Igor the Henchman wrote:There already are. Fenhounds. Ravenkin. Bruja. The Seelie Court. Good-aligned ghosts. In Ravenloft, however, "good" monsters are treated with a twist. When thinking "good monster" players usually expect helpful creatures who aid their progress in the adventure. In Ravenloft, creatures of "good" are just as likely to hinder the PC's progress as they are to help. The good-aligned ghost will harass you and draw dangerous attention to you, to make you resolve the mystery of her death. A Fenhound might hunt you down for a minor transgression commited on their bog. A seelie fey would seek to "preserve" your talents by making you into a changeling. Bruja and Ravenkin will manipulate you to advance their own goals. Even though all these creatures are techincally good... that doesn't mean you can trust them.
Good point, I agree that there shouldn't be any creatures with "Carebear-Attitude" running around in Ravenloft. However, in my opinion a ghost that actively lures adventurers into dangers to get freed isn't good-aligned. Maybe that's why so many ghosts tend to become malicious, given enough time: while they start out with good intentions, after a few centuries they might begin to wonder why they are still trapped and why nobody has ever bothered to help them... However, a ghost that lures some adventurers into danger to save a loved one or maybe an entire village is a completely different idea - especially when he believes the PCs are up to the task... Or maybe he'd willingly sacrifice one to save a thousand...
Nathan of the Frat wrote:I would say that Ravenloft is the perfect place for surprisingly un-evil monsters (by which I mean, monsters which the PCs will be surprised to find are NOT evil), since moral ambiguity is such an important potential element of the setting.
Agreed, especially in Ravenloft something should be too obviously evil (or good), it's way more fun if the players get some serious doubts whether they should kill their opponent. Even with the obviously bad guys (the darklords), I prefer to make my players sympathize: "sure, he has done some very bad stuff, but in his situation I may have done the same"... If possible, I prefer never to give the players something they can slaughter without a second thought, since that's just plain boring... Of course, it can lead to some pretty wicked surprise if for some reasons those thoughts only appear after the actual killing...
Dominique wrote: Second off, it can lead to such tasty plot hooks--the paranoid villagers who are trying to kill the bruja who helped the PCs earlier because they think she's a hag; the werewolf in human form who tricks the PCs into fighting the "horrible raven monsters who killed my family," only to lead to the PCs discovering that they've been duped; all the classics.
Nice one, might be a good way to introduce the first non-evil monster to the players - and hopefully make them realize this soon enough, before they kill it...
