There were plenty of "real world" animals in the original Monster Manual, but I rarely think about using "normal" animals as foes, even giant versions. Do you use them? In what context?
What's the relationship between Monsters and Animals in your campaigns?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1110978There were plenty of "real world" animals in the original Monster Manual, but I rarely think about using "normal" animals as foes, even giant versions. Do you use them? In what context?
What's the relationship between Monsters and Animals in your campaigns?
In 3/3.5 days, I remember using dire wolves a few times. I also used some giant (or were they dire too) crocodiles to attack the PCs when they were boating along a shallow river through a marsh. There were also some war elephants with riders, and one character got thrown into a water-filled pit that had sharks in it. Otherwise, animals in combat have largely been something the druid wild shapes into or summons.
In sci-fi games, normal fauna can be pretty cool, especially if it is something that would not have any fear of people (at least initially) and might behave unpredictably ("Is it trying to eat us or fuck us?").
Quote from: Spinachcat;1110978There were plenty of "real world" animals in the original Monster Manual, but I rarely think about using "normal" animals as foes, even giant versions. Do you use them? In what context?
What's the relationship between Monsters and Animals in your campaigns?
Yes.
Boars and orcs go surprisingly well together. As a focus for an orc tribe, I had a boar eat the finger of a dead wizard which had a Ring of Regeneration on it. I decided that the magic would still work on the boar as the ring and finger bone got lodged in its stomach. So the orcs worship this boar because they can carve meat from it and the flesh will grow back which shows how the tribe is favored by the Gods.
A herd of buffalo or deer can put a serious dent in a low level adventuring party.
The perspective I take for science fiction is more along the lines of where does this critter belong in the ecology and if it really doesn't belong, then where did it come from?
Greetings!
Yes, my friend, I use natural animals all the time, as well as giant animals, prehistoric animals, mutant animals, and Fey Animals. Some of these can have an otherwise unusual or "magical" attribute, especially the Fey animal and mutant animals, of course. In the main though, I use normal, giant, and prehistoric animals all the time, scattered in various populations and zones throughout the campaign world, as appropriate. Player characters often encounter such animals while traveling through the wilderness, exploring, or while hunting for food, or seeking out valuable animal furs and ingredients, such as various body organs, claws, teeth, horns, eyes, feet, all beyond the otherwise known value of a particular kind of hide or fur. Meat as well, is valuable, besides providing food for the group, such meat can be preserved and sold for good profits in local villages, towns, and markets.
Various kinds of normal or giant animals are also sought out for gladiatorial arenas, as well as by guilds of professional animal trainers and breeders. Such animals are also eagerly sought for for use as valuable work beasts, pack animals, mounts, as well as being professionally trained war beasts. Player characters and NPC's alike highly value many such animals for all of these purposes. Then, of course, there are individual wizards as well as magical guilds that seek out such animals for use in harvesting for a variety of different spell components, and for experimentation in magical research and the crafting of a wide range of magical items.
In addition, there are a wide world full of detailed crustacians, fish, marine mammals, and amphibians that are all used and valued for the same such purposes.
I also have a diverse catalogue of insects and birds, all detailed with meat, resources, special attributes and market valuations.
The various animals and creatures in my world provide an endless diversity of food, dangerous opponents, as well as valuable mundane and magical resources. Entire economies, or specialized sections of economies, both for tribal and civilized realms, depend on such animal resources in a variety of ways. Furthermore, access to such animal populations, as well as the cultivation of distinct domesticated breeds, have far reaching financial impacts, in addition to political and military influence and strategic considerations. Through a complex web of cultural and religious customs, many such animals contribute crucially to a wide range of cultural practices as well as religious ceremonies, rituals, clothing, and spiritual life.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Usually only when under the control of intelligent creatures - humans & horses, goblins & wolves (but usually worgs) etc, or somehow enchanted. Occasional wilderness encounter with eg a brown bear, but they don't attack any more often than IRL. There was a scripted ambush attack by a sabretooth tiger in one Primeval Thule adventure I ran - Thule has particularly dangerous natural wildlife to fit the Primeval feel. One time the PCs fled from a giant sloth that then ate their camp bedding. :D But usually natural animals are only fought in the Fighting Pits.
Does a family of Brown bears scare the living shit out of a low level party in the woods? :P
Quote from: Spinachcat;1110978There were plenty of "real world" animals in the original Monster Manual, but I rarely think about using "normal" animals as foes, even giant versions. Do you use them? In what context?
What's the relationship between Monsters and Animals in your campaigns?
You mean strictly in D&D?
You walk into a cave, suddenly a female short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) runs at your party trying to protect her cubs. What do you do?
As you traverse the thick brush a pack of Dilophosaurus surrounds you. What do you do?
Of course in my campaigns they have other names not the scientific ones, but used the scientific ones so everybody knew what I'm talking about.
Still not that frequently in a Fantasy campaign, now in my totally not Conan playtests? All the time, again lots of prehistoric beasts, sometimes some artistic freedom has been taken to make a scary looking vegetarian into a ravenous carnivore.
I like snakes and wolves, in particular. The former provoke surprisingly visceral reactions in the players - maybe because we're all Australian and we live around some of the most dangerous snakes in the world?
Quote from: AikiGhost;1111011Does a family of Brown bears scare the living shit out of a low level party in the woods? :P
There should be a way to give XP.
I use them all the time; in fact, in general I prefer to use them more often than truly monstrous "monsters." When players encounter a troll, a mimic, or something similarly unnatural I prefer it to feel like a relatively unique or at least uncommon and memorable occurrence. When you have slain your fifth troll of the day it begins to lose some of its shine; this is also a reason I like having dragons be rare and powerful (though to keep some murderous flying lizards around, I do like to employ their smaller bastard cousin Drakes).
Now, there are exceptions to this (if the players go to the famously cockatrice-infested bog, it would be weird if cockatrices aren't a relatively common occurrence; similarly with stirge-ridden caverns, fire elementals around the volcano, etc. etc.) but I find that traditional animals or approximations thereof make for fine threats on their own and somewhat 'ground' the average encounter table. Plus, there are all sorts of freaky and dangerous 'ordinary' animals in real life!
When I think of 'natural' animals though, this does still include things like giant snakes, wolf variants (wargs/dire wolves), etc. Depending on the local fauna this may also include "run of the mill" monsters which are considered to be mundane animals by the local populace; griffins in some places, oversized terrestrial riding chickens in others, six-legged venomous boars, whatever.
I think animals have interesting encounter potential due to the fact that most will instinctively avoid direct combat, but still represent danger such as stalking, potential pack tactics, ambush and similar as well as the fact that they may simply be uninterested or afraid of conflict with PC's in general unless desperate, starving, whatever. They can't be reasoned or negotiated with in the same way sentient monsters can be, although they can be ferociously cunning or clever in their own right.
