make up a whole ecosystem with just this one kind of monster ability! The possibilities are marvelous!
@@Ama-lama Yeah, really. Shame more people don't come up with monsters like this, given you could have some particularly nasty monsters for your party to deal with
@@Ama-lamaauditory hilosonations would be terrifying, I think a limited power set with superior size, faster then human sprinting and good enough smell to track down people who managed to out endurance it would make an absolute horror both to face never knowing what sound is safe or when you're finally far enough away to really sleep and and as a society that any sound no matter what it is might just be something trying to eat you, to add that what if like how most parrots don't actually understand what words mean just when their it would copy sounds to lure and distract people with perfect accuracy but totally inhuman
I love speculative biology in fiction, it’s cool to think of how a fictional creature could realistically work biologically as if they were real animals
I wish fantasy leaned into the science of their creatures. Would love to see a world where magic evolves in the same way that life does.
Kind of like how the common speculation of dragon breath weapons (fire, at least) is using a special organ to ignite flammable gasses inside of them, etc, etc. It is pretty neat.
@@dizzydoom4230 I know, adding a touch of science to fantasy not only makes it feel more real, but knowing why fantasy creatures can do certain things can be interesting plot details, in Honor among thieves, Thumberchaud (the Chonky dragon) breaths out combustible gas, and ignites it afterwards with sparks (likely from electricity produced the same way as electric eels), they are able to escape by using the water to avoid being burned, and used the finger fire trick to blow a hole in the ceiling, something they couldn’t do if the dragon simply opened its mouth, and fire came out
@@geordiejones5618Have you never read Brandon sanderson because you pretty much describe stormlight.
@@bryanmcclure2220 not a fan. His style and characters just don't do it for me. Pretty good world builder but I'd prefer he make like an RPG or something. Same problem with GRRM too I wish they would let someone edit their stuff. I couldn't get anywhere into ASOIAF or Stormlight. I just read the wiki.
Bear in mind that historically, the line between monsters and real animals was a thin one, especially since many real animals were mistakenly given monstrous qualities, and even well-understood animals (e.g., bears) were terrifying boogeymen. And even today, the main difference between monsters and real animals is often nothing more than the fact that the real animals actually exist. There are plenty of animals that are as bizarre or frightening as monsters.
What a bunch of nonsense you wrote.
Most animals, when encountered in the proper context and shall we say "state of mind", are basically monsters.
@@laststand6420 If by animals you mean humans, then yes.
@@TrueNeutralEvGenius 15:00
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter It's hilarious he was predicted in this very video.
Really love how Greed lures those to his side with promises of wealth and escape. Joining Greed's side is literally surrendering to your own greed.
... And you realized that NOW?
@@LordCrate-du8zm They're talking about how they loved it, not how they just realized it.
@@LordCrate-du8zmReading comprehension is not your strong suit.
@@PoshBeardNo need to be an asshole dude.
JP is a better writer than he lets on!
Don't forget to turn your monsters into hot anime waifus and spend way too much time describing their reproductive organs and mating habits. And always remember: if there's a hole, there's a way.
And whole party are made out of bard it seem
monmusu quest
I'll CROSS that out.
And that's why my stories are full of plot holes
Mhmm, great idea!
Rich Burlew (of OotS fame) once wrote an official D&D publication that detailed "dungeonbred" monsters: existing monsters that were bred specifically to be better dungeon monsters (smaller, needing less food, seeing in the dark, etc.). As always, Wizards did it.
Latest of Witcher novels, Season Of Storms, deal with similiar concept where Gerald is hired as essentialy bodyguard around castle where wizzards experiment with modifying various monsters for their purposes. The oldest one formaly leading operation (but factuly being just puppet cause he´s senile) is responsible for developing witchers mutagens.
There were also acid breathing sharks to make pools of acid even more dangerous, which were then mocked in the OoTS comic.
@@RipOffProductionsLLCSelf-mocking, Burlew himself wrote that template.
@@sylvanas9329 oh, I wouldn't have doubted that even if he wasn't the writer of that particular part, it would still be a good spirited jab.
5:07 The funny thing is, getting sunscreen in a snowy biome isnt actually a bad idea, as much as it might seem like it. When the sun's up and there's snow covering the ground, the light of the sun will be reflected off the snow entirely, meaning the light that hits you is amplified
You could very easily get a sunburn when its snowy out tldr
You missed the best part: the players don’t know the numbers, so I can just make them up until one or more of the players calls bs then say “it’s on 1 hp”.
My favourite example of world-building with monsters was a necromancer using halls of reanimated skeletons as logic gates in a gigantic dungeon-computer. Arms up for 1, arms down for 0.
The player characters were hired by the necromancer as "debuggers" when other monsters got into the skeleputer
Wouldn't just make more sense to use little bones in the fingers and hands, their smaller and you get like 10 times more
@@asherroodcreel640 Depending on how necromancy works in this setting, they might not be able to control individual bones. Does your necromancer have power over anything dead or anything touched by death? Or does your necromancer have power over dead souls? If they can control anything dead or anything that was part of someone who died, then finger bones are an option. But if they only have power over dead souls, then they need to bring back the whole entire person.
