Reading over the monsters in various bestiaries, I notice that almost all are written with pseudo-realistic life-cycles and a place in the world's ecology. For example, the cockatrice is written as being a chicken that turns you to stone. Not some freak hatched from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad or snake, but a magic chicken that mates and lays eggs and eats bugs like any normal chicken. Mythological one of a kind monsters are turned into whole species little different from a non-mythic animal aside from magic. Monsters are typically given fairly stale boring ecologies like that, written as cryptids and aliens rather than fantastical beasts from the imagination.
Are there any alternatives to pseudo-naturalistic ecologies for monsters?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;920754Are there any alternatives to pseudo-naturalistic ecologies for monsters?
Yes.
Just ignore the ecologies and make up your own. In fact I had to jettsion about 25% of the 5e MM fluff as they kept re-writing established monsters as now this or that demon spawn. Others contradicted known ecologies and so on and so fourth. The 5e MM fluff is a mess.
So say you want your Cockatrices to be spontaneous monsters. BOOM! Done. Welcome to the club. I did the same for a campaign.
In fact there is even room for both. and more. There might be natural cockatrices. There might be spontaneous cockatrices, there might be product of experimentation cockatrices, product of curses cockatrices, alien cockatrices brought from other planes/worlds/dimensions, posession, spontaneous transformation, transformation from disease, crossbreeding, some freak quirk of stone to flesh/flesh to stone, and so on.
but really. Make monsters whatever you want.
A cockatrice in particular more or less is a freak chicken. Perhaps if a cockatrice mates with a hen, you get hens, cocks, and cockatrices (rarely). I rather like the idea of a cockatrice being basically a toxic chicken with a really bad temper. Yes, it's a bit risible, but it's still deadly dangerous.
Quote from: Omega;920755There might be natural cockatrices. There might be spontaneous cockatrices, there might be product of experimentation cockatrices, product of curses cockatrices, alien cockatrices brought from other planes/worlds/dimensions, posession, spontaneous transformation, transformation from disease, crossbreeding, some freak quirk of stone to flesh/flesh to stone, and so on.
I really like this suggestion. I cannot explain why.
Don't worry about ecologies at all. Just forget about it. Cockatrices just are. Why do they come from? No one knows or cares. They just show up sometimes. People are only concerned about getting rid of the nasty things when they appear. Fantasy ecosystems don't have to make real world sense and it doesn't matter at the tabletop anyway.
How about Pliny the Elder's Natural History? Or the old ideas about spontaneous generation? There are a lot of freaky, gameable things in real world myth and bad science.
It's interesting to me that not many people have followed the pathway opened up by Dune. The ecology in that book was so important and so original - as you understand the life cycle of the sandworms the whole world system is explained. Those kinds of natural histories are more interesting to me than "And then this king died and his heirs fought over the throne."
I think it's an under utilized possibility in gaming. I appreciate what D&D tries to do with regards to monster ecology... but I haven't seen much in the way if rules for terrain and biomes.
It's something I'm looking into for my game, but well see how far I get.
Ecologies seem out of place in fantasy. Save that for science fiction.
But people are afraid of "magical thinking" in their fantasy, for some reason. Even though you see that kind of thing rampant in, say, superhero comics.
My own explanation for monsters is that spells of summoning create beings out of nothing, and they go back to nothing when the spell ends... Normally. But sometimes they don't, and the monsters we see in dungeons or attacking towns are those remnants. They can't die from disease, they don't age, they don't even need to eat, but they get hungry. Very hungry, if they've been locked in a room below ground for a couple centuries. There are also curses and forced transformations as possible sources of monsters. But mundane breeding? I figure most of those creatures are incapable of breeding.
I have been turning more to folklore and mythology. Many of the stranger creatures in my current campaign come from the lands of Faerie, no further explanation. A few are the results of wizard's experiments or are just there. Most people don't know or care where the monsters came from or why. They just want to know how to be rid of them.
