Dinosaurs as Animal Companions - Gamebreaker?

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I agree

It does seem like an odd reason to quit... sounds like there was more going on.

That said, the dinosaur does seem to be singularly optimal as an animal companion from a powergaming perspective. I have only seen one in play once (played by DrowBane, in a campaign we were both in, in fact) and it was extremely effective. I was a wizard in that campaign, but I might have felt rather useless had I been playing a fighter.

Ken

 

[Delta]

So, if this had happened in a game you were playing in what would have been your reaction? Personally I was a little surprised that the player reacted the way that he did. In a game where you fight dragons and cast fireballs from your hands, is it really that out-there to see someone riding a large lizard-like beast?

One of the major problems with the supplement-update publishing cycle, is that every time you add a supplement (particularly by choice of players), you change the campaign setting. For example: As DM I make a campaign world. Later, a player picks a Warforged from some supplement book. Now we all have to suddenly accept that there are Warforged in our world, and retcon an explanation for why and when they got there.

So my question is: Was this campaign originally described as one where people rode dinosaurs as steeds? If not, then after 1.5 years, this player abruptly isn't playing the same game he signed up for. If this had been part of the initial campaign setting description, you might have a different situation.

In short -- Yes, I also get immensely bothered when a campaign doesn't have any limiting parameters to its fantasy. Arbitrary supplement additions destroy my mental sense of what the campaign is. (There's some quote by HG Wells about the need to pick a limited number of wierd premises in a work of fantasy, and explore those implications, but I'm not finding it at the moment.)


On the specific issue of dinosaur companions for druids, I much prefer 3.0 where prehistoric creatures are classified as "Beasts" and therefore off-limits to Druids. Elegant and consistent. When 3.5 changed that it definitely disappointed me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Obviously myself and the player in question had a very big disconnect as to what is normal in your average D&D world and what "OMG WTF is that thing?"

Sorry, but I view this as a DMing problem.

If the players are playing in an Arctic setting, and a new player shows up with a camel as an animal companion (or reverse that to an Arabic setting, and the new player comes in with a walrus) the other players may well wonder why that PC was allowed in.

It is incumbant upon the DM to let the players know what is possible in the world. If there are dinosaurs roaming around the area, surely by the time play reached 10th level the players should have been aware of it.

For example, in my game dinosaurs exist, although most of them live southward of the main campaign area. I indicated that dinosaurs exist to the players in three ways: (1) leatherwings (basically small pteradactyls) take the place of pigeons in some towns, (2) lake monsters (plesiosaurs) are sighted (albeit rarely) throughout the Lakelands region, (3) I told them point-blank that they had heard of larger saurians away to the south.

This doesn't sound so much like a discontinuity in the game but a discontinuity in the game world to me. Make sure that the players know what is possible in your world, and I doubt you'll experience this sort of thing again.



RC

 

[Jubilee]

Scientists are still occasionally discovering new species of animals or plants in the world now, so why should an adventurer of any level have heard of every animal that could possibly exist in a world, especially in worlds that typically have alot more "undiscovered country" than the world we live in?

It is incumbent on a GM and new player to explain how they got where they are now, but I wouldn't personally have any expectation of knowing everything that could possibly exist in the world my character lives in. The GMs in my games are always throwing new monsters neither I nor my character knows anything about, and how is that different?

/ali

 

[Rackhir]

Sorry, but I view this as a DMing problem....

This doesn't sound so much like a discontinuity in the game but a discontinuity in the game world to me. Make sure that the players know what is possible in your world, and I doubt you'll experience this sort of thing again.

Except that DMs are not omniscient. They can no more predict and plan for every possible contingency ahead of time than anyone else can. DMs are neither obligated to, nor able to forsee and plan for every possible contingency. Having someone to make "on the spot" judgment calls is one of the purposes of having a DM and one of the main advantages to D&D over computer games, in which anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden.

If he had established in his campaign that Dinosaurs were rare or confined to small areas like you did and then violated that, then yes it would be a DM problem. As it is, the player came up with something the DM hadn't thought of before hand and rather than simply reject it out of hand, decided to at least give it a try first. While reserving the right to disallow it should it prove to be abusive.

That's good DMing in my book.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

This doesn't sound so much like a discontinuity in the game but a discontinuity in the game world to me. Make sure that the players know what is possible in your world, and I doubt you'll experience this sort of thing again.

I agree with RC.

The existence of dragons and magic does NOT make the game "anything goes." I don't know what Olaf's game was like before the dinosaur, but it could well have had a feel resembling European myths and legends (e.g. King Arthur) or LotR or something like that -- or at least that's how the player envisioned it. In which case dragons and magic do fit in, but the norm is still medieval tech, castles, and people riding horses.

An a point as to power... an "organic" Drd10 is already very, very powerful even with core only and no animal companion. A created-at-Drd10 with an MM3 dinosaur for both companion and Wildshape is going to be FAR more powerful. What class was the druid player ditching to play this druid?

 

[Raven Crowking]

It is incumbent on a GM and new player to explain how they got where they are now, but I wouldn't personally have any expectation of knowing everything that could possibly exist in the world my character lives in.

Well, of course not -- but there is a big difference between an apatosaurus or triceratops appearing out of the blue as a riding animal in an area known to the PCs , and a creature hiding away from civilization in the fastness of a deep wood, or the depths of an unexplored ruin.