Yep I use them quite a bit at low levels. Hunting quests or component gathering, clearing an area of dangerous beasts (like protecting a farm from a pack of wolves), I've done the whole "infestation of rats", though in that case it was a sign of a larger issue and was a whole arc. There's animals under enchantment or control of a druid who sees civilization as an affront to nature and who is guiding them to try to wipe out a village or homestead, there's areas of the woods that are dark and twisted where the animals are vicious and attack without warning. There's animals which are trained accompaniments to other enemies, like the aforementioned orcs and boars, or goblins with wolves or spiders, or a hunting party of some race on giant eagles, and so on and so forth. Lots of reasons why they might be hostile.
However sometimes they're not hostile, just notable. I use animals on random encounter charts when traversing wilderness areas, and sometimes it's as simple as there being a family of bears in the middle of the road, not messing with anyone or hostile, just chilling there playing and it's on the players to decide: Do they approach and hope the bears clear way for them rather than perceiving them as a threat? Do they try to take the carts and horses through rough terrain to go around them, and how much time does that lose them? Do they have any way of communicating with them or convincing them to mosey along? Or do they just attack and gain a bunch of bear meat and hides to sell at the next town? Not every encounter has to start with that which is encountered being hostile to the players, sometimes the choice to initiate combat or not is in their hands.
Personally I get too tempted to buff up and 'make interesting' tons of what should be low level enemies. Kobolds are pathetic and easily dispatched in the open, but their dens are trap infested mazes wherein even experienced adventurers can easily find their death. Goblins are masters of stealth, poison, and murder in my world, and take the kind of role normally adopted by Drow (who take a very different role). Animals serve an important role for me in filling in low power level, relatively basic foes, which PCs can often choose to engage with or not, which helps make lower levels less brutal. Even then, they don't have to be vanilla or boring. I created a new animal, which hatches from pods which grow in trees which ooze blood instead of sap, and which burrow into the ground when near death, with a new tree sprouting from their corpse. They're vicious and carnivorous, and the more meat they consume and the larger they grow, the bigger and faster-growing the tree is which sprouts. It's weird, creepy, and going into their part of the woods is a tense and hair raising affair, but they're still low level opponents and their territorial nature gives the option of avoiding them entirely unless you're going there for a reason.
Once when the PCs were camped in a cabin, the one on guard heard definite scratching at the door.
He promptly freaked out and woke everyone up. About half an hour later, it happened again.
Everyone was pretty freaked out at that point.
Turned out to be a normal badger.
Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1111078However sometimes they're not hostile, just notable. I use animals on random encounter charts when traversing wilderness areas, and sometimes it's as simple as there being a family of bears in the middle of the road, not messing with anyone or hostile, just chilling there playing and it's on the players to decide: Do they approach and hope the bears clear way for them rather than perceiving them as a threat? Do they try to take the carts and horses through rough terrain to go around them, and how much time does that lose them? Do they have any way of communicating with them or convincing them to mosey along? Or do they just attack and gain a bunch of bear meat and hides to sell at the next town? Not every encounter has to start with that which is encountered being hostile to the players, sometimes the choice to initiate combat or not is in their hands.
That is how I mostly use them. It's a chance for cautious players to avoid trouble, reckless players to get into it, and clever players to eke out some advantage. Of if none of those player traits are on at the moment, it provides a little color to the game.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1110978There were plenty of "real world" animals in the original Monster Manual, but I rarely think about using "normal" animals as foes, even giant versions. Do you use them? In what context?
I normally play RQ/D100 games, so use their Bestiaries rather than the Monster Manual, but I have used normal animals as foes in the past.
For beginning, or not very powerful, PCs, a pack of wolves, a lion, boar or bear are dangerous opponents. They are good to throw at PCs, especially in a wilderness trip or when hunting through ruins. At medium level, the PCs are more organised and better equipped to deal with such foes and I sometimes use them to show how far they have advanced. At higher levels, i don;t usually bother, unless the animal is magical in nature.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1110978What's the relationship between Monsters and Animals in your campaigns?
For me, a Monster is something that is harmful. An Animal is not sentient, in RQ terms it has Fixed INT. Some Monsters are Animals, other Monsters are intelligent. Similarly, some Animals are Monsters and some are not, as they are harmless.
So, a cow standing in a field is not a Monster, but a bull charging at you is.
I do use normal animals, at least depending on the system. I actually haven't used them that much in my RuneQuest play, in part because RQ1 and RQ2 don't have many normal animals in the bestiary (though the Gateway Bestiary adds a bunch, and other BRP based resources I have have more). I WOULD count things like RQ's Rubble Runners as normal animals.
One thing I would love game systems and their bestiaries to do is give better information on what circumstances an animal would attack humans (some may attack lone humans, but not groups for example). I'd also love some discussion on how animals would react to humans in a world where adventurers reach heroic levels (which of course depends on if there are enough heroic adventurers for the animals to even develop any sense that not all humans are as easy targets as the farmer's wife who is out in the woods berry picking).
Frank
I've used them extensively in RoleMaster. And my players long ago learned that many normal animals are much more dangerous then they ever expected.
In other systems I don't use them much since they tend to be very weak in everything else.
Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1111222I've used them extensively in RoleMaster. And my players long ago learned that many normal animals are much more dangerous then they ever expected.
Exactly this, although for me it's using GURPS. One of my past groups most familiar with D&D at the time got overconfident with a large elk, which promptly KO'd two party members that tried to engage it directly and sprinted away before the rest of the group could do anything meaningful to stop or drop it. One of the PC's that got knocked on his ass gained a long-term fear of the animal.
Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1111222In other systems I don't use them much since they tend to be very weak in everything else.
Indeed, in D&D they don't really command much respect beyond lower levels in my experience (unless you count 'buffing' them by making them 'dire' animals, over-sized, added HD, whatever). In such a case I would still include them, but such encounters would be more for color than anything.
Speaking of, when I was still learning to run GURPS 'properly' early on, I made the mistake of including a horse-sized dire wolf stalking an arctic wood during a solo game with my brother. It was intended as a brief pit-stop encounter on his way to an icy lich's keep.
It absolutely shredded his first character, an illithid spellcaster. His second character was a hulked-up barbarian type member of the same cult that the illithid belonged to, ordered to find out what happened to him. Along the way he got to do some fun stuff like bury himself in a snow drift during a snow storm to evade bandits trying to ambush him (then him leaping out and eviscerating them before they could react).
He eventually found the bones and shredded belongings of the illithid, and the starving wolf found him. It was the most knock-down, drag-out fight we'd ever had up until that point. The barbarian buried his pick in the back of the wolf, who promptly took a huge bite out of his kidney; the pick got stuck, so the barbarian let go and grabbed the wolf by the throat, wrestled it to the ground, and after several moments of struggle he grabbed the wolf by its jaws, wrenched them open, and twisted until the wolf's head went *pop*.
The barbarian was so grossly wounded by the massive wolf's well-placed bite he couldn't patch himself up with the measly bandages he had on hand, as well as freezing to death and starving, so he laid his back against a tree in the cold, closed his eyes and bled to death, satisfied knowing he had succeeded in avenging his cult brother.