My entire campaign map covers an area about the size of Scotland, or Vermont and New Hampshire. This means a few really special powerful monsters and don't worry about many entries in the Monster Manuals because those creatures aren't found in this part of the world. No Orcs for example although there are Goblins of various sorts and sizes. Only one dragon, and it is currently sleeping.
The ecology is pretty much the same as in our world, the monsters are for the mostpart unnatural and therefor outside of ecology.
Quote from: talysman;920874But people are afraid of "magical thinking" in their fantasy, for some reason. Even though you see that kind of thing rampant in, say, superhero comics.
I don't know if they're afraid so much as unfamiliar... unsure about how to bring that feel into the setting. Similarly, so much RPG magic is rational/technological in the way it functions.
Which games do a good job of pushing 'magical thinking' into play?
Quote from: talysman;920874Ecologies seem out of place in fantasy. Save that for science fiction.
I agree with this. I prefer monster books to give the bare-bones version of the creature/monster. Less is more for me.
Quote from: Simlasa;920886I don't know if they're afraid so much as unfamiliar... unsure about how to bring that feel into the setting. Similarly, so much RPG magic is rational/technological in the way it functions.
Which games do a good job of pushing 'magical thinking' into play?
Hardly any, that I can think of. What I usually see is hacks and fragments that can make RPGs more magical.
Surprisingly, there were a couple GURPS books that I think fit the bill. GURPS Goblins had the rule of rolling for the reaction of God to see what the goblin's luck was going to be. That helps a bit. And GURPS Fantasy II: The Mad Lands had inscrutable gods that weren't just big, tough monsters, undead monsters that are created when a living person lacks something (heightless, fleshless, bloodless,) and one or two magic systems that had no rational/technological explanations.
Oh, and there's TOON, which is another kind of fantasy, but at least it encouraged breaking away from real world physics and chemistry.
Quote from: Simlasa;920886Which games do a good job of pushing 'magical thinking' into play?
Everway? A couple of the sample adventures are best resolved by the characters figuring out the symbolic/mythological resonances set up in the Sphere and "fixing" them, rather than just beating things into submission.
House of Cards is a game very, very heavy with Tarot symbology; you're going to succeed by leveraging your understanding of Tarot symbology, not by lateral thinking or smuggling in anachronistic knowledge.
For magic, any system that leans more towards the Goetic will help with that feel; if all magic is technically done by a sentient extradimensional being you have to negotiate/intimidate/bribe into doing what you want, you can't get quite so presumptuous about your spell always working the same way all the time.
Honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of any game systems, though. I mentioned this exact problem on another thread, and the example I gave is a lot of classical mythology: In Mythic Achaea, monsters are there because the gods willed it to be so, either as guardians, punishments, or they're just left over from the war against the Titans. In Babylonian mythology, monsters all spawned from Tiamat, who was killed by Marduk and corpse-mongered into the world; monsters are either still kicking around from before that or maybe her dead body just spits them out now and again as it decays.
wanking about ecology, beyond the most basic level, has always been abhorrent to me.
But how many people actually give detailed description of the ecology of their monsters beyond a brief note here or there, or possibly a simple food chain diagram ("wolves eat villagers' sheep, ogres eat villagers, dragons eat maidens")? Aside from the authors in Dragon Magazine, I mean.
Sandy Petersen, in particular, his work in Trollpak would be one non-dragon example.
I like to put a little thought into the food chain so I have an idea what critters can be run into.
For non-naturalistic systems, the fae are a major one. Goblins, redcaps (bugbears), elf knights, and the like can be found wherever the Veil is a little thin. Also, I use the concept of spontaneous generation, so "vermin" can be discovered anywhere the conditions are right. As orcs were a study in weaponizing humanoid spontaneous generation, they can be discovered anyplace there is a clay pit, some fresh corpses, and a supply of alchemical reagent.
Quote from: Elfdart;922199But how many people actually give detailed description of the ecology of their monsters beyond a brief note here or there, or possibly a simple food chain diagram ("wolves eat villagers' sheep, ogres eat villagers, dragons eat maidens")? Aside from the authors in Dragon Magazine, I mean.
There was a period in TSR history where this reached a fairly stupid level of obsession, and I've seen similar stuff from other RPGs in various other times.
