# The Implications of Biology in D&D



## Hussar (Dec 23, 2009)

The discussion on Revisionist Gaming got me to thinking.

Many people claim that various abilities are tied to the race in some sort of biological way and removing that ability breaks suspension of disbelief.  Now, I think that this has been a fairly common approach to D&D monsters in the past.  After all, umpteen bajillion Ecology Of articles in Dragon, never minding the Ecology/Habitat sections in the 2e Monster Manuals certainly gave the sense that many of the monsters in D&D were naturally occurring and subject to biology.

But, does anyone actually take this to its logical conclusion in their settings?  After all, if hippogriffs, for example, were naturally occurring animals that could be bred, why wouldn't every kingdom worth the name have hippogriff stables?  After all, you're not talking huge investments compared to the rewards of having flying mounts.

There are numerous fantasy authors who've taken this approach as well.  Naomi Novak of the Tremaire series posits a real world Earth with dragons.  National power is derived through the exploitation of dragons.  Stephen Erikson also takes a very naturistic approach to his races, with humans evolving from an earlier hominid that become the T'lan Imass (undead warriors locked in an eternal war with an earlier hominid the Jaghut).  Many of the species in his world are naturally (or perhaps unnaturally) occurring.  

But, I think this is not the only way to approach things.  One of my favorite 3e books was AEG's Secrets.  It was a source book which contained, well, lots of secrets for the PC's to discover - like, for example, Dwarves aren't actually born, but rather emerge fully formed from stone statues carved by other dwarves.  Things like that.

In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic.  They are predictable, in the way that natural animals aren't really fantastic, but a part of the natural processes of the world.  Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but, I think it becomes very limiting.  Kobolds, to use the original example from the other thread, are just short scaley humanoids.  They aren't really all that different than a smart kind of ape.  They lack ... magic.

Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic.  They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.


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## Mircoles (Dec 23, 2009)

I'm all for adding fantastical elements to fantasy worlds. Why have the world revolve around a sun, why not go all mythical with it and have a god carry it through the sky.

There has been a tendency to apply scientific theories to fantasy worlds and it just never feels right. Fantasy worlds should be very fantastical in their make up.

I mean a little science doesn't hurt, especially if you want to mix genres but having elements that defy the laws of physics can add just the fantasy spin to a world that makes it work.

I think that we should think more along the lines of myth and magic than science and logic when building a fantasy world.


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## Starfox (Dec 23, 2009)

I like my monsters to be unique, formed out of myth. If enough people believe there is a dragon living on the smoking mountain, then there is. Biology and evolution are to me borish RL subjects that should not get too much in a fantasy game.


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## jasonbostwick (Dec 23, 2009)

I'm an evolutionary biologist, but it doesn't cross over to my fantasy gaming at all, except maybe as inspiration.

I like mythology to play a heavy hand in my settings - the different races really were created by their gods in the not-too distant past (10,000 years or less). 

In one campaign we joked that the world really was flat and in a geocentric system, but that eventually became canon.

That said, applications of biology to D&D cansometimes it can be a bit fun to think about.

Do increased levels of atmospheric oxygen allow the evolution of ankhegs and giant ants, and do they have any effect on the strength of pyromancy?

What sort of selection produced the incredible sexual dimorphism in Medusae? Do female medusae have snakes for hair due to Batesian mimicry, or is it a strange symbiotic relationship between the two? 

Is the sword-destroying nature of Rust Monsters also the result of a symbiotic relationship, possibly with ferrophagic archaebacteria? _The Ecology of the Rust Monsters_ in Dragon 374 suggested that Rust Monsters are attracted to mammalian blood due to vestigial vampirism, with a wink and a nod that they were really after the iron in hemoglobin. 

Need human physiology even work the same way in a fantasy setting? I know I've read elsewhere of homebrew campaign settings imbalances in the four humours were the actual mechanism of disease, which would be interesting to consider though I'm not sure how it would come up in a game.


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## The Shaman (Dec 23, 2009)

I was a park ranger for thirteen years and a biology teacher for two.

If you think mundane animals are boring, I respectfully suggest u r doing it wrng.


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## chitzk0i (Dec 23, 2009)

There was once a gigantic debate about a wizard who wanted to teleport to the moon.  Some said this was beyond the power of a teleport spell; other said he should arrive, only to die of hypoxia.  I thought he ought to have found himself clinging to a bright patch on the inside of a gigantic black sphere studded with shiny objects.


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 23, 2009)

To the OP in general IMO the implication of biology or ecology is not rigorously thought through. Occasionally some aspects are because it can provide a fun hook or a plot theme.

I think that designers don't do it because, they want to leave stuff like that to the DM's and you can get involved in all kinds of hot-button and controversial issues if you start applying in game biology too rigoursly, particularly with regard to pc races.

For instance all fantasy art that I've seen males are heavier and taller than females but in most rpg systems  there is no distinction based on gender for attribute generation. Now I know why this is so but it does not follow from the biology. Of course, I can also come up with reasons for the opposite but they just do not fit with the know facts of real world biology.

On the hippogrifs, it depends on wheither hippogriffs can be domesticated easily. If it can be done with mundane techniques then everone would have some but if it requires some rare or obscure ritual then hippogrif cavalry would be rare.

Also a lot depends on weither you see the fantasy world as the real world with magical expections or as a completely different thing with the exceptions built in from the ground up.


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## JustKim (Dec 23, 2009)

I'm a biologist and really enjoying the different perspectives in this thread.


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## avin (Dec 23, 2009)

I'm not a biologist and I like my female dragonborn reptilian, without boobs.

Friends around here like games with a good amount of disbelief suspension so we add pseudo scientific explanations for most things.

"Magic explains" is banned.

"Myth explains", on the other hand, is always welcome. As Starfox says, if enough people believe that trolls live in the woods, soon or later there will be trolls there (with a reasonable explanation, tho).


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

The Shaman said:


> I was a park ranger for thirteen years and a biology teacher for two.
> 
> If you think mundane animals are boring, I respectfully suggest u r doing it wrng.




hehe I think real world has its own form of awesome sauce with plenty of mystery and will agree... also that people chunked into to our cities are indeed sometimes "missing it". 

However we have more lore and education in this era about natural animals and they can be extremely familiar feeling... familiarity breeds .... both comfort and well a sense of intrigue with regards to the unfamiliar, humans seem innately curious so things outside our sense of normal take on a grand feel.


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

avin said:


> I'm not a biologist and I like my female dragonborn reptilian, without boobs.



I like boobs and dinosaurs weren't reptiles but had plenty of features of warm blooded creatures not to mention the platypus... so dragonborn have mammal features and reptile features.... shrug.  Classification of creatures based on features may be a bit of a joke in real life. 

I like skinning the dragonborn as shifters (Dragons shapeshifted in to humans and intermingled there blood lines and shape shifting powers in mostly human seeming descendents)



avin said:


> "Magic explains" is banned.




Ooooh but magical explanations don't have to be simplistic and or non-structured or totally hand waved they can be primal. 

Magic can/does have rules associated with it and imagining those rules in the context of the game can be part of the fun. "As within so without"  being one example... the price of power (thrice-fold returns an expression of it) is another.... and so on.  

Vancian magic can make it seem like magic is nonsensical handwaving and
 was originally selected from what I heard intensionally because  it was disconnected from real world beliefs about magic...It was also one of the first things that chafed about D&D. So it compounds the error. But magic was a part of myth not distinct and separate.

(I am making complete assumptions on what your criticism  of "magic explains" so I may be getting it just as completely wrong).


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## Gilladian (Dec 23, 2009)

I freely mix "real" biology and "fantasy" biology in my campaign world.

I have many verminous and ooze type creatures come into existence through abiogenesis (they appear in piles of rotten garbage or cesspools or swamps and fetid water). Even dragons appear to be abiogenetic; dragon eggs are generated by mounds of treasure and hatch when the "parent" dragon finds and warms them. Sometimes new dragons appear where no dragon has been, before.

Dwarves are carved from stone and brought  to  life by priestly rituals. But half-orcs and half-elves exist, and they can be true half-breeds with a parent of each "race", or they can be descended of a line of half-breed parents themselves. In this case, elves and orcs are closely-related species. Orcs fill the "drow" role IMC more than anything else, though they have nothing to do with spiders. And although this is a lost historical fact, humans are actually an elf-orc halfbreed.

I like my monsters to be fantastical, and when there are small numbers of them, they often have a mythic background. Gods are elevated to that status by having worshippers; monsters are elevated to that status by having believers. So, yeah, the trolls in the swamp are there because the humans have believed they are there for generations (but they were probably normal human refugees when they first went in there, a few hundred years ago).


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## Drkfathr1 (Dec 23, 2009)

I like a fairly even mix of both. Myth and magic, but with some biological consistency that does make some reasonable sense. With the "scientific" baseline, magic becomes all the more magical instead of so common its not magic anymore. 

Plus, one of the elements of my campaign is all the "secrets" that have a more scientific explanation that are commonly dismissed as magic.  

I like peanut butter in my chocolate!


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## Nagol (Dec 23, 2009)

Hussar said:


> <snip>
> 
> But, does anyone actually take this to its logical conclusion in their settings?  After all, if hippogriffs, for example, were naturally occurring animals that could be bred, why wouldn't every kingdom worth the name have hippogriff stables?  After all, you're not talking huge investments compared to the rewards of having flying mounts.




Of course.  Not every kingdom has flying mounts though most have a small contingent.  Not everyone uses hippogriffs, of course.  some use Spider Eaters, others griffons and one group had a failed experiment with wyverns. 

As for the cost/benefit ratio, they're expensive to keep, require exotic training for the animal and rider, and offer limited tactical value in a unverse with other methods of flight, instantaneous travel, and heavy ranged fire.




> In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic.  They are predictable, in the way that natural animals aren't really fantastic, but a part of the natural processes of the world.  Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but, I think it becomes very limiting.  Kobolds, to use the original example from the other thread, are just short scaley humanoids.  They aren't really all that different than a smart kind of ape.  They lack ... magic.
> 
> Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic.  They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.




The problem is one of commonality.  The fantastic, by definition, must be rare.  Adventurers simply run into too much for the majority to be fantastic to them.  

One method to maintain the fantastic is to commonly use non-fantastic enemies like humans and have only the occasional appearance of a fantastical creature.  This is the formula used by a couple of Call of Cthulu campaigns I've been in.  

The other approach is to use the creatures commonly, but continually reinvent them so every encounter they act differently with different abilities.  I hate this approach as it means the players have no opportunity to learn tactics, develop strategy, or predict actions.  In fact, under this system there is no reason the player should bother paying attention to the creature and its abilities since the next one will have only coincidental siimilarities.

As for the kobold example, having a race of smart evil critters with a pathological hatred for the adventurers and all of their kind and a penchant for traps and gadgetry is scary in and of itself and requires no further magic.  If it doesn't your GM isn't being heartless enough.


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## Mournblade94 (Dec 23, 2009)

Hussar said:


> The discussion on Revisionist Gaming got me to thinking.
> 
> In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic.  They are predictable, in the way that natural animals aren't really fantastic, but a part of the natural processes of the world.  Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but, I think it becomes very limiting.  Kobolds, to use the original example from the other thread, are just short scaley humanoids.  They aren't really all that different than a smart kind of ape.  They lack ... magic.
> 
> Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic.  They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.




As a biologist I have to agree with this.  I have found whether it is the ecology of... or some attempt (and that really is all they are) to explain the biology of the monster should be left out of the core sourcebooks at least.  3rd party publishers may publish books on it but then the people that really want naturalism can have their source material.

I have found that the biology is never taken to the ultimate point.  This ia case of "where is the line drawn?"  If you explain the biology of a monster, you then have to explain how they interact with the world and what they contribute to the ecosystem.  MANY MANY of the old Ed greenwood Ecology of... articles made a good show of this, but it fell apart at the level of the community.

I have found that the biology written of in source material is relatively common knowledge, and applied on an individual level.  Often this information is misapplied due to rampant misconceptions about animal or plant traits, and concepts.  Once you delve into ecology you must assemble the puzzle.  It is no longer adequate to assign arbitrary characteristics.  Ecology is more than Bad meat eater eats little plant eater.

This applies to my fantasy campaigns only.  I do not like to bring alot of science into fantasy worlds.  It might be because I am a scientist myself.  For people outside the field, I suppose it won't really matter because they are not interested in the big picture.  Again this is "where do you draw the line".  I have trouble stopping the line.  

In my alternity campaign which is a mix of Stardrive, Starfrontiers, and Mass Effect (essentially some Star Drive nations thrown into the mass effect world advanced 500 years) I always include the science, to the level that satisfies me.  I do not pretend that it is scientifically accurate.  I am a molecular Biologist and an ecologist, not an astronomer.  I make the science accurate enough for a sci fi campaign.

Fantasy is magic.  Science fiction is science.  Technically you can mix science into Fantasy and have it still be fantasy.  You cannot mix magic in Science fiction and still have it be sci fi true to the definition (Note I am not criticizing any sort of sci fi, For example I love FARSCAPE).

I started watching Fringe with my wife.  My wife loves the show.  I started liking the show until they started to explain things.  Their explanations were so off the wall, I am certain they could not have had a science consultant.  It was basically mediocre high school science trying to explain phenomenon, and then getting the high school science wrong because of poor research. 

I do not care if any individual DM wants to include science in their campaign.  What I object to is source material getting concepts, both basic and complex, wrong.  

I do not object to Dragonborn with breasts for example, that is art.  Do not however, try to make an appeal to science and try to have it make technical sense in any meaningful way.  Leave boobs on dragonborn because they are in a supernatural world.  Leave meticlorions out of blood of Jedi. Science epistemology is not arbitrary.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 23, 2009)

Hippogriffs are fairly rare in the wild due to the amount of meat required to keep one healthy, and the amount of grazing land required to supply that meat.  It is one thing to keep a single hippogriff (from an economic standpoint), and another to keep an entire stable of them to outfit a platoon.

The Kingdom of Atlantes attempted just such a feat.  If you've ever seen a Medieval falconmaster's face, scarred from countless injuries while collecting eggs, then you have some idea of how quickly Atlantes went through hippgriffmasters.  Moreover, since each hippogriff ate a great quantity of meat (having a fast metabolism for flying), they used up the resources sufficient for many more horses or people.  This caused more than a little unrest among the populace, but the added security was generally agreed to be worth the cost.

Unfortunately, hippogriffs are not very tractable, and do not breed well in captivity.  Agents of the kingdom had to go further and further afield to capture new eggs.  For a while, poor breeding in captivity coupled with stealing eggs from the wild almost drove the species extinct.

Of course, the Kingdom of Atlantes is no more.  It fell in battle almost 120 years ago to its neighbour, the Sultanate of Ymadris, which went into a bulette-breeding program.  Bulettes, as everyone knows, are far easier to domesticate, and breed well in captivity.  However, they require even more feeding and care than hippogriffs.

As is their nature, the bulettes *under-mined* the economy.


RC


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Dec 23, 2009)

The Shaman said:


> I was a park ranger for thirteen years and a biology teacher for two.
> 
> If you think mundane animals are boring, I respectfully suggest u r doing it wrng.



Indeed.

A mixture of both is particularly heady and potent, but an understanding of neurobiology and animal (including human) behavior can make for some really interesting interpretations of fantasy creatures and races.

I remember doing a thought experiment on what having Darkvision actually meant for Dwarven psychology somewhere on these boards back during 3e.  If I have time over the holiday I'll try to dig it up, but just based on their presumptive biology you can provide very different social and cultural flavors that way than the standard model of "humans with these two characteristics exaggerated."

Actually... I should probably just re-write that thing.... I was a whelp at the time and was not to be trusted.

EDIT:
The hippogriff thing is an excellent example of biology applied well.  Carnivores make great pets but bad livestock.


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## Umbran (Dec 23, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic.  They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.




Yes, but unpredictability is a form of predictability.  It goes along with the "wonder of magic" argument - if there are too many things that are special, then being special isn't very special, and the players can feel inundated with weirdness without purpose.

So, I usually save really weird origins for special occasions - most often where the origin is plot relevant to the game.


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## Mournblade94 (Dec 23, 2009)

Canis said:


> Indeed.
> 
> A mixture of both is particularly heady and potent, but an understanding of neurobiology and animal (including human) behavior can make for some really interesting interpretations of fantasy creatures and races.
> 
> ...




I agree, and contrary to the diatribe I wrote above, I thouroghly enjoy the thought experiments that individual gamers apply to their games.

I object to printed material applying poor science and adding to misconceptions (Unintentionally)


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 23, 2009)

Canis said:


> EDIT:
> The hippogriff thing is an excellent example of biology applied well.  Carnivores make great pets but bad livestock.




Thank you.  You do realize, of course, that it was all just build-up for the bad pun at the end?   

If you find your copy of the dwarf psych paper, I'd be interested in reading it.