It probably sounds anticlimactic, but that was extremely memorable for me and my brother. It definitely solidified a few of the reasons we prefer a more 'grounded' game system in general, and I think it also plays into why I find it so pleasant to include animals and 'mundane' beasts that are otherwise considered little more than speed bumps in many RPGs.
I use them all the time. If only to keep the players grounded in some semblance of reality and something to gauge fictional creatures against. And of course it depends on the setting. One of the things I'll sometimes do is consider the competition factors between species in a given biome and I'll change the normal flora and fauna and give them small adaptations to deal with the presumption of fictional creatures also in the same biome.
I've had wolves develop more keen communications systems to deal with competitive scavenger/hunter monsters. I've changed biological functions from predators turned prey - using different strategies to not go extinct. Bats turning into agile subterranean colony creatures. Burrowing rapidly and exploding out of the ground like blind piranha, because remaining air-born in my stirge-infested biome made them easy pickings during the day.
stuff like that.
And hey - who doesn't have memories of being fucked up by a GM using packs of wolves to do hit-and-run (or in D&D - bite and trip) on low-level PC's to make them fear the woods? Those are rites of passage!
Big Cats, predatory fish, leeches, bugs, wolf-packs, BEARS (o my!) - I've used it all. Because 1) it's funny to just do an encounter with something as banal as a BULL MOOSE... in a world where *crazy* shit exists 2) To kick the crap out of PC's that disrespect the Bull Moose... and let them know... "Nature is Scary (https://twitter.com/natureisscary?lang=en)(tm)"
Quote from: tenbones;1111226I use them all the time. If only to keep the players grounded in some semblance of reality and something to gauge fictional creatures against. And of course it depends on the setting. One of the things I'll sometimes do is consider the competition factors between species in a given biome and I'll change the normal flora and fauna and give them small adaptations to deal with the presumption of fictional creatures also in the same biome.
Yes, this is great! I like to do this a lot. Sometimes the changes will be subtle whether instinctual or physiological, other times much more drastic such as forming symbiotic bonds or relationships with competition in order to survive or physically adapting to weather a new habitat. I like having variants of these from region to region to keep players on their toes and better reflect the local ecosystem (for example, the isle ruled by the dead has a *very* different natural order and variant species than the mainland).
Quote from: tenbones;1111226Big Cats, predatory fish, leeches, bugs, wolf-packs, BEARS (o my!) - I've used it all. Because 1) it's funny to just do an encounter with something as banal as a BULL MOOSE... in a world where *crazy* shit exists 2) To kick the crap out of PC's that disrespect the Bull Moose... and let them know... "Nature is Scary (https://twitter.com/natureisscary?lang=en)(tm)"
Hell yea!
I pull out the big cats from time to time because half my group is irrationally scared of them. Or for that matter, normal-looking cats that might be magical. Maybe I'm just better at playing the cats.
Big Cats *are* scary and far more creative/dangerous with behaviors most people have no idea about...
Jaguar eating underwater!
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1182477671764287490
Leopard pulling warthog out of burrow
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1180303341269766146
Tiger stalking human (this one is amazing and scary)
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1166894991517593600
And there's tons of just "regular" stuff that any PC might encounter that could prove memorable. I think anything with water is always scary. Mainly because most players feel uneasy with their gear while traversing water.
You see stuff like this - and it's instant inspiration..
Shark bump
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1141527867559436288
Speed Hippo
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1135004860024328192
Turtle kills Pigeon
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1129931432120508417
Killer Whale launches seal (I will try to do this to my PC's someday)
https://twitter.com/NatureisScary/status/1184651996646821888
In an old Rolemaster game I played in, the GM used animals a lot during travel. After a while, we would be concerned about things like a giant, but petrified about being attack by a pack of wolves at night.
Quote from: tenbones;1111226I use them all the time. If only to keep the players grounded in some semblance of reality and something to gauge fictional creatures against. And of course it depends on the setting. One of the things I'll sometimes do is consider the competition factors between species in a given biome and I'll change the normal flora and fauna and give them small adaptations to deal with the presumption of fictional creatures also in the same biome.
This actually is one of the issues I have with both Tekumel and Talislanta. There are no or almost no terrestrial critters, so everything is an unusual "monster". Heck, Talislanta doesn't even have humans...
Very frequently, especially as random encounters. A lot of the time the encounter isn't very dangerous and can be ignored. Ditto with human NPCs. I like doing this for a few reasons.
First, it makes the world seem more normal and alive, rather than the whole world being a suitable challenge for 4th level just because the party is that level.
Second, there is a limit to the amount of time I want to spend doing random encounters.
And lastly, every once in a great while the eagle flying overhead is going to be an enemy Druid scouting, and the players won't see it coming.
For more dangerous natural animals I find this site useful for inspiration
http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/c/castoroides.html
I have nothing to add except thanks and encouragement. Before this thread, I never considered the possibility. Now, I'm taking notes and thinking about how to use the ideas here.
Keep it up, please! :)
One thing I love about running Wilderlands of High Fantasy as a hexcrawl is that the 3e version includes tons of mundane animal encounters. I can combine those with a monster-heavy encounter table geared to the PCs and I get a great balance of challenge with living-world simulation.
Quote from: ffilz;1111274This actually is one of the issues I have with both Tekumel and Talislanta. There are no or almost no terrestrial critters, so everything is an unusual "monster". Heck, Talislanta doesn't even have humans...
... or ELVES
Well the reason for that in Talislanta is it's supposed to be an alien world, whole of cloth. Darksun falls into this zone too. I have to admit... big huge cow-sized aphids that produce sweet honey-pods you can consume as beasts of burden in Darksun (Kanks) immediately made me love the setting.
But I do understand your point. And it's one of the valid criticisms about player-buy in. That's why it requires more GM's to really sell it and run those settings.
Quote from: Conanist;1111320Very frequently, especially as random encounters. A lot of the time the encounter isn't very dangerous and can be ignored. Ditto with human NPCs. I like doing this for a few reasons.
First, it makes the world seem more normal and alive, rather than the whole world being a suitable challenge for 4th level just because the party is that level.
Second, there is a limit to the amount of time I want to spend doing random encounters.
And lastly, every once in a great while the eagle flying overhead is going to be an enemy Druid scouting, and the players won't see it coming.
For more dangerous natural animals I find this site useful for inspiration
http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/c/castoroides.html
YES! I use that site too! Prehistoric mega-fauna is *terrifying* to consider in light of what normal animals could do. Imagine running around a world where Axebeak's were still predating on us? I never liked the stats for them in the Monster Manuals.
Quote from: tenbones;1111384YES! I use that site too! Prehistoric mega-fauna is *terrifying* to consider in light of what normal animals could do. Imagine running around a world where Axebeak's were still predating on us? I never liked the stats for them in the Monster Manuals.
Agreed on both points. You'd think a lot of this stuff would be markedly tougher than, say, an Owlbear.
About to run Ghosts of Saltmarsh so giant weasels, giant poisonous snakes, giant centipedes, and swarms of spiders are some of the first encounters.
Wolves, spiders, snakes, scorpions, crocodiles, dinosaurs, etc.