8:16 In case anyone is wondering, this is an actual monster from D&D. It's the wolf in sheep's clothing, which looks like a tree stump with a false rabbit on top of it to lure in prey with the promise of an easy meal.
There is several irl animals that do something like that.
I always found it funny that it's a false rabbit given how notoriously flightly those things are, but I'm legitimately not sure what lure would work better (against wild animals).
Pathfinder has it too, and upgrade it so it puppeteers the corpse atop it to attract prey
@@Delmworks plus in pathfinder it's possibly alien
@@MusicoftheDamned a dead rabbit
Once again, this genius descends from the heavens, to give us just a little bit of his divine wisdom, and definitely not terrible advice.
Couldn’t have said it better myself
Yer preachin de word, parson.
That was the most epic description of goblins appearing
I love the fact how it could also be used for Skaven approaching almost word for word.
I love the idea of monsters intergrating into natural ecosystems.
Same, like with monster hunter, every single creature has it's own personality, food aource, territory, everything
It better if the monster is important to the eco system. Like a monster that turn things into stone having a predator that is immune because it is blind but the stone turning monster keeps the doe population in check so they dont destroy environments by being to many. Both monsters dangerous to humans but gives them a liveable area
In my fantasy, I have a rule, only one monster in the same "class" can exist in one area, so trolls and ogres can't live in the same space as the minotaur, because a monster the same size and general make up would be competing for a slot in the food chain and one would eventually need to win out. Also a space needs prey animals, deer and boar and anything in that class, or else your monster can't settle that space, why would it live if it has to travel for food. You can also fit a big class like an ogre with small class like goblins in the same space as long as they don't get in each other ways like say the goblins live in caves and come out at night and ogres live above the caves and sleep all night.
Is this a joke? (I'm asking genuinely)
You know biological diversity is a thing, right? Why do you think zebras and wilderbeast have the same “niche” yet have not driven each other extinct?
@@griffinflyer77 I know biodiverity exists, but a human village surrounded by one of every monster is just insane too. Zebras and wildebeest aren't making spears and axes to actively hunt each other. Opposing human tribes don't live in spear throwing range.
@@mathiasbillard4225 No, limits keep the world interesting, you can add a monster or two to spice up an area but not every monster in the manual needs to be in the world all at once.
Ah, so basically like how evolution works. In any case, much like how that isn't a strict rule in evolution, try to break that rule a little from time to time.
Really good example of a monster that my DM used was a dragon that we were told had moved into the tundra we were exploring.
Emphasis on the moved in from somewhere else part, it was a red dragon that came to the tundra because everything was iced based and weak to its flames. This sort of fucked us over because we were expecting it to be a white/frost dragon. This was a small detail we missed that we got hard punished for.
From an evolutionary standpoint that warmth loving dragon would be dead in the water
That dragon would be in for a rude surprise when facing its first remorhaz.
@@AntipaladinPedigriFrom a D&D standpoint, dragons can shapeshift into human form when they get older. Red Dragon breathes fire.
If he moved in when he was old, he could light fires easily and shift to human size and biology, only using his dragon form in short bursts to fight / travel long distances
@@antoinelachapelle3405 Red dragons don't have humanoid forms and are weak to cold damage
But getting resistance/immunity to cold is kinda easy, so it would still be an acceptable bargain for an old red dragon
@@dude8351 well I haven't played since 3.5, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure all dragons could do that back then.
the sarcasm behind "abilities themselves are what make them cool, not using them in cool ways" is so on point. I am sick of weightless, surface level fights where the solution is always "throw more cgi energy blasts at it". its getting around the limits an ability has that keeps us engaged, as we're on the edge of our seat waiting to see what tricks the characters have up their sleeves. yes, power overloads and martial arts can be really cool too, but the shouldn't be the only thing in their roster
The thing with playing a monster like a smart predator is that the moment you start doing it, either the party will have a plan against it a month in advance or they're gonna scramble and get TPK'd because they forgot the items and abilities they had like a minute ago
honestly combining fire and ice attacks for a monster could introduce an entirely different status of frostburn, inflicting a double-dose of deadly frostbite and burn, so theoretically it would actually work quite well for those two elements depending on how far you are going to go with it
Or just go pun-based and go with freezer burn. Actually freezing is already burning in a way. Ever touched dry ice? That stuff burns to touch but in a different way.
@@mariustan9275"So cold it burns"
Sounds like Ultimate Big Chill to me
Or maybe what actually happens when fire and ice meet, explosive steam
it makes me quite happy to see that mine were not the only thinking wheels powered by this monster concept
My idea is having a reptile whose powers depend on the outside conditions, ice when in the cold, fire when in a warm environment.
@@mer_acle8101funky little dragon!