RC


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## Celebrim (Dec 23, 2009)

> After all, if hippogriffs, for example, were naturally occurring animals that could be bred, why wouldn't every kingdom worth the name have hippogriff stables? After all, you're not talking huge investments compared to the rewards of having flying mounts.




I find it odd that you would complain about Hippogriffs being used as steeds by anyone that could capture one, since the Hippogriff of myth was bred from a Griffin and Mare precisely for that purpose.  Hippogriffs almost exclusively appear in myth as steeds for mighty heroes of valor.  That's there role in myth regardless of what you think of their biology.

So why don't you have orders of knights using hippogriffs for steeds?  Every kingdom worth its name does have hippogriff stables.  Alcegraff, the Griffon paragon, wouldn't have it any other way.  The whole point in him stooping and humbling himself by mating with a mare was so that mortals might have a steed suitable for battle with fell beasts.  Hippogriffs are for war.  That's their purpose.  That's the thing they live for.  Wild and untamed hippogriffs are something of an abberation, and usually the result of some sort of folly.

I believe that monsters should suit their myth.  The central question is sort of, "If these myths were real, what would it be like?"  Hense, I despise when dragons are used in some role other than as hoarders and destroyers.   The great problem I find with how monsters are used, isn't that they are treated as biological, but that they are anthropomorphized.   What I really despise seeing in a story or setting is the monster treated as basically a human in an unusual shape or with unusual powers, but with human desires, human motives, human methods, and human modes of behavior.  That I think is the real creeping problem in D&D and modern fantasy in general.   It's not merely that the monster is treated as mundane because myth assumes that monsters are mundane, albiet just over the hill there along with other fantastic beasts like giraffes, hippopotomi, and panthers.   The problem is that monsters are assumed to be merely human.  This is a degree of familiarity and normality that far exceeds them being merely mundane.  This is the real failure of imagination.


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

nyeah, hyppogriffs arent biologically designed to fly.... those wings are too small for their mass they fly because they have light airy energy of freedom flowing through there spirit... subsequent generations do breed fine in captivity they just no longer fly.


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## Celebrim (Dec 23, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> nyeah, hyppogriffs arent biologically designed to fly.... those wings are too small for their mass they fly...




In context, Myth always trumps Physics.


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## Mournblade94 (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I believe that monsters should suit their myth.  The central question is sort of, "If these myths were real, what would it be like?"  Hense, I despise when dragons are used in some role other than as hoarders and destroyers.   The great problem I find with how monsters are used, isn't that they are treated as biological, but that they are anthropomorphized.   What I really despise seeing in a story or setting is the monster treated as basically a human in an unusual shape or with unusual powers, but with human desires, human motives, human methods, and human modes of behavior.  That I think is the real creeping problem in D&D and modern fantasy in general.   It's not merely that the monster is treated as mundane because myth assumes that monsters are mundane, albiet just over the hill there along with other fantastic beasts like giraffes, hippopotomi, and panthers.   The problem is that monsters are assumed to be merely human.  This is a degree of familiarity and normality that far exceeds them being merely mundane.  This is the real failure of imagination.




Perfect!  My sentiments exactly!  Sadly I gave out too much XP today... I will try to remember you in the future.


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## Umbran (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> In context, Myth always trumps Physics.




Or, perhaps more accurately, in context myth _defines_ physics.


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## Celebrim (Dec 23, 2009)

Umbran said:


> Or, perhaps more accurately, in context myth _defines_ physics.




Yeah, I think that is fair.

When the D&D cosmology asserts that fire, earth, water, and air are elements, I take that as to literally mean that the fundamental chemistry of the world is based on 4 elements: fire, earth, water, and air.  Everything is therefore made of 'molecules' of those things.   When the D&D cosmology asserts the reality of nature spirits like nymphs and dryads, I take that to mean that the world is animated not by the familiar fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetics, and so forth, but that literally things fall because earth spirits drag them down, a fire flickers because it is in some sense a living thing, the wind moves because the wind spirits will it, stones are hard mostly because earth spirits resist change, water flows down to the sea mostly because water spirits desire it to happen, and trees grow because some life giving spirit empowers them to do so.  

I therefore get a big kick out of a player trying to do physics in my games.  One that has come up on several occassions is some player trying to create gunpowder.   It should be clear from the above that 'potasium nitrate' doesn't even exist in my universe. Neither potasium nor nitrogen exist where known to the ancients, and as such they have no mythic value.  As things with no mythic value, they aren't found in my myth driven universe.  And while sulpher and carbon exist, the aren't in their substance anything like sulpher and carbon from this universe (neither is an element!).  So there is no reason to suppose that if you tried to make gunpowder, that the resulting mess of salt, sulfpher, and ash would be explosive.  An alchemist would look at your concotion and laugh much as a chemist might laugh at the random work of a 6 year old.  

There is no reason to assume any of the laws of aerodynamics or really any part of physics, biology, or chemistry in an animistic world of four elements and where under the right conditions virtually any living thing can interbreed with virtually anything else.   There is relatively good reason to assume that on casual observation, the universe works much like our own, but the ancients theories about how the universe worked were also based on casual observation.  One could reasonably presume that if you preformed some of the classic experiments of physics in such a different universe, you'd get very different results than this one.


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## Jack7 (Dec 23, 2009)

Well, I don't know nothing about Quenta or the scientific biology of flying show-ponies and that kinda stuff, but this whole thing reminds me a lot of a song I wrote for a coupla buddies of mine who wanted something to sing at their Ren-Faire.

It worked out pretty good a-capella.
Not so good when accompanied on lyre, harp, and the pan-flute.
I think the hard-rock riff I wrote for the solo was really better suited to the electric oboe.



I once to the Wild World to discover the truth
And into that wild world I stumbled forsooth,
It rumbled, and roared, and it scratched, and it clawed
It tore, and it bled red, and with mouth it did maul,

And vicious in nature it soon wore me down
It was bloody and 'mazing, and shaped to astound,
But the miracles I saw there were all part of me
For whatever is Real there is by Law guaranteed;

But then to the Myth, and to Magic I went
Where the night fills with  spirits, and the law all is spent,
Where the blood may be silver, and the claw may be bronze
Where the eye shines like sapphire, and chimeras do spawn,

For the wonder of What-Not is never quite known
And the trek of your frontier is wherever you roam,
For men know their nature, and Nature knows Man
But deep beyond Riddle there's an untested span,

For when you creep through the jungle, then the jungle roars back
But when the person imagines then enigmas look back,
And the woods under moon are like primitive times
But the Demons that haunt us are all in the Mind,

So I've no long dispute with the cult of this world
For within her confines the Serpents lay curled,
But Dragons best wander and Giants best stand
Not in the Mundane, but the Soul of the Man.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Yeah, I think that is fair.
> 
> When the D&D cosmology asserts that fire, earth, water, and air are elements, I take that as to literally mean that the fundamental chemistry of the world is based on 4 elements: fire, earth, water, and air.  Everything is therefore made of 'molecules' of those things.   When the D&D cosmology asserts the reality of nature spirits like nymphs and dryads, I take that to mean that the world is animated not by the familiar fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetics, and so forth, but that literally things fall because earth spirits drag them down, a fire flickers because it is in some sense a living thing, the wind moves because the wind spirits will it, stones are hard mostly because earth spirits resist change, water flows down to the sea mostly because water spirits desire it to happen, and trees grow because some life giving spirit empowers them to do so.
> 
> ...




Celebrim,

May I use this (albeit slightly modified) as part of the Research rules for RCFG?  You have put very well why modern knowledge doesn't necessarily translate to fantasy games.  I will happily give credit where credit is due, but as I am not charging for the game, I cannot pay for the priviledge.  


RC


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## Celebrim (Dec 23, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> Celebrim,
> 
> May I use this (albeit slightly modified) as part of the Research rules for RCFG?  You have put very well why modern knowledge doesn't necessarily translate to fantasy games.  I will happily give credit where credit is due, but as I am not charging for the game, I cannot pay for the priviledge.
> 
> ...




The whole issue of copyright in a public bbs is too weighty for me. 

I have no plans to sell any of my stuff at present.  The game stuff I do is entirely vainity projects.  If I ever publish anything, it would likely be the novel first then sell the IP rights to a gaming company if anyone is interested route, and so really you are free to use anything I write here as inspiration and for any transformative and creative purpose until such time as I have an agent, and I don't really care.  Better that my memes should be out there than wait on me to get off my butt and finish one of my novels.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim,

You are a scholar and a gentleman.  

I wouldn't use something not noted as OGC without asking permission first.  Thank you.  Your contribution will be noted & acknowledged & "Thank You"ed in the book.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

RC


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> In context, Myth always trumps Physics.




See my explanation of the myth keeps them as flying mounts for those who hunt them up in the wild... not something you can buy at the corner market...and uses a valid rationale which is consistant with he rules of magic.


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## Celebrim (Dec 23, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> See my explanation of the myth keeps them as flying mounts for those who hunt them up in the wild... not something you can buy at the corner market...and uses a valid rationale which is consistant with he rules of magic.




I personally find your interpretation to be not inspired by myth or story, but by game.  The game requires that PC's not get hippogriffs at the corner market, so they don't.

It's virtually impossible to find any mythological reference to hippogriffs that isn't them as a steed or pet of some heroic character.  

If in fact it is true that they can fly only because they are empowered by freedom - which is certainly not a concept found in hippogrif myths - then they ought to lose the ability to fly shortly after someone puts a saddle on them.  Do they somehow keep the "light airy spirit of freedom" while being used as a beast of burden?  And conversely, if they don't loose the ability to fly solely because someone puts a saddle on them and uses them as a beast of burden, why couldn't you just ranch foals for a few years while they cultivate this spirit before breaking them for the saddle?  In which case, even under your description they might be something that can be bought for the corner market.

If you really want to adhere to the myth but keep them out of the corner market, you could make hippogriffs as sterile as mules, forcing anyone that wants one to convince a griffon to mate with its favorite food.


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> If in fact it is true that they can fly only because they are empowered by freedom - which is certainly not a concept found in hippogrif myths



Magic of joy allowing one to fly is common not specific to hippogriffs but rather flight magic... presuming they lack it when raised in captivity. And may maintain it when in service of a hero, who rightly earned there service (service not being the same as slavery). A ritual to find them "in the wild" and a nature preserve for them to live on... with attractors to make them want to be there... could be done.



Celebrim said:


> If you really want to adhere to the myth but keep them out of the corner market, you could make hippogriffs as sterile as mules, forcing anyone that wants one to convince a griffon to mate with its favorite food.




Yeah if I am using a standard myth for the beast they will be unique entities creatable by wizards ... and yea a wizard did it by the method you describe those are the components of the ritual.


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## Chainsaw (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> What I really despise seeing in a story or setting is the monster treated as basically a human in an unusual shape or with unusual powers, but with human desires, human motives, human methods, and human modes of behavior. That I think is the real creeping problem in D&D and modern fantasy in general. It's not merely that the monster is treated as mundane because myth assumes that monsters are mundane, albiet just over the hill there along with other fantastic beasts like giraffes, hippopotomi, and panthers. The problem is that monsters are assumed to be merely human. This is a degree of familiarity and normality that far exceeds them being merely mundane. This is the real failure of imagination.




Totally agree. This trend is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem we have these days - anthropomorphizing everything (but now I'm getting political, so I better stop).


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## Celebrim (Dec 23, 2009)

Chainsaw said:


> Totally agree. This trend is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem we have these days - anthropomorphizing everything (but now I'm getting political, so I better stop).




Except other people; we demonize or dehumanize them.  But, I'd get political too, so I'd better stop as well.  Sounds like we are on the same page though.


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 23, 2009)

avin said:


> "Magic explains" is banned.



You should check out C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy.  The magic (or fae, as they call it) is a very real thing.  And "Magic explains" fits perfectly well in that universe!

Off-topic, though, the books are really good and they way she uses magic and fear is neat.


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## Jack7 (Dec 23, 2009)

Whereas I'm certainly the first to say that Monsters should not be men, I also know from long personal experience that sometimes men make the very best of monsters. I guess it just depends a lot upon why you wanna draw the line, and at what point along the frontier...


Monsters are monsters if human they're not
But humans are monsters if all that they've got
Is something a'lacking where there should be heart,
Yet human or monster can both be as smart
As whatever did spawn them when they were first bred
But that kinda something is not in the head; 
It creeps up from somewhere where monsters are real
And grows as a cancer that's likely to steal
What men at their best think surely they are
So that monsters among them seem distanced a'far,
But truth of the matter is that some of them be
Both among and beyond us not trying to flee
Into that darkness where monsters are found
For Man and his Monsters have their common ground.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Dec 23, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> Thank you.  You do realize, of course, that it was all just build-up for the bad pun at the end?
> 
> If you find your copy of the dwarf psych paper, I'd be interested in reading it.
> 
> ...



I realized that.  The logic was still sound.  Grassland living humans who raise livestock as a key element of their agriculture wouldn't raise hippogriffs.  And anyone who tried wouldn't last long.

The occasional mythic one-off who shows up long enough to carry the hero around is one thing.... raising a flock of them is something else.

As for the Dwarf thing, it wasn't a paper.  Just a series of posts on this very board, I think spawned from a similar thread.  Mix of real psych and pop psych applied to Dwarves to generate a different-looking set of behaviors and structures than we tend to think of.  The 60 foot range of Darkvision meaning that they wouldn't _want_ those giant cavernous halls, for example.  I had a whole bit on what darkness _is_ psychologically to a human, and how that would be different for a culture that grew up without natural darkness.  If I can't find it, I'll re-do it.  Might be a fun writing exercise.


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

Chainsaw said:


> Totally agree. This trend is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem we have these days - anthropomorphizing everything (but now I'm getting political, so I better stop).




Anthropomorphizing ... is actually fairly typical characteristic of primitive "magical thinking", and nothing new or modern in any way. 
Is blindly accept that "this" is different and that you cant understand it? the alternative to attempting to empathize?


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## Garthanos (Dec 23, 2009)

Garthanos said:


> Magic of joy allowing one to fly is common not specific to hippogriffs but rather flight magic... presuming they lack it when raised in captivity. And may maintain it when in service of a hero, who rightly earned there service (service not being the same as slavery). A ritual to find them "in the wild" and a nature preserve for them to live on... with attractors to make them want to be there... could be done.
> .




You could end up buying the ritual to find one..or to create one functionally its the same. They end up being aquireable.


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## Mallus (Dec 23, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Except other people; we demonize or dehumanize them.



Well said, Cel.

(But as to other point, of course we --and by we I mean fiction writers of all stripes-- anthropomorphize mythical creatures, space aliens, and brave little toasters, we have to. Anything that serves as a character needs to be a person, a human being, beneath it's funny suit or crinkly nose-prosthesis. The minute you decide a dragon or an angel is going to be character, it, perforce, becomes a person, different in scope perhaps as you or I are from Achilles, but a person nonetheless).


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## Derren (Dec 23, 2009)

The original question doesn't look to me like a biological, but like an economical one.

And in the end, it comes down to how "realistic" you want the setting to be. And frankly, most people don't want it to be "realistic" at all.

They want the setting to look like in the fantasy books. Heroes with swords and castles and monsters who do nothing except being killed by heroes. No matter if that makes sense or not, thats what most people want.

Things like breeding Hippogriffs so that they are common are simply not wanted by the players. They don't want (3E example) iron to be dirty cheap (Wall of Iron), Raise Dead common and diamonds being more of a military ressource than jewelery. They don't want cities connected by teleportation circles, armies to dig trenches instead of building fortifications or (4E) rust monster farms for more efficient magic item recycling.
Those things make sense, but most people rather want a world which looks like in the books they read instead of things which make sense.

Eberron tried to incorporate the effects of magic a bit better than the other settings, but in the end only copied the modern world and said "its magic". And even that was criticised heavily. Imagine what would happen when a world really takes all the things magic can do into account. Hardly anyone would play it because its so different than fantasy book #42152.


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## Mallus (Dec 23, 2009)

Derren said:


> Imagine what would happen when a world really takes all the things magic can do into account. Hardly anyone would play it because its so different than fantasy book #42152.



More importantly, hardly anyone could _create_ a counter-factual world like that -- trying to run a 'rigorous simulation' of an _entire planet with different biology/history/metaphysics/cultural evolution(s)_ isn't possible on our rather limited human hard wetware.

The best we can come up with is cheap knockoffs of real-world places annd events coupled with some half-assed extrapolation. And mind you, I'm not knocking those, they're mightily entertaining.


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## Derren (Dec 23, 2009)

Mallus said:


> More importantly, hardly anyone could _create_ a counter-factual world like that -- trying to run a 'rigorous simulation' of an _entire planet with different biology/history/metaphysics/cultural evolution(s)_ isn't possible on our rather limited human hard wetware.
> 
> The best we can come up with is cheap knockoffs of real-world places annd events coupled with some half-assed extrapolation. And mind you, I'm not knocking those, they're mightily entertaining.