I love using sharks, playing them as indifferent -- unless anyone is bloodied. The sharks seem lazy and ambivalent on the way in, but are suddenly frenzied and voracious on the way out!
The giant weasels hit the group hard tonight. Dropped one character to 0 hp pretty quickly and hurt two others enough to force the group into a short rest after just 1 encounter. The most painful part though was the Pauly Shore jokes that came from this battle.
Giant Weasel's are the badlands' deadliest predator in my DCC campaign.
In AD&D I did all the time. Normal animals, Dire animals, Prehistoric Animals, the works.
In my Mythras Conan game, all the time. One of the scariest things they've fought so far is a 20ft saltwater crocodile.
I use natural animals when appropriate. However, I run them like animals, so it's not particularly common for them to want to attack/fight a group of humans (or demi-humans), and if they meet stiff resistance they tend to flee at the first opportunity. Depends on the animal and the situation. A bear sow could very well attack ferociously if she thinks her cubs are threatened. Offhand, I recall encounters with wolf packs, crocodiles, snakes of various sorts, bears, baboons, apes, sharks, boars, bats, rats, tigers, etc.
Crocs and gators are excellent. I'm also particularly fond of giant water-dwelling snakes and serpents.
In a pirate-based campaign I ran once, the players fought one with a head the size of a BMW from their sloop; it ate one PC and nearly dragged another into the watery depths, but in a very badass underwater struggle he managed to slay it by gouging out its eyes with his blade then slicing into its rubbery throat as the others fired blindly into the water at it. The players were VERY proud of their win, and insisted on keeping its head mounted on the ship as a trophy and shipping the valuable snake skin back to civilization to sell (although one PC used some to make a fancy cloak and boots). They also ate well for weeks!
Why is there this weird attitude that any animal which doesn't exist in real life is "unnatural" or "magical" and therefore doesn't count as a natural/normal animal, but physically impossible giant versions of real animals and Jurassic Park-style fake featherless dinosaurs are totally fine?
If you actually read medieval bestiaries, then you will notice that 1) medieval naturalists believed in tons of completely wrong things about nature, and 2) they believed all sorts of ridiculous fancies like unicorns, manticores and bonnacons were real natural creatures and not unnatural magical abominations.
Not to mention anything to do with speculative biology. All sorts of crazy stuff can exist in reality based on our understanding of physics and biology. Bizarrely, the ecology of fantasy campaign settings is surprisingly boring and vanilla aside from the monster manual pastiches that are relegated to the "unnatural monster that needs to be destroyed" bin.
I fail to see how griffins and owlbears and centaurs and whatever are unnatural abominations that have to be destroyed, but house-sized spiders and Indominus rex are vegan-certifiedTM.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1112965I fail to see how griffins and owlbears and centaurs and whatever are unnatural abominations that have to be destroyed
I don't generally run it that way. I even count owlbears as Beasts and let the Druid Wildshape into one!
Quote from: S'mon;1112969I don't generally run it that way. I even count owlbears as Beasts and let the Druid Wildshape into one!
Yes, I imagine that most DMs have that level of common sense. I don't understand why the rules make an (often inconsistent) distinction between historical and fictional animals.
The owlbear is (as of 5e) labeled [monstrosity]. As the name implies a monstrosity is supposed to be some horrible unnatural monster, but it includes owlbears, griffins, and centaurs. Meanwhile, the tressym and winged snake are labeled [beast].
There isn't a consistent logic for what type to apply to creatures. And, for some bizarre reason, any given creature is only allowed to have one type as opposed to having all the types it makes sense to have. At least if I'm reading the rules correctly; the game doesn't seem to break if a creature has multiple types.
Anyway, I've had plenty of fun world building settings in which fantastical creatures are domesticated. Barnacle goose trees, vegetable lambs, riding ostriches, riding griffins, manticore choirs, etc. I don't understand why that doesn't feature more often in fantasy stories.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1113043Yes, I imagine that most DMs have that level of common sense. I don't understand why the rules make an (often inconsistent) distinction between historical and fictional animals.
The owlbear is (as of 5e) labeled [monstrosity]. As the name implies a monstrosity is supposed to be some horrible unnatural monster, but it includes owlbears, griffins, and centaurs. Meanwhile, the tressym and winged snake are labeled [beast].
There isn't a consistent logic for what type to apply to creatures. And, for some bizarre reason, any given creature is only allowed to have one type as opposed to having all the types it makes sense to have. At least if I'm reading the rules correctly; the game doesn't seem to break if a creature has multiple types.
Anyway, I've had plenty of fun world building settings in which fantastical creatures are domesticated. Barnacle goose trees, vegetable lambs, riding ostriches, riding griffins, manticore choirs, etc. I don't understand why that doesn't feature more often in fantasy stories.
"Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense: frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owlbears), and others are the product of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don't fit into any other type."
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1113061"Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense: frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owlbears), and others are the product of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don't fit into any other type."
That doesn't address my complaint at all. I've read that before and I've made this complaint several times in the past too without ever getting a satisfactory answer. How are owlbears and centaurs monstrosities if the druids make friends with them? If the rules/fluff was remotely consistent, then the druids would be leading crusades to exterminate all owlbears, centaurs, griffins, and other monstrosities.
The writers don't adhere to their own definitions, so their taxonomy is arbitrary, inconsistent, and worthless. The only good thing about the rules is that monster types don't have rules attached so you can change them easily. The first thing I did was throw the monstrosity type in the garbage where it belongs. It's a worthless catch-all category because the writers were too lazy to make something sensible.
I mean, it says right there that it's a catch-all category. It's just the "other" category for creatures.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1113146I mean, it says right there that it's a catch-all category. It's just the "other" category for creatures.
Then it's not a good taxonomy. It's lazy.
How would you categorize centaur or owlbear? I am curious.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1113148How would you categorize centaur or owlbear? I am curious.
I see the argument that centaurs may be a natural part of a fantasy world. But I can also see an argument that they are still unnatural in some way and some kind of magic is involved in their existence. That magic may allow them to reproduce the same way natural animals do, yet still be an unnatural animal.
Also something to consider, does a spell like "Animal Control" work on humans? If not why? What is the logic of your setting? Answering questions like that will tell you if centaurs are a natural animal or not.
Also, druids need not oppose anything unnatural. And again, do druids special abilities work on humans? If not, why not? Again, does that help answer why the can or can not affect centaurs or owl bears?
Now I agree that various editions of D&D may not have really given thought to the answers to these sorts of questions, and a good GM will give these sorts of questions some thought and possibly change the lists of what is affected by certain magic and abilities.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1113148How would you categorize centaur or owlbear? I am curious.
Quote from: ffilz;1113152I see the argument that centaurs may be a natural part of a fantasy world. But I can also see an argument that they are still unnatural in some way and some kind of magic is involved in their existence. That magic may allow them to reproduce the same way natural animals do, yet still be an unnatural animal.
Also something to consider, does a spell like "Animal Control" work on humans? If not why? What is the logic of your setting? Answering questions like that will tell you if centaurs are a natural animal or not.
