have you ever usedhad monster pcs in your games - /tg/

Anonymous09/28/26, 22:57No.98747183

Have you ever used/had monster PCs in your games? How did it go for you?

141

Replies

Anon09/29/26, 00:58No.98747673

A friend did and the DM punished him the entire time because the DM didn't understand how level adjustment worked.

Anon09/29/26, 01:37No.98747887

I played a minotaur. Peasant lasses were quite curious about was was under the loincloth. Half the sessions were just me and the DM doing ERP of her monster CNC fantasies. Good times.

Anon09/29/26, 03:12No.98748220

>Ever had? Yeah >How'd it go? Fine for some. Bad for others. The fine ones were session zero shit where everyone knew a monster PC was hitting the table and we made characters that behaved accordingly. The bad times were when we were already balls deep in a campaign when someone wanted to just join in a monster PC. The latter has happened on four different occasions and the response of the other PCs was collectively "Oh, Shit! It's an X! Kill it!" and the monster PC was killed on sight because that's the correct response for adventurers to have when a fucking monster just randomly shows up.

Anon09/29/26, 03:38No.98748302

Looking like a horrid monster is a real issue when interacting with ordinary folk, but I will note that a lot of monsters look like ordinary pc races or can disguise themselves as such.

Anon09/29/26, 03:46No.98748324

I ran a 3.PF game for undead player characters. I custom designed their undead templates so that their powers developed automatically over the course of their levels (so you don't just start out with wacky shit like vampires' dominating gaze for example). I don't claim they were technically balanced, but since all the players loved their particular form of undeath, I think that's at least a positive sign.I would never recommend doing something like that just casually or for a party mixing monsters with normal PCs. Do not fucking do that, no. But if you understand the game very well and you're designing the entire story around the assumption that all the PCs are undead, it can be done and isn't guaranteed to be a disaster. It's not for noobies. You have to be an experienced GM and your players can't be fucking munchkin trash.Other sorts of monsters are far less problematic. Minotaurs and centaurs and the like are honestly not really a big deal, mechanically. If you're doing D&D content, mind flayers definitely have issues, much like the advanced undead do, so don't just give them various powers right off the bat and if your story / setting can't handle their diet don't use them. Basically lots of humanoid-like "monsters" can be mixed. But actual real monsters should not be in a mixed party.The summary is basically that everyone in the party should be on a roughly even footing for their races. Period. Therefore, don't use level adjustments for races in 3.PF, they're an awful idea that fails to fix the problem for the simple reason that it's a fundamental incompatibility. Do not mix the party between powerful monsters and normal races.

Anon09/29/26, 03:58No.98748357

We played a campaign once as an all-vampire party. Had a great time larping as decadent nobility and orchestrating shadowy conspiracies.

Anon09/29/26, 04:24No.98748428

Whenever I do a one-shot, I'll sometimes let one of my players play as a friendly monster, most often a dragon of an appropriate age category. My most recent one was a halloween one-shot where the players have to stop a Nuckelavee from spreading its mortasheen rot over a series of small islands, so one of the players was a young bronze dragon

Anon09/29/26, 08:18No.98748926

Playing a spooky skeletaur centaur right now. It's p.fine even if I have to consistently use magic to disguise myself whenever there's the slightest risk of encountering mortals.

Anon09/29/26, 08:52No.98749041

I once played a Forlarren Witch in a game. Channelling the raw chaos of being an absolute BPD bitch was great fun.

Anon09/29/26, 21:59No.98752588

Sure, if the setting and campaign allow for it. Usually the player understands that they're not playing a human wearing a different skin, but sometimes they don't. Some people want to play a character that SHOULD be ostracized, treated differently, with suspicion and distrust, but they don't want that to actually happen, because they see it an an allegory for real life racism.

Anon09/30/26, 15:04No.98756772

I tend not to allow it, mostly because players who want to play as monsters are usually doing it to be special snowflakes, but partly because I'm a human supremacist.

Anon09/30/26, 20:12No.98758133

I had a friend who played a Turk in Call of Cthulhu, if it counts.

Anon10/01/26, 14:50No.98762444

These guys look like they’re having fun

Anon10/01/26, 23:37No.98764864

I made one player spawn in middle of scenario as animated skeleton with intact personality, except could not talk, later got resurrected properly into human we sometimes play generic system, you can make anything basically, often players take half something half other though we had one notable example: we played simple scenario for noob players, they managet to get TPK at first boot camp encounter, then again as orks looted some stuff from dead characters, and then again. Turned out into some dozen session spinoff when one player got to lead orc village growing with exping lietenants and expanding options (think Warcraft), rest trying to fight off green menace; culmination was little "Waagh", succesfull at first locally, got stopped when forces came from capital, and broke orks in pitched battle near their village

Anon10/02/26, 04:31No.98765967

I've played a dragon a few times, an ogre a few more, and once a bastard skeleton who I was told was a remarkable pastiche of Judge Holden. I had never heard of Blood Meridan until my friend, who assumed I was doing a bit, complimented me on it. I just wanted to play a charismatic evil skeleton. Apparently it was my successful convincing of a town to just Lynch a halfling instead of actually investigating a murder that made them think I was going for Holden. Still haven't read Blood Meridian to know why that is.

