Thursday 21 March 2019

Product Identity Tournament of Champions

According to the d20 SRD, the things WotC considers to be absolutely sacrosanct in terms of product identity (reading between the lines) is basically the character creation process, the experience point table, and the following monsters:

Beholders, gauth, carrion crawlers, displacer beasts, githyanki, githzerai, kuo-toa, mind flayers, slaads, umber hulks, and yuan-ti.

I can understand why. If I was going to draw up a list of monsters which are The Most D&Dish of All Time, I would probably come up with something like that list. (Except for the gauth.) You might want to throw owlbears and bulettes in there too, for old times' sake.

So those are the contenders. But who would win the Product Identity Tournament of Champions? In the olympics of D&D-ness, who would get gold? Which monster is definitively the most D&Dish of them all, and why?

You can vote in the comments, which I will keep hidden until the result is revealed tomorrow(ish) to avoid people influencing the way others vote.

And you're not allowed to say "dragons". Product identity monsters only.

48 comments:

  1. Well, what makes the gith popular is the worldbuilding and duality. As such, I don't think a single gith monster could make it to the top. So I guess my main vote is either "Both Githyanki and Githzerai" if I can go with two, or Beholders otherwise. Beholders are more for the subjective thing of "You need to have one, and whenever the serial numbers are filed off, it is quite obviously still a Beholder" which is something I don't feel Mindflayers suffer from as much.

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  2. As someone who reads D&D blogs, laughs at memes, and very occasionally plays - definitely the Beholder. Visually utterly distinct (like, can you confidently distinguish a githyanki from a hobgoblin or other evil humanoid in mediocre art?), just the right kind of weird, and famous enough.

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  3. Hands down Beholder. They are iconic and what's more than that they have a distinct silhouette that can't be confused with anything else. Kuo-toa are just poor fish people, yuan-ti are sword and sorcery snake people, mind flayers are miniature-cthulhu wizards, gith are weird humanoid things, displacer beasts are cats with parts glued on unnaturally. Beholders are Beholders.

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  4. Surely the Beholders. Mind flayers perhaps a distant second, but I knew what a beholder looked like long before any of the others, way before I started D&Ding, even. It's such a distinctive character design - there's no mistaking its silhouette, whereas the others could be close enough to genuine creatures so as to give one pause before labelling them.

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  5. I think Slaads were included because they were created by someone outsid e of TSR. I wonder if the others might have similar stories.

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  6. According to occasionally accurate Wikipedia at least:
    "Because they were created by a D&D player (and their copyrights transferred to TSR and, subsequently, Wizards of the Coast), slaadi are one of only a handful of D&D monsters considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and, as such, are not released under its Open Gaming License.[3]"

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  7. I think the only two real contenders are beholders and mind flayers. The others are all really cool in their own ways, but don't quite have the impressive show stealing presence.

    I am personally completely in favor of mind flayers, which are amazing creations while I find beholders pretty boring. But I think when it would come to a popularity poll, the beholder probably would win. Simply because it's bigger and stronger, while mind flayers are somewhat more subtle and not as in your face (unless they are about to eat it).

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  8. Beholders. I have trouble thinking of anything EXCEPT beholders when I think of "iconic D&D."

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  9. Beholder, dammit, and it's not even close. A giant floating eye with a mouth and lots of little eyes on stalks, and every one of the little eyes shoots a goofy magical attack of its own? There would be no way whatsoever to make that anything other than ridiculous in a book or movie or comic. But in a roleplaying game it can be awesome and exciting, while being no less ridiculous. Only in D&D, and that's why it's so iconic.

    (Mind flayers are much cooler, but they would work just as well in a Star Trek episode or an X-Men comic.)

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  10. The Beholder, for being so prominent in D&D marketing and for being so unlike any prior fantasy monster.

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  11. Beholders. No question.

    As I've said elsewhere, it's early incarnations seemed like pretty much just a bunch of spell effects wrapped up in a monster skin. It was built out of OD&D game components, like a video game sprite in pen & paper. Quintessential D&D monster, f'yask me.

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  12. It has to be either Mind Flayers or Beholders, with Yuan-ti in third. But I gotta go with Mind Flayers for #1.

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  13. Definitely beholder. It's alien in concept but vaguely inspired by Greek mythology, has abilities that rely on randomized effects, and IIRC the design is based off of a doodle by a younger player. Everything about it screams D&D, or at least old-school D&D.

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  14. Beholders or Mind Flayers, probably leaning more towards Beholders since "tentacle-faced humanoid" is such a popular idea while the many-eyeballed floating eyeball is more unique. There's a reason that it was featured on the 2E Monstrous Manual and was the cover monster of the 5E Monster Manual.

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  15. Beholder for sure, or maybe owlbear, just cause, you know. It's a bear and an owl.

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  16. Beholders are easily the most eyeconic.

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  17. I think the beholder.

    Carrion crawlers are cool, but they're basically just a big worm. Displacer beasts are also awesome but they are essentially "cat + tentacles." Gith are too 80s AD&D to be truly classic. Mind flayers owe too much to Lovecraft, slaad to Moorcock, and yuan ti to Howard. Umber hulks are cool but they are kind of just big lumbering beetles.

    Whereas beholders are just so... bespoke D&D, pure psychedelic 70s creation. No folkloric or fictional antecedents, really, and no correspondence in the animal kingdom. They are much more than "it's an animal + this weird element." And they're an iconic boss monster - a challenge even for higher level characters.