Also, druids need not oppose anything unnatural. And again, do druids special abilities work on humans? If not, why not? Again, does that help answer why the can or can not affect centaurs or owl bears?
Now I agree that various editions of D&D may not have really given thought to the answers to these sorts of questions, and a good GM will give these sorts of questions some thought and possibly change the lists of what is affected by certain magic and abilities.
First of all, I think the distinctions between magical vs non-magical and natural vs unnatural are inherently nonsensical because what qualifies is completely arbitrary. In real life we cannot universally define what is and isn't natural because different people have different definitions and nobody is right or wrong because "natural" isn't a quality that can be quantified by science. Similarly, distinguishing between magic and non-magic is arbitrary because magic doesn't exist in reality and there is no remotely comparable analogue for it either. Furthermore, in reality people who believe(d) in magic generally don't distinguish it as something apart from the natural/non-magical world. The idea that magic is distinct from natural/non-magical existence is a purely modern invention of people who grew up in a secular/Christian culture devoid of any teachings about magic other than prayer and demons. When you compare to (for example) Eastern mysticism involving qi, you don't see the same distinction between magical and non-magical existence because the "magic" comes from the natural world.
Long story short, D&D doesn't have a coherent magical theory or coherent world building in general. The inability to create a sensible taxonomy is a symptom of that. Naturally I'm going to limit myself to the taxonomy because world building a coherent magical universe is much harder.
Anyway, I wouldn't distinguish arbitrary nonsensical distinctions like "magical" or "unnatural." I would categorize monsters by common sense on a case-by-case basis, with as many taxonomic tags as required for their concept. (What qualifies as "common sense" depends on the observer, but that's neither here no there.)
I would consider centaurs to be people and owlbears to be animals. They may not exist on Earth, but they do exist in Fantasyland. It doesn't matter if they were created artificially, since if we're going to be serious about the fantasy then we have to acknowledge that every living thing was created artificially by the gods or that life arose spontaneously from the primordial chaos.
Part of this also ties into ecology. D&D often mentions ecology with regard to monsters and especially druids. The medieval peasants and classical philosophers who invented the basis of the fantasy genre didn't know ecology existed, or any other scientific facts that even the most uneducated US citizen takes for granted. They didn't know plants produced breathable air, they didn't know that it was possible to hunt plants and animals to extinction, they didn't know that their thoughtless actions destroyed every ecosystem they came into contact with.
Elf-games descend, through a game of Chinese telephone, from those ancient wrong-headed traditions. Which makes me wonder about world building. Do I want the fantasy world to have an ecology or not? If yes, how do I reconcile the fact that the pseudo-medieval technology level means that nobody in the fantasy world will know what ecology is? How do druids even know it exists? Their nature gods told them? Is there a friction between druids and civilization due to the druids preaching environmentalism that nobody else understands or cares for? That sounds like a pretty neat plot hook!
But I digress.
Anyway, pretty much any monster you encounter could conceivably be classified either as a natural animal or a natural person. Given that anything is possible in Fantasyland, how exactly do you distinguish an arbitrary nonsensical category like "monstrosity" from that? What makes the basilisk or hydra (or whatever) a "monstrosity" and not a natural megafauna of fantasyland? Plenty of speculative biologists have speculated that creatures like that could exist in real life on some alien planet, so at worst they'd be an invasive species which is innocuous in their home environment but a dangerous pest on the human planet. Even if they're a unique mutation or created by spontaneous generation, that's still natural to the physics of Fantasyland.
The most coherent explanation I ever found was by using flavors of magic (like classical elements, used to define the composition of reality), to which all PCs/NPCs/monsters are tied. All natural animals are linked to nature magic. All unnatural monstrosities are linked to chaos magic. By changing the magical flavor that dominates them, an animal may become a monstrosity or vice versa.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1113211First of all, I think the distinctions between magical vs non-magical and natural vs unnatural are inherently nonsensical because what qualifies is completely arbitrary. In real life we cannot universally define what is and isn't natural because different people have different definitions and nobody is right or wrong because "natural" isn't a quality that can be quantified by science. Similarly, distinguishing between magic and non-magic is arbitrary because magic doesn't exist in reality and there is no remotely comparable analogue for it either. Furthermore, in reality people who believe(d) in magic generally don't distinguish it as something apart from the natural/non-magical world. The idea that magic is distinct from natural/non-magical existence is a purely modern invention of people who grew up in a secular/Christian culture devoid of any teachings about magic other than prayer and demons. When you compare to (for example) Eastern mysticism involving qi, you don't see the same distinction between magical and non-magical existence because the "magic" comes from the natural world.
Long story short, D&D doesn't have a coherent magical theory or coherent world building in general. The inability to create a sensible taxonomy is a symptom of that. Naturally I'm going to limit myself to the taxonomy because world building a coherent magical universe is much harder.
Anyway, I wouldn't distinguish arbitrary nonsensical distinctions like "magical" or "unnatural." I would categorize monsters by common sense on a case-by-case basis, with as many taxonomic tags as required for their concept. (What qualifies as "common sense" depends on the observer, but that's neither here no there.)
I would consider centaurs to be people and owlbears to be animals. They may not exist on Earth, but they do exist in Fantasyland. It doesn't matter if they were created artificially, since if we're going to be serious about the fantasy then we have to acknowledge that every living thing was created artificially by the gods or that life arose spontaneously from the primordial chaos.
Part of this also ties into ecology. D&D often mentions ecology with regard to monsters and especially druids. The medieval peasants and classical philosophers who invented the basis of the fantasy genre didn't know ecology existed, or any other scientific facts that even the most uneducated US citizen takes for granted. They didn't know plants produced breathable air, they didn't know that it was possible to hunt plants and animals to extinction, they didn't know that their thoughtless actions destroyed every ecosystem they came into contact with.
Elf-games descend, through a game of Chinese telephone, from those ancient wrong-headed traditions. Which makes me wonder about world building. Do I want the fantasy world to have an ecology or not? If yes, how do I reconcile the fact that the pseudo-medieval technology level means that nobody in the fantasy world will know what ecology is? How do druids even know it exists? Their nature gods told them? Is there a friction between druids and civilization due to the druids preaching environmentalism that nobody else understands or cares for? That sounds like a pretty neat plot hook!
But I digress.
Anyway, pretty much any monster you encounter could conceivably be classified either as a natural animal or a natural person. Given that anything is possible in Fantasyland, how exactly do you distinguish an arbitrary nonsensical category like "monstrosity" from that? What makes the basilisk or hydra (or whatever) a "monstrosity" and not a natural megafauna of fantasyland? Plenty of speculative biologists have speculated that creatures like that could exist in real life on some alien planet, so at worst they'd be an invasive species which is innocuous in their home environment but a dangerous pest on the human planet. Even if they're a unique mutation or created by spontaneous generation, that's still natural to the physics of Fantasyland.
