I understand why D&D video games want to use Wizards' properties, but why are mind flayers so much more common in those games than beholders?
>>98159563A mind flayer is just a human with a squid hat. A beholder needs additional effort.
>>98159563Bro it's so LoVeCrAfTiAn, they're so GrImDaRk, they're so much more GrOuNdEd and ReAlIsTiC.t. total millennial death
Because a humanoid body automatically makes them more relatable and able to be taken more seriously as villains and characters.
Which D&D games are you talking about?Eye of Beholder has both Mind Flayers and Beholder.BG1 has neither.BG2 has both. Dungeon Hack has neither.
>>98159563Mind flayers are more likely to have minions and allies and have a clear logic behind their actions. You might even be able to negotiate with them in some way. Beholders are more unhinged and solitary and any attempt to speak to them ends when they overthink the situation and decide it's easier and safer to just disintegrate you instead. Imo, aboleths would be more interesting than either of them for their mind slaving tendencies, but even harder to implement.
>>98159662They so those things. But not in the same sentence about one thing.
>>98159724Beholders and Mindflayers are from Dungeons and Dragons, which is a traditional game.
>>98159563You don't need much work to make a squid headed man look cool or scary, a beholder is basically a cartoon that not even Wotc themselves knows how to properly portrayIt's also WAY more distinct and one of the like, 3 things that DnD can claim it actually created from scratch instead of stealing from someone else so if you get in copyright trouble because of it you're kinda fucked
>>98159662Lol idiot xd Ilithids are simply more intricate and cool compared to literal crazy eye flying around with lasers shooting from its ass
>>98159563Mindflayers make for better antagonists since they're more likely to have plans that would drive a plot and be involved in some kind of organized group that the players can fight (whether one mindflayer manipulating unwitting pawns to do its bidding, or a group of mindflayers working together). Beholders, which intelligent, are solitary and usually insane and violently antisocial. They're more suited for a random monster encounter than as antagonists, and the "big magical monster in a dungeon" slot tends to be already taken by dragons.
>>98160087Op is about video games. If you could read you would know this.
>>98159702This is the answer. Beholders are fit to be like.... a miniboss tucked away in a paranoid hidey hole somewhere, but theyre too solitary and insane for much more than that. Theres some truth to the idea that you could reuse animations for between your human pcs and the mindflayers, but honestly usually they seem to get their own special floaty animation that would probably be easier to apply to a literal sphere with some eye stalks poking out.
>>98159679This is a myth btw.
>>98160760only if you're a furry
>>98159563Cuz squid man is scarier than floating goofy eyeball thing.
>>98160760How is that a myth? Every monster in the history is getting anthtopomorphed sooner or later, even dragons
>>98161066counterpoint: Jörmungandr / Leviathan
>>98161066That's a sign of a shit writer or low intelligence.
>>98161078or maybe they're just enjoying themselves
>>98160951that makes no sense because anthros are, well, anthro
>>98159563Animation budget? Mind flayers are easy, just slap some tentacles on a humanoid skeleton. For a beholder you need to create it from scratch.
I still say D&D needs a proper "Original Generation" setting with nothing but stuff made up for the games like Beholders and aboleths. Drow are probably different enough from typical elves you could get away with including them...
>>98161430drow are in pathfinder (and somehow way worse in every meaningful way than dnd drow)
>>98161562They were morphed into yuan ti in Paizo land >>98161430Wtf are you talking about?
>>98161562>(and somehow way worse in every meaningful way than dnd drow)Did they just drop all pretenses and fully embraced them as the BDSM fetish femdom race or what?
>>98161690they instantly transform into normal elves if they stop being evil
>>98159680I AM THE SPECTER OF THE PAST COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU!
>>98160258His answer requires knowledge of TTRPG's
>>98161430>Drow are probably different enough from typical elves you could get away with including them...Drow as we know them only exist because of D&D, so they would be included in whatever a D&D creations-only setting means. But everyone can get away with mimicking them because D&D didn't invent the term "dark elves", "drow"(I think), or the concept of bad elves(Elric). It's a really Tolkien situation.