It doesn't have to be a rip off of a historic society or event. Imo designers are, when they want, smart enough to craft a new society instead or relable a existing (past or present) one (works in science fiction at least).

But that takes time and hardly anyone wants it anyway. So why do it?
Its a hobby of mine to try to craft a world which takes the actual possibilities of D&D magic into account (3E). Is my interpretation the one "most likely to happen"? Certainly not. But imo there isn't a "most right" answer to this anyway.
Still, the worlds I craft don't look like anything encountered in any fantasy book and I don't think anyone is interested in them as they are too "alien" compared to the common fantasy settings.


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## Umbran (Dec 23, 2009)

Mallus said:


> (But as to other point, of course we --and by we I mean fiction writers of all stripes-- anthropomorphize mythical creatures, space aliens, and brave little toasters, we have to. Anything that serves as a character needs to be a person, a human being, beneath it's funny suit or crinkly nose-prosthesis. ....).




Yah.  See Orson Scott Card's Hierarchy of Exclusion - you have to understand the critter in order to have some sympathy/empathy for it.  Really alien aliens, or monstrous monsters (or monstrous aliens - see Alien) are just forces of nature, and there's only so far you can go in characterizing faces of nature.


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## Aeolius (Dec 23, 2009)

Hussar said:


> In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic.




Hags breed... 





This should frighten the dickens out of anyone. Especially my players.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 24, 2009)

Derren said:


> Still, the worlds I craft don't look like anything encountered in any fantasy book and I don't think anyone is interested in them as they are too "alien" compared to the common fantasy settings.




Whenever the topic comes up I tend to ask "So, why are the common fantasy settings popular in the first place?"

It's my belief that to a certain point, the unique qualities of a world, however plausible in accordance to its own rules, are at odds with emotional immersion. The more exposition you have to read to truly understand a setting that's really, truly different from what you're expecting, the less likely you are to feel like you're part of that setting, to be able to just casually picture yourself there. This is something that the creator is exempt from, of course: nobody knows the details of my campaign like I do, so naturally I have an easier time knowing what "makes sense" than my players do. 

The really logical worlds where you try to extrapolate something very different instead of relying on familiar tropes are, I think, largely attractive as an intellectual exercise. They're good workouts for the brain. But you have to a heavy-duty genius at characterization and communication to make them also emotionally immersive enough that people can slide into the world over the big old hump of scientific (or pseudo-scientific, if you're treating magic in a scientific method) exposition that's required to understand the place. 

It's a serious puzzle and no mistake. I like my games with immersion, but I also like them to have sufficient internal logic that they hold up when you're talking about them the morning after. Thankfully, myth is a definite framework for internal logic... though even it varies notably from place to place.


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## Derren (Dec 24, 2009)

Barastrondo said:


> Thankfully, myth is a definite framework for internal logic... though even it varies notably from place to place.




Replace "Myth" with "Pulp Fantasy LOTR Clone".

What most people see as "normal" for fantasy isn't all that related to an actual myth. Myth gets more and more replaced by what happens in fantasy books/movies which are nearly always LOTR clones (except for certain topics like Vampires).

How many people do you think associate vampires with the myth instead of what Bram Stoker, Interview with a vampire or (recently) what Buffy and Twilight "taught" them?
Same with other fantasy creatures. Orks are green, stupid and evil, most gamers associate elves with how they appeared in LOTR and not with either small pixies or the nordic originals from the myth. Same with dwarves and them being short, axe or hammer wielding, bearded drunkards instead of small sprites with jelly bag caps.

I would really like to witness an experiment when 3 people, one who has only read old folk tales, one who has only read LOTR & Clones and one grew up only with Conan books are tasked to create a fantasy world.

LOTR became a big hit, many people copied it, and because so many sources are so similar, LOTR became the default for most people when it comes to "fantasy". What LOTR didn't cover people got from other books/movies.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 24, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> Hags breed...
> [... image snipped ...]
> This should frighten the dickens out of anyone. Especially my players.



So _that's _why hags are always the most popular cheerleaders on the squad!


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## Jack7 (Dec 24, 2009)

> It's my belief that to a certain point, the unique qualities of a world, however plausible in accordance to its own rules, are at odds with emotional immersion. The more exposition you have to read to truly understand a setting that's really, truly different from what you're expecting, the less likely you are to feel like you're part of that setting, to be able to just casually picture yourself there. This is something that the creator is exempt from, of course: nobody knows the details of my campaign like I do, so naturally I have an easier time knowing what "makes sense" than my players do.
> 
> The really logical worlds where you try to extrapolate something very different instead of relying on familiar tropes are, I think, largely attractive as an intellectual exercise. They're good workouts for the brain. But you have to a heavy-duty genius at characterization and communication to make them also emotionally immersive enough that people can slide into the world over the big old hump of scientific (or pseudo-scientific, if you're treating magic in a scientific method) exposition that's required to understand the place.




And it's my belief that to a certain point you're really on to something here.

There is an "natural artificiality" in the composition of fiction that must nevertheless at least appear more real the less real it becomes, or it will be characteristically perceived as increasingly insubstantial the more substantially you present the case. 

When your truth is a fiction, your fiction must be true.
And that's especially true of the imagination. 
And of what we imagine, and want to be true.

Otherwise the improbable never gives birth to her doubt.
And without doubt the impossible is all you have left.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 24, 2009)

Derren said:


> Replace "Myth" with "Pulp Fantasy LOTR Clone".




Or Robin Hood and King Arthur, Cinderella and Snow White. The concept of the "knight in shining armor" is more fully ingrained in modern culture than Aragorn is by a long shot. Most kids learn about fairies and castles and monsters long before they read LotR or Conan. I figure that also contributes to the tendency to have more emotional connection to things that feel like the stories you grew up with. 



> What most people see as "normal" for fantasy isn't all that related to an actual myth. Myth gets more and more replaced by what happens in fantasy books/movies which are nearly always LOTR clones (except for certain topics like Vampires).




There's also regional culture to consider. American fantasy can be notably different from European fantasy, for instance; D&D and Warhammer are very much products of American writers on one side and British writers on the other. That's instrumental to the formation of, say, "the modern American vampire myth" as opposed to "the 14th-century Balkan vampire myth" or "the 19th-century English vampire myth." And it's generally easier for an audience to buy into myths that are closer to their own culture.



> Same with other fantasy creatures. Orks are green, stupid and evil, most gamers associate elves with how they appeared in LOTR and not with either small pixies or the nordic originals from the myth. Same with dwarves and them being short, axe or hammer wielding, bearded drunkards instead of small sprites with jelly bag caps.




It's a bit of sampling bias there, though, because most gamers started with D&D, and D&D featured elves as they appeared in LOTR, orcs that are green, stupid and evil, and short dwarves that use axes and hammers and are bearded drunkards. If the first and most influential RPG in the world establishes the same stereotypes that _also_ exist in LOTR, well, yes. Therefore presenting D&D elves that are "sufficiently unlike" Tolkien's is a tricky sell, because they're also probably unlike Silverleaf, Mialee, Drizzt and Melf.



> I would really like to witness an experiment when 3 people, one who has only read old folk tales, one who has only read LOTR & Clones and one grew up only with Conan books are tasked to create a fantasy world.




I'd be interested to see where such people could be found. How do you keep kids from being exposed to the more cleaned-up versions of fairy tales and keep them only to the old folk tales? I don't think you can subtract the place that culture in general plays in these things. 

I think you could get a good world, though, if you had three people who each liked one thing in particular — but was open-minded about finding out what their collaborators liked about their particular preferences. If, on the other hand, each one hated stuff that wasn't their favorite, it would probably be a crummy world. It takes a lot of creative genius to make up for the kind of willful blindness that hate fosters.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 24, 2009)

Monsters are monsters for different reasons.  I think tend to divide them into two broad categories: the "little-M" monsters, and the "big-M" monsters:

Some monsters are really just "beasts" or "men", unfamiliar but understandable.  They are monsters only in the sense that they are dangerous or different.  I think this is where dwarves and hippogriffs fall in typical D&D settings.  In a lot of settings, they are standard or common feature of the world, so it seems to me reasonable to make them _consistent_ in an ecological sense.  Whether dwarves come from storks, stone carvings, or bumpin' uglies is just a setting detail; but all these ways of making dwarf babies is a form of "biology".  These are all just explanations for "how things work", as is any other myth or science.  

Other monsters are monsters because they are stereotypes of the worst aspects of human nature.  I think this is where the standard orc fits in: it's basically a stupid human that's filthy, ugly, brutish and cruel.  And it is for exactly these reasons that it's ok to kill 'em and take their stuff.  Likewise, I think a lot of monsters of myth fall into this class: satyrs epitomize lust, and sylphs beauty, dragons are avarice, necromancers are unchecked ambition, and so on.  Effectively, we exaggerate and give shape to these human characteristics and call them "monsters".  

I think these two kinds of monster-- call them the "little-M monsters"-- serve to define a world and give it consistency, as well as some way for players to relate to it.  Note that this consistency need not resemble the real world, though.  Whether a setting's ecology (and cultures and cosmology) is held together with physics and evolution or with magic and alchemy, isn't terribly important.  What's important is that the setting has _something_ that renders it somewhat predictable and logical, if only because the players are logical creatures!  Otherwise, why even bother with rules?

The "big-M" monsters are the "true monsters", the ones that are monsters because they are not understandable, and are frightening for that reason.  This is the realm of "unspeakable horrors" and incomprehensible motives, regardless of the form.  These are the "real" monsters, the ones that strike fear into PCs' hearts.  These are the ones that defy biology or psychology, and that stand out from the rest of the setting, because they are so horrible, calculating, evil, or inscrutable.  In other words, these  often are the BBEGs.  It's these "true monsters"  that define the real conflict in a world and are often the ultimate source of the strife the PCs overcome.  

I think it's important to note here that such "big-M" monsters might begin incomprehensible, but slowly become understood over the course of an adventure or campaign-- effectively transforming into a "little-M" monster as the PCs gain knowledge.  In fact, this is typically how most conflicts are structured: something horrible and frightening occurs, weird minions lurk in every shadow, and it's only through the process of finding clues, talking to mentors, discovering peculiar treasures, and following all the leads that the PCs eventually figure out wtf is going on and ultimately defeat the bad guy.


The most intersting thing about "big-M" and the types of "little-M" monsters is that the lines drawn between them are often in very different places in different settings.  A common example is kobolds.  In the "default" D&D setting, their just little wimpy scaly foul-tempered humans, the second kind of "little-M" monster in this taxonomy, as they are miserable, cowardly and spiteful-- attributes that humans simply don't like in other humans.  However, I know a common re-imagining of kobolds is that they are cunning, sinister and malevolent, with a peculiar form of evil-- a lot more frightening than the normal kobold, and a little more "big-M".

So, yeah, I don't have much problem with a naturalist approach to "little-M" monsters, but I really like the "big-M" monsters to defy reason.  At the same time, I think it's OK for one campaign to call trolls "little-M" monsters, and another campaign to call trolls "big-M" monsters.  It just depends on the mood, feel and details of the campaign.


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 24, 2009)

I like using unique monsters and fantastical creatures that have no explanation beyond myth and legend for thier origins.

When a given monster type starts becoming numerous enough to become a race, with a recognizable reproductive cycle then there begins to be "standard" traits that are shared by members of that race. 

A monster doesn't need any explanation for its abilities or characteristics. I don't consider typical humanoids to be true monsters since they are sentient, and have an established culture. They may be in constant conflict with humanity and other races who may treat them as "monsters". After all, humans are capable of treating other humans of differing cultures that way in our world due to much smaller differences in appearance and/or values. 

They way I approach it, a single minotaur is a monster (RAWR), but a city of minotaur inhabitants is evidence of a racial type. 

It is certainly possible that there may be many monsters that appear the same with wildly different traits. If a creature is spawned by chaos with a random assortment of traits then it really isn't a racial type.

There is plenty of room for both fantastic racial types and monsters in the game.


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## Celebrim (Dec 24, 2009)

Mallus said:


> (But as to other point, of course we --and by we I mean fiction writers of all stripes-- anthropomorphize mythical creatures, space aliens, and brave little toasters, we have to. Anything that serves as a character needs to be a person, a human being, beneath it's funny suit or crinkly nose-prosthesis. The minute you decide a dragon or an angel is going to be character, it, perforce, becomes a person, different in scope perhaps as you or I are from Achilles, but a person nonetheless).




I disagree entirely.  What you get when you create an alien that is a character is something that is a fraction of a person and at the same time some fraction which is utterly inexplicable in some cases perhaps even to the author.  It is a very modern view of the world that the actions of another actor should be comprehensible and understandable to the observer.  Remember, we are talking about a world made of myth, and to the writers of the myths, the world was inexplicable.  They couldn't look at the world and explain why it was.  We can look at the world and say where the rain comes from and why the wind blows and why the sun shines.   The writers of the myths used the myths to try to explain the utter incomprehensibility of these things, and so they created the concept that the wind, rain, and sun were alien beings with mental processes that were on some level inexplicable.  The best you could hope for was to partly understand them: to be able to relate to them on some incomplete but functional level. 

If you read alot of fairy tales, and I mean old fairy tales, not modern fairy tales or even 18th century literary fairy tales, over and over again you'll read about fey creatures acting according to a logic that is inexplicable.  You can't come up with a reason for why fey act the way that they do.  They have fey logic, fey reasoning, and fey culture.  You aren't supposed to understand them.  That's the point.  The best you can do is learn enough about it to have a better chance against them than the ignorant, but there is no comprehensible why - only what and how.

Many of the monsters are literally personifications of forces of nature.  Nature was inexplicable, cruel, incomprehensible and uncontrollable.  The personifications of it were of necessity to alien to understand, motivated by desires quite foreign to human desires.  They are only partially anthromorphic.

With a few exceptions, modern authors do a very bad job of this.  HP Lovecraft gets it.  'The Alien Way' by Gordon R. Dickenson is one of the few sci-fi books I can think of that really gets it.  His aliens aren't people with bumps on their head.  Their alien.  He doesn't try to teach in his story, 'Underneath the skin, we are all basically alike', which has a kernal of truth if we are talking about people, but is amazingly stupid when applied to something that isn't.

We very rapidly approaching a time in human history when it will become essential to understand that everything that is a character isn't human.  As we begin to have the power to create non-human intelligences, it is arguably essential to human survival that we get away from the notion that intelligent implies human.


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## TarionzCousin (Dec 24, 2009)

Gerald of Wales' treatise from the 12th century [ame="http://www.amazon.com/History-Topography-Ireland-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140444238/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261682700&sr=8-3"]The History and Topography of Ireland[/ame]  has some interesting descriptions of "monsters" and strange geograpy.



			
				Amazon.com Product Description said:
			
		

> Gerald of Wales was among the most dynamic and fascinating churchmen of the twelfth century. A member of one of the leading Norman families involved in the invasion of Ireland, he first visited there in 1183 and later returned in the entourage of Henry II. The resulting "Topographia Hiberniae" is an extraordinary account of his travels. Here he describes landscapes, fish, birds and animals; recounts the history of Ireland's rulers; and tells fantastical stories of magic wells and deadly whirlpools, strange creatures and evil spirits. Written from the point of view of an invader and reformer, this work has been rightly criticized for its portrait of a primitive land, yet it is also one of the most important sources for what is known of Ireland during the Middle Ages.


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## Jack7 (Dec 24, 2009)

> I disagree entirely.




I think you're both right, to a degree. I think a lot depends upon who is doing the looking, and why.

With what CB said, this is true to the extent that a reader or audience is able to understand the enormous and unbridgeable gulf between the monster or alien or god and man. I see this analogously all the time while working cases.

The family of the victims, or someone else on the periphery of the case, or a rookie with no real experience of how these things work, will comment, "How could anybody kidnap and rape and torture and then strangle such a sweet and harmless little six year old girl, cut her body into pieces and then bury the remains twenty feet from his doorstep." People not familiar with this kind of thing and this kind of person (is that the wrong word? - well, yes it is, but it's what I got to use) think that if they just understood the thought and behavioral processes of the perp that they would magically establish a "link of understanding" between themselves and such a guy. That if they understood they could comprehend, and if they could comprehend it would all suddenly make sense.) But they never really will because the nature of such a subject, and the nature of those who fall prey to such people, are rarely the same type of natures. They both wear the suit of flesh that makes them appear to be men, but they behave in ways totally alien to one another, and have thought processes totally different. (I'm not talking about victim dis-similarities, but psychological dis-similarities.)

It's like Grendel in Beowulf. Sometimes Grendel is just Grendel. He doesn't behave as he does because that's what he has in common with the Geats, or doesn't have in common with men in general, but because that's the way he is. Grendel is Grendel, and maybe even he could change in the right set of circumstances, but he doesn't wanna change. That's what most people don't get. And don't wanna get. Grendel is the way he wants to be.

