As we learned from the AD&D release, Deities & Demigods, “If you stat it, players will kill it.” So, what do you do if you want to place an unbeatable Kaiju-type monster, like Godzilla, into your game world? Something way more fearsome than a Tarrasque. A complete force of nature that shapes the entire world and every adventure in it. Something that you can’t just “punch really hard.”
In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave respond to a listener’s question, “have you ever put a monster in your campaign that cannot be defeated?” and enter into a real time brainstorming session as we discuss how we’ve used it as DMs as well as played with it as players in our own games.
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1:45 DM Jim’s Brainstorm Topic
2:25 Are these the seeds of where the endgame of your campaign is or are you just hazing your players?
3:50 Think less about defeating the unbeatable monster and more about foiling their plans.
5:55 The Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning from Rime of the Frostmaiden and our tangent into the idea of WOTC playtesting adventures before they release them.
8:10 “If you stat it, players will kill it.”
8:55 Our return to the Woodstock Wanderers campaign and the unkillable, flying spaghetti monster that was Ghatanothoa.
12:15 Be careful dropping this type of monster into your game if your players singular idea is “Frontal Assault!”
17:45 The idea that this type of creature is not “good” or “evil” but just a force of nature. How do you fill this story and adventure out without it becoming monotonous?
22:05 The trick of revealing the BBEG and their nefarious schemes early in the campaign… how do you do this with Godzilla who doesn’t really have plans?
29:00 The adventure is in realizing that this “oncoming storm” is coming and what are the heroes going to do about it.
34:45 “Can you write a campaign for Superman?” Dealing with problems that you can’t just punch in the nose.
37:30 Final Thoughts.
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