The most coherent explanation I ever found was by using flavors of magic (like classical elements, used to define the composition of reality), to which all PCs/NPCs/monsters are tied. All natural animals are linked to nature magic. All unnatural monstrosities are linked to chaos magic. By changing the magical flavor that dominates them, an animal may become a monstrosity or vice versa.
You make some excellent points. I would add though that D&D (and many other fantasy RPGs) has a detect magic spell, so magical energy is something identifiable as different from other sources. And some systems identify that there can be magical flames and normal flames (so a dispel magic spell would put out a fire of magical flames, but would not affect a campfire), and then in many cases, magical flames can ignite things to burn with non-magical flames. Now I don't know if any systems detect magic identifies any creatures as magical (except maybe things like golems). Many systems certainly identify undead as something special (but note for example, the OD&D shadow is NOT undead while it became undead in AD&D) that can be detected and is affected by certain spells and not affected by other spells. The Cold Iron system I played in college (a friend's home brew system) has a table for mapping between size and strength for creatures, it has two columns, natural and magical but detect magic doesn't detect the magical creatures, so in that system some creatures are of magical origin though they aren't actively magical. Many systems acknowledge that dragons ability for flight is something different from a hawk's ability.
Since I enjoy these games and don't want to tear down their assumptions, I accept that while some cultures might treat what we call as magic as something that's naturally part of the world, and thus the so called magical creatures are natural, clearly many fantasy worlds treat magic as something special, and I don't have a problem with that. Really a lot fantasy (and science fiction) can be torn apart if apply logic to deriving implications and consequences of how they are set up.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1113148How would you categorize centaur or owlbear? I am curious.
Owlbears were Fey in 4e. I'd probably keep them both Fey.
Quote from: ffilz;1113217You make some excellent points. I would add though that D&D (and many other fantasy RPGs) has a detect magic spell, so magical energy is something identifiable as different from other sources. And some systems identify that there can be magical flames and normal flames (so a dispel magic spell would put out a fire of magical flames, but would not affect a campfire), and then in many cases, magical flames can ignite things to burn with non-magical flames. Now I don't know if any systems detect magic identifies any creatures as magical (except maybe things like golems). Many systems certainly identify undead as something special (but note for example, the OD&D shadow is NOT undead while it became undead in AD&D) that can be detected and is affected by certain spells and not affected by other spells. The Cold Iron system I played in college (a friend's home brew system) has a table for mapping between size and strength for creatures, it has two columns, natural and magical but detect magic doesn't detect the magical creatures, so in that system some creatures are of magical origin though they aren't actively magical. Many systems acknowledge that dragons ability for flight is something different from a hawk's ability.
Since I enjoy these games and don't want to tear down their assumptions, I accept that while some cultures might treat what we call as magic as something that's naturally part of the world, and thus the so called magical creatures are natural, clearly many fantasy worlds treat magic as something special, and I don't have a problem with that. Really a lot fantasy (and science fiction) can be torn apart if apply logic to deriving implications and consequences of how they are set up.
I believe a simpler way to put it would be that I prefer to world build from first principles, whereas D&D just throws a bunch of fantasy stuff into a blender and pretends those things play well together.
The idea that magic is measurably distinct from nature is a purely modern conceit that is generally absent from fantasy fiction written prior to comic books and roleplaying games. Not only that, but it makes zero sense when you analyze it critically. Most writers seem to imagine "magic" as some alien force that lets you cheat physics, and therein lies the problem: it makes no sense for the universe to be structured this way.
If the universe arose spontaneously, then magic would be just as integrated as the four fundamental forces and attempting to create anti-magic would cause the universe to implode. If the universe was created by gods, then it makes no sense they would invent a uniquely distinct force of magic that could be separated from the rest of the universe without causing everything to implode.
To use an example, the RPG
Nephilim operates on the premise that real world scientific knowledge is wrong (by contrast, D&D generally assumes real world scientific knowledge is accurate and magic is tacked on to cheat it). Rather than atomic theory and periodic elements and so forth, the world as we know it is composed of "ka" or magical forces. In our Solar System, there are eight types of Ka that compose the material and spiritual components of everything. Human beings, body and soul, are composed of Solar-Ka. Elemental or "magical" creatures are composed of all the other Ka. Indeed, the titular Nephilim consider the word "magic" a vulgar misunderstanding: what they do isn't magic, but
science. Their magic skills are literally called "occult sciences" (a term burrowed from Blavatsky, btw). While they have mechanics similar to "detect magic" and "anti-magic," these don't work the same way as D&D. Since both the mundane and magical realities are composed of the same thing (Ka), characters using mystic vision actually have to use critical thought to distinguish whether a particular concentration of Ka is natural or artificial. One of the elements has its whole shtick as "anti-magic" since it destroys the other Ka on contact (with a couple exceptions), and the downside is that sufficiently high concentrations of it would literally destroy the world.
To use another example, the world of
Avatar: The Last Airbender doesn't have concepts like "detect magic" or "anti-magic" because "bending" (the setting's equivalent of magic, basically element-based telekinesis) is a natural part of the world. The same goes for the similar cartoon
The Dragon Prince, since all magic is that setting draws it power from the natural world.
Does that make sense?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1113211Elf-games descend, through a game of Chinese telephone, from those ancient wrong-headed traditions.
They descend much more directly from the Modernist post-Christian American fantasy/swords & sorcery of the mid-20th century. So you have a Natural World (of God & Darwin) vs an Unnatural World creeping in from 'outside'. Poor old Hippogriffs don't have a comfortable place there!
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1113229I believe a simpler way to put it would be that I prefer to world build from first principles
OK, but let's say you did that to exactly what you wanted. Would you consider it valid for someone to come along with a different set of first principles, and say that you botched something because you didn't design according to their first principles?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales....I fail to see how griffins and owlbears and centaurs and whatever are unnatural abominations that have to be destroyed, but house-sized spiders and Indominus rex are vegan-certifiedTM.
Monsters are any creature that is a potential threat (DMG 1e, p. 229).
I assume that normal animals are the product of evolution and fantastic creatures are creations.
From a Christian/clerical perspective, unnatural neutral- and evil-aligned creatures are perversions of God's creation. So "monster" is a reasonable colloquial name (but not to be confused with the game term).
From a Christian/good-clerical perspective, both the neutral and evil alignments are evil, it is simply a difference in culpability, which is reflected in our modern laws (an example being second and first degree murder).
Druids however are not interested in moral philosophy. When as DM I am role-playing the gods of druids (or the anthropomorphic manifestations of trees, the sun and the moon, if one wishes) I would much rather that druids spend their free time drinking and indulging in carnal pleasures than thinking too much about philosophy -- if their wisdom gets to 17 there is always the chance they might "see the light" and switch professions to cleric. Each druid is free to have his own opinion on the matter as long as they are morally pragmatic.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales....If you actually read medieval bestiaries, then you will notice that 1) medieval naturalists believed in tons of completely wrong things about nature, and 2) they believed all sorts of ridiculous fancies like unicorns, manticores and bonnacons were real natural creatures and not unnatural magical abominations....