>>98159563Because the motivations of a Beholder are just racist paranoid schizophrenia. Difficult to work around that in an interesting way for it to be the antagonist itself. This is before even touching on Mind Flayers being more proliferated than Beholders, and that Mind Flayers are more likely to go outside and operate in other areas of the world for whatever scheme they are currently doing. With the bonus of due to how a Mind Flayer operates it minions can pretty much be whatever you want them to be. Either via direct mind control or via secondary controls enacted by their mind controlled minions.
i mean beholder cults are a thing, just because the ball of eyes stays in a cave physically that doesn't mean it can't be taking actions outsideboth mind flayers and beholders are at the core of things just weird monsters to populate an encounter table with, all of their societal fluff is just cope, nobody is interested in squidhead reproduction or inborn racism over invisible differences outside of using it as simple one-dimensional background fluff or an outright joke
>>98165572Beholder cults are a thing but, as people have said over and over, the motivations of the beholders are weaker and self contained. Beholders stay in a cave seething about everything while mind flayers set out to feed and conquer and do villain stuff. One is conducive to villains, the other is not.
>>98159563Beholders are a refined taste. Mind Flayers have broader appeal and their name has more immediate splash. >Beholder relies on thew audience knowing the reference from just the name. Relying on your audience is always a losing play.
>>98165602I had envisioned an adventure where the party gets called in to investigate people and local flora and fauna in an archipelago becoming corrupted somehow, and I had envisioned that a Beholder would be responsible. Am I better off picking something else to be the capstone boss of the adventure, or can I swing it as "the mere presence of this beholder has a corrupting effect on the area"?
>>98165866The beholder could be altering the area just to make it more comfortable for itself. There are dozens of reasons Beholders would do stuff.I think you're fine.
The 2e supplement "I, Tyrant" is probably the best thing to read for inspiration on how beholders think and act.
>>98159563Can't talk about "those games", but in mine, one leads to conspiracies of telepaths and mind-controller. The other is an insane mind with MAGICAL pewpews that comes from beauty.
>>98167346This was an informative read. Thanks for the rec.
>>98159563Illithid are a refined taste. Eye Tyrants have broader appeal and their name has more immediate splash.>Illithid relies on thew audience knowing the reference from just the name. Relying on your audience is always a losing play.
>>98159662Rent free
>>98161746Kek
>>98160112Dragon's Dogma did a pretty good Beholder though they called it something else_ Magic Eye or some weak crap
>>98159563Beholders are solitary.
>>98170025that was a janky boss fight but i still have good memories of it
>>98170233Agreed about the jank. Can't think of a better Beholder fight in vidya though EotB was fun from what I remember. May be rose-tinted though
>>98170273actually iirc there was a bunch of different beholder fights, i was thinking of the biggest one right now, but there was also a medium sized boss variant and small eye variants that were regular enemies
>>98170286yeah and DLC had an undead Beholder which was fun. None of them were as powerful as in D&D though
>>98170326that's not really a comparison you can make easily, the sorcereries of dragon's dogma like the giant tornado and meteor shower hint in the other direction
>>98159563Because beholders are a shit monster. Sorry you had to find out this way.
>>98170377DD is one of the few games that let you feel like a powerful wizard instead of +5 fireball.In the MM a Beholder is highly intelligent and deadly with a ton of high level spells and high damage attacks as well as anti-magic fields. Encountering one is scary even for high level players and often results in fleeing or death. DD Beholders are dumb brutes who hang around and telegraph their flailings. I understand it had to be gamified and it does work well in the game but they are nowhere near the existential threat they are in tabletop.
>>98159563Illithid can be enemies at any level. Beholders are more powerful and only higher-level parties are gonna confront them. So Illithid are just way more common as bad guys.There've been attempts to make lower-level beholderkin left and right, but they're all kinda fuckin' lame.
>>98169801>can't even @ a post No one even knows what the fuck an illithid is.