If ecology is actually part of the game, why not? But it has to evoke a genre, not try to simulate biology. If I did a Dune game, I'd want ecology to be part of it.
Also, I always enjoyed the BS-y ecology in Monster Manuals... it would be cooler if there were more ways to interact with it. If there were spells or artifacts you could collect to change some property of a biome in an area. To me it would almost be like a world scale version of finding a key to unlock a door. Why not, if you can make it fun?
EDIT: If you did a Magic: The Gathering RPG, you'd have to have characteristics for lands and special abilities that lands can perform. Just treat it like any other game object that interacts with things. If it captured people's imaginations, it might be fun.
Some of you are getting pretty "one true way" about this. Seems like you're being a bit defensive, like you want to head off the idea that your own games might be lacking something you don't want to do? Clearly when anything gets to the stage that players aren't enjoying it, then they'd do well to stop... But if players are enjoying it, what's the harm? Personally, I tend to appreciate almost anything a GM or setting does in the way of having things make sense and have reasons behind them, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the game or make things less fun - and I'm far more likely to be put off by evoking/copying a genre, or thoughtlessly adding stuff that doesn't seem to make any sense. YMMV
Quote from: RPGPundit;922912There was a period in TSR history where this reached a fairly stupid level of obsession, and I've seen similar stuff from other RPGs in various other times.
This is the main reason I don't like traditional Dragon magazine style ecologies. Plenty of the monsters' survival strategy wasn't actually effective when viewed through game theory (in the statistical sense).
Quote from: Ashakyre;922947If ecology is actually part of the game, why not? But it has to evoke a genre, not try to simulate biology. If I did a Dune game, I'd want ecology to be part of it.
That's a very specific kind of example, however.
Quote from: RPGPundit;923823That's a very specific kind of example, however.
Examples tend to be specific.
"Is X good or bad" is far less interesting to me than "how can you do X well?" It looks to me like we've got an untapped vein for creative game design here, but it's hard to pull off because there aren't as many examples to imitate.
Quote from: Ashakyre;923832Examples tend to be specific.
"Is X good or bad" is far less interesting to me than "how can you do X well?" It looks to me like we've got an untapped vein for creative game design here, but it's hard to pull off because there aren't as many examples to imitate.
What I meant is that in a setting like Dune, ecology is an absolutely central feature. In other settings, it isn't.
Quote from: RPGPundit;924430What I meant is that in a setting like Dune, ecology is an absolutely central feature. In other settings, it isn't.
Then there may not be much difference between our positions. A lot of D&D ecology is pretty silly, because it's not needed, but if someone is looking for an interesting design space, ecology would work if you had a setting it was interesting and distinctive.
I'm someone who usually plays much tamer settings where mainly there are people and animals and the monsters are either relatively rare, or tend to sort of like more different animals with yes their own consistent place in the ecology. I get that most D&D GM's who have anything like my own tastes in having world make sense and be internally consistent, only pick and choose what things (races, classes, monsters, magic) from the published D&D books actually exist in their own campaigns. It's still generally a struggle for me looking at D&D materials such as a Monster Manual, because they seem to present a massive range of power levels and creatures with immunities to thinks like all physical attacks, especially when they say things about them like how they fit into a world ecology, because so many of them seem so powerful that they'd tend to unbalance any of my world ecologies if they were around, and it tends to overwhelm me to try to apply my usual attempts to grasp what's going on in my game worlds and why, when there are so many powerful monsters with magic powers and extremely different power levels, with many of them being very destructive and hostile. Even if I didn't care about realism, I find it hard to even think what would happen if so many such monsters were all over the place. What would be a stable system that had all those things in it? I guess it'd be like the Amazon, where too it's too complex for human scientists to have even identified most of the species that are there.
Not worrying about it too much seems like the only option for such settings/bestiaries, although you can of course pretend like it makes sense (or not care) to whatever level satisfies you.
