Beast: the Monomyth

[Satchel]

Not liking Primordial isn't being abrasive.

No, but you have established a pattern of behavior. You've proven more than willing to believe stuff that's not true about the game on very flimsy grounds, repeat it, and then wave off any arguments to the contrary, which, surprise, tends to rub people the wrong way about as badly as casual insults do.

Like, I'm talking about that exact phenomenon in the back half of that first paragraph that I wrote a whole year and a half ago to you, and now you're complaining about the tenor of criticism you're getting from people who've seen you change nothing about the way you talk about the official content.

If you don't, then ignore it.

Again, I'd be happy to if you'd stay in your lane and just make the project. I got more than enough of this nonsense on the Promethean boards circa The Lightning Chronicle™ and people not understanding how buy-in works. I'm not going to ignore completely unnecessary jabs so you can use a general-access subforum as a public diary.

I'm more than eager to see interesting fanworks, but my casual hope for any given piece of homebrew to contain worthwhile ideas does not outweigh my impatience for that particular form of beating around the bush and it probably never will.

If anyone's been abrasive on here, it's been you and some other responders on here. Case in point:

Case in point: You're burning goodwill you haven't got for the sake of getting longform defensive about failing to understand the concept of focusing on the thing you say you made the thread for.

I'm not kidding here. For example, when I read Thaddeus's backstory, I literally went into a bout of suicidal depression. The writers aren't to blame for this, and it certainly wasn't their intent. It's just a simple case of my mental damage not gelling well with how Primordial was presented. Horror games should be a bit uncomfortable, given the subject matter, but they should never be too much so. Unfortunately, Primordial is too uncomfortable for me. Shit happens, and no one's to blame here.

What's why if even only I use Monomyth, I would still consider it a success. It's a personal project for me because I want to like Primordial, but can't. So I'm taking the same basic premise, and going in a different direction with it. It's not so much a case of me fixing Primordial for everybody, just fixing it for me.

I'm dreadfully sorry that your headspace makes it impossible for you to like this game.

That still doesn't help the comparisons to the other crank who also pulled the "this made me want to kill myself" card when confronted with how they were acting in relation to a roleplaying game about monsters who draw negative attention to themselves that they were making a mostly-for-themelves homebrew replacement of.

Nothing about the practice of homebrew requires you to put down the official products or defend putting down the official products or frame your attempt as superior to the official products. Take your own advice to heart and ignore the bits you don't like from Primordial if you're going to address it in relation to this thing you are making as an explicit attempted replacement that you are sharing with the rest of the forums.

Good luck to you with this endeavor and all the best, genuinely, but common sense and prior example really does indicate you'd be best-served leaving Primordial alone at this stage. Better to start fresh and stay that way, y'know?

[ArcaneArts]

TL, DR: Constructive feedback on game design and forum behavior is not wanted, got it.

I mean, on my part, I at least get it, but Christ alive Heavy Arms is at least asking good critical questions that answering and reconciling with will help build a good game.

Christ, this is ReptilePlunderBarge again.

[crapcarp]

Here's the thing: We did this song and dance two years ago with someone trying to "fix" Mage and Promethean by making their own takes on the monsters in question that they unaccountably opted to use the official games' subforum space to discuss.

Well, if you believe this thread shouldn't be in the Beast subforum, I think that's fair. If the thread needs to be moved, it needs to be moved. I just thought of posting here since Monomyth is related to Primordial in terms of general concept. On the other hand, I can also see how it should be put in the general ChronDark forum since it's very much its own game.

That that user was similarly abrasive about the official lines and subsequently banned for the way they conducted themselves is a salient warning against keeping this up. If you want to make your own ChroD game about narrative-associated nightmare creatures, that's fine and dandy, but let it stand on its own merit instead of wasting everybody's time talking about how you're going to "fix" Primordial by doing so and complaining about books you haven't read. That's a cycle we could all do without.

