MONSTER MANUAL - Terrible Writing Advice

Do you hear that? Lurking in the shadows? Stalking us, tracking us by our scent. What is that waiting in ambush?

It’s Terrible Writing Advice’s long overdue video on designing monsters! Monsters are one favorite things ever right behind robots and robots fighting monsters! Monster design is a key skill for writers and dungeon masters alike. That’s why I can’t wait to bear my fangs and dig into monstrous monsters. From brutish beasts, fearsome foes, and even deadly drakes, Terrible Writing Advice descends into the dark lair of writing monsters to slay the beast of bad writing once and for all! And like all good monster hunters, I’ve done zero preparation! So I’m sure this will turn out well. Don’t you worry though, let TWA show every writer the proper entry in the monster manual so we will all know how to slay the beast and level up our writing!

Before we charge into the dragon’s den, I think it might be helpful to understand why we love monsters. Monsters are a nearly universal cultural idea and can be found in almost every mythology. They appeal to our more basic instincts, fear of the predator. Fear of the unknown. Deep raw visceral fears of being eaten that stretch back to when the first cellular organisms learned to avoid predation, an instinct honed through millions of years of evolution.

Yet dig deeper. Humanity once huddled in the dark, surrounded by danger. We were prey animals. Until one day we discovered fire to drive back the dark and spears to pierce the heart of the things that hunted us. The hunted became the hunter. Fight or flight. We fought! Fangs and claws met spear and shield. The desire to slay the beast still beats in the heart of every human. To take up the spear once again and protect our home from the eyes that prowl in the dark! Our soul still yearns to be a hunter.

The modern world has slain the great leviathans of old. We sit in our chairs and stare at screens all day while our survival instincts lay dormant. Yet through fiction we can experience that rush of survival once again without the real danger of ages past. We can stir those dormant emotions once again without risk of injury and live vicariously through page or screen. We escape from a complex modern world full of moral ambiguities and gray areas. Yet here before us in the world of imagination lay creatures so vile that justice demands it be slain! No moral complexity. Just a monster that needs to be killed.

Even more so when the monster itself is a thing not of nature but of the unnatural. It is the essence of the other, an otherworldly perversion, a servant of forces that seek to corrupt the natural order of the world and twist it into a cruel mockery. A symbol of our sins come back in monstrous form to extract their cruel toll upon us for our moral failings. When the beast is in front of you, all other worries, all other problems fade away. There’s just the horde of monsters, a sea of endless horror and terror that seeks to destroy all that is good in the world, and the heroes that will destroy them. The appeal of monsters could be one or more of those, or I can just focus on how cool they look! Yeah. That must be the only reason.

The next thing to consider is what role the monster plays in the story. This can range from the main antagonist, anti-hero, anti-villain, protagonist, to disposable goon. Thankfully this doesn’t require a writer to envision what kind of emotion the monster is supposed to elicit from the audience and then tweak the design accordingly. “I want a monster here” is good enough.

Another facet to consider in basic monster design is if to put the focus on details and internal consistency, or instead put focus on spectacle and presentation. The thing to keep in mind is that whether the writer uses substance or style in designing their monsters is that neither of those require effort to pull off. Monsters are still subject to the principle of conservation of details. Conservation of details means that I can ignore details freely and design monsters without consideration of said details. Details like the monster’s habitat. How does the monster blend in with its environment? Is it part of the local ecosystem. What does it eat? If it doesn’t eat, how does it get energy? Does it make a nest? Why does the monster just stay in the dungeon and never move. Does it change its environment or does its environment change it? Who cares about that? Just pick something random from the monster manual and throw it in there to fight the heroes and done! Using small details in the ecosystem to establish the monster’s traits, abilities, or role draws attention away from the real stars of the show, which is whatever random loot drops are in the chest it’s guarding for some reason. Be sure to discourage both player characters and written characters from poking too deep into how the chimera managed to not starve in the five hundred years it’s been guarding that treasure chest. It’s magic, okay! Like a wizard set it up or something. Look, you want the XP or not?