One would assume that the herd animals in a given region would be known to those dwelling there, and that the common threats in that region would likewise be known. A herd of dinosaurs would almost certainly be known over the area it roamed (and, unless a Lost World scenario was in play, it would almost certainly be migratory).

Also, note, that the long-term player questioned riding a dinosaur immediately, as something that violated the "world rules" of the game he thought he was playing. "To him dinosaurs were creatures that might have lived on some far off continent, they did not get ridden around like a horse" is not a statment about game rules, but world rules.

Reading the OP leaves me with a strong impression that this is a case where the DM violated the established rules of his world to avoid saying "No" to the new player. However, players rely upon the established rules of a game world to provide verisimiltude and to give them a basis upon which to make their decisions. Breaking world rules breaks suspension of disbelief.

The DM either wasn't clear about world rules that should have been obvious to the players, or he should have said "No" to the new player. Unless of course, he prefers this new player to the one who quit. In any event, it seems clear to me that the player who quit didn't have faith that the new character made sense within a larger context that he didn't have access to. And, again, this is a DM problem....or the player who quit is no great loss.

IMHO, of course.




RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Except that DMs are not omniscient.

Nothing in what I said requires the DM to be omniscient. If the region hasn't had dinosaurs for 10 levels worth of play, the DM has "established in his campaign that Dinosaurs were rare or confined to small areas".

And as a result, "yes it would be a DM problem".

Saying "No" to something that violates the continuity of experience for your players is not simply rejecting it "out of hand", and is a vital part of the DM's job.

In this specific case, the new player came up with something the DM hadn't thought of before hand, and the DM decided to at least give it a try before rejecting it. When he discovered that it would be a problem with at least one of his existing players, he decided to continue to allow it rather than to disallow it at that time.

Now, if the new player is a clear gain over the player who had a problem, that might be good DMing. Otherwise, not so much in my book.

YMMV, of course.

RC

 

[Rackhir]

Well, of course not -- but there is a big difference between an apatosaurus or triceratops appearing out of the blue as a riding animal in an area known to the PCs , and a creature hiding away from civilization in the fastness of a deep wood, or the depths of an unexplored ruin.

One would assume that the herd animals in a given region would be known to those dwelling there, and that the common threats in that region would likewise be known. A herd of dinosaurs would almost certainly be known over the area it roamed (and, unless a Lost World scenario was in play, it would almost certainly be migratory).

Does the DM need to explicitly mention all of the animals in an area? Buffalo or even cattle in massive herds roaming Australia pre-european settlement, would be every bit as out of place as dinosaurs in Europe during the middle ages. Yet most americans/europeans wouldn't bat an eye at it because those creatures are "normal" to their backgrounds.

Remember even physics is a house rule in D&D.

There's no reason why dinosaurs couldn't be as common as the dire tigers, dire Lions and other dire creatures that seemingly infest your "normal" D&D setting despite the fact that many of them would be equally out of place in plenty of enviroments.

There's absolutely no reason why dinosaurs have to be any more uncommon or remarkable than pigeons or rats (both of which were completely unknown in large chunks of the pacific pre-European contact). Other than most poeple's knee-jerk association is with dinos being something strange and bizarre, from the depths of time and space.

There's also several currently existing creatures (crocs and sharks) that have existed essentially unchanged from the time of the dinosaurs, that nobody would bat an eye at encountering, because they are considered "normal".

In short, Dinosaurs might be something "strange" that "has to be accounted for" in your view of the world. But there's no inherent reason that has to be the case.

Also, note, that the long-term player questioned riding a dinosaur immediately, as something that violated the "world rules" of the game he thought he was playing. "To him dinosaurs were creatures that might have lived on some far off continent, they did not get ridden around like a horse" is not a statment about game rules, but world rules.

Reading the OP leaves me with a strong impression that this is a case where the DM violated the established rules of his world to avoid saying "No" to the new player. However, players rely upon the established rules of a game world to provide verisimiltude and to give them a basis upon which to make their decisions. Breaking world rules breaks suspension of disbelief.

The DM either wasn't clear about world rules that should have been obvious to the players, or he should have said "No" to the new player. Unless of course, he prefers this new player to the one who quit. In any event, it seems clear to me that the player who quit didn't have faith that the new character made sense within a larger context that he didn't have access to. And, again, this is a DM problem....or the player who quit is no great loss.

Anyone who'd quit a campaign over something like a dinosaur being introduced, has to have had other issues and other complaints. It's D&D, not "Three Musketeer's Roleplaying". It is not nor was it ever, supposed to be a technically accurate simulation of a specific era and/or location.

Remember D&D is the game that got it's start sticking creatures in 10x10 rooms with no source of food, right next door to other creatures that would kill them and both creatures would just sit in their rooms waiting for people to enter the dungeon and kill them. Dinosaurs "out of the blue" have NOTHING on that.

 

[Terraism]

But that really isn't what the intention of this thread was. I just wanted to see how many people would be put off by a Druid character having a dinosaur as an animal companion in their campaign. I didn't think it was a huge deal but I wanted to see if I was perhaps the nutter.

Yeah, I don't think it'd be that odd. I'm biased, of course, as I'm actually playing a druid with a dinosaur companion (Eberron game), but still. It doesn't strike me as that much a stretch, as long as reptiles have obviously existed in the world before. I can see being a little miffed if dinosaurs weren't from the area, but it was introduced and ran as though it wasn't at all exotic, but if it was? No problem at all.

You may be a nutter, but it's not 'cause of this.