What monsters can be interesting as PCs?

Question

I believe that the premise of the player as the monster of the game quite compelling. Vampire: The Masquerade is obviously the pioneer in this genre, and other creatures such as werewolves, ghosts and demons have been notoriously used in diverse games as PCs. Are there other monsters which can fit as good PCs?

Interesting monsters would probably:

• Establish social groups, at least small ones, so a group of monster PCs would be viable.
• Even being monsters, they should be charismatic characters, in the sense that their tragedy (or vilanny) is interesting to play.
• Although supernatural, they should be at least similar to a human — shoggoths, for example, are just too alien.

The creatures that come to my mind are the Frankenstein's monster and revenants (see The Crow), both of which would be so rare that a group of those would be really unusual. Also, it's questionable how much those creatures would be willing to find others of their kind, so they may not be a good choice for players.

Answer 1

I second everything that aramis has said. But, it seems you were looking for more specific examples and I have done some of this in the past.

As AceCalhoon pointed out, you should look at White Wolf's full catalog to start with. They have done revenants (a minor expansion to Wraith) and Frankenstein's Monster-types (see Prometheus: The Created).

I have personally done Lich's in a modern setting (using Mage: The Ascension with a few house rules) and found that worked quite well. They could pass for humans, but only through the use of magic, and while they were more powerful than most Mages (by virtue of age and experience) they were shunned by the vast majority of all Mage factions. It provided for interesting social challenges and themes of isolation and "us-against-the world".

In a more gothic (modified Ravenloft setting), I have dealt with groups of death knights. Normally Death Knights are purely evil, but it doesn't take much to get into a position where the Death Knight came to his position through evil acts and deserved it, but he was a good man that fell to temptation and then began seeking redemption (there was an instance of this in the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon setting). With a little tweaking you could have a truly good person turned into a death knight by an evil power in revenge for something the goodly person did to thwart the evil power.

I noticed the horror tag, but I will point out that Dragons make excellent PCs as long as you are going for a high power game. In DnD, most dragons can easily take on a human form, but they have a lot of power and a different enough thought and social structure to get into some interesting culture-shock situations. And sometimes it is fun to just run a high powered game where the PCs can decimate a large percentage of the opposing army at first... until that army comes back with its own Draconic backing.

And of course it can be fun to experiment, especially for One-offs rather than extended campaigns. I have done a cyberpunk setting one-off where the characters were AIs. I haven't tried it yet, but I think a game where the characters exist entirely in Dreams (think something like Nightmare on Elmstreet) could be fun. They might be able to subsist only on strong emotions and be forced to move to different dreams as the dreamer wakes up. If they were generally benevolent, they might have the challenge of creating strong emotions in a positive (or at least nonharmful) way, and find that the easiest ways to create strong emotions are by inciting fear and anger in ways that might harm their hosts. If they were less benevolent, it could be fun to just let the players creatively torment their hosts for their own sustenance while the hosts hunted for ways to end the nightmares.

Answer 2

Any intelligent monster with free will and the ability to manipulate its environment is a potentially good PC.

It needs free will to be suitable, otherwise it's no fun at all.

The ability to manipulate its environment is a prerequisite for effective PC's. It can be by magic, tools, or its own limbs, but it's not fun to play the brain-in-a-box.

Intellect is requisite for being playable as well, generally, tho' it can be rather low. I've run games with PC's that were mental midgets, so I know from experience that it's important. It takes a special group of players to play imbecilles. But it can be done.

Answer 3

I really think that if you want to take the "inhuman" route, the best way to do it is probably the Dresden Files RPG, or possibly Anima (or Big Eyes Small Mouth by extension).

In Dresden they give a lot of tools for a story-heavy mechanic that allows for inhuman characters of all varieties because of how free form it is. Plus, because it is based off of a series of books that have some mighty fine definitions with soft-spread physics adaptations to what exists are well within the frame. I could list some examples, but I am not sure how much would be unwanted spoilers.

Anima and BESM are anime related games so you can more or less claim your character to be anything you want within the DM/GM/ST permission and come up with a backstory. However these don't really cover the depth and development that you are looking for.

Answer 4

Any (intelligent) monster will do as good PCs. Just because humans and their allies are the dominant force in most RPGs doesn't mean they're the only ones with societies out there.

Take orcs, they're intelligent, have a strong social structure (biggest wins, smallest gets eaten) and no doubt have villages or communal gathering areas, family/tribal groupings, forms of exchange (gang with the most axes gets to exchange your stuff for insults and spit) and some sort of law and order (whatever the big guy says goes).

ok, so that's a little facetious towards the orc society, if I was to come up with something, it'd be a nomadic tribal system based on strong family ties and honourable or possibly fear based social interactions with other tribes. Think mongols for an example culture.

The main thing to realise is that orcs don't magically exist and don't live off air and sunlight. They need crops if static, domesticated animals and/or hunting areas if nomadic. They can't be total kill-everything mindless monsters or they'd have killed each other off by now.

So you can happily play an orc in an orc environment, over in the hills or deserts where orcs hang out. Occasionally you can be part of a orc posse that goes and kicks some marauding humans back to their territories, or engages in some expansionist adventures to bring back glory for the tribe.

Whatever, just remember that monsters are people too :)

Answer 5

Well, ages before Shreck and the Orcs trilogies by Stan Nicholls, I had lots and lots of fun playing as an Ogre, or an Orc, or as a Troll, or Kobold, or Goblin and the rest of that stinky villains... thanks to a D&D Gazzetter published by TSR - see a more extended review here.

Like most good RPG books, it can be reasonably adapted to whatever RPG game or edition or expansion you want, with a tiny pinch of salt.

I also had a shorter experience playing as a Centaur, or Pixie or Satyr or Leprechaun or similar other fairytale races, monsters and nightmares... it was fair fun as well, and the related TSR publication is this.

As usual, in role playing games, only your fantasy is the limit! ;-)

Answer 6

While not an entirely serious role playing system, Kobolds Ate My Baby casts the players as, you guessed it, Kobolds!

http://www.koboldsatemybaby.com/

Answer 7

It all depends on the system. Storyteller is balanced for the "monsters" that are the core of its essence. Some systems allow for this form a mechanics standpoint, but not socially - i.e. if a character of X race walks into town, will they burn them!? Once you get past this, then game balance comes in. Would the race favor a character too much? Lastly, do the mechanics allow for integrated the "monster" into normal character creation processes? I've allowed players to play very questionable races.. most usually can't function because of the lack of social acceptance. Players find their character must either fade to the back and not participate in many situations, or actively engenders hostile reactions. Those that do work i always consider "atypical" - i.e. i might strip away some of their abilities because they are not part of the culture/society which pushes them to develop in that direction. Most times this means the characters are not as glamorous... exotic and different yes (which usually appeals to players focused on story and can make good use of it), but mechanically weakened compared to their normal state (less appealing to power gamers).