Don’t Play Every Monster the Same Way
January 30, 2009 by shent_lodge
Filed under rpg
Game masters tend to be master tacticians skilled at precise maneuvering of their monsters, and then timing every attack, and every spell, so precisely as to exploit every weakness in the players party. Some players eat this up; all the added stress of the monster bypassing what they thought was the perfect repertoire of skills, feats and defenses makes them sweat. I, in particular, like to see this style of play when encountering the “Big Bad” that has been orchestrating the raising of the dead in the local cemetery.
Here though, I have seen many a great GM falter, as they play every monster the same. The lowly orc attacks, and drops a PC to unconsciousness, and then steps over the PC, essentially standing on top of the body so no one can get to the dying character in time without risk of being attacked. At the end of the battle, the players think, wow that was tough. The next combat is with a zombie and the zombie does the same maneuver the orc did; later a spider does the same. The players clue in and the next game every PC has reach weapons or every PC gives up on ranged weapons, because combat always starts too close or the monsters all fight in the same way.
I say orcs may attack and stand over a PC if they have superior numbers and there is some leader type in the room, ordering them to do so. Zombies should attack randomly after a PC drops or maybe stop fighting, and start eating. Spiders may attack, and drop a victim and drag that person away. Monsters should behave like PCs from time to time, some should charge forward, and some should stay back, some are brave and some are cowardly. Hold all your cool GM skills for the battle with the “Big Bad” but don’t forget that some “Big Bads” can make mistakes under pressure and you should give the players the opportunity to see the weakness of their opponent, maybe at the moment when the players are thinking all is lost, and “this beast is going to cream us”, and then suddenly the it turns and runs, or does something that the players can exploit to win the day or at least get out alive. The most important part is to mix it up, and make the combat entertaining and challenging, but never the same.
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This is great advice. The only thing I’ll add is: don’t make monsters universally stupid. I think a lot of gamemasters fall into the ‘attack until destroyed’ trap. Monsters want to live too. Have one or two orcs escape from the big battle to alert their leaders. This can either lead to a counter-attack, or smarter tactics in a future encounter.
Example: I ran a party through an orc-infested ruin where they were romping over the foes easily. A few escapees from their last battle described the group’s composition allowing the orc leadership to plan a couple surprises in the next encounter. The party’s mage was fond of opening up with a lightning bolt on first contact with foes. The orc leaders took advantage of this by arming their kitchen slaves and sending them out in a group to draw fire. This depleted the mage’s spell ability and identified him so he could be focused fire by the orc spell casters. The party panicked when they realized their glass cannon had wasted his most potent spell on a diversion and was now blinded and confused as well. This simple tactic lead to an epic fight that the group still brings up at game session.
“don’t forget that some “Big Bads” can make mistakes under pressure and you should give the players the opportunity to see the weakness of their opponent”
I don’t usually pop into random posts to pimp my blog, but you might enjoy this story:
http://neartpk.blogspot.com/2008/09/shards-of-gate-of-darkness-part-6.html
I hear ya, Shent, but I think there’s simpler advice to give: run your monster the way your monster would act. Roleplay the critter.
It’s a simple thing to do once you divorce yourself from being the pure antagonist and instead run the monsters like monsters. You won’t always make the best tactical choices that way, but then neither do your players (hopefully), and they won’t feel quite so stressed out about making mistakes.
Though, take all that with a grain of salt—I prefer a varied game style in and out of combat, and it isn’t my goal to dominate the PCs (unless I’m playing a critter whose goal is to do exactly that).
RPG Ike, I do have fun playing zombies like zombies and I do cover up mistakes like when I let a party paralyze a 3.5 dragon (technically you can’t) I played out that the dragon had some sort of mold and also had brittle scales. The dungeon that followed later with the PCs searching the dragons lair up the mountain side. It ended up being full of molds, oozes and jellies and was totally made up on the spot to help cover the fact that I let the party get a monster because I goofed. The group had a blast and never complained. They still talk of the time they found that dragon with the strange illness.
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