Large, aggressive animals in real life are very scary.

Imagine encountering an enraged bear or pack of wolves while hiking in the woods.

Monkeys like baboons and macacques can move very fast, have strong muscles and fangs. Chimpanzees have been known to rip people's arms out of their sockets and people's faces off. Gorillas can kill an unarmed human at will, and presumably even if you were armed with hand-to-hand weapons, you had better get the first blow in. Something with that strength and agility would be curiously squashing your skull before it noticed that you had slashed it with with your sword.

Yet in an RPG these are the most mundane, boring encounters.

Then you get monsters. Have you seen how real spiders move? One the size of a horse that could actually move at speed could basically kill anyone. They wouldn't circle around you and trade blows in multiple combat rounds. Strike, sever head or leg, game over.

I think the key factor that is different in real life and RPG combat is the speed and strength of creatures. Fighting with brute animals is very swift and wounds are egregious.

Do any RPGs reflect these realities? Is it worthwhile tying to capture the actual feeling of tension and fear that you might get when walking through the forest and encounter a troop of gorillas or a lion? Or is it more fun just to escalate to wacky mythical creatures and leave animals to bestiary entries that are mostly ignored?

My underlying feeling is that something is lost when players wade in to all sorts of creatures for the umpteenth time, without having a visceral feel for the realities of physical combat.

And no, I'm not just, or even primarily talking about D&D.

Quote from: The_Shadow;805966Do any RPGs reflect these realities?

I think RPGs, in general, are poor at reflecting any reality. I just don't go in with that expectation, you know?

I think from the character's point-of-view you are right. In myth and lore, there was little differentiation between a "monster" and a "beast". Many creatures we think of as monsters were just beasts (albeit large, scary ones to the ancients and medievals) and creatures we think of as beasts were monstrous and scary (wolves, wild boar, tigers). The monster/beast distinction arises for us because we KNOW that griffins are mythic while elephants are real, whereas to an English peasant both are wondrous.

Mechanically speaking, some games do a good job of making animals quite scary. A grizzly bear or lion is actually a fairly terrifying monster in BX or ACKS. In ACKS, an Ogre is AC 4, HD 4+1, with 1 attack dealing ~ 6 damage, while a Panther is AC 5, HD 4, with 3 attacks dealing ~ 3, 3, and 5 damage. In other words, a Panther is harder to hit and hits twice as hard.
 
Conversely, I think the reason scary animals aren't scary in many fantasy games is that even scary monsters aren't scary in those fantasy games.

Quote from: The_Shadow;805966Large, aggressive animals in real life are very scary.

Imagine encountering an enraged bear or pack of wolves while hiking in the woods.

Monkeys like baboons and macacques can move very fast, have strong muscles and fangs. Chimpanzees have been known to rip people's arms out of their sockets and people's faces off. Gorillas can kill an unarmed human at will, and presumably even if you were armed with hand-to-hand weapons, you had better get the first blow in. Something with that strength and agility would be curiously squashing your skull before it noticed that you had slashed it with with your sword.

[ .. ]

And no, I'm not just, or even primarily talking about D&D.

And yet, OD&D did have one idea that would help. Beasts and monsters can attack a number of normal (1 hit die) humans equal to their hit dice. Instead of rolling multiple attacks, you could just roll for the number of ordinary folk that get offed every round.

Which points to a problem with your assumption, though: we real-life people are afraid of beasts because we're ordinary people. Something huge would be snapping 10 to 12 of us internet nerds in half every 30 seconds. Fantasy heroes would be another matter.

My games are less fantastical than most from what I glean by reading about other games on here, and I can tell you my players would not be happy to meet a grizzly bear or a wolf pack. in fact, they sought shelter/hideout just due to hearing howling wolves in the near distance on a fog-shrouded morning. But my games don't feature scads of demihumans and D&D monsters. most of their foes are their fellow men.

Take a look at Atlantis: The Second Age, a fight with a lion is brutal.

While general animals are scary and dangerous, a lot of that has to do with "Who" the animal finds itself up against. Dogs and and wolves terrify some people, and can be very dangerous, but there are plenty of adult humans who've no trouble stopping one or two of them, if sufficiently focused on doing that. (This is not to say they escape unscathed!)

The big problem is many people panic when confronted with a powerful animal. A few don't, and those that don't panic are generally what some people are interested in playing--heroes who can focus and fight back with no problem. (Partly because lacking better abilities to immerse themselves, they've never seen just how terribly dangerous an animal can be, and can't imagine it being tough.)


I've used encounters in more than a few games that challenged players ordinary animals, but a lot of how effective that is depends on a) Using the animals natural tactics. b) Using a rule set that doesn't make them entirely underpowered.

RuneQuest 6 animals can be very tough.  If you encounter an angry Grizzly Bear, you'd better have a spear or something to try and keep it off you through distance or impaling it, otherwise you're probably gonna get one-shotted if you're not wearing any armor.  A pack of wolves surrounding you, tripping you and going for the legs, then once you're down going for the throat, you're pretty fucked if they outnumber you.

Quote from: Matt;805978My games are less fantastical than most from what I glean by reading about other games on here, and I can tell you my players would not be happy to meet a grizzly bear or a wolf pack. in fact, they sought shelter/hideout just due to hearing howling wolves in the near distance on a fog-shrouded morning. But my games don't feature scads of demihumans and D&D monsters. most of their foes are their fellow men.

