Do you use some kinds of monsters more?

[Anthony]

My usual encounter design theory is to look in a book of monsters and find something that looks like it would be an interesting challenge and that I can shoehorn into the current storyline. It does probably mean I underuse 'vanilla' monsters, though humanoids are good because there's a lot of room to customize them.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Brandy

I have in the past leaned pretty heavily on undead. I'm a little uncomfortable with the trope that "all creatures of type x are evil and so not worthy of restraint or mercy" when those creatures are thinking beings.

Originally Posted by Yssa

I have the same problem -- Orcs are people too, after all.

Yeah, I have that issue as well. I do tend to have them often as bandits, however. My game world is stereotypically crapsack and nobody's ideal. After several sessions of kobold bandits, I convinced my players to give up on them, as I was sick of them.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I tend to use one class of monsters per location/adventure. Mostly humans here, mostly demons there, mostly undead elsewhere. It makes a bit more sense to me as a designer. That said...

Originally Posted by Yssa

I have the same problem -- Orcs are people too, after all.

I've been shying away from orcs and "evil races" in recent years. I'm finding them increasingly problematic, and I have no particular interest in rehabilitating them. So it's usually people (humans/elves/dwarves/etc., who are fully functional moral actors and are good or bad on an individual basis), very unhuman humanoids like lizard people (ditto, but very culturally different rather than potentially troublesome stand-ins for ethnic stereotypes), dangerous automata like undead, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know (because they're inherently inexplicable), demons (intelligent, but just plain evil for its own sake in ways that don't have to be justified), or unintelligent beasts.

[b-dog]

I tend to use faerie the most. And by faerie I mean pretty much any supernatural creature that is not a demon, angel or Elder Thing. The faerie are beings from other realities or cosmologies. They are neither truly good nor evil but they are often corrupted by demons.

Another reason is that slaughtering mortal tribes of ogres does not seem right but but if the ogres are interlopers from other worlds then it is not as problematic to me, mostly because faerie minds and logic are alien to humans so they are almost impossible to negotiate with unless they want to. Ogres in my world come in and then become gluttonous eaters of human flesh, especially babies so it is not hard to see why they are killed.

I like to have the mortal realm where the PCs live be natural which means all supernatural creatures are unnatural and usually come from another realm.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Ogres in my world come in and then become gluttonous eaters of human flesh, especially babies so it is not hard to see why they are killed.

Eating babies does make it easier to justify a kill-on-sight mentality.

One of the reasons I like elder things is that they don't just eat babies, they eat reality itself.

My off-the-cuff revision of Mirror of the Fire Demon to become "Mirror of the Elder Thing" generated some fun play toward the end where even some demons (associated with the demonologist NPC who mostly hated the PCs) were siding with the party because they were just as afraid of the thing behind the mirror.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I...uhhh...like things that look like normal things. Mimic chests, mimic doors, mimic houses. Everything mimics. :-D

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Dalin

Eating babies does make it easier to justify a kill-on-sight mentality.

Usually easier to justify for supernatural entities, though.

For example, my ogres are actually humans with a particular magical trait (semi-inheritable but can also be acquired) that let them steal the strength of their victims by eating them. Victims don't actually need to be human, but using it on sub-sapient creatures tends to result in the ogre losing intelligence and trending towards becoming sub-sapient itself. In addition, ogres are not under any particular obligation to use this ability, though they do have to be careful about proper food preparation if they want to avoid using it accidentally.

Thus, if you run into an ogre who's 6' tall and 200 lb, you probably aren't justified in thinking he's evil. If the ogre is 8' tall and 500 lb and not functionally retarded, he's probably bad news. If he's 12' and 1600 lb and good at poetry...

A few more examples:

Myrmidons lay eggs in flesh, and the eggs eat their way out, absorbing some of the traits of the host; a fully sapient myrmidon was hatched in the body of a sapient creature. Technically a myrmidon who doesn't reproduce or help in reproduction may not have done anything wrong, but humans rarely make that distinction.

Pixies feed on dreams. Pixie dust is an addictive hallucinogen that cause people to sleep with wild dreams.

Orcs were designed by ancient wizards who wanted warriors who would do what they were told, and figured having a conscience was a liability. So, they removed it. It didn't work all that well, it turns out that clinical sociopaths don't actually make good soldiers, and they probably wouldn't still exist except there's a curse that creates them.

Lizard people aren't inherently malign, but they simply fail to recognize humans as people (to be fair, humans have the same issue towards lizard people) and thus lack empathy, pity, etc, towards humans.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I...uhhh...like things that look like normal things. Mimic chests, mimic doors, mimic houses. Everything mimics. :-D

The barkeep asked why we carried our weapons into the tavern.

"Mimics" I grumbled.

The barkeep laughed, we laughed, the table laughed.

We killed the table. Good times.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by martinl

The quirky NPCs because they give the PCs options about how to handle things, are fun to play, and hard to read. Is the crazy old guy in the dungeon some sort of dungeon bum, a disguised monster, or a mondo-powerful old guy? It's always interesting.

Dungeon bum.

Okay, there's an idea for me. I'm trying to imagine a bum who isn't good at fighting but is good at not dying in a 20-story-deep tunnel complex full of demons, dragons, and undead. And who follows the delvers around, yelling at them to spare a couple of silver.

I'm getting a Hobo with a Shotgun vibe, though Newt in Aliens is probably a better model.

But to get on topic: I overuse humans. Evil humans, sure . . . but also nasty-but-not-evil humans (like good-guy fundamentalists who literal-mindedly commit genocide against intelligent monster races), misled humans, mind-controlled humans, and crazy humans. It's harder for the PCs to just up and kill someone whose reasons for attacking them are having been lied to or enchanted, or are linked to mental illness. But of course truly evil ones are best – we're the species that devotes its ingenuity to deadlier weapons, military tactics for vast armies, etc., and human failings are the inspiration for common monster tropes.

Some of my favorite dungeons have involved indifferently monstrous monsters that could mostly be negotiated with or avoided . . . and a rival adventuring party that has its murderhobo on, setting traps for the PCs, stirring up the locals against them, and annoyingly snagging all the good treasure a step ahead.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm getting a Hobo with a Shotgun vibe, though Newt in Aliens is probably a better model.

Sure. Might also be a pet, or blessed by the gods, or a sacred oracle, or too diseased to approach, let alone kill.

That's not even considering the kids of dungeons where the ecology makes no sense at all. If there's a merchant with an unguarded shop next to a bunch of extra-murdery thieving types, or a creature with no possible food or water supply that doesn't involve it leaving a room who's exits it won't fit through, a dungeon bum on the wandering monster table is not that strange.