One thing you can do if you really, really want a specific "just because it's cool" monster design is to build the dungeon in which it lives *around* it being a place said monster would inhabit, which could potentially make for some fantastic environments. Take JP's example at 7:06 of randomly giving a monster teleportation and regeneration just because. What sort of environment would those abilities be particularly beneficial in? Perhaps somewhere with deep chasms and canyons that are extremely hard to cross _without_ teleporting, and labyrinths that it uses to trap prey while effortlessly being able to navigate itself. And depending on how teleportation in that setting works, it could be somewhere rich in whatever resource is needed to pull it off, be it a specific magical attribute or a weakened barrier between dimensions. And if the latter, perhaps dimensional travel takes a serious physical toll, so regeneration is necessary in order to teleport more than once. But that would take a lot of energy, so clearly food sources for it must be plentiful. Food sources that serve as other obstacles for the heroes en route to the main event.
Also: Regen good for a young monster still learning teleportation and teleportong into holes instead of over them by accident.
There's an upper limit to that though. For example, take a dungeon with a mated pair of Displacer Beasts. Say they're protecting their cubs until everybody's old enough to rejoin the pride.
The smart way for the Displacer beasts to fight would be to ambush the party during other encounters to wear them down or to try to pick off a wounded party member during a rest. Or even the old "illusionary bridge" trick.
This is good horror. And some players *hate* it. As a GM you've got to recognize when some players *EXCLUSIVELY* want sword-fodder for their personalized pile of melee combat stats and contrive a way to give it to them.
How I make monsters:
1.Draw a bunch of random lines, curves and shapes
2.Try connect those random lines, curves and shapes into one whole thing
3. Add more random lines, curves and shapes until it looks somewhat coherent...or incoherent
When I finish, I have no idea what I just made, but dang it looks cool.
If there's one damn good piece of advice to take from this video (and there's many), its that fiction writers and basically creators of any kind of media applicable to this subject matter should consider the monster's place in that world and how it interacts with it, and how the world molded it to be what it is now. Stuff like this elevates a decent video game into a great one, and I sure hope game designers in particular look at this video as good general principles to follow for the design of their enemies.
7:50 I want a gotcha monster that isn't immediately hostile.
Players open a chest and see the teeth but the DM doesn't say "Roll Initiative".
Maybe it's still fast asleep even after the interaction, or maybe it's simply confused, perhaps it just steps back and glares at the players but won't hurt them unless first hurt.
it could be cool in a dungeon that has been plagued with (and by that i mean "is regularly plagued with") a sleeping mist or spell that is caused by the nest owner to then feed on the fast-asleep critters.
@@mistery8363I was moreso thinking "This is How They Work Fundamentally in this world"
@@youtubeuniversity3638 oh okay. would "being opened" qualify as being hurt?
It could differ depending on their role. I had a dungeon idea once where treasure chest mimics served as minions. They obeyed a higher power which wanted to draw the heroes deeper into the dungeon in order to use the heroes for something. So the mimics, as dutiful minions, disguised their mimic nature by retracting their teeth and hiding their tongues. They'd whimper if attacked, but otherwise pretend as hard as they could to be normal treasure chests. They'd let the team take their treasure freely, as if they were normal chests. Their primary purpose was to appear whenever the party considered leaving the dungeon. Their loot was always quite good, hopefully good enough to entice the party to keep going. This same higher power drove any nonhuman animals who entered the cave mad, causing them to act senseless and lose all ability to defend themselves. Presumably that's what the treasure chest mimics fed on in compensation for their human-baiting services. Mimics who did NOT serve as minions would be hostile just because they're hungry.
@@mistery8363I'd take "being opened" as equivalent to just shoving the thing's mouth open, it'll be confused and maybe a little insulted but it won't go straight to trying to hurt anybody.
Recently I’ve been binge watching all your videos to help me write my webtoon, I absolutely adore your content!
Wow you have a webtoon I have a webtoon if you tell me the name of yours I'll tell you mine
Careful with signing with them, they have a history of treating their talents poorly
gl tho hope you get eyes 👍
Btw it's canvas
For me, the Monster Hunter series has some of the best monster designs in any form of media, in my opinion. The design philosophy from the developers uses imaginative realism, using inspirations from animals from our real world.
The Nargacuga is a prime example of this. It uses real world melanistic jaguars as its primary inspiration, and it is a very grounded monster design, like something that could feasibly exist with a well thought out ecology and biology in its design and behaviours (it even sounds like a jaguar would, and is canonically nocturnal too) Plus it looks awesome too
Not to mention the franchise mascot Rathalos, which is a two legged wyvern instead of a traditional hexopodal dragon found in other media.
Edit: The best thing about Monster Hunter is that the monsters are not really monsters in the most traditional, truest sense of the word. Yhey are really just fictitious animals, which is something i love
This is why Fatalis is such a good monster because it subverts the "naturalistic" aspect, making it unique and grounded as an unnatural force of evil and hatred.
@@YEY0806 I would argue that it looking like a traditional hexopodal fantasy dragon makes it stand out from the rest, seemingly otherworldly and alien in the world of Monster Hunter, as if it doesn't quite belong there
@unicorngamer9736 that's what i was going for in my previous comment. It should've been more descriptive. But yeah, that's why I like Monster Hunter
Yeah, figured I’d see some monster hunter love in here! For 90% of the video’s points, I was thinking “yep, this totally checks out in Monster Hunter”.
