Have they ever put Wild Kingdom on a re-runs on any network?
The Implications of Biology in D&D
- Thread starter Hussar
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Have they ever put Wild Kingdom on a re-runs on any network?
Barastrondo
First Post
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.
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.
Aeolius
Adventurer
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.
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.
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.
*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.
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Man, lost track of this thread over the holidays....
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
Theo R Cwithin
I cast "Baconstorm!"
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
Explorer
No offense taken. My perspective here is jaded, I'll admit.
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.
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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