I can’t have the monster do something interesting like use the environment to its advantage or put the hunters on the backfoot by virtue of the beast simply being better adapted to the harsh conditions of the local biome. Nor could I get the hunters motivated by showing how destructive the monster is on the natural ecosystem. I’m far too busy rolling loot tables for that. Besides, I don’t need to have the monster play it smart or showcase its adaptivity mostly because I can’t really do those things myself anyway. I would rather instead just make my monster invincible! Bullets don’t hurt it! Not even small arms designed only to fight other humans. Too bad the military doesn’t have anything between a rifle and a nuke.

Fantasy creatures in particular can have all kinds of immunities. Is this to make the heroes puzzle out its weaknesses to showcase their cunning, intelligence, and ability to think under pressure? Of course not! It’s to force them to go on a fetch quest so they can find the MacGuffin that is the only thing that can hurt the monster! Find weakness. Apply it until the monster dies. How exciting… especially when there’s zero puzzle elements or rules to figure it out!

Invincible monsters are great for the writer as well because this frees the writer from having to actually think of ways to make the monster a credible threat. This can be tricky for a Dungeon Master though. Should I avoid puzzle-based monster design when my players have shown zero interest in solving even the most basic puzzle? Well, too bad for them! I have to show everyone how smart I am! A writer should never settle for something simple, especially when they have a compulsive need to show off. Smart monster design is not always complicated monster design, some may retort, but they’ll be sorry when they face off against my hydra that uses quadratic equations to regenerate its lost heads.

I’ve covered weaknesses for our monster, but what about abilities! I’ll give my monster all kinds of cool abilities! These can be added generously and with no consideration for balance, coherence, or theming. As with characters, remember that the abilities themselves are what make the monster cool, not using abilities in cool ways. For example. What if I had the heroes track a fearsome beast back to its icy maze! They corner the beast. What abilities should I give it? The ability to concentrate cold in a single point bypassing armor and equipment to cause frostbite unless the unlucky victim dodges? What about instead it can surprise the hunters by unleashing flaming breath which explains how it carved out its lair while also creating a fire and ice theme? The correct answer is both and throw in teleportation and regeneration too! Might as well add it in! A hodgepodge of random abilities that don’t work with each other at all! That’s good monster design!

Will this come across as gimmicky? Of course! Now giving a monster a gimmick can create an effective hook to engage the audience or players. But they only really work if overused and are clearly a writer’s transparent attempt to pad out the fight and fish for compliments about the writer’s said creativity. Nor should a dungeon master worry about said gimmick breaking the game leading to a total party kill. Playtest for balance? I don’t need to do that!

Speaking of gimmicks, I just love gotcha monsters. Gotcha monsters are trick monsters that a dungeon master springs on the players, like mimics being the most famous example. They are more common in table-top than fiction writing since the point of a gotcha monster is for the Dungeon Master to trick the players and spring a monster to ambush them, usually by having the monster be disguised as some innocuous object. The best way to use a gotcha monster is to leave no clues, provide zero warning, or no context to tip them off. Never use them to punish a character’s greed and haste when they can instead be used to show off how I outsmarted the players! Just make the gotcha monster’s weakness or key to defeating them completely random and annoying. Also make sure it looks as dumb as possible and makes no sense. Look, the wizard that did it was drunk that day. There’s a fine line between using an ambush predator and taking a cheap shot, and I intend to cross so I could pull one over the heroes’ adventuring party! That excuses just how strange and stupid the design is or if I used a trick monster in a context that makes no sense.

Since I’ve brought up cheap shots, cheap shot monsters are great! No way to counter them or stop them. Just bam, instant damage. Players love getting hit by a cheap shot! I’m sure they’ll find the killer bunny a hilarious reference and not get mad at their characters being instakilled. In fiction writing this is harder to do, but every writer should strive for it regardless. Never reward a player’s creativity by giving them a chance to notice details that if missed would punish a player’s carelessness and laziness. Is having the monster kill off a random character there to establish the situation as tense and dangerous? No. It’s there to make me feel powerful and purely there for shock value rather than in service to the story. That’s why when the monster kills off characters, it’s usually the character’s fault for being dumb, not the monster acting smart.

