The Common Commoner

VirgilCaine · Aug 18, 2004

Elder-Basilisk said:
I don't think there's any reason that you couldn't just wipe them out. In fact, doing so would make an interesting campaign that would fit really well within the spirit of D&D but would seem pretty original. "We're the extinction committee and we're coming for the worgs first, then for the hippogriffs (we'll keep the eggs to breed mounts for cavalry--so they get to be domesticated rather than exterminated), then for dire wolves, then for the winter wolves, then for the wyverns, then for the bulettes, then for the behirs, then for the Remorhaz, then for the dragons."

On another note, you might as a DM go through the Monster Manual and pick out a few of those "big predators" that have been hunted to extinction and put in-game references to their extinction into adventures. "In those days, dire bears/dragons walked the earth." The players will be expecting to find some dire bears/dragons then hiding in an obscure valley, ready to swoop down in tremendous groups and destroy civilization because that's what happens in fantasy stories.

Good solution...Seems too powerful? Thats okay, it's extinct. The wizards killed 'em a long time ago.

That's entirely possible. If you ask why they keep coming out of the cave system, there's plenty of possibilities: an expanding empire keeps pushing more and more humanoid tribes out into the sunlit realms, the really big D&D predators (which everyone knows are worse in the GenericBigCaveSystem) are breeding too quickly and pushing them out, or perhaps, like the Goths, Visigoths, etc. they smell the blood of decadent and decaying surface civilizations in the water and have come to claim their share of the loot. (Of course that only works if the surface civilizations are actually decadent and decaying).

Well, a certain country of my campaign world wouldn't have much problem with monsters...but several other countries are nearer an actual frontier, so goblinoids, giants, and Renegade wizards can pillage all they want.
Of course, good giants keep things a bit under control, bit there isn't much stopping the hobgoblin empire or the frost giant jarls or the Renegades from raiding civilization, except the relatively barbaric border kingdoms.

The GenericBigCaveSystem fits the bill for the rest of that subsection of the continent (it's basically a big flat desert fading to plains fading south towards the sea into forest with small, scattered peaks or mountain ranges sprinkled throughout).

All those unorganized goblinoids and chagmats and orcs and drow and duergar you find rampaging on the surface (or close to the surface)? Those are escaped slaves of the underground beholder/illithid empire. You've never seen real goblin soldiers. Or real drow warriors. Or, etc.

Elder-Basilisk · Aug 18, 2004

Bah. Give me real woodsmen rather than sissified eco-terrorists for rangers and druids. A ranger makes the perfect beast-hunter. Between Favored Enemy: Animals and Favored Enemy: Magical Beasts, he's the perfect person to take down those large predators.

Druids often are played as eco-freaks but don't need to be. A druid needs to respect nature. That doesn't mean he necessarily wants to preserve it the way it is. A druid might well work to "clean up" nature and make it useful for civilization. Another druid might fit the standard eco-freak mold but still could want to eliminate the large magical beasts that form the majority of the big predators. They are not natural animals but rather magical beasts which could indicate a different relationship with nature. For that matter, it's perfectly possible that the druids would see such a campaign to exterminate the great toothed carnosaurus as the inevitable struggle for survival of the fittest. That is nature's way: the carnosaurus will demonstrate his fitness by surviving and beating the hunters. The hunters will demonstrate their fitness by slaying the carnosaurus. It is a sacred struggle and not to be interefered with.

While one might well have druids in the campaign who would approve of, help, or at least not interfere with the great carnivore hunt. One could have druids who would interfere too. But that's a campaign choice rather than an inevitable consequence of the existence of the druid class.

While one could have a semi-feral nature deity avenging the poor widdle animals, one could also have nature deities that are exclusively gods of the harvest or goddesses of the hunt. Arguably, Artemis and Demeter fit those roles. One could also have the gods of civilization to oppose them. That would make an interesting twist to the Race to Extinction campaign. "The only good druid is a dead druid."

kigmatzomat said:
I think the words your looking for are "druids" and "rangers." Remember that 1/20th of the thorpes and villages have an 8th-14th level druid and/or ranger. Since Thorpes and Villages should be a large percentage of the communities out there, there are quite a lot of high level druids and rangers to protected the great-toothed carnosaurus. And quite a lot more lower level druids and rangers.

I'm sure the God of Nature(Generic) might not like it if the nice ecosystem was anhiliated and replaced by farmland. While I generally don't recommend people watch Beastmaster, the notion of the semi-feral nature diety slaughtering those who impose on her children is a pretty good one.

