D&D 5E How Strange should Flora and Fauna be in the Default 5E Setting?

[Mark CMG]

How Strange should Flora and Fauna be in the Default 5E Setting?

Fairly straightforward question, so I don't want to elaborate too much more lest it steer the responses. Is it Northern European or just Earth focused but with all these monsters running around? Or are the plants and regular animals alien or at least fairly different from Earth norms?

 

[Mattachine]

D&D's default setting is definitely going to be pseudo-Medieval/Chivalric Europe and so on. Peripheral areas could feature other cultural types.

If they don't go with fairly straightforward flora and fauna, I'll eat my hat.

Unusual settings, meaning ones that don't meet the expectations of new players, will be in supplements.

 

[patrick y.]

I think baseline should be stuff you'd find in the real world, with magical plants and animals as the exceptions, rather than the rule. In my experience, when the unusual become the baseline, you end up in this situation where giant mushrooms end up replacing trees, but it's not because there's a good reason for doing so, it's because the developers decided trees weren't around but still wanted there to be forest adventures. Which is also how you end up with pastoral fields of milkable wolf-pigs instead of cows, because different for the sake of being different becomes the order of the day.

See also "My elves are different!" in all its permutations.

 

[Aeolius]

Willing suspension of disbelief is more easily maintained, I have found, when one uses a common frame of reference.

It is easier for a player to envision a sea goblin, when it is described as being shark-like in appearance, than it is to describe a completely alien physiognomy and hope that their mental image in their minds matches my own.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't care... as long as their are panthers and orange trees.

C'mon. How are you suppose to slay dragons if your day doesn't start with you having your morning glass of cold juice from a citrus fruit while petting some exotic predator animal?

Seriously, it can't go too weird without going into Far Realm. Nothing wrong with aberrations but they can't be more than ~5% of the living things. But all of Earth should be the base for sure.

 

[CAFRedblade]

I think it'll depend on the setting and world you want to display. But most DnD settings are heavily influenced by European flora and fauna. Or on a grander scale, the environs of Earth.

How much magic has an influence should be determined, but, the truly exotic environs are usually still rare.

That doesn't mean a new campaign couldn't have towering mushroom like trees (we had those in our own geological history), or chocobo like riding chickens, as long as that fits the general assumptions of the world being created.

 

[Incenjucar]

Gotta say, I would love to see a book devoted to exotic beasts and plants for a variety of terrains.

4E focused waaaaay to freaking much on humanoids and a few generic things. The vast majority of beasts in the game are dragons, and there haven't been many interesting plants like ironwood in the books.

 

[Kaodi]

You could probably argue quite succesfully that ecology is one of the most poorly handled aspects of Dungeons & Dragons and its Fantasy RPG brethren. Far more so that the economy. At least the game has a functioning economy.

This may seem strange. Obviously ecology is not exactly the most important thing to the sort of game that D&D is, where it is more important that adventures make sense than worlds. But if you think of it, settings could be so much richer if they put effort into the relationship between the plants, animals, monsters and people, and gods. Because those are the tools and pieces that great adventure locales are made of.

You could argue I think that extraordinary flora and fauna might should not receive too much play in the core rules, and thus the initial picture of the default setting. But it is something that should absolutely be on the priority list for expanding the default setting.

 

[howandwhy99]

How Strange should Flora and Fauna be in the Default 5E Setting?

Fairly straightforward question, so I don't want to elaborate too much more lest it steer the responses. Is it Northern European or just Earth focused but with all these monsters running around? Or are the plants and regular animals alien or at least fairly different from Earth norms?

Fauna - I expect the standard Monster Manual will be in effect. Maybe they'll add in a few more interesting monsters as they did in 2000.

Flora - Terrain in 4E has become cool again. Maybe it'll make it into the exploration level of play in 5E? That means we could see jellies and slimes more often again or Venus man-traps or Earwigs or shambling mounds or assassin vines or any other sort of less dynamic, more trap design element.

PS: Don't forget bugs. And microorganisms / D&D diseases

Real world plants and animals have long had a place in the game. I would hope they include them early on. That means stuff from anywhere on Earth. It is the riffing on that stuff into the fabulous, the mythical, and the weird that really leads to D&D "default setting" material.

Plus, it's always been optional.

 

[GM Dave]

I have to agree that the 'ordinary' creatures in a setting tend not get much attention in most fantasy (fictional or RPG).

Flora often gets more detail in video games as it is often the explanation for using a large variety of colours that artists like to paint with because green and browns get dull after a while.

I personally feel quite a bit could be done to include Flora as hazards in many scenarios.

Simple stretches of thorny bushes can really change the game environment for a battle. Defenders might have small tunnel run ways through the tangle with spots they can fire or stab with spears.

This just scratches at the possibilities in a world where mages have created weird magical hybrids (mongrel men, chimera, or cockatrice).

If a rust monster is bad then consider a plant that has a similar effect on people that walk near it. The explanation is simple that the plan rusts metal near it to feed iron to its roots and it has deep russet colour. Humanoids might even use the property of the plant in some of their weapons which might lead players to find the source of the arrows that are damaging their armour.

You could have plants with milky sticky coatings that are able to trap prey much larger then insects.

I remember in one Dragonlance novel that the Dwarves had a form of Earthworm used as a beast of burden in their digging.