Not liking Primordial isn't being abrasive. I ain't demanding Primordial to be taken away or arguing that those who enjoy it are wrong for doing so. I personally don't enjoy it but I want to, so I'm making Monomyth and sharing it on these forums. That's all I'm doing here. You're not wrong for liking Primordial or for disliking Monomyth. Enjoy what you enjoy; I just can't join you with Primordial, but you are welcome to Monomyth if you wanna play it. If you don't, then ignore it.

If anyone's been abrasive on here, it's been you and some other responders on here. Case in point:

Arcane Arts: Stripping down her garrulous posts to their bare essence, we get nothing more than "The supplements answer your problems, so you need to read them before making Monomyth" and "You just don't get all the symbolism and metaphors in Primordial" with nothing of actual substance to back up the latter. Here's an example:

"Meanwhile, while I get what you're doing with Emergence, that really does strongly miss out on the strong metaphor-and-starting-character-beat that Beasts start on with the Devouring having been clarified and even defined as they are. They have come home not only because they have, you know, turned into monsters they always sort of knew they were, but because they have gone through a mythic realization of self, a metaphor that is as powerful for a transgender individual as it is for...well, anyone else. They have Devoured everything confining and defining and have escaped themselves into a fuller and more whole individual. This concept also creates interesting story potential for starting Beasts, because beasts start off at a point many stories-hell, many of the other gamelines-would actually end on, and therefore opens up a new cavalcade of character concepts and story concepts as we now answer the question of "now what?", which is primarily the dual matters of self-transcendence(enforced by Lair bleeding into Hunger and Chamber gathering, which builds into Kinship, and is heavily conflicted with by both Heroic and Insatiable confrontation) and self-reflection(to a lesser extent, admittedly, but that's not forgotten)."

There's literally no difference between this and the Emergence. Granted, one could argue that Arcane simply didn't know there wasn't any difference. However, if that was the case, then this response is a rash judgement on her part.

Heavy Arms: Overly critical and often with little reasoning to back up their arguments. Here's an example:

"[Myth is] still deprotagonizing with your options of, "keep Myth low and be so week Heroes will easily kill you," and, "let your Myth go up and have so many Bans and Banes that Heroes will easily kill you."

Why do I want to play, "roll a lot of dice to see how you die when the NPCs finally kill you no matter what you do." as a game?. Either you obey and die, or rebel and die, and there's no way out besides hand your sheet to your ST... which might as well mean die."

In contrast to a similar criticism from Leliel:

"The big problem is going too far in the "power comes with chains" direction. I'd be cool with a weakness towards a Torment style mechanic wherein the Beast becomes slaved to their role in the Monomyth for a bit, but the Myth is also their story, so it shouldn't come with an "NPC" level.

That being said, I'm quite intrigued and looking forward to more work on this. Seems a bit more cohesive and less player-alienating as a core concept. So, as a suggestion; Heroes are still largely antagonists, but here, it's explicitly because the Monomyth is a liar. They are generally fated to win, and so it seems like they're the chosen ones... And then the asterisk of the Monomyth hits; the Hero wins, but the Devouring Legend wants her to suffer first. It doesn't care if she loses everything worth protecting in the process of finishing its tale, only that she does. They get punished for breaking the story, while Beasts, being allowed the agency of being an antagonist, can and do act in ways outside their proscribed role without censure. Thus, a Beast can actively plot to break the mold, while a Hero can resist, but not much else."

Where Heavy Arms is saying nothing more than "This is too limiting and no one would ever wanna play it", Leliel has offered useful criticism by providing an example of how to fix the problem (and even giving encouragement on top). Heavy Arms' criticisms were unbalanced, where Leliel's were not.

All that being said, there are a few things I've messed up on. Such as:

Heroes and Integrity: Yes, Heroes aren't generated from low Integrity in the final corebook. There was a definite emphasis on low-Integrity Heroes and the reasoning that Beasts don't tend to meet high-Integrity Heroes, but low Integrity isn't a prerequisite. I stand corrected, and I'll rectify that in the OP.