The most fun detail is how you finish off most monster fights in their nest or lair, in their native environment.
You also fight Fatalis in its native environment: the ruins of humanity.
"Does it eat?" This was my question for the sand worms of Arrakis(Dune). "How in the evil emperor's realm does this thing get enough energy to displace millions of tons of sand every time it hears footsteps a few miles away?"
Probably drugs...
It just thinks it has the energy.
And if it's cold blooded it'll help quite a bit as well
I think (and bear with me it’s been years) that one book says Sandworms eat microscopic plankton like creatures that live under the sand, like whales.
@@Mordrevious I mean it is fiction, but the plankton theory seems a little farfetched for an environment as desolate as Arrakis. I really liked Dune and thought it was odd that F.H. had missed something so obvious in his worldbuilding. Maybe there is another explanation I am unaware of? The sandworm is powered by some sort of geothermal, magnetic, or mineral source?
@@LordNapking Lol, that's hilarious considering the amount of spice they are sitting on.
@laststand6420 I think one of the sequels acknowledges the sandworms feeding on sand plankton, or maybe an appendix to the first book that wasn't included in the version you read. Furthermore, the "sand plankton" are in fact baby sandworms that feed upon the spice made by their elders to hopefully grow into sandworms.
Fun fact: D&D Orcs and Goblins aren't green, but we see them as green due to Warcraft's cultural hegemony.
That would be _Warhammer's_ cultural hegemony, since _Warcraft_ was copying them.
@@boobah5643 Yes, and no: Much like how Poul Anderson originated the regenerating troll but D&D popularized it, Warhammer's only cultural influence is Warcraft.
What color are they then? As in on average?
I'm not sure if modern D&D has changed it, but in 1st edition goblins were yellow and orcs various shades of grey.@@d4arken3ds0ul
In D&D? Orcs are grey, goblins are the color of spicy mustard. @@d4arken3ds0ul
Monster is one of my main research interest, so here a few other thoughts to complement JP's!
1) Monstrer comes from the latin "monstrum" or "monstrare", which means "to show, to warn, to reveal". As such, monsters and stories about monsters tend to warn the reader against one or more trangressions. This can be as complex as "genetic engineering needs to be regulated and not left into the hands of profit-motivated actors, no matter how well intentioned" or as simple as "spiders are icky." That does not mean that every monster story is intentionally written as a deep allegory, but rather that an author should be conscious of what a monster is a warning of, especially if they borrow an existing monster, and make sure that warning fit the story. If you are writing a story about the linfering effects of trauma and the social rot often hidden in small towns, and you suddenly throw in a giant spider at the end, you readers would be justified in going wtf?
2) Surprise monster, while uncommon in literature, can often be seen in movie and shows, where a monster will suddenly pop into frame. Good movies will have the monster be there in the scene for the eagle-eyed viewer to notice (See the final scene of Alien for a great example of this) Bad movies just have the monster teleport into frame when needed, even if logically we should have seen him before.
3) Monster stories are not necessary horror stories. You can insert a monster in every genre! And it doesn't have to be as an antagonisr!
Out of frame teleportation isn't a monster-only thing. It's a general problem with visual media, where the creator has decided that the characters can only react to what the audience sees. Which is weird when they're staring at the camera.
3) is just monster love triangle, admit it
The explicit weakness thing reminded me of a thought I had the other day. Okay, so the werewolf's weakness is silver bullets, but would he really survive a headshot from a .50 cal? How about a tank shell? How about being dropped in lava? What if I shot him with a phaser? Can he survive mustard gas? Suppose he accidentally ingests too much alcohol or cyanide or antidepressants, what then? Can werewolves breathe in the vacuum of space? How much g-force can a werewolf survive? Where do Alderranean werewolves live now after A New Hope?
I feel like the best way around these questions is to restrict smaller monster-hunting scenarios to very limited environments where these sorts of weapons wouldn't be available: i.e. make sure your characters are a couple of civilians with limited small-arms fire and the police/army refuse to investigate on account that the story of the monster sounds ridiculous. If the army does get involved, use a small squad and make sure the monster has good stealth abilities.
This reminds of a story I made once, basically demons were real and a constant threat, in the past due to their stupidly powerful resistance and regeneration magic was needed to deal with them, however now guns and other powerful weapons deal more damage than even a demon can recover from, making magic less relevant and making the modern world safer
If werewolves and or vampires exist. They would be an invasive species that converts humans into them. Humans would be replaces with these new and improved cursed beings.
I mean I have read a web novel that solved the werewolf silver weakness by making it so that they can survive some grievous wounds such as being shot in the chest with regular lead bullets but something like being completely crushed, disemboweled or beheaded/destroying the brain kills them regardless of the method.
@@fetusdeletus9266 I wonder if chocolate is poisonous to werewolves 🤔
This reminds me- the best way to up the difficulty in a campaign is to add immunities to the monsters. Players love having to throw out things they specced into. The best way to encourage party diversity is to make party members situationally useless.
