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Special Episode: Casting Against Type (Patreon)

Published:
2023-09-28 21:42:40
Imported:
2023-12
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Patreon backer Rafe brings you this special episode all about how to make monsters different without losing what makes them fun!

Thanks to Ray Otus for our thumbnail image. The intro music is a clip from "Solve the Damn Mystery" by Jesse Spillane, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Comments

Anonymous

Thanks James, I enjoyed your take on the topic - I particularly think I can get some good mileage out of the literal ‘Brad Pitt/Twelve Monkeys’ casting against type!

James Baillie

Some thinky notes: - I strongly suspect that the second best known drow as of right now is Viconia deVir. Being one of the five characters who's appeared in every iteration of the best known explicitly-D&D computer game series which has just had a major new title released is a pretty strong public relations boost. - I don't know why video games do beholders so dirty but my gods they really do. I've played a good bunch of computer games with beholders in and I can think of like one very, very minor B-list villain beholder, and that beholder was in a whole nest of beholders. They get reduced to guard dogs or arbitrary combat encounters actually very very often in games, which confuses me. - I think casting against type for good/evil is a ton more difficult today than it probably was in the 80s or 90s because gaming has done so much of it already, so even if I were going to cast, say, an orc as good against type I think I'd genuinely have to put a lot of work into orcs being generally bad for most of my players to get that message (and it might not be a message they'd enjoy). So I think the later point you make on lateral casting against type on other features is often the most rewarding way to go, I think something like "a goblin that's several hundred years old" could be quite fun for example as that feels against expectations in a way that provides some interest. - A further interesting note on typecasting and expectations: something I've noticed is that recent computer games with tieflings do not, and do not have to, put *any* time into telling players that it's OK, the guys with horns and tails are not evil. They can just be rolled straight out there as ordinary folks. Which I think says a lot of interesting stuff about how much gaming has eroded some pretty major image archetypes over time.

monsterman
>>119146720

Were tieflings particularly evil when they started out? I genuinely do not know. In my campaign, devils *hate* tieflings, whom they regard as mortals barely different from humans who are just putting on airs.