VirgilCaine · Aug 18, 2004

Elder-Basilisk said:
Druids often are played as eco-freaks but don't need to be.

Yeah. It's sad people impose such a modern view that doesn't make any sense at all seeing how many "natural" nasty predators there are in the MM.

A druid needs to respect nature. That doesn't mean he necessarily wants to preserve it the way it is. A druid might well work to "clean up" nature and make it useful for civilization.

They are not natural animals but rather magical beasts which could indicate a different relationship with nature. For that matter, it's perfectly possible that the druids would see such a campaign to exterminate the great toothed carnosaurus as the inevitable struggle for survival of the fittest. That is nature's way: the carnosaurus will demonstrate his fitness by surviving and beating the hunters. The hunters will demonstrate their fitness by slaying the carnosaurus. It is a sacred struggle and not to be interefered with.

While one might well have druids in the campaign who would approve of, help, or at least not interfere with the great carnivore hunt. One could have druids who would interfere too. But that's a campaign choice rather than an inevitable consequence of the existence of the druid class.

Yeah, those are called the various alignments druids can have--Lawful Neutrals might encourage the hunt as survival of the fittest, Neutral Good druids participate, Chaotic Neutral druids either don't care or oppose as NE druids will, True Neutral druids oppose it also but don't want to , and Neutral Evil druids vehemently oppose the hunt (by using the most lethal means possible).

While one could have a semi-feral nature deity avenging the poor widdle animals, one could also have nature deities that are exclusively gods of the harvest or goddesses of the hunt. Arguably, Artemis and Demeter fit those roles. One could also have the gods of civilization to oppose them. That would make an interesting twist to the Race to Extinction campaign. "The only good druid is a dead druid."

There's a Greyhawk deity called Phyton who is what you just described--a deity FOR development forests and fields and using resources, not "preserving nature" or whatnot like Ehlonna and Obad-hai blather on about.

kigmatzomat · Aug 18, 2004

Kamikaze Midget said:
I arrived at my figures by using the 3.5 DMG, the "10% rule" (there is a 10% chance every hour of a random encounter in a well-traveled area), and the encounter table for temperate plains.

I agree with the 10% rule and if you note my example had 14 encounters per week (2/day). The difference is that I treat all the non-civilized territories as just that; uncivilized. By definition, uncivilized territories are dangerous and you are pretty much on your own. IMO, the bulk of the populace will live in civilization because it is safer and makes more sense.

If you'd like it not so dangerous, go for it. But then realize that your demographics will be screwy...without big predators striking every day, what is keeping people dead?

I agree with the others and say "plague." In the Metropoli with the biggest temples you've got the best odds, with something like 1 cure disease capable person per 100 people in the city. In a flu-like disease with a long incubation and infection period, you'll easily have a massive die off. insect-based plagues, like the Bubonic Plague, will invoke massive death tolls because it will be so hard to kill off the disease-bearing bugs. And even if a cure disease kills the disease now but you are still vulnerable to re-infection in your weakened state (most diseases cause stat-loss).

WayneLigon · Aug 18, 2004

VirgilCaine said:
Yeah...thats a problem. This thread is annoying because I like things to make sense. At this rate I'll have to find some system specifically made to make sense. Gah.

Good luck in your new hobby, then

There is no gaming system made that will make 100% 'sense'. I think you'd be lucky to find one that does that even 50% of the time, depending on what you want it to make sense about.

VirgilCaine · Aug 18, 2004

WayneLigon said:
Good luck in your new hobby, then There is no gaming system made that will make 100% 'sense'. I think you'd be lucky to find one that does that even 50% of the time, depending on what you want it to make sense about.

I'm not asking for perfection, just something better. Something where I can just game and not have to answer questions like those raised in this thread. Ah, well. Arguments are fun.

Elder-Basilisk · Aug 18, 2004

There's no such system, nor can there be. Even IRL, there's plenty of situations where the kind of questions raised in this thread don't have easy answers. Why did it take so long for economic and social development to take hold in Russia but happen so rapidly in Britain? Why did the English give up their empire? Why didn't the Aztecs make anything useful with the wheel? Sociologists and historians debate the answers to these questions. So, even a perfectly "realistic" setting would not necessarily yield satisfactory answers to these questions. At a lot of points, the answer will be "because that's the way it happened."