Seriously, I pity Witchers so much. They basically say "If you hunt this yourself you will die and make everything worse."
After which exactly that happens the people come knocking at their door saying "Oh Mr. Witcher please help us poor people who didn't know better. If anyone would have told us!" and their job gets twice as hard.
Capcom's "Monster Hunter" series has some flawless creature design. Somehow things like a rocket-powered dragon and a praying mantis piloting a mech are believable as natural creatures in that world. They're just, *chefs kiss*
Internal consistency is key to creating a believable monster.
Does the monster have an ecology? What does it eat? When does it hunt?
Does the monster have a lair? Make the lair itself pose a decent challenge.
Does the monster have any special powers? Make sure they're used well.
What narratives and other technologies have people developed both naybors and only in store range from dealing with that monster
As much as I enjoy mimics, the 'random trap critter' element of it did always bug me a bit. For my own campaigns, I tweaked them to make them more like giant hermit crabs that find unguarded chests, coffins, and other containers, climb inside, and hold the lid shut in between hunting sessions. Gives lots of opportunities for evidence of their presence (like drag marks around their hiding spot), a mechanical gimmick (the box acts as a shield from one direction, making it important to track its facing), and an excuse for having random treasures despite being a monster (they're sitting on whatever was already in the container).
Giant hermit crab is already nightmare fuel on it´s own, you didn´t need to escalate like that!
I like the element some dnd supplements add to mimics where they can form colonies that glom together to form fake buildings or even cities
Literally just giant coconut crabs. I dig it.
Oh boy you should see what I'm working on, I'll post it when I'm done
I like to think of mimics as natural parts of a magical ecosystem. They're ambush predators like any other. In a world where magic is a thing, they psychically intuit what their prey might find attractive and assume that form. They don't actually have any treasure; they're just hunting. Unless for some reason they need to lure their prey somewhere else, in which case they steal loot and hold onto it as a lure. They don't usually use such clever strategies. They would only do that if they were forced to or if a higher power was using them as minions. They are capable of disguising their true nature, acting just like whatever object they pretend to be. If their trap is sprung by someone who is way too powerful to fight, they do that in order to avoid being killed.
I'm not sure if they can change their forms currently or if they are descended from an ancient lifeform that once could. If the former, they can shift from treasure chests to vases to logs that would be just perfect to sit on, allowing them to spread into basically any environment. If the latter, there are distinct races of treasure chest mimics and vase mimics and coin mimics, which are only capable of reproducing others of their kind and are severely restricted in their habitat. That, in turn, implies that such races have help. Such overspecialized creatures can't survive naturally, so someone or something must be assisting them...
But yeah. Mimics having motives. They might attack or might not, depending on how visibly fearsome your party is. If you find a chest with loot inside and it's low-quality loot, that is likely to be a genuine find, but if it's high-quality loot you should check for retracted teeth and question the wisdom of continuing any further. If your party LOVES confronting danger, you might ask the mimic if it has a master and if so could it please lead you straight to them, which it will happily do because it really doesn't want to use luring and other complicated strategies. If you feed a mimic, it might adopt you as a new master and follow you around like a pet. Come to think of it, this is probably how their species survives. They've become overspecialized because humans wanting to deceive other humans found these creatures to be very useful pets indeed. Thus, being severely restricted in the habitats they can survive in is no problem because humans transport them from habitat to habitat, feeding them on the way. That's how treasure chest mimics can move from one dungeon to another without starving to death in the open forest in between. This also explains why mimics are much more common in human-created habitats and typically take the form of something that humans find desirable. Their evolution has been guided. Wolves were domesticated into sled-pullers; psychic shapeshifters were domesticated into living traps.
But could there be populations of mimics that have somehow found a way to survive in the wild? If so, how do they differ from regular mimics? Perhaps they are more intelligent, or have developed social behaviors (normal mimics are entirely solitary). Depending on how long they have been surviving without human help, they might be more difficult to tame. Perhaps they've even begun, in limited ways, to regain their original shapeshifting powers...
I really should stop before I end up writing a book.
an important distinction to make for DMs vs Novelists here is that you really should not be giving every encounter a significant description. Important story and boss encounters sure, but there are too many mook encounters and you'll just burn yourself out creatively not to mention that not every group wants that much description.
I had a DM who opened the campaign up with a fight against like 20 orcs. Everyone in the party who dealt damage was one shoting them because we literally couldn't roll low enough damage not to and our DM asked us to describe EVERY SINGLE KILL.
Saw a hilarious mimic joke in an animated show recently. The heroes caught a chest that kept running away, figuring there must be a great treasure inside, only to see the creature's pulsing entrails when they lifted the "lid."
I forget what show, but the subversion was pretty entertaining
I love how Geralt constantly looks bored and annoyed. Seems...on point for him
Making monsters for your setting is simple:
1. Add owlbears
2. That's it, you're done.
Add giant furry tardigrades
@@user-cz9wu4zz8i bees?
What if the owl bears all rome around the city making woman where tiny hats
Exactly what I needed!
I lied, I didn't need It, but it'll probably be a fun video to watch.