The Hussein brothers didn't rape teenage girls, tape their activates, and then feed the girls they had just raped to hungry war-dogs because of their high status in society, because of their educational background, or even because they were bored with nothing to do on a Saturday night. They did it because they could, that was their nature, and that's where they came from. There's nothing really to understand about it, other than the fact of how they operated. Not why they operated, but how. The why was entirely in them. And that's why they were the way they were, and why they wanted to be the way they were. Sometimes Grendel is just Grendel. You don't study Grendel to understand why Grendel is Grendel, you study him to understand how Grendel is Grendel. With the how of the matter it becomes easier to kill him, the why is never gonna lead anywhere but back to a lair peppered with bone-shards and pillowed with gore-pools.

But the point Mall was making (I think, but he was probably driving at it in a very different way than I'm going about it) is that the reader or audience, and especially the modern person, desires to understand, and honestly believes everything is understandable, because it comforts them to think this. Modern people actually think everything is resolvable, if you just understand enough about the subject, and that an acceptable resolution is always forthcoming from such understanding. That understanding someone naturally equates with resolution, acceptance, or similarity. The emphasis being of course that one stresses the idea that understanding will and can always occur. That it is a natural and inevitable result of the contact between what is alien, monstrous, and unknown. Therefore you stress what lies in common between audience and subject, even if it is small and subtle, not what is different, even if it is obvious and enormous. You don't wander too far away from the familiar, because the audience has either no desire to be reminded of the utterly alien, or just as importantly, doesn't really believe it is possible. And you can't convince anyone of anything they refuse to believe in, or assume to be impossible, a priori.

Personally I think the idea that man can reduce everything and everyone and every creature to human, or even decent or civilized understanding a ridiculous canard, and laughably naive. Juvenile in concept, and dangerously so. Nevertheless it is the rather ingrained and hard habit of the modern observer and of the educated modern man and woman, and even child, I would say. That it is so common and ubiquitous in our culture (including the assumption that Reason is a Universal God - but such assumptions are not standing positions in cultures like Somalia or Rwanda, where the idea that it is possible to understand everything, or even that one would want to do so, or that practice of this method leads to mutually beneficial conflict resolutions are viewed as alien - and I've personally seen everything but reason wielding machetes and butcher knives on unarmed dismembered civilians) that the idea is just accepted at face value as being unquestionably true regardless of circumstance, culture, time, or place. 

It is sort of a sub-conscious facade, a mask derived from the constructs and beliefs of our own culture, which many of us place over our minds and through the lens of which we do color our assumptions about the world. But it is no more true, nor false, that those cultural and societal and psychological masks assumed by the Athenians during the Peloponnesian Wars. It is the way we see things, and the way most of us want to see things, regardless of the evidence.

Now that being said (and I think this is very much why our myths are all of Super-heroes like Superman and Spiderman and Batman, extremely naive and yet fundamanentally good and noble and well-meaning heroes, rather than of an Achilles or a Beowulf) a modern Author must play to his audience. Rarely would an Oedipus be accepted and understood and sympathized with in the way he was among the Greeks, nor a Cyrano among the French. You target the audience you possess, and you play to their values, and mores, and assumptions, and conceits, and psyches, not to the psyche of those who feel it is not necessary to understand the other, or who do not assume it is even possible or required.

So to me both points of view are right, it just depends at what point along the spectrum you are making your observations, and who is doing the looking, and what exactly he's looking at and why.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 24, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> If you read alot of fairy tales, and I mean old fairy tales, not modern fairy tales or even 18th century literary fairy tales, over and over again you'll read about fey creatures acting according to a logic that is inexplicable.  *You can't come up with a reason for why fey act the way that they do.  They have fey logic, fey reasoning, and fey culture.  You aren't supposed to understand them.  That's the point.*  The best you can do is learn enough about it to have a better chance against them than the ignorant, but there is no comprehensible why - only what and how.



I don't agree with this.  It seems to me that myth basically counts on the fact that _human behavior_ is not fully understandable to explain why the natural and supernatural worlds are not understandable.  

The fact that fey or any other agent in mythology is illogical is not the point of the myth. Rather, it's just that the logic of a given tale doesn't have to go any deeper than that superficial level.  Making these agents in the form of men or animals, in fact, goes a long way toward removing the need for a logical explanation simply because the men and animals they're modelled on are themselves quite irrational!  In other words, the inscrutable motives of men and beasts were sufficient to "explain" the inscrutable motives of everything else.  After all, people back then were just as twisted, evil, generous, erratic, saintly, stupid, wrathful, ugly, lustful, as they are today.   

By way of example, lightning is almost always attributed to an angry god; it wasn't important why he was angry.  Just as people often act irrationally when angry, so do the gods, and no further explanation is necessary.  Toadstools grow in circles after it rains because that's where the fairies danced; why they danced was unimportant, because there are lots of human reasons for dancing.  Shoes buried in the threshold keep evil spirits away.  Why is not important; it's enough to know that evil spirits don't like shoes, possibly in the same way people don't like latrines.

I don't think it was common practice to try to even ask "why" beyond that level of understanding.  Not because there was some deep-seated dread about the fundamental incomprehensibility of the universe, but just because that casual "common sense" level of logic was enough for people who spent their days scraping by, plowing fields, being ill, carrying water, chopping wood, and trying to keep their kids alive long enough to work the farm in a few years.

And, not surprisingly, whenever mankind sat down and really started thinking about such things and trying to logically connect all these disparate facts described by myth, they ended up with civilization, agriculture, engineering, astrology, alchemy.  And, eventually, science-- which, ironically, tells us that nature is much simpler that we ever dreamed.

As for Lovecraft, I really think his writings, were more a response to our own age of reason.  He was harkening back to that time when people didn't understand things, and lived in ignorance, but starting at our level of understanding.  The message was that we-- with all our science and technology-- are just as ignorant as the peasants of the middle ages with their fairy tales and superstitions.  We are, in other words, still missing the Truth-- and, moreover, we can never comprehend it.  This is directly in opposition to the old fairytales, in fact:  while the ancients assumed things were understandable by appealing to human or animal motives, Lovecraft says the *real* universe is inherently and hopelessly incomprehensible, so don't even try.   (At least that's what I get out of it; I've never read any critical analysis of his works, or his own notes on the topic.)

Anyway, that's 2cp, from someone who really hasn't delved into the subject as deeply as I'm sure a lot of others here have!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 24, 2009)

Unless a creature is the stuff of Chaos made flesh, I expect it to have motivations and characteristics that define it and drive it- a set of general facts about it that (roughly) get described in the MM entry.  A "norm" to its biology.

Now, that biology may be entirely alien or supported by magic, but it should still be internally consistent within the species.  If it doesn't eat or breathe, there should be reasons.

Chimaeric creatures may originate from magical origins, but if there are more than just a few exemplars in the world, there should be an explanation.

In _Bender's Game_, 2 characters had this exchange:



> "Is that a Hobbit?"
> 
> "Nope- that's a Hobo and a Rabbit...but they're *making* a hobbit."




(Essentially, the same idea is in the Greek legend of The Minotaur.)

Something like that explains 1 critter, but not a species.  Either they need to breed true, or there has to be some reason why Hobos and Rabbits keep making Hobbits.


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 24, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> With a few exceptions, modern authors do a very bad job of this.  HP Lovecraft gets it.  'The Alien Way' by Gordon R. Dickenson is one of the few sci-fi books I can think of that really gets it.  His aliens aren't people with bumps on their head.  Their alien.  He doesn't try to teach in his story, 'Underneath the skin, we are all basically alike', which has a kernal of truth if we are talking about people, but is amazingly stupid when applied to something that isn't.



There is a book by Larry Niven called The Mote in God's Eye which has a pretty portrayal of an alien race, not just an anthropomorphic creature.

This topic has taken a bit of turn towards discussing the use of mythology in D&D games and whether a game is better for it or not.

I wonder then, for most gamers, if D&D has developed it's own mythology deeply enough that it doesn't require knowledge of historical or real-world mythology to feel as complete as a game that IS derived directly from real-world mythology.  I am not just talking about LotR mythology that has become D&D mythology, but something deeper.  Yes, I think D&D has taken liberties with many different real-world myths and some fictional mythology (Vancian magic, Tolkien elves, etc), but it could be said that it has created it's own mythology.

Drow, Beholders, Halflings, rust monsters, (and even dragons, one could argue) have a distinctive D&D feel to them enough that the source of these creatures can be pointed to D&D with only a wink-and-a-nod to their original source.


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## Derren (Dec 25, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> Drow, Beholders, Halflings, rust monsters, (and even dragons, one could argue) have a distinctive D&D feel to them enough that the source of these creatures can be pointed to D&D with only a wink-and-a-nod to their original source.




D&D certainly did develop its own mythology with Drow, Beholders, Tana'Ri  or the colour coded dragon while other things were still LotR myths with a few changes (elves for example).
At least up till 3E. 4E removed or diminished most of the mythology D&D created during the previous editions.


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## Hussar (Dec 26, 2009)

The Shaman said:


> I was a park ranger for thirteen years and a biology teacher for two.
> 
> If you think mundane animals are boring, I respectfully suggest u r doing it wrng.




Didn't say boring.  Said predictable.  As in familiar. 



Canis said:


> /snip
> 
> EDIT:
> The hippogriff thing is an excellent example of biology applied well.  Carnivores make great pets but bad livestock.




Yeah, cos y'know, those dogs sure didn't work out well did they?


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## Hussar (Dec 26, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> I find it odd that you would complain about Hippogriffs being used as steeds by anyone that could capture one, since the Hippogriff of myth was bred from a Griffin and Mare precisely for that purpose.  Hippogriffs almost exclusively appear in myth as steeds for mighty heroes of valor.  That's there role in myth regardless of what you think of their biology./snip




Celebrim, I believe you completely misread what I wrote.  I was complaining that NO ONE has hippogriff fleets in their settings.   At least not in published ones.


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## Hussar (Dec 26, 2009)

I guess, for me, the idea that monsters have "species" makes them less interesting.  That kobolds, for example, are just a scaley kind of hominid or whatnot makes them less fantastic.

All comes down to sensawunda I suppose.  For some, it's the codification of spells.  For me, it's the codification of creatures.  

Take orcs as another example.  D&D has orcs as just another hominid.  Brutish and a bit nasty, but, essentially not any different from humans.  Take an orc, give it a haircut and a bit of dentistry and it's a human.  I love the LotR take on orcs, the Uruk-Hai anyway, where orcs are created by mutating elves.  Force grown effectively.  Not natural at all.

Now, that's a fantasy race with mythological leanings.  And, in my mind, a MUCH better reason for orcs and elves to hate each other.

----------- Edit for a further thought

I think the whole dragonbewbs "contravery" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Much better than anything I can come up with.  People complaining about dragonbewbs typically do so based on reptile biology.  They presume that because dragon born have scales and look reptilian, they should follow the same basic physiology as reptiles.

To me, this is udder bunk.  

Dragonborn are magically created.  They are created by a god as is everything else in a D&D world.  Thus, the god in question can give a big one fingered saluete to the entire scientific community.  Why?  Because he's a god.

Arguing that dragonborn shouldn't have boobs based on biology makes zero sense to me in a world where you know, beyond any doubt, that gods and magic exist.  

Now, arguing that you don't like it?  That's perfectly groovy.  But, don't drag poor science in here kicking and screaming only to whimper in the corner.


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## Coldwyn (Dec 26, 2009)

As far as I´m concerned, D&D represents a world with biology but without natural evolution.

Most race entries state that some god or primordal created a race for a specific purpose, sometimes including the ability to progenate, sometimes not.

That´s a mythic origin, all right, it just disregards our cultural myths as a whole by creating the whole gods vs primordial war mythic.

Considering this, there´s an explanation for unique entites that aren´t mutations, also, there must be a huge number of creatures that simple vanished because they didn´t have functioning biology because they weren´t created with one.


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## Barastrondo (Dec 26, 2009)

Hussar said:


> I guess, for me, the idea that monsters have "species" makes them less interesting.  That kobolds, for example, are just a scaley kind of hominid or whatnot makes them less fantastic.
> 
> All comes down to sensawunda I suppose.  For some, it's the codification of spells.  For me, it's the codification of creatures.




It depends for me. I like some seriously fantastic explanations for seriously fantastic critters (especially the chimerical ones like manticores and, well chimeras). But on the other hand, to me the presence of monstrous races or beasts that effectively have ecologies of their own makes the _world_ more magical. I find it actually injures my suspension of disbelief if a world has pretty much our own animal and plant species and everything not found on Earth is weird and strange even to the locals. It makes me feel like the ordinary humans aren't really residents of a fantasy world, in a way; they're just Earth-humans who live there. I prefer things like the world of Steven Brust's _Jhereg_; a bunch of freakish new wildlife that's considered just as much part of the world as beasts that are familiar to us, with hawk and tiassa right side by side on the Cycle.

All this should be taken alongside the disclaimer that I like owlbears (and that I even like owlbears as perfectly natural giant killer monotremes that are just peculiar to the D&D ecology), of course.   



> Dragonborn are magically created.  They are created by a god as is everything else in a D&D world.  Thus, the god in question can give a big one fingered saluete to the entire scientific community.  Why?  Because he's a god.




Oh, sure. I just find that can kind of undercut the dignity of the god in particular to me. "Shut up, I like boobs! I'll put them on anything I want! You're lucky I'm not putting boobs on beholders and trees and mailboxes. Mmm... boobs..." [/Homer Simpson voice]

I mean, I am aware that there are plenty of mythical gods who have zero sense of dignity. I just kind of hope that Bahamut's not one, you know? I frequently say "a god did it", but optimally I want to make sure a god did it for in-character reasons, making a neat new myth instead of just a handwave. After all, actual myths will always give you more of a story than "a god did it," even if it's "Bahamut lost a bet with Coyote, and Coyote really really likes boobs."


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## Aeolius (Dec 26, 2009)

Coldwyn said:


> As far as I´m concerned, D&D represents a world with biology but without natural evolution. Most race entries state that some god or primordal created a race for a specific purpose, sometimes including the ability to progenate, sometimes not.




And then members of that race advance, take on a divine rank, and become deities themselves...

I favor both approaches. Night hags beget greenhags beget annis ("Ecology of the Greenhag" - Dragon #125). The annis does not produce hags herself, biologically, so she has to get creative. For example the stormhag is "born" when a dying annis absorbs the death emanations of a will-o-wisp, instead of being slain by the wisp itself.


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## Set (Dec 26, 2009)

chitzk0i said:


> There was once a gigantic debate about a wizard who wanted to teleport to the moon. [snip] I thought he ought to have found himself clinging to a bright patch on the inside of a gigantic black sphere studded with shiny objects.




One creative backstory I saw was a halfling rogue in Spelljammer who originally found his way into space in an attempt to steal one of the 'glowing jewels that like up the night sky' to give to his girlfriend.

He was disappointed that the stars weren't glowing jewels, but ended up finding a whole new world of adventure.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 26, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Take orcs as another example.  D&D has orcs as just another hominid.  Brutish and a bit nasty, but, essentially not any different from humans.  Take an orc, give it a haircut and a bit of dentistry and it's a human.  I love the LotR take on orcs, the Uruk-Hai anyway, where orcs are created by mutating elves.  Force grown effectively.  Not natural at all.
> 
> Now, that's a fantasy race with mythological leanings.  And, in my mind, a MUCH better reason for orcs and elves to hate each other.




There's no reason why Orcs in your setting can't be like the Uruk-Hai.  If they exist in any numbers, it means...

1) They can breed like any other species.

2) They cannot breed, and someone is creating more of them. (Adventure Hook!)

3) They cannot breed, but figured out the magic that creates them, so they can perpetuate themselves.  (If it involves an Artifact- something like the Black Cauldron- you have an Adventure Hook).

4) Half-Orcs have some 'splainin' to do.

----------- Edit for a further thought


> I think the whole dragonbewbs "contravery" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  Much better than anything I can come up with.  People complaining about dragonbewbs typically do so based on reptile biology.  They presume that because dragon born have scales and look reptilian, they should follow the same basic physiology as reptiles.




That would be me.

To me, this is *udder bunk.* 

Hilarious! 


> Dragonborn are magically created.  They are created by a god as is everything else in a D&D world.  Thus, the god in question can give a big one fingered saluete to the entire scientific community.  Why?  Because he's a god.
> 
> Arguing that dragonborn shouldn't have boobs based on biology makes zero sense to me in a world where you know, beyond any doubt, that gods and magic exist.




Sure, a god can do that.  But unless those bewbs have a function, over time they'll disappear.


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## Coldwyn (Dec 26, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Sure, a god can do that.  But unless those bewbs have a function, over time they'll disappear.