As for games, any time you create your own setting or try to understand how a published setting works, asking these kinds of questions is how you go about it. In Shadowrun, you might ask why the multinational corporations were given sovereignty over their buildings or why they wanted it. You might ask why Lonestar doesn't keep a close watch on DocWagon (since so many of their customers are runners) and nab runners while they're recovering in the hospital. In the Forgotten Realms, one asks what life is like for farmers in the contested dales and why they continue to live in lands that are a constant battleground between the forces of Hillsfar and Zhentil Keep. One might ask how the hidden Lords of Waterdeep manage to keep their identities secret in a world full of scrying, divinations, Contact Other Planes, etc. One might ask how adventurers actually go about buying that +4 belt of giant strength--do they really just take some old guy in a Oldred's bazaar's word for it's powers? Answering all of these questions is what makes the campaign come alive and suggests plots and adventure hooks. Lonestar doesn't want to tick off DocWagon because DocWagon's high-level contacts and political power enable them to strong-arm any individual in Lonestar who ordered such an op. That's why the ambitious LoneStar leader is hiring a group of runners to infiltrate DocWagon and deliver the UCAS's most wanted felon anonymously to a location where he can make the high profile arrest. Using runners rather than cops gives him the plausible deniability he needs to cover his ass. The farmers don't blithely continue to farm while the war is going on, nor do they share the resist to the death ethos of the combatants. That's why the zhents regularly find communities are willing to betray the Red Plumes and let them inside the palisade as long as the community itself is spared. It's also why there are more beggars in Shadowdale and Hillsfar than there used to be and why there seems to be a never-ending supply of brigands. The hidden lords of waterdeep really aren't that hidden; at any given time, a high level bard probably knows who 75% of them are and there's an assassination attempt every few years due to either internal or external politicking. Sometimes adventurers do buy phony magic items. Of course, cheated adventurers have a vengeful streak a mile long. That's why the Boon Companions hunted down every single cutpurse who ever swore allegiance to the Crook Street Lords thieves' guild and impaled them on stakes in the guildhouse's entry hall. Of course, they had to bribe the governer to keep from being punished but he didn't require a large bribe; as far as he was concerned, it was good riddance to bad rubbish and the Fishtown Sharks who own the governer are glad the rival guild is gone.

VirgilCaine said:
I'm not asking for perfection, just something better. Something where I can just game and not have to answer questions like those raised in this thread. Ah, well. Arguments are fun.

Numion · Aug 18, 2004

The biggest question about the gamist impact on the fantasy reality (fantasy reality ..

) is this: wouldn't it drive adventurers insane when everytime one of their close companions dies, another person with roughly the same capability pops up, wanting to join your team? Why does that new person share some of the sayings and knowledge of the departed adventurer? Why did we accept him to the team when he said he didn't even know his name yet?

VirgilCaine · Aug 18, 2004

Elder-Basilisk said:
There's no such system, nor can there be. Even IRL, there's plenty of situations where the kind of questions raised in this thread don't have easy answers. Why did it take so long for economic and social development to take hold in Russia but happen so rapidly in Britain? Why did the English give up their empire?

As for games, any time you create your own setting or try to understand how a published setting works, asking these kinds of questions is how you go about it.
One might ask how adventurers actually go about buying that +4 belt of giant strength--do they really just take some old guy in a Oldred's bazaar's word for it's powers? Answering all of these questions is what makes the campaign come alive and suggests plots and adventure hooks.

Sometimes adventurers do buy phony magic items. Of course, cheated adventurers have a vengeful streak a mile long.

Not in my campaign they don't. Any smart person would go to the Guild (thats Wizards guild) to buy a magic item, not to some yokel in the market. Only fools buy magic without certifiers from the Guild present to assure honesty and truthfulness in negotiations and merchandise.
Buying a magic item without Guild certification is like buying jewelry from a guy on the street--only an idiot does that.

Elder-Basilisk · Aug 18, 2004

VirgilCaine said:
Not in my campaign they don't. Any smart person would go to the Guild (thats Wizards guild) to buy a magic item, not to some yokel in the market. Only fools buy magic without certifiers from the Guild present to assure honesty and truthfulness in negotiations and merchandise.
Buying a magic item without Guild certification is like buying jewelry from a guy on the street--only an idiot does that.

Right but the world has plenty of idiots in it. Thats why guys sell watches on streetcorners. And there are always the kind of items that wizards' guilds don't sell (ie stolen or illegal items) that will sometimes tempt adventurers. In the real world, there's a market for stolen high price goods, likewise in the fantasy world.