Self-Loathing Monsters: No, self-loathing monsters isn't ChronDark's schtick, which was most eloquently stated by Heavy Arms. Personal horror may be the general focus, but not self-loathing. Again, I stand corrected.

Heavy Arms' criticisms weren't completely negative; in fact, they've provided some useful ideas, such as Creeds being too focused in and of themselves. So I've decided to establish Creeds as the core of a Beast's philosophy, as well as a means of shaping themselves (since they're essentially creatures of thoughts and concepts).

At the end of the day, I'm not making Monomyth because I simply refuse to like Primordial.

It's because Primordial goes places and is presented in a way that I personally find not merely confronting, but painful.

I'm not kidding here. For example, when I read Thaddeus's backstory, I literally went into a bout of suicidal depression. The writers aren't to blame for this, and it certainly wasn't their intent. It's just a simple case of my mental damage not gelling well with how Primordial was presented. Horror games should be a bit uncomfortable, given the subject matter, but they should never be too much so. Unfortunately, Primordial is too uncomfortable for me. Shit happens, and no one's to blame here.

What's why if even only I use Monomyth, I would still consider it a success. It's a personal project for me because I want to like Primordial, but can't. So I'm taking the same basic premise, and going in a different direction with it. It's not so much a case of me fixing Primordial for everybody, just fixing it for me.

And that's all I have to say on the matter in this particular thread. If you still wanna discuss this particular topic with me, please do it through PM. This is "Beast: the Monomyth" not "Why I can't like Primordial".

[ArcaneArts]

One other thing that must be mentioned is that, like a certain Lizard Privateer Vessel, this new take doesn't really read all that different from the last time this subject came up, and it reflects a refrain of yours that have been answered several times by people.

Like, it's one thing if you wanna address new problems after a post-learning phase and create a game of Beast that, in it's current incarnation, simply can't hope to address but still plays to some of these central ideas. This is literally banging the same drum, in which case we have to reconcile that people aren't exactly swinging over to your point of view with the fact that you are still not accepting the answers that have been well provided for you.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react except with exasperation.

[HelmsDerp]

Also, again, it's not even a matter of supplements. Things got changed in the corebook prior to printing.

[ArcaneArts]

Here's the thing: We did this song and dance two years ago with someone trying to "fix" Mage and Promethean by making their own takes on the monsters in question that they unaccountably opted to use the official games' subforum space to discuss.

That that user was similarly abrasive about the official lines and subsequently banned for the way they conducted themselves is a salient warning against keeping this up. If you want to make your own ChroD game about narrative-associated nightmare creatures, that's fine and dandy, but let it stand on its own merit instead of wasting everybody's time talking about how you're going to "fix" Primordial by doing so and complaining about books you haven't read. That's a cycle we could all do without.

This, so much. My tolerance for the song and dance is still not back.

[Satchel]

Here's the thing: I've completely given up on Primordial. I don't care what supplements say and I don't need them to make Monomyth. You are under no obligation to like Monomyth, you already have Primordial. If you think Primordial has already solved its problems, good for you; I'm still not gonna play it. Frankly, it offends me on a deep level, and I'm just not gonna play something that offends me.

Here's the thing: We did this song and dance two years ago with someone trying to "fix" Mage and Promethean by making their own takes on the monsters in question that they unaccountably opted to use the official games' subforum space to discuss.

That that user was similarly abrasive about the official lines and subsequently banned for the way they conducted themselves is a salient warning against keeping this up. If you want to make your own ChroD game about narrative-associated nightmare creatures, that's fine and dandy, but let it stand on its own merit instead of wasting everybody's time talking about how you're going to "fix" Primordial by doing so and complaining about books you haven't read. That's a cycle we could all do without.