Anon10/02/26, 21:40No.98770191

I once allowed a warforged and I once allowed a revenant in my campaigns. They made the party look like a freak show. It went the way it always goes the player characters are effectively murder hobos.

Anon10/03/26, 09:24No.98772628

I played a troll druid back in the day; it was pretty fun, but the fast healing stuff had to be nerfed in order for the DM to let me play. it was a pretty fun experience so far I haven't had any player with a monster PC in my own games

Anon10/03/26, 14:42No.98773553

Whenever I've seen them it's always been some power gaming douchebag who's swindled the DM into it and doesn't roleplay the monster. Not the power gamers are known for being dedicated roleplayers regardless...

Anon10/08/26, 10:04No.98799518

It went fine. Had a gorgon in the group in a Mage: The Ascension game. They took the appropriate perm paradox flaws and I stipulated that they could play it, but they couldn't turn people to stone until they got the appropriate spheres that would let them pull that off. Honestly, it was pretty fun. They were a great player.

Anon10/14/26, 17:35No.98832012

Yep, I once ran a campaign with a couple PCs who were a vampire and a slime girl respectively. The whole party except for one were monsters but it's the vampire and slime girl I really want to mention. They were some of my favorite PCs I got to run the game for. Vamp was a huge party animal inspired by What We Do In the Shadows. He created his own nightclub and eventually destroyed himself by backstabbing too many of the factions giving him support. The slime girl went through the whole game and became a max level barbarian with two wives, not to mention the head of the continent's biggest temple. It was still probably the most interesting game I've ran.

Anon10/15/26, 06:44No.98834956

balance aside, the biggest question of playing a mind flayer is what do you eat?

Anon10/15/26, 08:01No.98835068

>Have you ever used/had monster PCs in your games?Yes>How did it go for you?There was no difference from normal pcs because it turns out 99.99% of players can't roleplay for shit and DMs are terrified of enforcing Reality Ensues dm'ing

Anon10/16/26, 04:22No.98838799

There's a bunch of items and spells that can make foodhttps://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/heroesFeast.htm https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/createFoodAndWater.htm https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/goodberry.htmhttps://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/purifyFoodAndDrink.htm (well this one just makes it safe to eat)https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#sustenance https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#iounStones https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#sustainingSpoon

Anon10/16/26, 20:42No.98841974

There was a LG mind flayer monk statted out in book of exalted deeds. page 17the weird thing is she's got the vow of non violence and it's never mentioned what she eats.

Anon10/17/26, 07:17No.98844294

There's some pretty weird PC races out there: https://dndtools.net/races/dragon-compendium--109/dvati--31/

Anon10/18/26, 19:24No.98850576

What “monster” races are underutilized as potential options for PCs? WoW has playable undead, the Tauren, etc., for example.

Anon10/20/26, 01:28No.98856279

When I was like 10yo, my older brother bought the MERP rulebook, but he didn't share it, so my younger brother and me made our own RPG, that had invented monsters as playeable races. Fun times.

Anon10/20/26, 03:18No.98856622

Yes.Fine.

Anon10/20/26, 04:06No.98856794

>Was a Kobold Druid "monstrous" by the standards of the setting, as in not deemed part of the civilzed races. >Party is made up of the enterouge of a minor noble house on the edge of the realm borderland of the evershifting chaotic lands of barbarians. >Arrive at head of Kobold barbarian refugee hoard >Diplomacy, make my demands >We will become a vassal >Accept or we will attack >Petty noble house accepts cause free canon fodder >Also Kobolds are not threatening, doubt they would have been okay with an Orc tribe, or any race that could not be punted.

Anon10/22/26, 03:20No.98861812

Its cringe and gay. Any player that insists on that ends up hanged in the first town.

Anon10/22/26, 08:53No.98862587

It's just called playing Pirate Borg with the full roster. You've got 25% chance of being something inhuman and likely not even humanoid.

Anon10/22/26, 17:01No.98863962

As terrible as you'd imagine

Anon10/22/26, 17:18No.98864043

Had a guy play as his character from the previous campaign, who got turned into shapeshifting demonic goo.Same guy later played as a skeleton trying to track down his crush: the necromancer that reanimated him in the first place.Both were pretty fun. He knew he’d be spooky to NPCs and he didn’t try to soak up too much attention. I had a good time tailoring threats that would impact him uniquely.

Anon10/25/26, 07:30No.98875675

if someone is playing a creature looks like an ordinary animal (or maybe even something like an owlbear) you can just pretend they're the ranger/druid's pet while in town.