Science was in its infancy of course. The Church itself was very conservative about accepting new scientific ideas and demanded coherent explanations and proof, as well as time to digest the spiritual meaning and implications of such ideas (which is often today misconstrued as an anti-science position) and also condemned the practice of superstition, such as believing in reincarnation, witches, faeries, or the like. In any case, unnatural creatures could certainly be misconstrued as natural and vice-versa. If the game world is in some post-apocalyptic future, as in the Dying Earth series, then bad science isn't going to be an issue.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTalesFirst of all, I think the distinctions between magical vs non-magical and natural vs unnatural are inherently nonsensical because what qualifies is completely arbitrary. In real life we cannot universally define what is and isn't natural because different people have different definitions and nobody is right or wrong because "natural" isn't a quality that can be quantified by science. Similarly, distinguishing between magic and non-magic is arbitrary because magic doesn't exist in reality and there is no remotely comparable analogue for it either....
Science is quite literally the study of that which can be quantified. Anything outside of the material realm is not quantifiable by definition and is therefore outside the scope of science. We can therefore say that "magical" or "unnatural" is anything that is beyond the scope of science -- unquantifiable. Scientists and religious invariably make fools of themselves when they stray into the other's territory. Scientists are not qualified to talk about spiritual matters and religious are not qualified to talk about science, and they should avoid doing so. There is neither overlap nor conflict between the two -- seeming conflict results from conflating the two.
The natural world, whether as understood by scientists or as envisioned by religious, has laws that must be obeyed. From a scientific perspective, these laws are inviolable. From a religious perspective, the Creator can do whatever he wants, and the anti-Creator can pervert those laws. Further, Man can attempt to circumnavigate the Creator's intended reality by the use of
magic. Thus magic is in a sense
unnatural. Natural creatures are those that live and die in accordance to those intended laws.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales....Furthermore, in reality people who believe(d) in magic generally don't distinguish it as something apart from the natural/non-magical world. The idea that magic is distinct from natural/non-magical existence is a purely modern invention of people who grew up in a secular/Christian culture devoid of any teachings about magic other than prayer and demons....
Empirical thinking is relatively new.
Most people are not trained scientists, they do not know how to think empirically and have no background in philosophy. Such people rely on cognitive models, which are embodied with regard to their content, which among other things means they can employ ideas without being able to define them or understand how they work. Distinctions within cognitive models are fuzzy.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales....Long story short, D&D doesn't have a coherent magical theory or coherent world building in general....
Not anymore it doesn't. One of the problems of game design is when it strays too far from reality, because then it has to rely on its own internal mythology, which normally becomes more convoluted and nonsensical as time goes on. OD&D and AD&D are for the most part only one step away from reality, so one can always fall back on real world mythology, which is built up over many generations and is therefore very well thought out. AD&D's magic system for example is based on a combination of Dying Earth stories and real world sympathetic magic, so there is lots of source material to fall back on.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales....Anyway, I wouldn't distinguish arbitrary nonsensical distinctions like "magical" or "unnatural." I would categorize monsters by common sense on a case-by-case basis, with as many taxonomic tags as required for their concept. (What qualifies as "common sense" depends on the observer, but that's neither here no there.)....
Cognitive modeling.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales....Part of this also ties into ecology. D&D often mentions ecology with regard to monsters and especially druids. The medieval peasants and classical philosophers who invented the basis of the fantasy genre didn't know ecology existed, or any other scientific facts that even the most uneducated US citizen takes for granted. They didn't know plants produced breathable air, they didn't know that it was possible to hunt plants and animals to extinction, they didn't know that their thoughtless actions destroyed every ecosystem they came into contact with....
That's partially true, but also partially false. People have had millions of years of experience, plenty of time to develop wholly functional cognitive models. They didn't understand ecology
empirically, but they understood it and stored that information in the form of religion, myth, and story. What disrupted ecosystems is rapid population growth, because growing human intelligence allowed people to become better at manipulating their environment, which means that over the last few thousand years we have been having to learn new ways to live. We have been stumbling around learning by trial and error what works and what doesn't work, and then storing that information as we build new myths and stories.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1113211Part of this also ties into ecology. D&D often mentions ecology with regard to monsters and especially druids. The medieval peasants and classical philosophers who invented the basis of the fantasy genre didn't know ecology existed, or any other scientific facts that even the most uneducated US citizen takes for granted. They didn't know plants produced breathable air, they didn't know that it was possible to hunt plants and animals to extinction, they didn't know that their thoughtless actions destroyed every ecosystem they came into contact with.
It seems like you have a pretty poor grasp of what our ancestors did and did not know. Even the Romans knew about making plants extinct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium) and the Greeks could calculate the circumference of the Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes) so what makes Ecology such a hard nut that it could not be understood by the "ancients"?
Meanwhile in modern day Physicists have to invoke "magically undetectable" dark matter and dark energy to explain Astronomy.
Quote from: EOTB;1113243OK, but let's say you did that to exactly what you wanted. Would you consider it valid for someone to come along with a different set of first principles, and say that you botched something because you didn't design according to their first principles?
Are we talking two distinct self-consistent worlds built from different first principles? Then I would consider it nonsensical for either to be judged as better or worse by the standards of the other. That's like saying baryonic matter was botched because it isn't non-baryonic matter.
D&D doesn't have first principles. That's my entire point.
Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1113246Monsters are any creature that is a potential threat (DMG 1e, p. 229).
I assume that normal animals are the product of evolution and fantastic creatures are creations.
From a Christian/clerical perspective, unnatural neutral- and evil-aligned creatures are perversions of God's creation. So "monster" is a reasonable colloquial name (but not to be confused with the game term).
From a Christian/good-clerical perspective, both the neutral and evil alignments are evil, it is simply a difference in culpability, which is reflected in our modern laws (an example being second and first degree murder).
Again, the problem I am complaining about is that D&D doesn't have first principles. As a result, the taxonomy mechanic is arbitrary, contestable, and inconsistent with itself. I've listed numerous examples of this in the past and I can provide more on demand, including thought experiments.
Not only that, but the taxonomy mechanic is fundamentally broken: there's no sensible reason why a monster couldn't have multiple types or change its type depending on circumstances. For example, the 5e will-o'-the-wisp is typed [undead] but the 3e version is typed [aberration].
Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1113246Science was in its infancy of course. The Church itself was very conservative about accepting new scientific ideas and demanded coherent explanations and proof, as well as time to digest the spiritual meaning and implications of such ideas (which is often today misconstrued as an anti-science position) and also condemned the practice of superstition, such as believing in reincarnation, witches, faeries, or the like. In any case, unnatural creatures could certainly be misconstrued as natural and vice-versa. If the game world is in some post-apocalyptic future, as in the Dying Earth series, then bad science isn't going to be an issue.
Yes, but my point is that D&D world builds
backwards from the nonsensical assumption that the fantasy world operates according to modern scientific knowledge (or more accurately the writers' almost certainly non-professional education in those subjects) with magic tacked on to let you cheat physics when convenient.