Another great monster design is to make the monster a huge damage sponge. It just takes forever to defeat and drags the fight out way longer than it has to be. Trading blows and watching numbers chip away is as exciting to play on the table-top as it is to read about. Pacing can be ignored as well as capturing a sense of momentum in the hunt as the fight turns against the heroes or they pull off a dramatic reversal. Reposition the monster so it can gain an advantage? Hand out a clue to the heroes on how to speed up the fight? Throw in a curveball like the monster’s young show up to help or another predator pounce into the arena? Nope. Have everyone just stand there and punch each other’s HP bars down. Remember that pacing can always be ignored and just isn’t a factor a writer or dungeon master need worry about.

Now I’ve covered a lot of the basic principles and considerations of monster design, but what if a writer or DM just wants to stick to the classics? Yes. This is perfectly fine… To abuse! If it’s already in the monster manual, that means that a game master can just throw them in the game without consideration! I’m sure it’s already balanced. Could I spiff up these old classics a bit by tweaking powers and traits to tailor it to the setting? What about finding an ecological niche for each classic monster? Nope. Throw them in there. Is it because they offer a unique mechanical challenge for the players or heroes to overcome? Well… uh… No. But the artwork looks cool. I wonder what challenge rating means? Eh. Can’t be important.

Now that I’ve thrown the monster into the story or game without consideration, what comes next? Why we introduce our monster. It needs a premier! Does this mean that I will spend the time and creative energy to build up the monster’s unveiling through foreshadowing? Like claw marks on the walls or trees, the slain carcass of a fearsome monster that the party struggled to defeat before, howls, growls, and footsteps from the monster’s prowls? What about the actual unveiling of the creature itself? Does it saunter in a predatory gait out of the shadows or hazy mist, fangs glistening in the moonlight? Where’s the fanfare? Where’s the drama and narrative weight on this terrible beast that the locals would barely speak of only in the vaguest of whispers? I don’t know. I’m just going to plop this miniature down and point to it. Yep. That’s a manticore. Better go fight it! Make it snappy too, we’ve got more dungeon to clear after this!

Monsters don’t really need buildup, but a writer or game master should still expect the same payoff regardless. Nor does a writer need to hone their descriptions to include as many visceral details as possible and engage all of the senses. The dozen small creatures stalked forward in unison that belied their chaotic armament and hodgepodge of salvaged and stolen armor. Small, yet even the faint torchlight revealed honed muscle, old scars, and long fangs all earned through survival in the harsh labyrinth. Steaming breath pungent with the rot of their last feast washed over us as we steeled ourselves for their onslaught. The glare in their desperate, hungry red eyes told us all we needed to know; there would be no quarter, only their next meal. Their guttural chanting grew more excited as they sang their war song in a cacophony of ancient, vile tongues long since forgotten by the civilized peoples. The song soon devolved into screeching howls right as they charged! See. This is way too wordy. Just stick with ‘and goblins appeared’. There is no way to make even small, weak monsters appear threatening and dangerous through simple description. As such, all buildup can simply be ignored as wasted effort.

As is characterization for the monster as well. The monster doesn’t need things like habits or patterns of behavior. It basically exists to attack anything it sees and do nothing else. Especially if it is a skeleton or other undead creature. Why a creature or human brought back from the dead ever need any kind of motion or gestures that it would have used in life. Things like that might ground the monster in the story and add small details that will distract from the really good parts, which is killing the monster and taking its stuff. All monsters can be treated like attack robot piñatas that drop cool adventuring gear when killed.