Mine too. In our current game an encounter with a single viper was enough to put the scout off scotting 500m ahead for 3 levels.....

Most of the time things aren't scary because gms are lazy bastards.
GM - up ahead is a black bear
Player - hmm okay what's it doing
Gm - you know bear stuff nussling round for berries or something
Player - okay I will shoot it with my bow
Etc

As opposed to

GM - as you move down the path you hear a massive roaring to your left . A massive black shape barrels out of the woods .... roll surprise
Playern- what is it?
Gm- roll surprise and we'll see if you have enough time to recognise it

Push for real time action and response don't let the players think or plan tactics whilst in combat. Describe the effects of the bears actions, ripping out trees, etc but keep its description of itself brief and sketchy.... trust me it will scare the crap out of them

Maybe for an unarmed, unarmored person. But I don't think they are too much trouble for someone with a decent weapon (and/or armor).

I don't think humans get nearly enough credit for our strength and agility. People have been known to kill bears bare-handed.  Add weapons, and there's a reason we are the top of the food chain.

Rolemaster. Beasts have high DB's, good armor types, often get first strike due to QU and most get multiple attacks, many of which have low crit thresholds.

Even the Tiny Animal Critical Chart is a dangerous thing.

If you are outnumbered by animals it can get very bad. Your parries are limited and they'll get flank and rear attacks as well.

Quote from: saskganesh;805988If you are outnumbered by animals it can get very bad. Your parries are limited and they'll get flank and rear attacks as well.

This should be the case but from what I gather it seems there are many GMs who don't have the PCs' foes use their brains and/or instincts and such. I have played many games where a large number of enemies don't take advantage of their numbers or use any intelligent tactics and then, even when getting the stuffing knocked out of them as a result, don't flee or surrender. My players recently got the drop on some bandits in a monastery and I'll be damned if the bandits weren't making morale checks once their leader and badass was down. PCs then captured the one that couldn't escape. And animals should use their abilities to the utmost unless their is some explanation as to why not. But personally games where the PCs are super heroes able to laugh off any threat have never appealed to me and fortunately my players seem to dig it as well, even if it means they die as a result of poor judgment or a few lousy rolls inthe dice and rolling up new characters.

A lot depends on how they're played.
Our Pathfinder GM is a hunter and wilderness nut so wild animals in his games have never been pushovers.
We had an entire session devoted to hunting one big grizzly bear... and it was nearly a TPK (partly because we got stuck in our own trap).
Last session my sorcerer PC was zeroed out by a desert cat before a few good blows sent it running.

Meanwhile I'm noticing that in our online 5e games all the monsters are feeling alike... there's no difference in how they behave in combat, it's just a matter of whittling them down before they whittle us down. Dark Mantles might as well be skeletons or mimics because the GM plays them all the same way.

Quote from: JeremyR;805986Maybe for an unarmed, unarmored person. But I don't think they are too much trouble for someone with a decent weapon (and/or armor).

I don't think humans get nearly enough credit for our strength and agility. People have been known to kill bears bare-handed.  Add weapons, and there's a reason we are the top of the food chain.

Humans also try to give themselves more survival credit than they usually have. Bears have been known to survive multiple gunshot wounds from revolvers and still wipe out half an exploration group. Rare, but it happened.

If you know what you are doing though, or just get lucky, you can hold your own against a large beast. But its no guarantee. And some predators will wait till you are sleeping.

D&D and most other RPGs though are pitting more seasoned adventurers against these things. But. At least to the AD&D era animals were a viable threat to low level characters. Especially the magic user. Just a glance through the start of the AD&D MM and we have the Ape(gorilla) doing 1-3/1-3/1-6, the Bear(brown) doing 1-6/1-6/1-8, Boar(Wild) 3-12, and the Lion 1-4/1-4/1-10.

I tended to use them as viable threats up to about level 4, sometimes 5 if the PCs were particularly rolling poor on HP. aheh...

Not so sure in 5e where the viable cut off point is though. The PCs have more HP and do more damage now whereas most of the animals might survive one or two hits. But are likely going down in a round or two.

Something to look at more later. Its just not a factor that has come up in the current 5e campaign.

Sure, in real life various apes/monkeys are crazy strong, boar hunting was dangerous, getting mauled by a bear is suck-tastic, and a lone hunter being circled by wolves should be really worried.  In real life, fighting a dude with a sword or an axe is pretty dangerous, too.  In real life, taking a broadhead or two isn't terribly pleasant, nor is it unlikely to barely slow you down in a fight.  In real life, getting hit with a ballista bolt is super lethal.  

In real life, lots of stuff really sucks to encounter, but in game we expect our characters to dive in willy-nilly and -- hopefully -- emerge victorious.

There are grittier, more lethal, games out there that ramp up difficulty and often actively discourage combat of any sort.  I don't think it's a problem that's unique to animal/monster fights, I think it's just that many RPGs actively encourage combat by making it fun and exciting instead of terrifying and dangerous, whether that be combat against a bear, an orc, or a bear with an orc on his back.

Quote from: Critias;806005making it fun and exciting instead of terrifying and dangerous.

I think terrifying and dangerous can be fun and exciting.  In fact, it's more fun and exciting when you win because it was terrifying and dangerous.