A new TWA video? Now this is the Halloween ever.
That extended monologue near the start was incredible, sent chills down my spine!
Needed beet transitions
@@asherroodcreel640 I didn't ask you but OK.
To defend the ice monster there... honestly all those abilities can work. Gives me this image of a predator that makes a maze and uses those abilotes to shape it while teleporting to different locations.
A smart ambush predator basicly and could make for an interesting encounter when used correctly
Seems unessicary, unless it when after people to get shiny things to attract mates
Here's a surefire way to make unique monsters.
Step 1. Be Japanese
Step 2. Write your own horror manga.
Step 3. Profit
If you have followed these steps, congratulations, you are Junji Ito!
That is one guy
Some of his short stories contain monsters that are logically spurious. Like, if the story was extended into the past or the future or both, something would break along the way. It really only works for a short story. But dang, are they scary in that short story, and thinking up ways to extend the story is a creative exercise that might be adaptable into a book or campaign.
Those balloon monsters that hunt down the people whose faces they share - what happens if the person changes their face? Will the balloon monster's appearance change, or will it become aimless, doomed to wander the world without a target? What created them - someone or something who wanted perfect assassins? What do THEY do if their creations turn out to be easily foiled by haircuts? And what happens to the aimless monsters, created for a purpose that they are unable to fulfill? Bam, I just spawned a book out of a short horror manga.
Junji Ito is really brilliant. So much can be made out of that man's ideas.
@@Ama-lamaI actually really really like the idea of interaction with a newly traversable past and future slowly breaking the world either as a narrative through short stories or a many perspectives book, life doesn't really have an off switch and even really sick animals still fight endlessly get up and walk around, that combined with interpersonal drama, ideology and a little bit of what we learned about psychology from the death camps, especially if you did the world falling apart very well could make a great book
The balloons on the other hand are deeply silly, it's a more morbid verson of something I would draw or come to as a joke bouncing off with friends, and outside of being a neat way to look creepy and talk about suicide as a more litteral monster easily hard countered by armor and duct tape or purning shares or a kitchen knife which every one had and knows how to use, generally when I set out to make a monster I want to give a powerset that's fun to write and roleplay as or against, and have create interesting societies, when I'm working on a story I come up with something on the spot I want them to forster images and emotion visorally and happen at you with enough history of there interactions you don't fully feel like your in control, as for the hair cut making the bloons obsolete you could make it about the dissolution of the samurai class it's a bit further in time from current Japanese culture but I don't know why it couldn't work
I'm really impressed of how his art has evolved over the years. The amount of detail is quite staggering for the style.
It's sad that when you do spend time and resources on crafting meaningful content... players tend to not see it.
eg: Level 5 party, 4 players.
Sent on a VERY suspicious fetch quest. ("infiltrate this government facility" style)
Arrive and disturb a lich. They SHOULD know this is an impossible to win encounter, but I dialled the difficulty down, while telegraphing that they weren't accomplishing anything ("your weapons bounce off it" style) but I emphasised the environment. Particularly the eerie glow from within a skull that the monster was throwing around for its legendary actions.
Near TPK before I got frustrated and asked them to perform ANY kind of check. Remind that that Liches can only be killed when their phylactery is destroyed. Finally cotton on and destroy the skull, find the crystal phylactery and smash it... which is just what the creature wanted, as it had been bound as a protector for this cite by that skull. It thanked the party and fled (having recovered its soul)
Could have been a cool moment, where they used lore and perhaps some metagame knowledge to have it subverted on then. Instead felt like I had to lead them to an answer I knew was wrong (their only other option was to leave. Which would have been fine)
I find so many players are SO used to accomplishing the impossible that they just try to murder hobo all the things.
Level 3 sorcerer? Why not try to charm an angry adolescent dragon! Roll a 20? Why, of COURSE it would just instantly be your best friend!
No. You walk up to an angry dragon that has just had its arse kicked, you're GONNA get eaten. Charm is not an option. Particularly if you didn't bring it gifts or offer it worship. If the party had disguised themselves as kobolds and brought it offerings? Then I'd have considered something else. But just some random human sorcerer walking up to a dragon that has destroyed an entire town to make its new lair... that's a hard no. You are not a green dragons equal. You're either a meal or a servant.
We can all agree that the Monster Musume did that *Gloriously!* (!)
If you could have one of the girls, what would it be?
@@dunkyking6310 Dragon. EZ life. I also would like to smash a dragon and a wyrm as well as all the harpies
We were supposed to slay the monstergirls, but we laid them. Instructions were unclear.
(Not that I complain)
@@AntipaladinPedigri Worlds loneliness problems have officially been solved!
For us duded that is! Insert lol evil laughter
I have every Monster Girl Encyclopedia book; and for the most part, they tell about the numerous ways the Monster Girls want to SA you, so idk about that
Small thing, but I really love the new turning page transition and tiny sound effect. Makes me feel like I’m reading a writing guide. That said, maybe consider how often they’re coming up; too many at once while listening to you speak can make things just sound busy.
