Building Wyrd Beasts - Design Principles

This is the first post in a series in which I begin to design some monsters for my Wyrd Lands setting. This series is called Building Wyrd Beasts, and in this one I am going to set out my current design principles for these monsters.

When I run games in the Wyrd Lands I use dice but no real stats. Instead I look for things that might influence the outcome of a dice roll and apply them; no strength, health, armour or anything else strictly quanitifiable. I run in a way that is in line with what Chris McDowall calls qualitative design.  

I am also focused on design that captures the world of the Wyrd Lands, its philosophies and identity. Within that context, monsters are defined above all by one of the two key dichotomies: the hall and the wild. 

Monsters are creatures of the wild. That is, they are non-human: they are tied to the other world, that of spirits and gods, death and the afterlife. They may take the simple form of wolf and bear and patrol the boundary of hall and wild, we call it the road, or the nightmarish aspect of the Trondle-papa and emanate from the heart of the wild's unknowable depths. In all cases they are things not of this world. 

This guiding principle of The Wyrd Lands (described well in Beowulf and Basilisks), leads me to a number of design principles. 

Core principles:

Monsters are complications over challenges

• While they my guard or contain magic, monsters are not simply problems to solve. The players have to contend with them as a force from a totally different world and respond to the complex way it impacts on their own. 

Monsters should be meaningful

• The monsters of the Wyrd Lands should be meaningful, in an almost poetic sense. Take the dragon: more than a baddy with thick scales and a flame breath attack, it is more a warning against overwhelming rage, or perhaps a punisher for those seeking wealth above all else. 

They should be magical, powerful or mysterious

• Monsters should feel significantly different from humans, even where they seem close to them. This might include in their communication, the way they act in time and in space, or in their wants and needs.

They should have complex motivations, reactions and connections to their world

• Even if the monster's motivations etc. are utterly alien, they should still exist. They may be almost impossible to uncover, but they should be there guiding their behaviour and their impact on the world. 

They should be useful 

• As monsters belong to the boundaries of the world of the spirit, death and the non-human, there should be ways of using them to access this same world, for those who know how. Trapping them in a single form, striking bargains, or using their bizarre bodies might all be ways of using them.