The Implications of Biology in D&D

[korjik]

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.



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.

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

 

[Maldin]

.... 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...

 

[SkidAce]

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...

 

[Coldwyn]

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...

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.."

 

[Scribble]

(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!

 

[Umbran]

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.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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.

 

[Umbran]

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.

 

[pawsplay]

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.

 

[Coldwyn]

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.