[crapcarp]

Better focus would account for the fact that Monomyth is an outside experience to the natural world that we inhabit, an alien sort of narrative. The world as Beasts experience is fundamentally nihilistic in nature, and validates most stories as personal experiences that fit within broader socio-psychological structures that have emerged over the species' run on the planet that nevertheless are not wholly defining for people, much like how how two siblings can come from the same family and have the same set of family stories but ultimately have their own experience are are thus their own people. Monomyth, in Primordial, is counter to that attitude, and thus feels like an alien invader to the world as people experience it, an imposition into the way of the world that might have even more dangerous validity than Beasts are comfortable with because of how prominent it seems, but the world of Beast, as much as our own, largely treats it as antagonist because it's form cannot hope to actually describe the infinite multitude of stories that are naturally emergent, and attempting to use it actually causes more harm to both the narratives and the people who both tell and receive them by stripping them of all meaning except for all but a narcissistic few(for more on this, there are way too many articles, both online and academic, about the problems of Monomyth, I trust you can find them).

That's...precisely one of the themes of Monomyth. I mean, it's called a "Storytelling game of Vicious Cycles" for a reason. The Monomyth is nothing more than an imposed script on both Beasts and Heroes. Most protagonist Beasts seek a way to defy or escape it. They don't like what the Monomyth says about them and commands them to do. Considering it says "You're a horrible thing that needs to die" it's a pretty natural reaction to say "Fuck you, I'm more than that". It's the whole "What makes a man a man?" idea from Hellboy.

Now, I didn't specify this in the OP, so I can't fault you for not knowing this. I'm mostly focused on developing mechanics, and I didn't think of explaining the themes. That's something I'll rectify.

And finally, look man, you don't want to read material post two books that turned you off, I get that, but you should know full well what the reaction will be when you then try solve things that are well and resolved by supplemental material. You wanna rewrite the game, you gotta know what you are getting into.

EDIT Oh yeah, I forgot: No, Beast does not claim that Heroes emerge from low Integrity. Heroes emerge from a phenomenon similar but not quite like what Beast's experience. Where Low Integrity matters is that the Heroic condition as it exists in a post-agricultural age tends to push most Heroes into a Low Integrity lifestyle without some work against it, which is why most of the Heroes who are active in their antagonizing of Beasts tend to hang around Integrity 4. A Hero could be Integrity 10 and still be a Hero, it's just likely that his prey are probably exceptional outliers to Beast's normalcy and that the rest of their schtick involves the interpretation of Beast activity and the mitigation of their harm without actively killing them or destroying their role in the psycho-spiritual ecology.

You can tell me you read the books, but stuff like this feels...counter to the argument.

Here's the thing: I've completely given up on Primordial. I don't care what supplements say and I don't need them to make Monomyth. You are under no obligation to like Monomyth, you already have Primordial. If you think Primordial has already solved its problems, good for you; I'm still not gonna play it. Frankly, it offends me on a deep level, and I'm just not gonna play something that offends me. Besides, if a game needs supplements to solve its fundamental issues, then clearly there's something deeply wrong about its premise and/or execution. Personally, I believe it's the latter; hence why I'm making Monomyth in the first place.

If your only complaints about Monomyth is "But it's not Primordial", "You just don't understand Primordial", or something along those lines, I'm just gonna ignore it from now on. I'll also put this up in the OP.

[ArcaneArts]

"That's...kinda CoD's schtick when you get right down to it. I mean, its main focus is personal horror, after all."
No.

VAMPIRE is a game of Personal Horror and none of the others are billed as such. There's already a Vampire, and downgrading Beast to make it Vampire mk2 doesn't do anything. The phrase "personal horror" doesn't even appear in most of the other gamelines, if at all.

I mean, he's actually not wrong on it, but as Heavy Arms mentioned, other gamelines play around with it to different degrees and in different ways. It doesn't always need to resolve in the sort of existential angst Vampire has trained us to associate personal horror with.

[Deinos]

"That's...kinda CoD's schtick when you get right down to it. I mean, its main focus is personal horror, after all."
No.

VAMPIRE is a game of Personal Horror and none of the others are billed as such. There's already a Vampire, and downgrading Beast to make it Vampire mk2 doesn't do anything. The phrase "personal horror" doesn't even appear in most of the other gamelines, if at all.