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  18. Beholders. Definitely Beholders.

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  19. Dude...mind flayers, of course.

    Prominently featured on module covers (D1-2), module interiors (S3), illustrated in Greyhawk (Supplement 1), campaign settings (Spelljammer, Planescape), ‘zines (first appearing in Strategic Review #1), and being rivals for kings of the Underdark (vs. the Drow) and the Astral Plane (vs. the Gith tribes).

    They’re the reason psionica were ever a “thing” in D&D, they have a no save auto-kill attack, and they look like some type of Cthulhu offspring. Mind flayers FtW.

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  20. Beholders, definitely.

    (Although the first monster I knew was from D&D was the Mind Flayer, from a 2-sentence description of the old movie. I thought it was some kind of flying brain with knife-hands, based on the name.)

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  21. Beholders. Because they're probably the weirdest ones on the list while still being instantly recognizable. Also, it's the only one on this list to make it on to the cover of the 5e core books.

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  22. Beholders.
    Mindflayers are big too, but the Lovecraft influence is clear with them. The rest I had to think about or look up.

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  23. Beholders, hands down.

    Don't even know what a "gauth" is, unless it's short for "Google Authentication" or something. Some of the others are borrowed from various sources (none so obviously borrowed as the owlbears and bulettes, which is probably why they didn't make the list.) Mind flayers, cool as they are, basically look/act like Lovecraftian monsters. Carrion crawlers and umber hulks might be fairly original, but don't really get talked about all that much.

    But beholders are pretty old, dating back to the '70s, are pretty original, and get talked about a lot. You know it's D&D if a beholder is in the mix.

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  24. WotC clearly thinks it's the beholder, but for my money, it's the mind flayer.

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  25. Of the list, Beholders for certain. Mind Flayer is a close second, but just strikes me as less iconic to the game; they share a niche more, I'd say, than Beholders, which sort of corner the floating eye of death market. Not to mention just how widespread the "don't call it a Beholder" joke is, regarding the various sorts of eye-type monsters which show up elsewhere.

    Outside of this list, though, my first thoughts for D&Dish momsters would have jumped to Kobolds before anything else. And of course, Red Dragons and Tiamat.

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  26. Beholders, definitely. When briefly described out of context, it's the most hilarious and outlandish on the list. It also helps that it's a powerful creature with an interesting set of abilities (owlbears, though similarly iconic, just aren't as interesting finally "meet" in the game).

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  27. Gelatinous Cube, and oozes more generally. They are quintessentially DND.
    In second place are mimics.

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  28. Beholders. They are way more charismatic and unique than anything else on the list (I love Illithids, but also think they have their roots in Cthulhu).

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  29. I know there are valid legal and licensing reasons for it, but I find it ironic that displacer beasts, gith*, and slaads -- and probably others -- are considered D&D IP when they weren't created by TSR. In the case of the displacer beast, it wasn't even created for D&D.

    As for your question, of those monsters, I'd say the beholder is the most D&Dish of the lot.

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    Replies
    1. Githyanki were also originally a GRRM alien, not a D&D critter at all.

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  30. Since it can't be gelatinous cubes - nothing is more D&D than getting eaten by a cube of jello perfectly adapted to the evolutionary niche that is 10'x10' corridors - it is beholders. They are not found in any sensible mythology, but make sense from a pulp fantasy/comic book aesthetics. They are simultaneously goofy and horrid (since they can blast you into atoms). They are very obviously a game construct, but the highly specific way you need to deal with them is very much like the story of the medusa, the hydra, and other mythological beasts.

    Beholders also represent D&D's corruption: from the original weirdness, beholders were turned into an alien race with meticulously detailed, but utterly boring biologies, social structures, mating habits (because someone had to ask), dozens of beholder variants, and a lot of other details which sucked the magic out of them.

    The goofy ball of death is still a whole lot of fun. Or maybe it is all in the eye of the...

    ...all right, all right, I will get my coat.

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  31. Beholders: underground dwelling baddies with a crazy array of attack powers, including multiple "rays" which don't fit a traditional fantasy milieu particularly well, yet they're perfect for the sword & sorcery / science fiction / 20th century USA pop-culture omnium gatherum that is D&D.

    That said, I'm sad to see gelatinous cubes failed to make the cut.

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  32. drow is probably the one that'd win the tourno.

    Personally it is mind flayers for me.

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  33. Beholder. No question the one on the list that screams D&D to me.

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  34. It's gotta be Beholders, right?

    If the list were expanded, I'd say Gelatinous Cubes—a creature that is inextricably linked with old school dungeon-delving gotcha-style of DM'ing.

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  35. Beholder is the most D&D product identity monster. Mind flayer and carrion crawler are tied for second.

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  36. Rust monster. Or any of the "looks like a ceiling/floor/wall/stalactite/treasure chest but it ain't!" monsters.

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  37. Beholder. It's been on the cover of three books in this edition alone. (Monster Manual, Xanathar's Guide, Waterdeep Dragon Heist) And this edition doesn't have that many books.

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  38. That's a contest for the second place, right? Flumph has already won.

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  39. From that list, It's tight for me between Mind Flayers and Beholders.. I'm gonna say Beholders! They're the cover of the 5e Monster Manual. Gotta mean something.

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  40. I'll say the Beholder. 100% weird and Gygaxian, deeply embeded in popular culture as a D&D artifact (as seen in Futurama, for example) and it has even been featured in a cover of the core books. So yeah.

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  41. Beholders. Followed closely by displacer beasts.

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