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(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(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.