I was watching some RPG YouTube, and of course there was talk about Monsters. And with the recent OMG CONTROVERSY with the newest Monster Manual, I got to thinking about something that is more inherent in D&D and in fantasy games in general, why so many monsters? I’ve played various other games, and read many books, watched many movies, but it seems that fantasy games, with D&D leading the charge, seem to have more monsters than any other medium in the genre, or other genre’s in particular. So yeah, why are there so many monsters?
Are you asking why there are so many kinds of monsters, or why monsters appear so frequently in the campaigns you’ve played in?
It’s kind of a mixed bag question. But the big question is why is there such a huge emphasis on monsters in the first place? There are a ton of monsters in all editions of d&d, so why aren’t there monsters discussed in Tolkien by the characters like this? There were a few, and either a large creature from the depths of hell that only struck one place, a giant spider who was content to be in her home and not be bothered by Hobbits, and an army of orc/goblin hybrids. In a d&d game, we are supposed to be attacked by several monsters, all different types, at any given time.