[ElvesofZion]

Similar to Teatime , I think a lot of the issue here is that there are assumptions being made about how the proposed mechanics work with the concept of the Monomyth, how they work from a game design stance, and how and why they from Beast.

crapcarp , could you maybe flesh out how you think each of your proposed mechanics addresses the Monomyth (with some examples, similar to the example monsters the Families have, to help show why you made the choices you did). That would give people a better way to critique without just disagreeing.

[Teatime]

This discussion is being had on a very abstract level. While it's important to refine core assumptions, it might go on forever or until everyone is too tired to continue.

crapcarp Could you try posting some solid material? I mean something like Birthrights for your Breeds, Gifts for your Foils or Creed advantages patterned as Merits. This would offer something concrete to talk about.

[HelmsDerp]

I think it's important to clarify that the means by which Heroes are created was changed from the kickstarter draft to the final release. You aren't wrong if you remember reading that they are created when someone with low integrity witnesses a Beast in action, but that's very much not the case in the finished product.

[ArcaneArts]

...aaaaand there it is folks.

It's the Beast Player's Guide which came out last year...which depending on how you look at it, was filled with lots of retroactive errata to the ideas of the whole gameline, or clarified things made unclear in the finalized corebook due to the messy editing.

It even got the die-hard critics against Beast on the Darker Days Radio podcast to turn around a little bit on it.

Yeeeep.

On a few things:

Better focus would account for the fact that Monomyth is an outside experience to the natural world that we inhabit, an alien sort of narrative. The world as Beasts experience is fundamentally nihilistic in nature, and validates most stories as personal experiences that fit within broader socio-psychological structures that have emerged over the species' run on the planet that nevertheless are not wholly defining for people, much like how how two siblings can come from the same family and have the same set of family stories but ultimately have their own experience are are thus their own people. Monomyth, in Primordial, is counter to that attitude, and thus feels like an alien invader to the world as people experience it, an imposition into the way of the world that might have even more dangerous validity than Beasts are comfortable with because of how prominent it seems, but the world of Beast, as much as our own, largely treats it as antagonist because it's form cannot hope to actually describe the infinite multitude of stories that are naturally emergent, and attempting to use it actually causes more harm to both the narratives and the people who both tell and receive them by stripping them of all meaning except for all but a narcissistic few(for more on this, there are way too many articles, both online and academic, about the problems of Monomyth, I trust you can find them).

Just saying.

Meanwhile, while I get what you're doing with Emergence, that really does strongly miss out on the strong metaphor-and-starting-character-beat that Beasts start on with the Devouring having been clarified and even defined as they are. They have come home not only because they have, you know, turned into monsters they always sort of knew they were, but because they have gone through a mythic realization of self, a metaphor that is as powerful for a transgender individual as it is for...well, anyone else. They have Devoured everything confining and defining and have escaped themselves into a fuller and more whole individual. This concept also creates interesting story potential for starting Beasts, because beasts start off at a point many stories-hell, many of the other gamelines-would actually end on, and therefore opens up a new cavalcade of character concepts and story concepts as we now answer the question of "now what?", which is primarily the dual matters of self-transcendence(enforced by Lair bleeding into Hunger and Chamber gathering, which builds into Kinship, and is heavily conflicted with by both Heroic and Insatiable confrontation) and self-reflection(to a lesser extent, admittedly, but that's not forgotten).

I'm just saying, maybe Devouring was done, not because they felt uncomfortable with the queer analogue, but because they found a better, sharper, grander way to express the ideas they were going for.

And finally, look man, you don't want to read material post two books that turned you off, I get that, but you should know full well what the reaction will be when you then try solve things that are well and resolved by supplemental material. You wanna rewrite the game, you gotta know what you are getting into.