The even extends to the monster using things like rudimentary tactics. Like having an ambush predator actually stalk and ambush its prey. Or have the monster play cat and mouse with the heroes as each tries to get the drop on the other in a series of tense rounds of hide and seek. Why demonstrate the monster’s cunning when I can just have the NPCs go on about how dangerous it is. The wizard explains that this monster is very smart, even as it charges the heroes using the shortest possible path. Or the monster said to be extremely aggressive simply stops when it comes to a chest-high wall rather than smashing through it. Never should a smart monster do something like evaluate its prey before engaging, nor should a monster ever bother to retreat once it realizes it’s outmatched. All monsters fight to the death, even if they feel fear and pain and are smart enough to realize the battle is lost. Never should the monster retreat to lick its wounds or fall back to its lair to gain a home turf advantage. This makes extra sense for monsters that use traditional military tactics. They should never resort to falling back to a prepared defensive position or learn to use hit-and-run tactics to wear down their foes. Yes, even animals use rudimentary tactics, but my monsters are exempt from the rules. I have this special permission slip that lets me! Just make sure that when the monster is cornered and can’t retreat, that it doesn’t become even more dangerous. Remember to keep them like stupid drones that attack until their HP is gone and then they plop dead without any drama or ceremony. Well, exempt maybe all of the XP points that pop out of the corpse.

Monster encounters should be forgettable. As such, a writer or game master should avoid a smart monster, as a smart monster is more memorable than merely a vicious one. But like all antagonists, they exist solely as speed bumps on the path of the heroes to their greatness and not as a believable character. Just like for the table-top, monsters are just a collection of stats rather than a character. Because monsters don’t deserve any creative love, because they’re monsters. Am I being needlessly cruel? Of course! After all, man is the real monster. Wow. What a deep, complex moral revelation to make that hasn’t been said a billion times before. Am I just saying that because I’m a friendless shut-in who refuses to interact with the outside world? I mean, mostly. But as the lonely necromancer once said, maybe the real friends were the monsters we made along the way!

REBEL 1: We should be close to finding the space communists here.

REBEL 2: Then we can join forces against Greed!

REBEL 3: What even is this place?

CULT LEADER: Oh. This place? It’s a relic of the Great Backstory War fought a long time ago. That was back when everyone was fighting over which backstory the TWA expanded universe should have.

REBEL 3: Who won?

CULT LEADER: Yes!

REBEL 1: Just keep on the lookout. The Space Reds should be hiding here somewhere.

REBEL 2: Oh! Crap. Looks like I tripped something.

NARRATOR: Incoming broadcast from Megacorp. Standby for an important message. Attention residents of the TWA expanded universe. If you are receiving this message, then it isn’t too late. Greed will accept all under his rule.

REBEL 1: Well, it looks like we’re not the only ones trying to gain allies.

NARRATOR: There is still time to surrender the pointless fight and join us in Nebula! There you can relax and enjoy outstanding Nebula Originals like Worldsmiths by Tale Foundry. Or TeirZoo’s explorations in biology framed through gameplay with his Nebula Original on Let’s Play Outside. Catch these originals and more only on Nebula. Nebula is a streaming platform built by YouTubers, podcasters, and other creatives. Witness creativity without constraint or consideration of YouTube’s inconsistently applied policies. You can even watch Terrible Writing Advice videos early and without advertisements. Especially considering that YouTube could easily destroy the TWA expanded universe on a whim. Signing up using TWA's link also gets you free access to Nebula Classes where the Creators on Nebula offer you tricks and tips for being a creator or generalized advice. Like Geoffrey Zatkin’s class on 10 Things to Decide Before Creating a Video Game. How to Analyze Movies by Patrick Willems. Or Persuasive Communication by Sam from Wendover. Don’t wait until the TWA expanded universe explodes! Use the link in the description to get 40% off an annual plan for as little as $2.5 a month. Escape to Nebula today!

GREED: Or you can continue your pointless battle and perish. Time’s running out.

REBEL 1: Greed is a fool! We would never take up his offer.

REBEL 3: Unless he lets us keep our branding.

REBEL 1: Of course. Freedom of expression… so long as it’s our expression.

REBEL 2: Yeah! Greed’s just trying to get us to drop our guard! No one is going to get the drop on us!