And what brings you to this conclusion? They were created that way, propably even on purpose, why should they change? In a world where a god can create a whole race whole cloth, wouldn´t it be reasonable that he keeps the race as it should be?


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## The Shaman (Dec 26, 2009)

Barastrondo said:


> It's my belief that to a certain point, the unique qualities of a world, however plausible in accordance to its own rules, are at odds with emotional immersion. The more exposition you have to read to truly understand a setting that's really, truly different from what you're expecting, the less likely you are to feel like you're part of that setting, to be able to just casually picture yourself there. This is something that the creator is exempt from, of course: nobody knows the details of my campaign like I do, so naturally I have an easier time knowing what "makes sense" than my players do.
> 
> The really logical worlds where you try to extrapolate something very different instead of relying on familiar tropes are, I think, largely attractive as an intellectual exercise. They're good workouts for the brain. But you have to a heavy-duty genius at characterization and communication to make them also emotionally immersive enough that people can slide into the world over the big old hump of scientific (or pseudo-scientific, if you're treating magic in a scientific method) exposition that's required to understand the place.



Very well stated.

A topic of discussion over at Dragonsfoot from time to time is the idea of the dungeon-as-mythic-underworld, where goblins arise from shadows and dust, or from a great vat, rather than being born from mommy-goblins and daddy-goblins. It's very appealing in many ways, but I think it's like garlic: great as a spice, overwhelming as a vegetable. Wizards' experiments gone awry, critters twisted by exposure to the Far Realms, creations of a mad god: all show up in my fantasy games, but the contrast with the less fantastic or the reliably mundane is what makes them truly extraordinary in the context of the setting. Aspects of the game-world which are familiar, or predictable, are most readily grasped and serve to highlight the differences between the mundane and the fantastic.

That some monsters share biological, or more specifically ecological, characteristics can result in some interesting situations in the course of the game. Why do goblins invade the kingdom from time to time? It could be because they are the stuff of nightmares and fog coalescing in the darkness to ravage the human lands, the goblin-deity instructs the witch-doctors through their dreams to attack, or it could be because they have an _r_-selected breeding strategy that result in population irruptions when conditions are favorable, something which rangers on the frontier carefully monitor. Personally I don't find any one of these explanations to be inherently better than another, and I use all of them when I run a fantasy game.


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## The Shaman (Dec 26, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There's no reason why Orcs in your setting can't be like the Uruk-Hai.  If they exist in any numbers, it means...
> 
> 1) They can breed like any other species.
> 
> ...



Number one is also the source of Adventure Hooks.

Consider the earlier example of hippogriffs. Perhaps the reason hippogriffs used as mounts come from eggs or young captured in the wild is because hippogriffs are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. Few have been successful with hippogriff hubandry, and those few will explain that consistency is extremely hard to come by. This makes harvesting wild hippogriffs the only reliable way to provide mounts for the royal paladins.


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 26, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> snip
> ..<re: dragonbewbs>
> 
> Sure, a god can do that.  But unless those bewbs have a function, over time they'll disappear.




No they won't, unless evolution occurs in the fantasy environement and even if it does then then the bwebs will only disappear if they impact negatively on the survival of the species. If the cost is low then they are unlikely to disappear.
But for evolution to occur in a fantasy world assumes that there are mutations possible in the   hereditary material. This is not a given in any fantasy world. 
It is not even given that hereditary is even a physical operation.


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## JustKim (Dec 26, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> No they won't, unless evolution occurs in the fantasy environement and even if it does then then the bwebs will only disappear if they impact negatively on the survival of the species. If the cost is low then they are unlikely to disappear.



They would never disappear simply because they're inconvenient. Maybe you already realize this, but it's a common misunderstanding that evolution is designed to streamline a creature for survival. Humans alone have half a dozen examples of vestigal organs and bones, whales famously have vestigal pelvic bones, and spiders have not-so-famously continued to grow a colulus for millions of years.

If having breasts makes a dragonborn a more desirable mate, the trait will probably _strengthen_ in the gene pool over time. If the gene for breasts is an easy allele to form, it's likely to pop back up unexpectedly even if mutation and mass extinction does occur, even if dragonborn try very hard to suppress the trait. Even if the trait kills every dragonborn who manifests it.


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## Derren (Dec 26, 2009)

Monsters being unnatural abominations without ecology is fine when you only encounter one of them. But as D&D adventurers typically go through entire populations of them there needs to be an better explanation than "magic did it" for why there are hundreds of unnatural things running around.


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## Coldwyn (Dec 26, 2009)

Derren said:


> Monsters being unnatural abominations without ecology is fine when you only encounter one of them. But as D&D adventurers typically go through entire populations of them there needs to be an better explanation than "magic did it" for why there are hundreds of unnatural things running around.




What do you see as unnatural?

Some God created the elves, another the dwarves, and so on.... that´s also unnatural.

I blame the human-centric settings of old for the logical problems with creation, biology and all that.

I think Al Qadim got it right with the "All Welcome, all equal"-approach to humoinds and other creatures, with a society that wasn´t based on races but on integration and acceptance of Fate.


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## Derren (Dec 27, 2009)

Coldwyn said:


> What do you see as unnatural?




Unnatural = Doesn't reproduce, doesn't have any role in the ecology and only exists because some wizard screwed up.


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## Hussar (Dec 27, 2009)

DannyA said:
			
		

> To me, this is udder bunk.
> 
> Hilarious!




Thank you, don't forget to tip your waitress.  



Derren said:


> Monsters being unnatural abominations without ecology is fine when you only encounter one of them. But as D&D adventurers typically go through entire populations of them there needs to be an better explanation than "magic did it" for why there are hundreds of unnatural things running around.




Really?

Unless your campaign centers around one specific race, how often do you actually interact with a given type of monster for more than a couple of levels?  ((Note, I have not played 4e, so, it might be different there, I have no comment on that))

Low level, you deal with kobolds and goblins.  Move your way through orcs and ogres, and you probably never see them again after about 5th or 6th level.  With the way the level system works in D&D, it's unlikely that groups are facing more than a few dozen or even a hundred or so at most, of a given monster type.  And, even then, those will almost certainly be humanoids.

As far as the hippogriff example, that's all it was.  A single example.  If it doesn't work for you, I'm sure you can think of one that does.  My point is that treating monsters as naturally occuring animals makes them less... gack I hate to use this term ... wonderous.


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 27, 2009)

JustKim said:


> They would never disappear simply because they're inconvenient. Maybe you already realize this, but it's a common misunderstanding that evolution is designed to streamline a creature for survival. Humans alone have half a dozen examples of vestigal organs and bones, whales famously have vestigal pelvic bones, and spiders have not-so-famously continued to grow a colulus for millions of years.



I think we are making the same point here. I was perhaps unclear, but what I was trying to say that there is no reason to believe that evolution or any similar process occurs in a fantasy environment and that if an evolutionary type process did occur then they would be unlikely to simply disappear unless they had a high cost to the species and that it was hard to imagine a bit of unnecessary flesh like boobs would exact that cost.



> If having breasts makes a dragonborn a more desirable mate, the trait will probably _strengthen_ in the gene pool over time. If the gene for breasts is an easy allele to form, it's likely to pop back up unexpectedly even if mutation and mass extinction does occur, even if dragonborn try very hard to suppress the trait. Even if the trait kills every dragonborn who manifests it.




Agreed but only if genes or a similar mechanism exists.


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## Derren (Dec 27, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Unless your campaign centers around one specific race, how often do you actually interact with a given type of monster for more than a couple of levels?




When I encounter a creature more than twice (that means two creatures, not two encounters) that creature I expect it to have a story behind it. That means either be a "full" race with an ecological niche or a very good reason why so many unnatural creatures run around.

Also, when we use Uruk-Hai orcs, meaning they don't breed but get transformed from elves, I want that to be reflected in the game world. Meaning if the PCs stop the abduction of elves and/or free captured elves the number of them go down. (Also, without captured elves in the first place there won't be any of those special orcs).

As for the Dragonborn discussion, giving them boobs is/was a "metagame" decision of WotC. For most people in 4Es target group female = boobs. Its not even about esthetics, but there must be some ways to recognice females.
A dress and long eyelashes are for children, shoulder/hip size is for older ones (compared to the target group) and also hard to see, colouration is too scientific. Whats left is female = boobs. It also fits right with the D&D target group of teenagers and young adults.


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## Hussar (Dec 27, 2009)

Derren said:


> When I encounter a creature more than twice (that means two creatures, not two encounters) that creature I expect it to have a story behind it. That means either be a "full" race with an ecological niche or a very good reason why so many unnatural creatures run around.




Two?  Really?  Wow.  I have to admit you are far more demanding than I in backstory in a setting.  Then again, perhaps it's because I don't care that much about setting and focus instead on plot.  Unless there's a reason that the PC's should care about where the monsters in question are coming from, I'm not going to bother usually.  



> Also, when we use Uruk-Hai orcs, meaning they don't breed but get transformed from elves, I want that to be reflected in the game world. Meaning if the PCs stop the abduction of elves and/or free captured elves the number of them go down. (Also, without captured elves in the first place there won't be any of those special orcs).




Totally agree with this.  

Then again, you are presuming that only one place is producing orcs in this manner.  It could easily be numerous infestations.  Heck, it could be a god given curse on elves - elf children spontaneously turn into orcs at a certain age and run away.  That sort of thing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 27, 2009)

Re: Dragonbewbs.

We know some kind of "genes" or mutation are at work- even if they're entirely magical- due to the nature of the various crossbreeds we know about.  They have characteristics of both sides of their lineage.  (Note: the fantasy genome, as evidenced by those crossbreeds, is a LOT more flexible than the RW one, to be sure.)

Some combinations, in past editions, have even been noted as being "sterile" crossbreeds.  Other potential combinations (Orc/Elf, for instance) have been noted as being unlikely or impossible due to the creatures incompatibility.  (Note: this incompatibility dovetails nicely with the Uruk-Hai/Elf conflict.)

So, unless the Dragonborn like their girls curvy, there's no reason for them to be selected for.  And if they're inconvenient/unattractive, they'll be selected against.


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> .... the fantasy genome...



Ha!

I hear what you are saying, and I agree (mostly), but the idea of a fantasy genome in a "world" with beholders, displacer beasts, slaad, gith, dragons, demons and devils totally cracks me up.


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## Hussar (Dec 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Re: Dragonbewbs.
> 
> We know some kind of "genes" or mutation are at work- even if they're entirely magical- due to the nature of the various crossbreeds we know about.  They have characteristics of both sides of their lineage.  (Note: the fantasy genome, as evidenced by those crossbreeds, is a LOT more flexible than the RW one, to be sure.)
> 
> ...




Why?  Again, just because two species can cross breed doesn't really prove anything.  It could just as easily be "A god declares this to be true" as any sort of science.

This gets back to my point.  When you start down this road that magic must follow rules, it becomes science.


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## korjik (Dec 27, 2009)

Any sufficiently quantified magic is indistinguishable from technology.

The thing about any fantasy setting is that you cannot even prove that the laws of physics work the same way, or are even the same laws at all. As a result, any science is whatever you want it to be. 

Biology, ecology, physics, geology, all work however the game designer wants them to. They dont have to make sense.

It is only when we want to impress our own desires on how things should be that any problem occurs.


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## LostSoul (Dec 27, 2009)

Where does player choice factor into this? 

If we posit a fantasy world that makes no sense, how are players supposed to make choices in that world _as a game_?

I guess the answer is that those players need to learn the rules of the world.  Strange as they may be.  

Personally, I'd rather play the setting "dumb" and let smart players raise an army of horse-hungry hippogriffs if they somehow figure out a way to do it.  That may change the campaign setting - other nations may spy and learn their techniques - and that could be very cool.


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 27, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Re: Dragonbewbs.
> 
> We know some kind of "genes" or mutation are at work- even if they're entirely magical- due to the nature of the various crossbreeds we know about.  They have characteristics of both sides of their lineage.  (Note: the fantasy genome, as evidenced by those crossbreeds, is a LOT more flexible than the RW one, to be sure.)
> 
> ...




Evolutionary changes require that mutation can occur in the reproduction process, my argument is that there is no reason to believe that this is so. That does not preclude corssbreeding but it stops evolution cold. A being is what it is within certain parameters and its essestial characteristics are passed on to the next generation unchanged except by the influnce of the characteristics of its mate. The species is eternal as long as a member exists. There is no possibility of kobolds evolving to become dragonborn nor do they share a common ancestor. Each thing is of itself and not decended from any other.

Take creationsim as a startpoint, add in some fantasy creatures and play D&D there for a while. 

Magic as a science is a separate issue, though imho D&D magic has not passes beyond stamp collecting yet.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 27, 2009)

Hussar said:


> This gets back to my point.  When you start down this road that magic must follow rules, it becomes science.



But if magic doesn't follow rules, you don't really have a structure you can build a game around.  Heck, the rules of D&D imply that magic is, indeed, something of a science: spells are split into levels, schools and domains; items require special knowledge, substances and components to make; and so on.   

To refer back to the OP, regardless of whether dwarves evolve or whether they are carved from stone, as long as it's the same origin for the dwarves in question, it's still a rule either way.    Regardless of whether a world operates according to some naturalistic "science" or some supernatural "bio-alchemy" or simple divine fiat, that world still ought to be largely consistent; otherwise how can you expect players to operate in it?

To my mind, there needs to be a little of each:  the consistent part structures the world, so the players have a baseline they can refer to to make decisions.  The inconsistent parts often form the mystery and conflict.  In fact, I think a lot of lower level exploration and adventuring is to allow the players to discern the illogical parts from the rest of the world so they can.

From the OP:


> In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic. They are predictable, in the way that natural animals aren't really fantastic, but a part of the natural processes of the world. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but, I think it becomes very limiting. Kobolds, to use the original example from the other thread, are just short scaley humanoids. They aren't really all that different than a smart kind of ape. They lack ... magic.
> 
> Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic.  They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.



Maybe I'm not getting the objection here.  Is it that a specifically _naturalistic_ approach is distasteful, or that a merely _consistent and logical_ approach is?  If that's the objection, I'd think it's simply a matter of what the campaign demands.


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## DMH (Dec 27, 2009)

avin said:


> "Magic explains" is banned.




That is a cop out. I don't want to go hunting for the link, but I have a thread at rpg.net about variation in spellcaster created creatures. The main example is the owlbear- there are many bears and owls that can go into making them so why should they be identical? Heck if the different species can hybridize, then there can be thousands to millions of fairly unique owlbears in a setting.

What I don't like is the idea of everything can breed with everything else. If that were so and the world has been around for a while, every creature would have lots of species in its background.


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## The Shaman (Dec 27, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> If we posit a fantasy world that makes no sense, how are players supposed to make choices in that world _as a game_?



Yup, I like players to be able to make inferences like these . . . 







			
				Buliwyf in The 13th Warrior said:
			
		

> If it's a man then it must sleep. If it sleeps then it has a lair.



. . . even if _sometimes_ they're dead wrong.

Yes, you can have your unimaginable Far Realms abominations _and _you can have monsters that function by basic ecological rules, and it's all good.


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## Hussar (Dec 28, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> Where does player choice factor into this?
> 
> If we posit a fantasy world that makes no sense, how are players supposed to make choices in that world _as a game_?
> 
> ...




Just a point here that has cropped up a couple of times.  Hippogriff's don't eat horses, griffons do.  At least, that's always been my understanding.  Even going back to B/E D&D, it was griffons that eat horses on sight, not hippogriff's.

My point is, in this example, why on earth would the players be the first to figure out that having mobile, flying armies would absolutely dominate your neighbours?  That makes little sense to me.  Breeding hippogriffs, even only a half dozen or so, would drastically change warfare and economics.  Even if they were only used as spotters on the battlefield, much the way balloons were during Napoleonic times, the advantage would be massive.

Anything that gives you that much of an advantage would be exploited or there needs to be a damn good reason why not.



			
				The Orc Within said:
			
		

> Maybe I'm not getting the objection here. Is it that a specifically naturalistic approach is distasteful, or that a merely consistent and logical approach is? If that's the objection, I'd think it's simply a matter of what the campaign demands.




Naturalistic I would say.  Reducing fantastic creatures to just another animal, totally understandable from a modern Animal Planet point of view.  

Heck, I would even argue with the consistent approach as well.  Why are all hippogriff's the same?  

I guess my problem is, as The Shaman points out, "you can have your unimaginable Far Realms abominations and you can have monsters that function by basic ecological rules", all creatures that are non-planar creatures must conform to basic ecological rules.  

Why is it only Far Realms creatures that have inconsistent "ecologies"?  Why does every non-planar creature have to be reduced to following basic ecological rules?  Orcs are just another hominid.  Giants are big hominids.  Hippogriffs are horses with eagle heads and wings that lay eggs.

I think that reducing fantastic creatures to basic ecologies makes them a lot more boring.  They become resources to be exploited.  If the creatures have a basic ecology, then why aren't they being exploited in your setting?  By these creatures having basic ecologies, they make the whole setting far higher fantasy than I like.  