Quote from: Skarg;924447I'm someone who usually plays much tamer settings where mainly there are people and animals and the monsters are either relatively rare, or tend to sort of like more different animals with yes their own consistent place in the ecology. I get that most D&D GM's who have anything like my own tastes in having world make sense and be internally consistent, only pick and choose what things (races, classes, monsters, magic) from the published D&D books actually exist in their own campaigns. It's still generally a struggle for me looking at D&D materials such as a Monster Manual, because they seem to present a massive range of power levels and creatures with immunities to thinks like all physical attacks, especially when they say things about them like how they fit into a world ecology, because so many of them seem so powerful that they'd tend to unbalance any of my world ecologies if they were around, and it tends to overwhelm me to try to apply my usual attempts to grasp what's going on in my game worlds and why, when there are so many powerful monsters with magic powers and extremely different power levels, with many of them being very destructive and hostile. Even if I didn't care about realism, I find it hard to even think what would happen if so many such monsters were all over the place. What would be a stable system that had all those things in it? I guess it'd be like the Amazon, where too it's too complex for human scientists to have even identified most of the species that are there.
Not worrying about it too much seems like the only option for such settings/bestiaries, although you can of course pretend like it makes sense (or not care) to whatever level satisfies you.
This is part of the reason I prefer fantastical ecologies rather than realistic ones. Going by the monster manuals most settings should be death worlds.
I never particularly found dungeon crawling to be very realistic. Unless only rare heroes of legend clear out ancient ruins, most ancient ruins would be long since picked clean of traps and treasures or outright collapsed into dust. The closest I've seen to internal consistency is the idea that dungeons are intentionally constructed (e.g. wizards needs monsters for spell components, the dungeon is alive, the dungeon is a trap by the villain, the dungeon is a prison for a powerful spirit, etc).
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;924459I never particularly found dungeon crawling to be very realistic.
It isn't; it exists to constrain players who would otherwise take one look at the map and decide to run off the end of it to see what's there, instead of engaging with the DM's prepared adventures.
It's a very useful construct, though, and it's easy to teach and for newbies to manage, on both sides of the screen. But not realistic, and certainly not necessary. If you have players that can be relied upon to get on board with the premise, natural caves, ruined border forts or abandoned towns can serve the same purpose.
To get back on track, I tend to run more Bronze Age-y stuff, where there are civilized fortress city-states surrounded by some farmland and a whole lot of hostile wilderness. There are natural animals, bandits and aggressive tribes of nomads out there that make travelling dangerous, but there are also unique monsters like the Nemean Lion, Erymanthian Boar, Lernaean Hydra, Zagros Chimera, or the Hag of Eridu that don't follow any rules and don't need to. Most heroic myth divides the world into Here, which is safe and familiar and follows natural rules, and There, which is where the adventure happens and we are not at home to Mr. Physics. Most of the Monster Manual stays squarely over There.
Quote from: daniel_ream;924487It isn't; it exists to constrain players who would otherwise take one look at the map and decide to run off the end of it to see what's there, instead of engaging with the DM's prepared adventures.
It exists because it is easy to play a pickup game of dungeon crawling whereas something that requires the same five players to show up week in and week out creates scheduling issues that aren't there for dungeon crawling and because creating and running the constrained environment of a dungeon makes it much easier to become a DM. It's far easier to create and run a dungeon than to create and run a functioning and interesting county, shire, town, or country.
QuoteIt's a very useful construct, though, and it's easy to teach and for newbies to manage, on both sides of the screen.
Hence the enduring popularity.
QuoteMost heroic myth divides the world into Here, which is safe and familiar and follows natural rules, and There, which is where the adventure happens and we are not at home to Mr. Physics. Most of the Monster Manual stays squarely over There.
I find that preferable myself.
Quote from: Ashakyre;924434Then there may not be much difference between our positions. A lot of D&D ecology is pretty silly, because it's not needed, but if someone is looking for an interesting design space, ecology would work if you had a setting it was interesting and distinctive.
Yes, sure. If one of the central themes of your setting is somehow about the harshness or strangeness of the environment, you'd better write about that. If your environment is just standard, then it's totally not necessarily to waste a lot of time on the biology or life-cycle of the Owlbear or whatever.