The rules/fluff go on to make the even sillier assumptions. Among other things, the average zero-level commoner has the same basic education as the writers and therefore understands the modern concept of ecology and evolution and so forth, the rampant magic doesn't completely rewrite those transplanted scientific laws simply by existing and interacting with them, multiple contradictory concepts like young earth creationism and old earth creationism and geological scale evolution and so forth are all mutually true about the same planet, other contradictory concepts like classical elements and periodic elements are mutually true, the definition for what constitutes magical/unnatural/etc vs nonmagical/natural/etc is based on (the writers' understanding of) our own real world even though that is arbitrarily and nonsensical, the different interpretations of different writers somehow aren't contradictory when they totally are, etc.
Basically, D&D's fantasy land doesn't operate according to any kind of coherent cosmology but to writer fiat and the writers can't stay consistent with each other or themselves because they don't operate according to a consistent framework in the first place. The moment you start analyzing it critically the world falls apart under its own blatant contradictions.
Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1113246That's partially true, but also partially false. People have had millions of years of experience, plenty of time to develop wholly functional cognitive models. They didn't understand ecology empirically, but they understood it and stored that information in the form of religion, myth, and story. What disrupted ecosystems is rapid population growth, because growing human intelligence allowed people to become better at manipulating their environment, which means that over the last few thousand years we have been having to learn new ways to live. We have been stumbling around learning by trial and error what works and what doesn't work, and then storing that information as we build new myths and stories.
Point taken. However, humans can disrupt ecosystems without the runaway population growth seen in the last few centuries.
The indigenous tribes of North America engaged in a massive amount of clear cutting that altered the global climate. When they were devastated by European diseases, the overgrowth of trees caused the Little Ice Age (https://www.ecowatch.com/native-americans-colonization-climate-change-2627721578.html).
In a fantasy world with the typical pseudo-medieval tech level, most people shouldn't have any understanding of ecology or human effects on the environment and climate while at the same time devastating the world around them. Assuming that the existence of magic doesn't tip the balance one way or the other, since depending on its power and availability magic would completely alter any society.
Quote from: Shasarak;1113261It seems like you have a pretty poor grasp of what our ancestors did and did not know. Even the Romans knew about making plants extinct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium) and the Greeks could calculate the circumference of the Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes) so what makes Ecology such a hard nut that it could not be understood by the "ancients"?
The Greeks also thought that grain spontaneously turned into mice. While the ancients certainly knew a lot of true facts, they also believed in a lot of bunk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science).
Recording that a plant used for birth control is no longer found compared to the writer's access to historical records does not equate to the ancients understanding the concept of extinction or other aspects of ecology the way that people do now. We know that at least some classical philosophers believed no such thing, since they recorded that they argued whether the world was eternal and unchangeable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_of_the_world). Kind of hard for extinction to occur if you believe that the world and its species have always existed in their present form and always will, or that life spontaneously germinates from non-living material every so often.
Not to mention that this only applies to educated people. In the sort of pseudo-medieval setting typical of D&D, the average person is a zero-level commoner whose lack of education is incomprehensible to anyone who went to a public school in the United States.
On a tangent, if non-real physics like spontaneous generation are true in the fantasyland then the whole concept of ecology and other real world knowledge breaks down. If the existence of magic didn't already break it.
I didn't mention it before, but if wizards and monsters and whatever can use magic, then it should be possible for any organism to evolve to incorporate magic into its physiology. Magic offers such a huge competitive advantage that the first unicellular organisms to evolve magic should have taken over the planet billions of years ago.
Quote from: Shasarak;1113261Meanwhile in modern day Physicists have to invoke "magically undetectable" dark matter and dark energy to explain Astronomy.
This is a popular misconception. Dark matter and dark energy aren't observably real, that's why we call them "dark" in the first place, but
jargon for the mismatch between our equations predicting the behavior of the universe and the observed behavior of the universe. There are plenty of competing hypothesis that discard dark energy and dark matter by simply assuming that our equations are wrong.
Which makes more sense: that 1) the mismatch between the behavior of the universe and how our equations predict the universe should behave are due to magically undetectable dark stuff, or that 2) our equations are wrong?
I imagine that if Einstein never developed special relativity we would have invented dark stuff to explain why Newton's centuries-old equations fail to predict the observed behavior of the universe. Instead of saying that the speed of light is a universal law, we'd be saying that some magically undetectable "dark highway patrol" stops us from exceeding light speed. (I know the analogy doesn't make sense, it's just meant to give a rough idea.)
It does build off of a first principle, it's just a principle many RPGers don't want an RPG to have.
QuoteAPPROACHES TO PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires. Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly on adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author's opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn't been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. In all cases, however, the reader should understand that AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participants desire, but in no case something to be taken too seriously. For fun, excitement, and captivating fantasy, AD&D is unsurpassed. As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure. Readers who seek the latter must search elsewhere. Those who desire to create and populate imaginary worlds with larger-than-life heroes and villains, who seek relaxation with a fascinating game, and who generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1113357This is a popular misconception. Dark matter and dark energy aren't observably real
They are observably real. Dark matter can be observed through its interaction with gravity. For instance when two galaxies smash through each other, it has been observed that their gas clouds collide and combine velocities, while the dark matter sticks with the baryonic matter and goes straight on through (so you end up with 2 dust-poor galaxies that retain their DM). Different galaxies have observably different amounts (ratios) of dark matter; spiral galaxies rotate at different rates depending on how much of it they have. It's 'dark' because we don't know what it is, but we can observe it and see it has some characteristics.
Dark energy is just the energy of the void that pushes it apart; that makes the universe get observably bigger over time. The effect is certainly observable. I guess you could call it something other than 'energy' if you wanted.
Quote from: EOTB;1113359It does build off of a first principle, it's just a principle many RPGers don't want an RPG to have.
Greetings!
I always have loved this commentary by Gygax. It succinctly destroys those that want to drag the game into painful jerkfests of minutia.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Animal encounters occur more often in my D&D games than monster encounters. I have giant animals too, about 20% of the time (roughly). Also have a great collection of dinosaurs for D&D and some areas in some of my game worlds have lots of dinosaurs, both plant eaters, and carnivores of all sizes. Judges Guild ready ref sheets have the definitive animal encounter tables I have used since 1977.
Natural animals are a regular feature in my game, typically as livestock, pets or wildlife. While they might be hostile in any of these roles, I seldom use them as enemies. In other words, my adventures don't revolve around fighting/killing a wolf in the forest, a farmer's dog or the horses of a band of brigands.
That said, I did have one scenario where a group of low-level PCs had to defend a village from a man-eating tiger. It was a real nail-biter, especially since the tiger usually attacked at night.
In my Lion & Dragon campaign, I use them fairy regularly. Wild Boars are particularly scary.
Late to the parade. But yes. I use animals, normal and especially giant quite often. And for special "lost world" areas have used dinosaurs and megafauna.
Wolves in 5r are surprisingly dangerous for example as are giant frogs and toads of all things. How the animals are applied is a key here. There is an article in Dragon way back on using animals as viable threats.