12:49 I remember reading a book where the adventure stuff was a video game and the main group did win against an overpowered monster by breaking its pathfinding by abusing how aggro was decided, the real world economy was based on the game so it was a big real life payout too.
One of the best writting of monsters i saw in fiction was in the game called Gothic. There monsters are literally animals. That have their day-night cycle, scavengers for example during day eat seeds and small worms in the ground and sleep at nights, yet Shadowbeasts sleep during day in their caves and go out to hunt when it’s dark. Also most creatures will try to warn player by hissing or growling like real animals do when you enter their territory it’s like saying „don’t come any closer or i’ll bite”. Also they’re natural part of the game’s ecosystem. Lurkers prey for goblins, human hunt for scavengers for their meat. They’re made to be integral part of the fauna not just another boss in the dungeon
"And goblins appeared."
Got it. Thanks.
Yknow, there could be a really interesting reason for a mermaid to be found in the desert.
But I like your idea about plopping monsters down randomly for no reason, so I think I’ll do that instead and save the work of writing an interesting backstory.
Just as there could be interesting reasons for finding a mermaid corpse in a dessert.
Good that you add subtitles now, I don't get some words sometimes and I need to check their writing.
Not being native english speaker is hard.
There is something truly meta about adding intentionally clunky mid-roll ad pauses as greed gets more powerful.
Working on monsters now for my book. Perfect timing
Remember to make sure your monsters use the same rules and balance as your players - you know, those rules and abilities designed to keep a single player on a team of players occupied and having fun - for the bad guys, whom you may have to run multiple of at once while making rulings, and who need to provide a challenge for multiple human minds working together, all with a wide range of abilities and powers to choose from that you can’t possibly plan for fully in advance, let alone know how they work.
Otherwise it would be SO unfair, and not at ALL fun, especially not while everyone agrees this is exactly how the game should be played as a moral imperative. 😊
Just because something is a vicious monster doesn’t mean it doesn’t have set behavior, motivation and basic feeling; Remember just because Cerberus is blood thirsty alpha predator doesn’t mean he isn’t the Underworld’s Bestest Boy!
Two of ours more beloved pets are pretty much a lot of death and carnage in conviently package of plush.
i mean his name in greek literally means Spot soooo
Oh my, JP is turning the pages for me! How thoughtful!
The thing about monsters never retreating is so real. Last week the party I'm in killed a dragon and followed it's trail to a lair where we found some behir's talking about how afraid of the dragon they'd been and how they were glad it was gone. Despite us offering a peaceful solution and proving to them that we killed the dragon by showing it's severed head they still attacked us. Why would you fight the thing that killed what you had been afraid of?
Creature design is far in a way my favorite field of artistry and not even by a little bit. I think the fact that 90%+ (and counting) of my current writing project is dedicated to describing the many demons of my setting should communicate that unto itself.
What kind of setting?
Can I see one, we can trade
@@asherroodcreel640 I would copy/paste a description for one of my demons, but I'm genuinely afraid my comment will be auto-hidden or auto-deleted.
8:19: you could use that as a perfect excuse for having crazy monsters in your story.
Or in my case, the products of a drinking contest between Gods that got *waaay* out of control.
Could be a great setting for a surrealist comedy- "the dragon has claws of purest adamantium and wings of sweetest milk chocolate"
@@jeremiaas15 or an Ogre who drinks gasoline.
@@juliovictormanuelschaeffer8370 That's a great one! Imagine a medieval world which has a fully developed petrochemical industry, but everyone just assumes it's Ogres' equivalent of agriculture, and no one realises it could be useful for anything else.
@@jeremiaas15 I talk about that in my comic: due to many catastrophes, a new type of humanity has to live with dinosaurs, mythological creatures, and other weirdoes in the planets of the solar system. The creatures live in different areas of the worlds, for example the Ogres live in mountains where they seed them with gigantic life, the goblins in subterranean towns, etc. That's why dinosaurs and other giants will become part of their diet (and their hunters).
One time, I tried to include a monster that met very specific story elements, but I literally couldn't find one that made sense because sometimes the mythology made no sense for the location, the monster wasn't dangerous to humans, it doesn't live in this habitat that I want it to be in, so I literally never wrote it and changed the plot point to make sense. I wasn't going to try to make a new monster.
The most realistic character in the party is the guy who's always on his phone.
"Maybe the real skeleton was inside us all along!" - Producer Guy
This is something I legit need to work on. I'm terrible with descriptions, so I've noticed far too often I kinda just have the monsters show up, fight to the death, then be killed without any drama or fanfare. I don't know how to come up with better descriptions though
My Advice would be watching not jut more 'Terrible-Writing-Advice' but also 'Hello Future Me' and 'Reedsy'
Remember: If you want to make your monster scary and memorable, give it some Body Horror. That *always* makes anything scary.
If you want some advice on how dnd monsters would act, read “the monsters know what they’re doing”
For those who like stories that answer the "Overall Consideration" questions, READ DUNGEON MESHI. Or watch the anime when it comes out in januray. Dungeon meshi good
You uploaded this just as I was struggling with how to create a Hag for my DND session, you’re a godsend JP.
