Let’s talk about “The Monsters Know What They’re Doing,” a book designed to help you run the villains from the 2014 Monster Manual!
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CW: Curse of Strahd spoilers (marked so you can avoid them)
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
02:03 – A Word From Our Sponsor
02:53 – The Bad Guys Want to Live
08:51 – The Bad Guys Want Something Specific
12:14 – The Players Want to Experience the Core Fantasy of the Bad Guys
21:57 – We Want Our Bad Guys to Be Cool and Fun
28:53 – How This Approach Can Improve Your Games
36:47 – Keith Ammann’s True Enemy???
41:51 – Outro
Recommended Reading:
Removing Default Alignments from “Monstrous Races”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqlv87EufrU
Core Fantasies of Monsters Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF5zBOWphfZAdwSwqcU7HXXqoHg0Bf3TD
Hobgobglins & Low Level Play! | Running the Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP9ejX8Q1l0
How MCDM’s “Flee, Mortals!” Uses Monsters’ Core Fantasies to Inspire New Designs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FJXroY3As
Some Game Mechanics Just Aren’t Fun – Vox Machina, Ep. 21 | Critical Role Demystified: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9XXV3Rrqgk
Music from Epidemic Sound
Highlight Reel Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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Do you plan to pick up this book for your own games?
Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit https://www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 51% off any annual membership!
https://www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike
Baby Yoda 💚
Great video, I think I need to get a copy of that book.
I love this book and wish there were equivalents for more monsters. Like this with flee mortals would go so hard
I remember reading these posts back in college, was really instructive. Was incredible, and will need to buy this
Man your content is so good when you're not talking about Critial Roll. I'm definitely picking up this book because of this Video. More of this please. Less of the others.
No joke, at EXACTLY 43:04, I got an ad break for Domino’s that began with the phrase, “Life doesn’t always go as planned…”
I about busted my head open laughing.
Great interview! I really hope that WotC took inspiration from the success of TMKWTD while writing the new monster manual.
I unironically have a character whose alignment is chaotic stupid. Thank you for that call-out haha.
One of your best video, will definetely buy the book.
20:55 just don't forget to use the aura on the bodak
I definitely hand-waved and gave the Mindflayer extra ways to create thralls and influence minds and such. I figured the stat block is just the stuff it can do in combat. The mechanics for what it gets done off screen can be more fuzzy
Mike's heavy breathing made me think it was ME breathing heavily lol
I've always thought the flumph was a "joke" monster as they are also a kind of marshmallow sweet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flumps_(sweet)) in .uk that appeared at roughly the same time as the Fiend Folio. I'd go further and say the creature is a combination of the marshmallow twist (the tentacles) and a flying saucer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_saucer_(confectionery)), the body, and may have been inteded to be eaten during play.
This reflects a trap writers/roleplayers/designers always slide into: doing something only because you need to. It's like copying the design of the machine without the mechanics inside. When you pause to think of the underlayer/the intention, you're suddenly doing something a lot more compelling.
just recently bought that book
35:02 STRAIGHT UP SAVAGE
I already have 2 of his books and have wishlisted more of them! Great video! 🙂
Right now I'm running a game where the majority of creatures they will fight are chaos beings that simply seek destruction and harm to humanity/society as a whole. So sometimes for them, there's not a whole lot of tactics to use. But i still try to figure out where the creatures most excel at causing damage, either bringing down fortifications, chasing civilians, or hammering down on players.
I think the most damning condemnation of the Mind Flayer stat block is the opening to Baldur's Gate 3.
I won't post any spoilers but watching the futility of that one encounter genuinely upset me because of how accurate it is to tabletop.
"I'd ask you to make me an offer; but at this point, I don't think you have anything left that I can't simply take from you."
Powerful quote. I want to find a way to use that.
Interestingly enough, “The Monsters Know What They’re Doing,” is the reason I homebrewed every monster I ever used when I ran 5e. Just the amount of work Keith had to put in to make sense of these 5e Monsters just soured my to monster design in 5e as a whole. Especially casters, god, casters in 5e are a chore to run. In the words of Matt Colville "a Guardian Naga has 15 spells, and ain't nobody got time for that."
That aside Keith's work is fantastic and I highly reccomend it for anyone not interested in homebrewing every monster they ever run. If you are interested in doing that, I used Giffyglyph's monster maker, it's free and fantastic, especially when combined with MCDMs minion rules.
Ammann's books are great, I grabbed this on Summer 2023 and the others shortly thereafter. Thank you for shining a spotlight on this thoughtful work. They really will change the way your think, or at least they did so for me.