Or, it makes the setting very inconsistent.  Yup, hippogriff eggs can be sold for 2000 gp, trainers charge 1000 gp to train one, but, for some reason, no city/nation states actually take advantage of them.


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## korjik (Dec 28, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Just a point here that has cropped up a couple of times. Hippogriff's don't eat horses, griffons do. At least, that's always been my understanding. Even going back to B/E D&D, it was griffons that eat horses on sight, not hippogriff's.
> 
> My point is, in this example, why on earth would the players be the first to figure out that having mobile, flying armies would absolutely dominate your neighbours? That makes little sense to me. Breeding hippogriffs, even only a half dozen or so, would drastically change warfare and economics. Even if they were only used as spotters on the battlefield, much the way balloons were during Napoleonic times, the advantage would be massive.
> 
> ...




Actually I think that this is an even more generic concept that too many DMs do not think about. If the players can do X, especially if it is explicitly stated in the rules, then the bad guys should know that. Maybe not your dumb baddies, but the supergenius necromancer would consider the implication of scrying and teleportation when making his defences (which is why my characters knew that scry-teleport-kill BBEG would work out to scry-teleport-make new characters).

I have a rule:
For every ability, there is a counter. 

It may not be easy, but there is a way.

To come down to biology and ecology, and players wanting to come up with ideas, I have no problem taking the idea and running with it. The paladin in my last campaign asked about getting a flying special mount at one point, and as a result, Wind Riders were formed. They are a corp of paladins with flying mounts that work for Heronieus.

Heck, the talk of hippogriffs in this thread just got me to come up with a variety of hippogriff that eats large fish. They live in an archipelago where there are quite a few large flat topped islands, and grab fish right out of the water by swooping down on them.

So, a moral: Dont get too hung up on how it would work in real life, it isnt real life, but if you can give a good reason that makes sense, it can help


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

Umbran said:


> .... if there are too many things that are special, then being special isn't very special, and the players can feel inundated with weirdness without purpose.



I agree with this statement Umbran made way back at the beginning of this thread. I've always felt that saying "its magic!" is the ultimate cop-out.

Like many other people here, I have a science background. As a paleontologist, I've got a background in biology and geology (as well as many other of the sciences, such as astronomy), and I've always approached my worlds with a science eye, trying to build self-consistent explanations for things that are at their heart... fantastical. I have no problem mixing science and logic with the fantasy and myth of the D&D multiverse. See my Grand Unified Theory of the D&D multiverse in my article *Life, the Multiverse, and Everything* as an example of that type of thought-process. You'll see from that article that I am not trying to force the D&D world into fitting the rules of our Real Universe... but rather use the real-world idea that there ARE rules, albeit very different rules then RealLife, and procede from there. Example: Once you decide something as simple as the fact that gravity functions in a different manner (i.e., is a mass-*independent* constant) in the D&D multiverse, then you can have geocentric planetary systems, and people walking on the decks of Spelljammer ships, and an "impossible" campaign world becomes consistent and explainable. 

When it comes to my campaign biology... yes, evolution has played an important role, however the presence of magic - the ultimate mutagenic force - causes things to evolve *much* faster in a fantasy universe, and in directions you would never see in the Real World - and then you have powerful wizards and uber-beings (gods) mucking about with things.

However, ultimately, the game is about PLAY. I will bend things if its necessary to the story I want to tell. And I'm more then happy to share with other DM's the way I generally look at things - but an argument it is not. If the enjoyment of YOUR game means that everything is explained by "its magic!".... or conversely, everything must fit real world physics (and, continuing with the example used above, the Spelljammer setting cannot therefore exist in your campaign)... then more power to ya! Have fun YOUR way. Thats what its all about.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of magic, and mysteries, and theories of all sorts, for any D&D edition...


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## SkidAce (Dec 28, 2009)

Hussar said:


> My point is, in this example, why on earth would the players be the first to figure out that having mobile, flying armies would absolutely dominate your neighbours?  That makes little sense to me.




When I run into this I answer it simply.  Because they were the first.  Sombody had to be first.  Right place right time etc. and I roll it into the world's development.

Basically, other people may have had similar ideas, but the players were the first to pull it off successfully.  Maybe there is a history of failed attempts.

I do understand what you are saying I think.  Such a basic idea (flying armies) "should" have occured long ago in the worlds history.  So when the players come along it would already have been done if it was possible, like inventing the wheel.  You're probably correct, and the players are probably using meta-game knowledge...(let's build an air force) but in the end if they make the effort, they are the ones in the campaigh with the new innovation in warfare..makes them feel involved.

just my thoughts...


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## Coldwyn (Dec 28, 2009)

SkidAce said:


> When I run into this I answer it simply.  Because they were the first.  Sombody had to be first.  Right place right time etc. and I roll it into the world's development.
> 
> Basically, other people may have had similar ideas, but the players were the first to pull it off successfully.  Maybe there is a history of failed attempts.
> 
> ...




It´s a good example why mingling medieval earth and fantasy most of the time creates some bull manure.
Either it has been done before because it´s logical and there actually is an air force in every army, or it has been tryed before and proven to be inefficient.
"Yea man, look, them guys in Nerrath tryed that. T´was a success in the geginning, then ´em damn orcs adapted und had their shamans summon storms. T´was a destaster. I still remember them knights dropping to their death. Nowadays, we still use some gryphon riders, but as scouts only.."


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## Scribble (Dec 28, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> (Note: the fantasy genome, as evidenced by those crossbreeds, is a LOT more flexible than the RW one, to be sure.)




Ahhhh This information can be found in the Great Gnome Genome Tome!


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## Umbran (Dec 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> Evolutionary changes require that mutation can occur in the reproduction process...




That's not quite true.

Evolution requires that a child can have different characteristics than its parent that can be passed on to its own children.  Mutation during the reproduction process is one way for that to happen, but is not the only way.  In our real world, for example, exposure to certain chemicals can alter the genes in the cells that will later become sperm and egg.

In a fantasy world, there can be magical equivalents.  Or evolution can be Lamarckian - the parent can pass on characteristics acquired during life, rather than ones that he or she was born with.


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 28, 2009)

Umbran said:


> That's not quite true.
> 
> Evolution requires that a child can have different characteristics than its parent that can be passed on to its own children.  Mutation during the reproduction process is one way for that to happen, but is not the only way.  In our real world, for example, exposure to certain chemicals can alter the genes in the cells that will later become sperm and egg.
> 
> In a fantasy world, there can be magical equivalents.  Or evolution can be Lamarckian - the parent can pass on characteristics acquired during life, rather than ones that he or she was born with.




This is all true but IMHO beside the point, why must evolution occur at all. There seems to be some resistance to the idea that things could be fixed in their order by the gods and that there is no evolution of a species in a biological sense. 

Most people believed that this was the case up till about 200 years ago or so. Some quite vocal people still believe it. As a fantasy background I see nothing wrong with and it side steps all need to justify a lot of critters in D&D.


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## Umbran (Dec 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> As a fantasy background I see nothing wrong with and it side steps all need to justify a lot of critters in D&D.




Insofar as a typical fantasy campaign doesn't typically span time such that evolution would become apparent, you are correct.  However. as a DM trying to build a world, if I want it to be at least logically consistent, there's more work to do if I assume evolution is not present.

No matter what people believed in the past of our real world, the behavior of life (including human life) is and was molded by evolution.  If I stipulate a world that lacks the drives of evolution, I probably need to reconsider a lot of those behaviors, and either change them, or give them a different justification.  

For example, let us take a world in which there is no evolution: other than imparting the general species, the parents have little or no impact on the characteristics of the children.  

This raises a huge question - why have children?  In the real world, there is a drive to preserve one's own genes, but our fictional world lacks that.  So, parents are investing huge amounts of time and effort in raising kids for what reason?  They generally don't gain any benefit for doing so.  So, would they not be better off as individuals if they didn't?

This goes deeper - Why are there families of living things that are so similar? Why does _every living thing on the planet_ follow one of only a couple or reproductive models? Why is there biological reproduction at all?  Why do creatures have a finite age, and need replacing on so regular a basis?  Why aren't they just rising from the dust of the earth when populations get low?    

Can these questions be answered?  Yes.  But the point is that I actually have to think about the answers, and their logical repercussions.  Those have already been mapped out for me if I take evolution as my base assumption.


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## pawsplay (Dec 28, 2009)

Medieval natural historians used scientific explanations. They did not posit a precise mechanism for the phoenix's rebirth or the unicorn's antivenom powers, but they believed them to be real, albeit rare, creatures. Indeed, I think it was Pliny who objected to the notion of a centaur, because he could imagine how the human half and the horse half would reach physical maturity at a similar rate. The D&D notion of "arcane magic" is a mythologized version of what would once have been a sort of science, crossed with science-fictional mind powers. The robed wizard is an image that derives from the robed scholar, who in turn recieved his appearance from the class of clerks (clerics) from which he came. D&D wizards and modern college graduates both wear, essentially, the garb of a medieval priest, since scholarship resided primarily in priests.

I am perfectly happy with mucking with any science I care to in a fantasy setting, but if something does not work as expected, then I have to provide the explanation. Just as an example, if dwarves are carved from stone by other dwarves... why? Are they blessed? Do they use magic? Is this a natural lifecycle of the dwarves, much as moss grows on trees? Is there something you can do to a rock to keep it from turning into a dwarf? How does this fit into a setting where I've already decided that permanent enchantment is rare and difficult? Etc.


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## Coldwyn (Dec 28, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I am perfectly happy with mucking with any science I care to in a fantasy setting, but if something does not work as expected, then I have to provide the explanation. Just as an example, if dwarves are carved from stone by other dwarves... why? Are they blessed? Do they use magic? Is this a natural lifecycle of the dwarves, much as moss grows on trees? Is there something you can do to a rock to keep it from turning into a dwarf? How does this fit into a setting where I've already decided that permanent enchantment is rare and difficult? Etc.




Bad case of dmitis? You´re trying to answer questens that will as good as never be asked by players.
Why, for example, is RW mytholocy often times more convoluted, way more fantastical and most of the times without any answers, whereas in a fantasy world, most dms feel obliged to have an near-scientific answer to anything.

I just compared the wikipedia entries for "dwarf" and "zwerg" (german for dwarf). interestingly, the english wiki entry only is in-depth abput the germanic paganistic dwarves and leaves out the nordic mythology, but thi screation entry is fitting (Trying to adequately translate it:
"In der Völuspá wird die Erschaffung der Zwerge aus dem Blut des Riesen Brimir und den Knochen des Riesen Bláinn im Rahmen der allgemeinen Kosmogonie dargestellt." roughly translates as "As explaned in the Völuspá, dwarves were created by mixing the blood of the giant Brimir with the bones of the giant Bláinn while the universe was created".

I´d say that´s a wild, when not more so, than most stuff we read in fantasy literature, but our ancestors took it at face value.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 28, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic.  They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.



I generally agree; however, the strongest (and reasonable) counter argument is that if monsters aren't at least somewhat "naturally biological" then the players cannot apply real world reason to interacting with them which can be problematic.

This tension is related to the literary criticism of the Balrog and Shelob vs. Orcs and Ents in _Lord of the Rings_; the former are pure monsters with no "ecology" to relate to, where the latter at least seem to conform to biological norms the players can relate to and base decisions on.

Sam, "Surely Orcs have to eat? They don't live on foul air and poison, do they Mr. Frodo?" 
Frodo, "Yes, Orcs must eat just as we do, but such meats are not for us, Sam. We'll have to find other food in order to carry on."


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 28, 2009)

Umbran said:


> Insofar as a typical fantasy campaign doesn't typically span time such that evolution would become apparent, you are correct. However. as a DM trying to build a world, if I want it to be at least logically consistent, there's more work to do if I assume evolution is not present.
> 
> No matter what people believed in the past of our real world, the behavior of life (including human life) is and was molded by evolution. If I stipulate a world that lacks the drives of evolution, I probably need to reconsider a lot of those behaviors, and either change them, or give them a different justification.
> 
> ...




Personally I think the opposite. If there is evolution how do elves come about. In fact how do they survive and why did not the orcs win?

Now I can come up with answers to all of this also but D&D in its default settings or any published setting (that i have come across) does not survive this analysis. Neither do most fantasy novels that i have read either. If the evolution and ecology works there are issues with the economics or something else.

If you think hard enough about it you can pick holes in pretty much anything.

That aside, taking some of your points
If there is no evolution there are no inherited characteristics; not necessarily so. There can be inherited characteristics but man never becomes not-man or elf not-elf. I do not see why it follows that no evolution == no inherited characteristics.

The desire to have children is a separate from evolution. It is necessary for it to happen and it gets reinforced over time as organisms that are reluctant to have offspring tend to die out (which gets me back to elves - or at least some varieties) and we would not be having this discussion if our species was not inclined to reproduce.

However begetting offspring does not imply evolution. It could be that the world is a place where the gods now fight a proxy war after pulling back from total annihilation of everything in the Dawn War and have created these species to continue the struggle in a more contained fashion. If they all died out because they would not breed that would be damned inconvenient.

By the way in the old days children was you pension fund. If you had none then you outlook in the twilight of your years was pretty grim indeed.

The other thing I wonder is do your players actually examine your settings at this level for consistency? Is this a widespread phenomenon?



    My own opinion is that the setting is the backdrop for the story that unfolds and just needs to be consistent enough for that. It is just I am really curious about the assertions made by some in this thread about requiring properly functioning ecologies and evolution in fantasy settings.


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## Umbran (Dec 28, 2009)

Coldwyn said:


> Bad case of dmitis? You´re trying to answer questens that will as good as never be asked by players.




Maybe.  That kind of depends on his players.  My players - whenever they discover that something is specified, I can count on them to remember that spec, and use it, even when I've forgotten it as a quick one-off line.



> Why, for example, is RW mytholocy often times more convoluted, way more fantastical and most of the times without any answers, whereas in a fantasy world, most dms feel obliged to have an near-scientific answer to anything.




Because our ancestors didn't interact with the mythology.  Things could be wrong, illogical, and contradictory seven ways from Sunday, and nobody would know the difference.  How a dwarf came into being didn't matter, because nobody interacted with any dwarves!  Meanwhile, the PCs in my game do interact with dwarves.  Some of them _are_ dwarves.  So I need answers to reasonable questions about dwarves, their society, religion, politics, and so on.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 28, 2009)

(1)  While cultures have had domesticated dogs and cats for a very long time, and while some of those cultures also eat said dogs and cats, few (if any) cultures ranch dogs and cats on a large scale because of the economics involved.

(2)  It doesn't matter what meat hippogriffs eat -- horses, human, or other -- one still has to supply that meat.  The more hippogriffs one has, the more meat one must supply.  Again, this is economics.



RC


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## Umbran (Dec 28, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> (2)  It doesn't matter what meat hippogriffs eat -- horses, human, or other -- one still has to supply that meat.  The more hippogriffs one has, the more meat one must supply.  Again, this is economics.




Yes, and to tie two disparate threads together - now it matters whether dwarves can be carved out of stone or not.  Getting 200 lbs of hippogriff feed from as much rock might be more economical than other available methods


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 28, 2009)

Umbran said:


> Yes, and to tie two disparate threads together - now it matters whether dwarves can be carved out of stone or not.  Getting 200 lbs of hippogriff feed from as much rock might be more economical than other available methods




Who knew dwarves were so important to maintaining air superiority? Just remember not to name them, because then you'd have to keep it like a pet.


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

Coldwyn said:


> You´re trying to answer questens that will as good as never be asked by players.



But that is part of MY fun as DM.  Much of the "Really Big Picture" that I develop for my campaign will never be discovered by the players.


Raven Crowking said:


> few (if any) cultures ranch dogs and cats on a large scale because of the economics involved.



That is more a function of canid and felid ecology, then anything else. Hence the derivation of the phrase "its like herding cats".  
Although, if the incentive is high enough, ecology can be overcome and it can be done on a small scale (hence "fox farms" for the fur industry). But as you've stated already, supplying food for a large number of (top of the food-chain) carnivores is alot more difficult then for a large number of (bottom of the food chain) herbivores.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk Maldin's Greyhawk


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## Scribble (Dec 28, 2009)

Too bad these chia-dwarfs don't fly... Then we could kill two threads with one stone... HAH! Get it??? One stone!!!! Get it?!?!?! HAH!!!!


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## LostSoul (Dec 28, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> (2)  It doesn't matter what meat hippogriffs eat -- horses, human, or other -- one still has to supply that meat.  The more hippogriffs one has, the more meat one must supply.  Again, this is economics.




Troll meat would seem to be readily available...


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 28, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> Troll meat would seem to be readily available...



Is stomach acid sufficient to dissolve troll meat because have a troll regenerate inside one could lead to a very upset tummy.


