An OCD's dilemma with creating monsters

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When you decide to create some of the more obvious creatures like goblin and kobold do you see other people make the same creature and think “That’s not how i would have statted it” and just did the work yourself? This has been a real issue for me in Open Legend. I don’t want to make every single creature, but i’m just too picky to accept what other people have made, feeling like they missed a characteristic of a monster, they didn’t get specific enough with its stats, or maybe they added a home brew rule to it that feels like blasphemy. I feel like I’m not on the same page as everyone else.

Alright let me explain where this crisis is coming from.

I’ve been here for a good minute and played OL as a character a couple times now and the set up is amazing. You can make almost anything and the design behind the game being all mechanics so the fluff can be your own is a great idea. But I don’t feel the same way about being a GM. I feel underwhelmed.
The main difference is as a GM I’m free to add whatever i want to my creations so the tools to make a monster are bare in comparison. You need your zombie to have a bunch of immunities, have less than 10 health, and move slower than 30 feet? Then just do that… there’s no mechanics or options given to the GM, they are just expect to do it because they have limitless power.
Well maybe i don’t want freedom, maybe i just want options.
Now I’m not saying there isn’t ANYTHING for a GM to work with, there are specific feats that only NPCs can have, but I personally believe making a monster should be just like making a PC but with more options too crazy and game breaking for the Players to handle. It should be a give and take system like the antifeat thing i read the other day. The feats should cost something, but can also give something back. Like a Feet that decreases speed. or a Feat that makes the NPC Immune to all resolve attacks (Like a zombie that wouldn’t be affected mentally by anything.)

I feel like maybe i’m being a jerk here asking for a lot… Am I asking for too much?
I just feel like the games not finished, and i think making monsters should have more thought put into them. I mean… the rule about them having primary and secondary attributes causes a lot of monsters to look weaker than they should be because people don’t add that 1 or 2 on the NPC even though I’d like to know what the things persuasion is if for any reason they talk to it instead of kill it.

I’m sure a lot of people can do a lot with this system just fine and i’m complaining over such a little thing, but spending a lot of time making monsters for a campaign i’m starting, i just really had to vent my frustration on the way i’ve been approaching this.

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I feel like that is A thing I dont have an issue with because as A DM running Pathfinder I rarely pick up A monster manual. I think of what kind of encounter I want and what kind of monster or what not will be involved and then i just put that in and just run it how i feel the monster should be. So open legend runs pretty well for me like that.

I do understand how that may not work for everyone. Some people like a little more rules or stats to work with.
Also I have seen lots of helpful friendly people here so if you need any help stating anything specific just make a thread for it and im sure you’ll get help. I’m usually on the forum once a day or so and so are many others.

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I disagree a great deal with your opinion on this. Let me highlight the parts that I take issue the most with or that I find especially interesting:

No, honestly I couldn’t care less about other GM’s creations or what they think about mine. When I built encounters, I build them to challenge my PCs in that particular campaign, not to work in a vacuum, just like Character Creation doesn’t work in a vacuum in Open Legend. You might build Kobolds and Gnomes with D&D or Pathfinder in mind and I might build them with WoW in mind, which will lead to vastly different results and I don’t see a problem with that. This is actually the first time that I read that someone finds that discrepancy to be problematic.

As you noted yourself in the lines before, character creation covers a great deal already and “You can make almost anything”, so the same is pretty much true for monsters. If you find the quick build too simplistic, than there is still the character creation process you could use for your monsters, just as described in chapter 8:

"When designing an NPC using the complex build, you simply create the NPC as if it was a player character. Select an appropriate level and use the instructions in Chapter 1 to assign attributes, feats, and other defining characteristics.

The complex build is a good option when you are creating a very important villain or ally who will play a major role in the story line. This process can take a while, so it’s not worth going through with underlings, henchmen, or beasts who are only going to be present for a single scene."

Most people just don’t do that, because it takes too much time and there is very little payoff in doing so for monsters, which generally don’t survive more than 3 rounds.

  • Immunities: Bane, Damage and Energy resistances

  • Less than 10 health: Minion Monsters

  • Slower than 30 feet: Disabled Flaw

I think there are more options in there, than you are giving it credit for.

This is a valid point of view and you can still choose to do so, but I’m afraid you are in a minority with that opinion, because every system I’ve read in recent times has a seperate and simplified npc/monster creation process, because most GMs don’t want to spend a minimum of 30 minutes per monster.

You are just expressing your opinion, which is totally fine, but I doubt it will resonate strongly on here, because most GMs I’ve talked to find that being able to whip up a decent encounter within 5 minutes, to be a great strength of the system.

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I know, I know… I just wish there was more hand holding. I didn’t mean for it to sound like it’s impossible to make certain NPCs with the system I just feel like i have to jump through hoops to get the desired effects sometimes and even though i know i can take advantage of a vague flaw to justify a stat change, or that resistances for NPCs cost nothing to add allowing the monster to stay lvl 1, I still feel like there’s a lack of consistency somewhere. I guess it would be nice if there were more examples. Something to let me compare to. And a more dedicated page to just NPC building. Chapter 8 has a lot that I skimmed through and i actually missed the health part with minions, so that’s my bad.

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I understand what you’re saying. I tend to us https://openlegend.heromuster.com/npc?l=1 to generate about 5 monsters then pick and choose what fits so I could easily miss somthing but the flavour fits and the players are challenged.

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The simplest solution is to build your mooks at the level you want–then just add in whatever special abilities you want for them, to have–tailored to challenge your particular player characters.

That’s not as complex as it sounds. It looks daunting on the surface but it’s actually easy enough for even someone who is inexperienced, like me, to do pretty quickly.

You might be over-thinking this. I know I tend to do that.

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The big thing here is that OL recognizes that “CR” and other metrics that systems have used for years is garbage for creating an encounter. It might get you close to a balanced encounter, but it will never be perfect. There are so many factors that go into it.

So OL created a simple suggestion for working with when you start off. It gets you in the ballpark, but like with most things, it depends completely on how you not only build the NPC but how you play them in a fight or encounter.

You can make the same monster fight 2 different groups, and for 1 group it completely trashes them, and for the other group it’s a complete joke. And that’s not assuming huge explosions either. It has to do with the make-up of the group and how well they work together and synergize.

You can 100% build an NPC the way you are wanting, though. It’s the complex build that has already been mentioned. All the things are there for costs. It’s a ton more work, but it’s doable. The thing that is needed is experience, the more you do it, the better you get at it. You have to do it though,a nd you have to make mistakes. That’s the only way to improve, is by making mistakes and then changing and adapting.

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