Story Telling With Monsters
Monster encounters are something I never paid much attention
to in the past. I always thought that you would encounter some monsters, fight
them, and gain experience. It never occurred to me that there was much more to
it than just fighting them. There is an art to story telling with monster encounters.
For example, with a campaign I am doing right now, I am putting together some
monster encounters. There is history in each monster type. They all have their
own enemies and where they are most likely to be found. I found some monsters
that would fit perfectly into my campaign. Those are the Merfolk and the Merrow.
They are enemies. So, I could create an encounter where the party encounters
some Merfolk corpses and there’s a Merrow there they have to fight.
Everything must flow. It has to have rhythm. There are many
ways to do that, but the bottom line is that everything has to fit. This
particular campaign is going to be underwater and above water in some caves.
So, you really don’t want flying creatures to fight. You would want something
that would naturally dwell in caves. I realize more and more that there’s a lot
that goes into monsters and how the party encounters them.
I also know that when you lay the groundwork before you run
the campaign, it will flow a lot smoother. Have everything taken care of before
you run it. Monster encounters are no different. To make it more interesting,
you can have your encounters all prepared and then roll a dice for a random
chance of which encounter you will find at a given point in a dungeon. Be
creative!
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