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## Umbran (Dec 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> Is stomach acid sufficient to dissolve troll meat because have a troll regenerate inside one could lead to a very upset tummy.




The purple worms would be happy to see adventurers get a taste of their own medicine


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## Scribble (Dec 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> Is stomach acid sufficient to dissolve troll meat because have a troll regenerate inside one could lead to a very upset tummy.




Never ending breakfast!


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## Coldwyn (Dec 28, 2009)

Can troll be smoked? If yes, I´ve a horrible feeling what kind of jerky is in trail rations ...


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Never ending breakfast!



And thus begins the discussion of the science of regeneration.  
Healing injuries doesn't involve a net gain of matter (flesh), however if the troll meat is regenerating missing flesh... Where does the mass come from? If it is "magically created" matter, then Dispell Magic should make that new limb disappear. Does it absorb it from his surroundings? Does it absorb the matter from the adventurer that ate it?  

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 28, 2009)

Coldwyn said:


> Can troll be smoked? If yes, I´ve a horrible feeling what kind of jerky is in trail rations ...



Smoking troll makes me depressed


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## Aeolius (Dec 28, 2009)

Maldin said:


> Where does the mass come from?




It's spare mass from Reduce Person potions.


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## Scribble (Dec 28, 2009)

Maldin said:


> And thus begins the discussion of the science of regeneration.
> Healing injuries doesn't involve a net gain of matter (flesh), however if the troll meat is regenerating missing flesh... Where does the mass come from? If it is "magically created" matter, then Dispell Magic should make that new limb disappear. Does it absorb it from his surroundings? Does it absorb the matter from the adventurer that ate it?
> 
> Denis, aka "Maldin"
> Maldin's Greyhawk Maldin's Greyhawk




Duh... it comes from the same place all matter comes from... Der Matterhorn!


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 28, 2009)

Maldin said:


> And thus begins the discussion of the science of regeneration.
> Healing injuries doesn't involve a net gain of matter (flesh), however if the troll meat is regenerating missing flesh... Where does the mass come from? If it is "magically created" matter, then Dispell Magic should make that new limb disappear. Does it absorb it from his surroundings? Does it absorb the matter from the adventurer that ate it?
> 
> Denis, aka "Maldin"
> Maldin's Greyhawk Maldin's Greyhawk



Who says healing injuries does not involve net gain in matter. Have you looked at the swords some people wield? 

I would say that there is no conservation of mass in D&D worlds.


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

Aeolius said:


> It's spare mass from Reduce Person potions.



Hmmm... sounds like someone is going to have to develop a mass-balance equation for Reduce spells/potions and Enlarge spells/potions. 

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com


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## Coldwyn (Dec 28, 2009)

Maldin said:


> Hmmm... sounds like someone is going to have to develop a mass-balance equation for Reduce spells/potions and Enlarge spells/potions.
> 
> Denis, aka "Maldin"
> Maldin's Greyhawk Maldin's Greyhawk




Nah. Nature and science already took care of that. For every ten potions of reduce person some bloke drinks to visit his fairy girlfriend, another gryphon spontaneously bursts into being.


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> Who says healing injuries does not involve net gain in matter. Have you looked at the swords some people wield?



Ouch!!! Fortunately my 2E campaign still uses 2E swords and 2E armor. 


> I would say that there is no conservation of mass in D&D worlds.



I'm joking, of course, with this line of discussion (as I think everybody would immediately recognize). However this is a good example of why a purely real world interpretation could never work (and wouldn't be much fun) in a typical fantasy RPG game. Although... something that converts an adventurer into a monster from the inside might make for an interesting opponent.  Ever see the epically-bad (considering some of the well-known actors in it) movie "The Stuff"?

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com


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## Scribble (Dec 28, 2009)

ardoughter said:


> Who says healing injuries does not involve net gain in matter. Have you looked at the swords some people wield?
> 
> I would say that there is no conservation of mass in D&D worlds.




wait... what's the matter with that sword... HAH! Matter!


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

Scribble, I now completely understand your avatar. 

Denis, aka "Maldin"


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## Umbran (Dec 28, 2009)

Maldin said:


> If it is "magically created" matter, then Dispell Magic should make that new limb disappear.




Not if the creation of matter is magical, while the resulting matter itself is not.  You might have an argument that dispel magic should halt the regeneration process for a while, but not that the matter already created should disappear.





ardoughter said:


> Who says healing injuries does not involve net gain in matter. Have you looked at the swords some people wield?




I don't see how this follows.  "The object depicting in this artwork is very large, therefore mass is not conserved in the fictional universe?"  I'm not sure that's a strong argument, especially given how infrequently artists refer to physics in conceiving their imagry.


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## pawsplay (Dec 28, 2009)

Umbran said:


> I don't see how this follows.  "The object depicting in this artwork is very large, therefore mass is not conserved in the fictional universe?"  I'm not sure that's a strong argument, especially given how infrequently artists refer to physics in conceiving their imagry.




Yeah, by that logic, Michaelangelo's David must be a monstrous humanoid or something.


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## Maldin (Dec 28, 2009)

I think the missing, implied, tongue-in-cheek reference in ardoughter's link is that damage caused by such ridiculous swords in 3E art involves the hacking away of large chunks of flesh. Hence, healing those wounds requires the 'replacement' of said missing flesh. 

Denis, aka "Maldin"


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 28, 2009)

Perhaps in a D&D world, all healing adds mass (including non-magical healing), which disappears from the earth in random areas, spontaneously creating dungeons?


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## Coldwyn (Dec 28, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> Perhaps in a D&D world, all healing adds mass (including non-magical healing), which disappears from the earth in random areas, spontaneously creating dungeons?




On a more serious side, now we´re back at dnd cosmology with the elemental planes and positive energy plane... so the mass comes from the elemental planes, unfused with positive energy....
And for the discussion, we´re back at square one.


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## UngainlyTitan (Dec 28, 2009)

Maldin said:


> I think the missing, implied, tongue-in-cheek reference in ardoughter's link is that damage caused by such ridiculous swords in 3E art involves the hacking away of large chunks of flesh. Hence, healing those wounds requires the 'replacement' of said missing flesh.
> 
> Denis, aka "Maldin"



    xp to you good sir, I think you are the first on this board that has got my admittedly odd sense of humour


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 28, 2009)

@ Umbran:  One wouldn't have to feed hippgriffs dwarves in a D&D world.  Create Food type spells could be used to feed the hippogriffs, if the GM desires a hippogriff cavalry in the world.  In this case, the cost of housing the necessary clerics is less than that of the feed stock previously mentioned.

However, even in the real world, not all creatures reproduce well in captivity.  If the GM should choose to disallow a hippogriff cavalry, there is a logical basis for his as well.  Indeed, the high price of hippogriff eggs is a logical extention of their inability to reproduce well in captivity -- if you could farm them like chickens, they'd be "cheep"er.


RC


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## Coldwyn (Dec 29, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> @ Umbran:  One wouldn't have to feed hippgriffs dwarves in a D&D world.  Create Food type spells could be used to feed the hippogriffs, if the GM desires a hippogriff cavalry in the world.  In this case, the cost of housing the necessary clerics is less than that of the feed stock previously mentioned.
> 
> However, even in the real world, not all creatures reproduce well in captivity.  If the GM should choose to disallow a hippogriff cavalry, there is a logical basis for his as well.  Indeed, the high price of hippogriff eggs is a logical extention of their inability to reproduce well in captivity -- if you could farm them like chickens, they'd be "cheep"er.
> 
> ...




You could expand on the ideas and solve (and later on raise) most of the included problems. Create a magical feeding system for the hippogriffs that´ll remove the need of clerics. Use pregnancy charms. Use a hippogriff rutting spell, and so on. In a magical world, all of that would be possible. And quite cheap, too.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 29, 2009)

Coldwyn said:


> You could expand on the ideas and solve (and later on raise) most of the included problems. Create a magical feeding system for the hippogriffs that´ll remove the need of clerics. Use pregnancy charms. Use a hippogriff rutting spell, and so on. In a magical world, all of that would be possible. And quite cheap, too.




Or it might not be possible.

In effect, the deities of the world (controlled by the GM) determine what is possible.  The OP idea that X or Y is possible, and therefore should happen in fantasy worlds, is wrong.

If the GM (and players) want a world with hippogriff cavalry, it is as easy to do so logically as a world without.  Neither is more inherently logical than the other.


RC


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## Coldwyn (Dec 29, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> Or it might not be possible.
> 
> In effect, the deities of the world (controlled by the GM) determine what is possible.  The OP idea that X or Y is possible, and therefore should happen in fantasy worlds, is wrong.
> 
> ...




I agree with you there. Such "problems" as discussed in threads like this boil down to fantasy and creativity of the individual dm (and lack thereof).
It´s still fun to participate in the discussions, tho.


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## Umbran (Dec 29, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> @ Umbran:  One wouldn't have to feed hippgriffs dwarves in a D&D world.  Create Food type spells could be used to feed the hippogriffs, if the GM desires a hippogriff cavalry in the world.  In this case, the cost of housing the necessary clerics is less than that of the feed stock previously mentioned.




Ah, but here's a nice bit showing what I was talking about before, about having to think things through.

If the intent is to have hippogriff cavalry, then yes, one can always construct a system in which they are possible.  Spells are usually not required - just stipulate that the country has sufficient land and husbandry skills to supply sheep or horses for feed, and you are set.

But what if you don't really want hippogriff cavalry?  The GM can put you in a mountainous region, not enough land to support a large population of apex predators - so a few can exist as monsters, or as a mount for the occasional hero, but not as a real strategic force... until someone notices the Stone Dwarf Loophole.  

Players are masters at finding the Unintended Consequences.


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## Hussar (Jan 2, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> @ Umbran:  One wouldn't have to feed hippgriffs dwarves in a D&D world.  Create Food type spells could be used to feed the hippogriffs, if the GM desires a hippogriff cavalry in the world.  In this case, the cost of housing the necessary clerics is less than that of the feed stock previously mentioned.
> 
> However, even in the real world, not all creatures reproduce well in captivity.  If the GM should choose to disallow a hippogriff cavalry, there is a logical basis for his as well.  Indeed, the high price of hippogriff eggs is a logical extention of their inability to reproduce well in captivity -- if you could farm them like chickens, they'd be "cheep"er.
> 
> ...




There is a danger, of course, of getting too tied into a single example.  I used hippogriff as but one example.  I'm sure that you could come up with others.

True, you could hand wave it with DMium, but, that's precisely my initial point.  If you're going to handwave it with Dmium, why not do it in such a way that the creatures are no longer mundane?  Make them fantastic.  Hippogriffs are servants of the Air Titan and he doesn't take well to domesticating them.  Fine.

But, stock D&D doesn't do that.  Stock D&D tells us that you can sell hippogriff eggs for x gold and train them for y gold.  

I just wish the trend of making fantastic creatures mundane was one that would go away in D&D.

BTW, on a side note, I applaud all the humour in the last couple of pages.  Well done all of you.  A real feather in all your caps, I'd say.


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 2, 2010)

Hussar said:


> There is a danger, of course, of getting too tied into a single example.  I used hippogriff as but one example.  I'm sure that you could come up with others.
> 
> True, you could hand wave it with DMium, but, that's precisely my initial point.  If you're going to handwave it with Dmium, why not do it in such a way that the creatures are no longer mundane?  Make them fantastic.





You are "handwaving it with DMium" no matter what you decide, as there is no objective measure of what rational system is pure "DMium" and what is not.  So long as you have a system you like, it is all good.

If you want "Hippogriffs are servants of the Air Titan and he doesn't take well to domesticating them" that is fine.   If you do not, that is fine, too.  Different strokes for different folks.  Stock D&D takes one tact that is neither better nor worse.  If you don't like it, change it.



> I just wish the trend of making fantastic creatures mundane was one that would go away in D&D.




Sure, because you want a game that better suits you without having to houserule it.  Others might feel that the status quo better suits them.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.



> BTW, on a side note, I applaud all the humour in the last couple of pages.  Well done all of you.  A real feather in all your caps, I'd say.




Are you actually asking for more puns?  


RC


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## Aeolius (Jan 2, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> One wouldn't have to feed hippgriffs dwarves in a D&D world.



Given the nature of this thread, I first read that as "breed hippogriffs with dwarves"  



Hussar said:


> I just wish the trend of making fantastic creatures mundane was one that would go away in D&D.



But then the hippogriffs and dwarves would never know true love...


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## El Mahdi (Jan 2, 2010)

deleted


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## Gimby (Jan 2, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> A Bearded Dwarf Hippogriff...
> 
> Instead of an eagle's call, would it instead go "Oiy!, Oiy!".
> 
> Hmmm...could make an interesting D&D creature.



Lammasu image chaos dwarf image by BilboBaggins on Photobucket


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## Ariosto (Jan 3, 2010)

I think the original, prime reason for making "goblin", "kobold", "hobgoblin", etc., distinct species was so that players could gain and use information identifying different threat levels. Dave Sutherland depicted kobolds as scaly, gnolls (originally a reference to Dunsany's mysteriously malevolent Gnoles) as hyena-like, orcs as porcine and so on. They came to have their own, D&D-specific details (overturned a bit in 4e, with green goblins and whatnot).

There was a time when I played with Holmes Basic's 3rd-level limit -- _and_ its pretty comprehensive monster list. It didn't take a whole tribe of giants or flock of dragons to pose a huge threat; The Giant or The Dragon was quite enough! Also, Pegasus and Medusa could remain individuals in a scheme not focused on sheer quantity of standard-issue "stuff" but on unique careers of adventure. There were only something like 70 listed magic items, and of course the spell lists were not very copious, so it was pretty natural to introduce things players could not just look up in a handbook.


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## Garthanos (Jan 3, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> A Bearded Dwarf Hippogriff...
> 
> Instead of an eagle's call, would it instead go "Oiy!, Oiy!".
> 
> Hmmm...could make an interesting D&D creature.




arggghhhh of course does that mean it could... or couldnt be female.


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 3, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> There were only something like 70 listed magic items, and of course the spell lists were not very copious, so it was pretty natural to introduce things players could not just look up in a handbook.



I am trying to get a count of how many 4e items there are that are level 1+ (i.e. magical or alchemical).  


The web-based compendium has locked up on a search of items with a filter of 1 - 50 level.
I don't know how I can get a count of items in the Character Builder.
Is there a massive item spreadsheet somewhere? [argh] I should write a script to extract one from the DDI. Lather, Rinse, Repeat (each month)[/argh]

I imagine there are well over 1000 items. But I'd like to see a filtered list of unique items and get a real count.  (i.e. combine all levels of Vicious Weapon into a single item of many strengths.)

But, the DDI is hanging.  And I've tried it 3 times.  5 minutes and then a timeout.

ugh.


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## Moon_Goddess (Jan 4, 2010)

I can generally ignore biology in my worlds but theres 2 things that always bother me

I can't stand hexapod dragons.  2 wings and 2 legs, or 4 legs 0 wings.   hexapod creatures do not evolve from tetrapod creatures.

and I can't stand having 30+intellienge hominids existing in the same world, I like to limit down to 5 or so.


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## DMH (Jan 4, 2010)

I wonder how many people who say biology has no place in D&D and yet has humans (and dwarves and whatnot) with internal organs, a need to eat and sleep and other biology related functions. What is the point of a liver in a world where gods created humans?


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## Aeolius (Jan 4, 2010)

DMH said:


> What is the point of a liver in a world where gods created humans?




Monsters gotta eat.


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## Umbran (Jan 4, 2010)

DMH said:


> I wonder how many people who say biology has no place in D&D and yet has humans (and dwarves and whatnot) with internal organs, a need to eat and sleep and other biology related functions. What is the point of a liver in a world where gods created humans?




There is a truism in magic - while it isn't science, that doesn't mean that it has no systems required for function.  Magic has symbols and forms, too.  That the gods made humanoid life (which is not actually necessarily a truism in all fantasy settings) that does not mean that life should then be homogeneous mass without function within.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jan 4, 2010)

DMH said:


> I wonder how many people who say biology has no place in D&D and yet has humans (and dwarves and whatnot) with internal organs, a need to eat and sleep and other biology related functions. What is the point of a liver in a world where gods created humans?



It generates blood and is the source of courage, love and hope at least according to some sources.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Jan 4, 2010)

DMH said:


> What is the point of a liver in a world where gods created humans?



But where else would you get the human flavored _pate de fois gras_?


(D'oh! Ninja'ed by Aeolius  )


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## billd91 (Jan 4, 2010)

Hussar said:


> True, you could hand wave it with DMium, but, that's precisely my initial point.  If you're going to handwave it with Dmium, why not do it in such a way that the creatures are no longer mundane?  Make them fantastic.  Hippogriffs are servants of the Air Titan and he doesn't take well to domesticating them.  Fine.
> 
> But, stock D&D doesn't do that.  Stock D&D tells us that you can sell hippogriff eggs for x gold and train them for y gold.
> 
> I just wish the trend of making fantastic creatures mundane was one that would go away in D&D.