EDIT Oh yeah, I forgot: No, Beast does not claim that Heroes emerge from low Integrity. Heroes emerge from a phenomenon similar but not quite like what Beast's experience. Where Low Integrity matters is that the Heroic condition as it exists in a post-agricultural age tends to push most Heroes into a Low Integrity lifestyle without some work against it, which is why most of the Heroes who are active in their antagonizing of Beasts tend to hang around Integrity 4. A Hero could be Integrity 10 and still be a Hero, it's just likely that his prey are probably exceptional outliers to Beast's normalcy and that the rest of their schtick involves the interpretation of Beast activity and the mitigation of their harm without actively killing them or destroying their role in the psycho-spiritual ecology.

You can tell me you read the books, but stuff like this feels...counter to the argument.

[Heavy Arms]

Hence why it's both their power stat and Integrity analogue.

That still doesn't make a lot of sense I think.

That's...kinda CoD's schtick when you get right down to it. I mean, its main focus is personal horror, after all.

No, it really isn't. Some of the games go hard in this direction, some mix it up, and some go hard in the other. I would argue that far more of the games are against 'self-loathing' as a focus than not. Forsaken (esp. in 2e) have no particular reason to dislike what they are, even if it's a hard life because the world sucks. The personal horror of Mage is how few mages are terrified by what they can do and how addictive it is, rather than fearing it. Prometheans generally aren't self-loathing even if they feel incomplete and a need to make themselves whole; which is a hopeful process. Hunters don't self-loath much. Changelings are all about pushing past self-loathing and becoming whole and belong. Sin-Eaters are anti-self-loathing as a defining trait. Demons are quite happy to no longer be slaves. Primordial Beasts get to be as happy as they want about what they are.

So... Requiem, Mummy, and Deviant.. not really a main focus of the CofD.

Better focus, mostly. Primordial, at least to me and several others, feels like there's too many cooks in the kitchen.

This very much feels like a move too far in the opposite direction where babies got tossed with the bathwater though. Could BtP use some tighter writing (even if we're already seeing it in supplements)? Yes. But there's a lot of really good things that feel either removed or mucked with in a bad way in what you've presented so far.

Actually, the Emergence is pretty much the Homecoming from Primordial's Kickstarter (there's a reason a Beast's true form is known as their Id).

That doesn't really address some of the good things Devouring introduced in the revision though. Creating a basis for social relationships between older and younger Beasts for example.

The whole Creeds idea basically solves that issue, since (typical) protagonist Beasts realize they're a monster and seek a means of managing it.

How do they do that?

Why can't I feed on heroes, because they're trying to hurt my family of other Beasts, and think this is awesome because it fills my hunger and makes me stronger? That's three Creeds in one philosophy.

Well, I only read the finished corebook and the Kickstarter, not the supplements apart from a few excerpts I got from reviews. So maybe Heroes have changed, but low Integrity was definitely at least a focus on how Heroes formed in the corebook.

Low Integrity is what leads Heroes to become the obsessive glory hounds that focus their lives on killing Beasts for being Beasts. High Integrity Heroes are explicitly something that exists, but since they aren't as easily manipulated by the Primordial Dream to play their part, they're not likely to be active antagonists to PCs.

Look, if there's still some hard feelings over my "Why Do You Think Beast is Good/Bad?" thread, I apologize for my lack of tact back then.

I didn't bring it up, because it wasn't on my mind. Like I said, I was trying to give feedback on your ideas directly not just as "but you changed it!"

Isn't the whole "teaching lessons" thing in Primordial basically a middle finger to their appointed narrative?

Not really. It's a manufactured role - in character - for them to try to find something constructive to do and it's suggested that it's what Heroes were supposed to be doing, but stopped as more and more took on the pursuit of glory instead of helping humanity understand the horrors of the world around them; thus Beasts think they can break the cycle by controlling both sides of it.

So how would the Adversary Creed not defy the Monomyth?

Depends on where you think the goal of Beasts existing is? If they're supposed to be part of teaching humanity, engaging with lesson teaching is them giving into the Monomyth, not rejecting it.

