More Than Foes

The other day, I started discussing monster manuals, and their penchant for being filled with enemies, and being woefully scarce on allies. To some extent I get it - you want a book which provides a plethora of opponents you can throw at your group, so they have things to fight.

But the thing is ... what about allies? If the PCs want to, for example, go out on some adventure and want to bring some not-hostile creatures with them, then what?  "We want to go out to the forest and team up with one of the local dryads, and help her with this problem". Or, "so there's a silver dragon around here, we want to recruit it to help us with this significant challenge". Or, how about, "this gold dragon has been driven insane by this dark relic, and we need to put an end to it". What if the group isn't entirely 'good', and has to face down an archon or angel? Or a lesser divine Good creature?

Sure, there's options. The GM can reskin a monster to suit their purpose.  Or they can just handwave the traits the creature / person / NPC has. That's definitely an option. But here's the thing.

What if the game master doesn't want the extra work?

Why should the game master be forced to either write up the creature block or hand-wave the creatures? If you're designing a world, the onus is on you, as the writer, to present what exists in the world.

And that means allies as well as opponents. Otherwise, you're presenting a world that's incomplete. If you can write out half a page on the ecology and tactics of kobolds, you can write out half a page on the ecology and tactics of the sylphs. If you can write three pages on blue dragons and how terrifying they are, you can do the same for silver dragons and how terrifying they are.

It's one thing if the game is a beer-and-pretzels 'go to dungeon, kick down door, kill monster, get treasure, go back to town, wash, rinse, repeat'.  It's another thing if you're presenting an actual living, breathing game world.

"The game is about the PCs".  Yes, of course.  And some PCs like recruiting NPCs, or forging alliances with NPCs, or bring NPCs onto quests with them, or track down aligned creatures and drag them on adventures.

"Then don't let the NPCs go". That's called 'metagaming'.  No. If the players want to bring a six-pack of satyrs on a grand adventure, and have a compelling argument for doing so, then yeah, I want to know what a satyr's stat-block is.

"Then handwave it".  No.  That should be optional, not mandatory.  And I'll note that my players actually enjoy seeing NPCs grow and evolve in unexpected ways, keeping pace with the PC's growth. Hard to do when you handwave it.

And here's the other thing.  By having the game designers put these down, you get to see how the game master sees the world - as more than just 'things the PCs can fight', but also as 'the things PCs can unite with'.  Or what if there's an 'evil' campaign, and the PCs are having to face 'good' forces? Hard to do if there's not any details on said forces.

It's half a world. I like seeing the other half.