That doofy looking stump with the rabbit on its head, can, if framed well be used to great effect. My characters knew something was up when the stump moved closer overnight.
Everyone wanted to leave, but the ranger REALLY wanted to figure out what was wrong with this rabbit.
Ranger was swallowed whole, but the party helped him out.
It's called a Wolf-in-sheeps-clothing
11:40 to 12:25 this is really good description, if that was an actual story I would definitely give it props
Here's my handy dragon test: You can guesstimate the quality of the story from the dragons.
The dragon is a character? It's probably a good story.
Dragon(s) attack the town because it's what dragons do and only our hero can save the day? Don't expect more than repeated tropes.
Dragon(s) are only there to be killed to show off the power of a character? Trash. The fun kind if you're lucky but don't count on it.
Also, stay out of my den. It gets tiring after the hundreth sir Whatsalot comes in pronouncing how righteous they are.
If this is meant for inexperienced DMs, I might recommend some reading
- the monsters know what they're doing. Excellent considerations for how they would utilize their environments. 2 books and a blog.
- the random encounter tables in Rime of the Frostmaiden. It uses a separate roll for weather, with one creature only appearing when the snow makes visibility near impossible, which doesn't impair it. Worth considering for designing your own encounter tables (even before trying to get the hang of probability using multiple dice for the same table)
- the stat blocks in combination with the travel speed. Half a day's travel at a slow to normal pace will help with establishing the ranges of the more important or notorious creatures in a setting.
- the environment tag. Can't speak for all publishers, but WotC's early monster books in 5e had a section at the back that listed the creatures that could be found in any environment.
If you're more inclined to watch or listen, try WebDM and Dungeon Coach.
Hell yeah! Subtitles are back!
(But some videos still don't have them. Like the Smart Characters video)
As a big monster fan, this basically covers all the things I like out of good monster design. Thanks for the video, JP!
1:05 to 3:12 was really well written and read. i was fully paying attention. bravo.
So fellow DM's what was the best monster you made. Mine was a shard of the god of insanity that took the form of a paper dragon. It had a confetti breath attack it could only be damaged with fire, water, and a magic (cardboard) sword that would change its form after every players turn.
If I saw that thing I would instinctively try to slam it between a book like Doodlebob
You know, I could honestly see a fire & ice monster working. You could have it, say venting temperature of one extreme as its basic attack while it builds up the opposite extreme for a bigger surprise attack. Maybe even hint at this development by giving signs that the monster who keeps blasting the heroes with bursts of cold air is becoming hotter with every icy attack, say by melting some of the ice closest to its feet.
8:22 I'm guessing J.P. REALLY hated gotcha monsters when he wasn't the DM in a D&D game.
9:54 That's pretty much every RPG and RTS, isn't it?
11:38 "Morally Gray Conundrum"? That's a thing when slaying giant beasts in a WITCHER game?
Having the cult leader in the rebels? Good callback to the Rebellions video.
You're usually slaying the monster as part of a quest. The monster itself may or may not be morally gray, but the quests are.
I was wondering why JP was doing a really long serious bit about the appeal of monsters and then the other shoe dropped with "I can just write about how cool they look!" and I spat out my water.
Recomendation: TWA-Fans assumedly would like Terrible-Book-Roasts, so why not check out Empress-Theresa being covered by UA-camr Krimson Rogue? And assumedly anyone who liked JP's speech around Minute 2-3 would like some scary stuff, so why not try Mr Creeps, Dark Somnium and Lighthouse-Horror?
with every appearance, i am becoming increasingly enamored with flat-hair-phone-guy. Nothing phases him. No cold nor beast nor god will take that mans head off of what I can only presume is his home screen. what secrets does he hide from us? what ancient wisdom has he honed? I will never know.
His secret powers may lie in his thorough understanding of the magic known as "sarcasm".😂
love the eyecatchers before and after the adds~~
This video came right about the time i needed, since i am writing a campaign inspired by shadow of the Colossus
Monster design! I'm sure the allknowing JP will lead us to victory with his ever cosmic knowledge and not the inside of a dragon's stomach.
Remember the eleventeenth rule of monster design: if you completely lack creativity just have them fight robot/zombie/ghost hitler.
make it ALL OF THE ABOVE
And keep the nonsexual necophila
Always a good day when you post
I really like the new chapter switch (the turn page one). An Idea for a possible next TWA: How to write a Mascot.
I haven’t watched the video, but I know that it’s very important to learn.
As someone whos never played dd, this id incredibly acurate.
As someone who's played every version of D&D; this is incredibly accurate.
I appreciate you stretching this 10 minute video to 15 minutes(not counting the ads)
Free Idea: have the "chest" the dungeon monster is guarding actually be a MIMIC, maybe those species are symbiotic by the mimic eating things that might eat the big monsters eggs?
I used to run a DnD campaign. I kept trying to set up the boss monsters with NPC's and subtle story telling. But I had one player who has zero attention span and would just interrupt me constantly and kill my NPC's on sight.
Ouchas...
That's what retired adventurer NPCs are for.