There's plenty of room for balance in all of this. Let the relatively normal(ish) creatures be less fantastic and the less normal be less mundane and I'd be happy with it. 

I _like_ a certain amount of mundane-ness in my D&D. It helps the really fantastic stand out. And it helps me to figure out what sort of effect some of these creatures would have on the world around them. Would a flight of hippogriffs living in the area be acting as a top predators? What sorts of signs would they leave? Would they be territorial? How would one act if suddenly encountered and would it be different if it were a male in mating season compared to a female? 

If it's pushed to just being all fantastic, whatever I want it to be in an arbitrary way, then my players can't really predict what they'll be like unless I pretty much explicitly tell them. But describe a creature acting in a pattern familiar to them from many years of absorbing _National Geographic_, Animal Planet, or shows featuring Marlin Perkins and you get to see them making connections wonderful to see.


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## Hussar (Jan 5, 2010)

DMH said:


> I wonder how many people who say biology has no place in D&D and yet has humans (and dwarves and whatnot) with internal organs, a need to eat and sleep and other biology related functions. What is the point of a liver in a world where gods created humans?




Heh, maybe THAT's where the 3e rules for sleeping (don't need to) and eating (once a week I think) and drinking come from.  

But your point is made I suppose.  Where do you draw the line?  And that's going to be different for everyone.  I would like monsters to be less National Geographic and more Pliney.  I've always wanted elves to be more magical and less "Humans that can see in the dark" which is often how I've seen them played.

((On a side note, I loathe elves.  One thing Talislanta got 100% right))

As RC says, different strokes.


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## SkidAce (Jan 5, 2010)

billd91 said:


> But describe a creature acting in a pattern familiar to them from many years of absorbing _National Geographic_, Animal Planet, or shows featuring *Marlin Perkins *and you get to see them making connections wonderful to see.




Have they ever put Wild Kingdom on a re-runs on any network?


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## Barastrondo (Jan 5, 2010)

billd91 said:


> If it's pushed to just being all fantastic, whatever I want it to be in an arbitrary way, then my players can't really predict what they'll be like unless I pretty much explicitly tell them. But describe a creature acting in a pattern familiar to them from many years of absorbing _National Geographic_, Animal Planet, or shows featuring Marlin Perkins and you get to see them making connections wonderful to see.




I agree with this. It applies to all manner of things, mind, not just biology — if all of my players have read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, then players will be able to fill in the blanks when I start describing the cruel solipsism of a fae noble. But biology is a big one, and animal behavior in particular, because as you say a lot of players are able to fill in the blanks with just a few scraps of description.

This works well because I'm lazy enough not to have to narrate huge chunks of "what your characters would know" when they run into a beast, of course. But it's also useful in engaging players who aren't really interested in listening to large chunks of narration. Those who like to start engaging with the world as quick as they can, who would rather not hear blocks of descriptive text — it gives players like this a hook to enjoy the game more. And of course, their observations and experiments once they find something half-familiar can be a resource for me as well as for them.


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## DMH (Jan 7, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I would like monsters to be less National Geographic and more Pliney.




I agree with some settings. I was thinking about this last night and one very common idea from the past that could be used for monsters is spontaneous generation. AFAIK there are only 2 creatures that spontaneously generate in D&D- mudmen for sure and, possibly, elementals. It depends on how elementals reproduce, if they do at all.

That is sad- SG has so much potential. The setting I think it would work best in is Morningstar. It has magic warp the land and powerful signatures (as the warping is called) could produce all kinds of weaker creatures.


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## Aeolius (Jan 7, 2010)

DMH said:


> I agree with some settings. I was thinking about this last night and one very common idea from the past that could be used for monsters is spontaneous generation.




You can defer to actual science for inspiration. Parthenogenesis, where a lone female gives "virgin birth", essentially a newborn clone of herself, is well documented in the animal kingdom. Animals as advanced as sharks have been known to exhibit this behavior. I used this as inspiration for my reef hags.

Or you could look at hermaphroditic behavior, again evidenced in some species of fish, where a female will simply change into a male, when the local population has no males. I made locathah hermaphroditic.


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## DMH (Jan 7, 2010)

But those require an existing critter. When it rains ever summer solstice and the resulting mud is a massive swarm of mudmen that says something about the setting. Or blizzards generate ice trolls and winter wolves. When the snow storm ends, they fade away. Having spontaneously generated creatures changes how people react to certain events. And it doesn't have to be only creations of evil. Churches generate gargoyles or graveyards generate lantern archons to keep the undead at bay.


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## Aeolius (Jan 7, 2010)

DMH said:


> But those require an existing critter...the resulting mud is a massive swarm of mudmen...Or blizzards generate ice trolls and winter wolves...Churches generate gargoyles or graveyards generate lantern archons...




[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Rainbabies-Laura-Krauss-Melmed/dp/0688107559"]Rainbabies[/ame]


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## DMH (Jan 7, 2010)

That works. I thought of a few more- toxyderms from Urban Arcana, a dragon from FFG's book on dragons*, the burl thing** from the 1e MM II and, for the sci-fi fans, the shell wasp from Machines and Mutants (for the 6th edition of Gamma World).

*It forms where the is high pressure and heat deep in the ocean.

**Nature produces these to turn orcs and other monsters into trees.

Still, there is a huge potential that is almost untapped.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 7, 2010)

Man, lost track of this thread over the holidays....



the_orc_within said:


> And, eventually, science-- which, ironically, tells us that nature is much simpler that we ever dreamed.



As a scientist I have to tell you... that's bunk.  Nature is _complicated._  It's so complicated that you can spend a lifetime in full time study and still not grasp a lot of it.

I talk to non-academic friends and family about the bare bones of my work and their eyes glaze over.  I have to turn it into a simplistic caricature of itself to explain it to people one department over.

For every simple physical rule there are 10,000 mitigating circumstances, variable conditions, and random starting states, to say nothing of random assortment at several different levels of analysis.

Ascribing things to human behavior ("Thor is angry." or "The witch next door soured my milk.") is actually a gross simplification compared to how it actually works.... And those are simple examples.



Hussar said:


> This gets back to my point.  When you start down this road that magic must follow rules, it becomes science.



"Make sure you get out of the ball by midnight!"

"You can walk out of the Underworld together, but you can't look back."

"On this holiday you have to leave bread crusts on the window sill for the <insert fey creature here>"

"At the stroke of midnight on the New Year, we throw open all the windows of the house and bang pots and pans to scare out evil spirits."

Sound like rules to me.  Also don't sound like science.

Rules do not have to involve science in the slightest.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Jan 7, 2010)

the_orc_within said:


> And, eventually, science-- which, ironically, tells us that nature is much simpler that we ever dreamed.






Canis said:


> As a scientist I have to tell you... that's bunk.  Nature is _complicated._  It's so complicated that you can spend a lifetime in full time study and still not grasp a lot of it.



How is a chariot carrying a fiery globe simpler than epicycles? And how is epicycles simpler than orbital mechanics?

I think there's a little misunderstanding in my point.   Sure, nature is complicated, immensely so.  But at it's heart, it is, in fact, understandable.  That's the whole point of science: to break the world down into a series of tiny logical steps and build up from there.  As you said, you often are forced to dumb down an explanation into something grossly simplistic.  But someone can always ask "Why?" at some point, and you can give an answer.  And they can ask "Why?" again, and you can give deeper answer, all the way out to  whereever the most current research is.  And at that point, _you the scientist_ become the one asking "Why?"

This, while arduous and often involving difficult mathematics and highly specialized training, is still far simpler in a logical sense, than saying "Thor makes storms."  When someone asks "Why?" you have to make up something based on human experience, with all its inexplicable psychologies, relationships, and so on.  And when the "why?" is asked again and again, more and more irrationality is piled on, until consistency breaks down.  The fact that it's historically "simple" is not because it's inherently so, but rather because your run of the mill peasant never thought to go any deeper, largely because he had better things to worry about.  

As I said, as soon as people _did_ start to dig deeper into Nature, they found all kinds of underlying logic-- at first blush very complex, but when broken down into manageable chunks actually quite simple.

And I'm saying this as a former scientist, as well as science instructor.  With all due respect, the notion that science is intimidatingly complex is exactly the _last_ thing that a real scientist should be conveying.  He should instead be patiently pointing out the stunning beauty and simplicity hidden underneath all the messy complexity of nature and trying to awe those who will listen if he hopes to see his discipline get new students and funding in the future.  Otherwise he's really no better for society than the highpriests of yesteryear.

(I hope none of that came off as a personal attack   Apologies if I offend!)

(And i think I've strayed far enough off topic!   )


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 7, 2010)

No offense taken.  My perspective here is jaded, I'll admit.



the_orc_within said:


> As I said, as soon as people _did_ start to dig deeper into Nature, they found all kinds of underlying logic-- at first blush very complex, but when broken down into manageable chunks actually quite simple.



Reductionism is a great way to start, but it's a terrible way to finish.  Out of the gate, it allows people to get their heads around the edges of the concept.  But it also ends conversations.  At the end of they day, Reductionism is the death of understanding.  (Spock) Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.(/Spock)

Look at the world right now.  Every person with an opinion firmly believes that opinion is equivalent to an expert's opinion.  We tell people simplistic versions of the truth in high school and undergrad and let them believe they understand how the world works.  The bulk of them act on that assumption for the remainder of their lives, rejecting new information that contradicts strongly held beliefs that they understand the world.

The result is we can't even have a conversation about _facts_ anymore.  Facts are negotiable.  All opinions are given equal weight.  In terms of media attention and societal respect, the opinion of some guy who got a bachelor's degree before we _had_ particle accelerators (and majored in beer drinking at that) is equivalent to the consensus thousands of physicists on what's likely to happen at the LHC, for example.

People need to be a lot more realistic about the bounds of their knowledge, and the limits of their understanding of the way the world works.

I've had tremendous success as a teacher by breaking concepts down to simpler components and building them back up over the course of a lecture or lectures.  But I never let people think it's as simple as it looks at the beginning, and I don't stop adding layers back in until I've hit the boundaries of the course (which I am careful to point out) or I hit the limits of current knowledge.  I actually find that to be the most interesting part, because engaged students start to ask a lot of good questions at that point.

Letting people think they understand ends their thought on the subject.  My experience is that they promptly ossify their opinions at that point and many get dogmatic.  Ending with the open questions is both intellectually honest and invites more questions.

EDIT:
Finally came up with the right summation of this.  Claiming that we understand a world we demonstrably do not is comforting, but it's an illusion.  Comforting illusions lead to complacency.  Questions lead to thought and action.  I would rather encourage thought and action.


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## Garthanos (Jan 7, 2010)

the_orc_within said:


> And I'm saying this as a former scientist



Anyone who values and uses the scientific method should consider themselves a scientist ... period.
but other than nit picking ... yes, yes, yes.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Jan 8, 2010)

I'm pretty sure now that we're 100% on the same page here.  I detect in your words a lot of the same frustrations I've felt, as well.  This... 







Canis said:


> Finally came up with the right summation of this.  Claiming that we understand a world we demonstrably do not is comforting, but it's an illusion.  Comforting illusions lead to complacency.  Questions lead to thought and action.  I would rather encourage thought and action.



 ... really does sum it up nicely.  We live in a world today in which too many people are so incurious that they aren't interested in asking questions.  (And imho, this applies even more generally than science.)  There's this sad conceit that we know it all, or know enough, or can't know anything, or even _shouldn't_ know anything-- and all too often that's based on the misinformed rants of unqualified people who happen to have easy access to a tv camera, radio mic or popular blog.

Sadly, I think that in many respects the public's opinion of science, education and even knowledge in general more closely resembles those medieval peasants I was talking about in my previous posts.  

We'll be back to blaming Thor for hurricanes in no time!


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 8, 2010)

We're getting REALLY far outside the mandate of this thread, but this is the core of how I think, and the core of how science works.

All science begins with one statement: "I don't know."

To be an unbiased "true scientist" you have to be comfortable with that statement.  You're going to spend a lot of time with it.  The maddening and exhilarating thing about science is that when you get to the end point of a question, you always have _more questions_ that are answered by saying, "I don't know." 

People aren't comfortable with not knowing.  This is actually why I think non-scientists fail to understand us so often.  I think they think we're driven to find certainty, when we're actually driven _by_ uncertainty.  That might be a subtle distinction, but it's an important one.


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 8, 2010)

Canis said:


> All science begins with one statement: "I don't know."



_Nescio_

*Nods* This is the origin of _philosophy _. "Natural science" (biology, physics, astronomy, geology, etc) falls under the category of "physical philosophy" (Latin and Greek root words, respectively).


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## Umbran (Jan 8, 2010)

Canis said:


> EDIT:
> Finally came up with the right summation of this.  Claiming that we understand a world we demonstrably do not is comforting, but it's an illusion.  Comforting illusions lead to complacency.  Questions lead to thought and action.  I would rather encourage thought and action.




Hm, yes.  But denying we have some understanding of the world is simply untrue.  I'm a physicist.  For the overwhelming majority of the life of human beings, Newton's Laws are sufficient.  Are they the fullest, deepest understanding of how the world works?  No.  But they'll do.  

Questions lead to thought. But they also lead to navel-gazing.  As some point you actually have to stop worrying about what you don't know, and act.

I have seen any number of students crushed by the "never-ending complexity" aspect of science.  The best way I've ever seen to discourage a student is to make it perfectly clear that the stuff they are currently struggling with isn't the most complex.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 8, 2010)

Umbran said:


> I have seen any number of students crushed by the "never-ending complexity" aspect of science.  The best way I've ever seen to discourage a student is to make it perfectly clear that the stuff they are currently struggling with isn't the most complex.



I did overdo it once or twice  and had to drag a couple kids back from the edge.  I try to strike a balance.  I also try to start off with how _freaking cool_ these things are.  If I pull that off it gets me some good will I can spend for patience.  I tend to teach evo/devo and behavior, sometimes some biomechanics, so cool is usually not a hard sell, especially when I'm whipping out sexual behavior and/or cute baby animals.  And people _expect_ a certain amount of complexity.  I've been known to throw out casual allusions to fluid dynamics in the blood stream, for example, to point out that there's another entire field touching on this and a level of analysis that is beyond the scope of the course.  There are two kinds of kids.  The first kind looks relieved when they hear "beyond the scope of this course."  That's 98% of them.  The 2% who start scribbling questions about it to bring to office hours are my peeps.  Alas, I cannot aim the course that way or there would be a lynching and we'd never cover the actual requirements in the allotted time.

I like tangents.  I'm good at them.  Did you notice?  I thought I noticed you noticing.

Certainly I would have to develop different techniques to teach biology for non-majors or anything for a more casual crowd of kids.  Never had to think about it yet, I've been lucky to teach lots of 300 level classes.  I've done my intro classes in behavior and statistics so far.  Stats is such a different ballgame.


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## DMH (Jan 9, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I would like monsters to be less National Geographic and more Pliney.




Is there any 3rd party supplements for 3.X along these lines? Looking at my creature book collection (print and pdf) I couldn't find anything remotely using mythology as the basis of creature design. Even Betabunny's books were more science than fantasy.


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## Aeolius (Jan 9, 2010)

Canis said:


> All science begins with one statement: "I don't know."



"Definition of a scientist; a man who understands nothing, until there is nothing left to understand." - Matthias, "The Omega Man"


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## Hussar (Jan 12, 2010)

DMH said:


> Is there any 3rd party supplements for 3.X along these lines? Looking at my creature book collection (print and pdf) I couldn't find anything remotely using mythology as the basis of creature design. Even Betabunny's books were more science than fantasy.




Not that I can think of.  Thus my initial ranty bit.  Pretty much all the monster books that I've seen over the years take a more National Geographic approach to monsters.  

Bit of a shame I think.  Certainly an area that could use some exploration IMO.


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## vagabundo (Jan 12, 2010)

Hussar said:


> But your point is made I suppose.  Where do you draw the line?  And that's going to be different for everyone.  I would like monsters to be less National Geographic and more *Pliney.*  I've always wanted elves to be more magical and less "Humans that can see in the dark" which is often how I've seen them played.
> .




Never having read Pliney I found this translation. The entries on Elephants are very interesting:

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (eds. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A.)

It is more a collection of anecdotes and I could see a MM in this style being very useful.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Jan 13, 2010)

If you haven't seen it, *The Medieval Bestiary* is a nice site with old descriptions of beasts real and mythic that were known to medieval Europe, including special characteristics and abilities.  Also gives sources, a little biography, and links to other websites.

No statblocks, though 

@Hussar:  It's definitely heavy on the Pliny, not so much on the National Geographic


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## Aeolius (Jan 14, 2010)

I am reminded of the Book of Imaginary Beings and the list of Fearsome Critters


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