After looking through the Monsters of Myth PDF again, I had to smile a bit and even simply shook my head at some entries.
Overall, it's an interesting book. Many of the monsters are just plain silly in my opinion. Some stretch the imagination just a tad too far. A few are actually pretty good.
One of the monsters I found in it that I liked a lot were the "Jotun" Giants. I like my Norse mythology and recognized the giants of Jotunheim right away. There's even a possibility I might find a way to use them in a future adventure or two.
All in all, I give the Monster's of Myth a C+. There a fewer "serious" monsters in there to make it really useful in my one person's opinion.
Having said that, it is fun to look through it just to find one of the few real gems that it has to offer. Even a bit more fun to just read some of the sillier entries.
It is because of this weirdness that I make it an option on my site instead of stuffing it down people's throats. I find that it is overall easier for most gamers to stomach when you have some kind of familiarity with the monsters (meaning like unicorns, dragons, ogres) because we generally have a connection due to maybe a novel, movie, or fairy tale. When you start making creatures that are totally brand new, players often just have a glazed look because they are trying to imagine this thing you are describing. I am not saying "stop making monsters", but merely stating I like the classics which is why the Monster Manual remains the obvious favorite to use.
ReplyDeleteThis isn’t just fantasy, but post-apocalyptic games I will try to have some type of recognition with the monsters. Do they look like a bear or horse? Does it look like a dragon except covered in feathers? Something that makes the players say "Ahhhh…that is what it looks like".
This is really just referencing my wife and kids when we play together, I am sure other hard-core sci-fi/fantasy fans have no problem visualizing an oddball creature from MM2. I just like to keep the world’s monsters simple.
Hey, thanks for stopping in. Gotta say, I love your website. I find that I tend to use the MM more than anything else and monsters of my own making over other monster books.
DeleteI come at it from the opposite perspective; I love all the monsters in MoM, but then I also like a lot of the FF and MM2.
ReplyDeleteThe key with a new monster to me is whether the author succumbed to the tendency to make new creations unrelentingly bigger, faster, stronger than the MM monsters. I agree with the familiarity issues, but I think the key is a good mix - there was a point where players weren't familiar with Otyughs, either, but they learn pretty fast. So the good job done by the authors to make the collection fit squarely within the power range established in MM, FF, and MM2 made it a very usable collection, for me.
This is a good point. If you mix mostly recognizable monsters with a few new/odd guys...then you can introduce the group to these creatures gradually instead of an entire session of shoulder shrugging.
DeleteCan't argue with that. but still. some of those critters are just ridiculous. Every book has those. Even the MM. For me, I find Modrons to be just plain silly. You'll never find Modrons in one of my games. Along with quite a few of the MoM critters.
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