Creeds are an expansion on ways to defy their prescribed story.

Why do these need to be splats with prescribed philosophies? Why isn't Creed something more like a mage's Obsession or a Promethean's New Dawn? A personal path to become something more?

Wait, do you think that players increase Myth with Experiences?

No idea? Still don't want fail states like that.

Myth increases and decreases with breaking points (called Rises and Departures, respectively), not Experiences. Basically, the Monomyth supplies Beasts (and Heroes) their power, hence why their power stat is called Myth.

Forsaken 2e doesn't take away your character if your Harmony hits 10 or 0.... it just makes it a pain to get back on track after going so far off the rails; as the closest Integrity equivalent to this concept.

It's still deprotagonizing with your options of, "keep Myth low and be so week Heroes will easily kill you," and, "let your Myth go up and have so many Bans and Banes that Heroes will easily kill you."

Why do I want to play, "roll a lot of dice to see how you die when the NPCs finally kill you no matter what you do." as a game?. Either you obey and die, or rebel and die, and there's no way out besides hand your sheet to your ST... which might as well mean die.

Malediction has a connotation of devil magic, not strictly curses (although that's what term was mainly used for)

Not particularly? It literally means to speak evil on someone, aka curse them.

Maledictions are a Beast's unholy powers that aren't a bodily aspect of their Id (those are covered by Atavisms), basically.

Yes, but why do they have those as a default kind of power? Where does it come from?

In Primordial Beasts have Nightmares because they are literally nightmare creatures that can tap into those horrible dreams and make people feel the emotions of them.

Why does the Monomyth give Beasts Maledictions? How is that a necessary part of their role in the cycle when they have Atavisms.

This causes a hell of a lot problems for supernaturals who really need to hide themselves (especially vampires). In a game that's supposed to be crossover-friendly, this is a very bad thing.

I don't see why. "Crossover friendly" doesn't mean "conflict free crossover." Beasts in Primordial don't have perfect relationships with other supernaturals. That's a good thing. Removing it makes the game less interesting.

Demur means to raise objections or show reluctance.

Not in the sense of rebelling against an oppressive force beyond human control.

Because the Monomyth says Beasts need to die.

That's why it makes Heroes. Mythology doesn't have creatures gaining more and more weakness as heroes fail to kill them. They have the weaknesses they have until someone finally takes advantage of them and kills them.

Protagonist Beasts tend to not conform to the Monomyth, so the Monomyth tries to make them.

Why do I want to play a game where the game consistently plays me?

"Rebel at all and the Monomyth smacks you down a million times harder" is a game where the players just sit around and do nothing.

Why not? Monsters of myth rampage all the time, it's a major part of the myth.

Actually... they don't. Generally they're presented as beasts that are violent like any other animal in conflict with humans, or smart and bouts of violence are purposeful instead of blind rages.

So it's not important, and one more way for the game to make the players sit back and get punished for trying to do something interesting.

Well, in Greek myths, it's often the villain that gets introduced first and then the hero.

Such as? And how does this demonstrate that the heroes and villains are inherently tied to each other as foils?

The whole idea behind Foils is that Heroes in Monomyth are more like, well, foils to Beasts rather than schoolyard bullies crossed with rabid dogs.

That doesn't explain the benefit to this to actually enjoying the game.

Primordial really had it out for Heroes despite their capacity for being sympathetic and I really hated that, so for Monomyth I wanted to make Heroes out to be their own characters rather than simple sticks to punish players with.

Primordial is actually pretty sympathetic to Heroes and presents a sample one in the core explicitly to be sympathetic instead of a glory hound.

And your Heroes are still just sticks to punish players with...even if they have more character traits than before, because that doesn't actually make them more complete narrative characters.

They're not necessarily NPCs in Monomyth, though.

Is the focus on Beasts or not?

And why do they need to mirror Beasts so completely mechanically?

I don't see how, considering the Monomyth is part of the Dreams, both Bright and Primordial.

At the moment, this is a fairly meaningless statement.