The Implications of Biology in D&D

[Garthanos]

I'm not a biologist and I like my female dragonborn reptilian, without boobs.

I like boobs and dinosaurs weren't reptiles but had plenty of features of warm blooded creatures not to mention the platypus... so dragonborn have mammal features and reptile features.... shrug. Classification of creatures based on features may be a bit of a joke in real life.

I like skinning the dragonborn as shifters (Dragons shapeshifted in to humans and intermingled there blood lines and shape shifting powers in mostly human seeming descendents)

"Magic explains" is banned.

Ooooh but magical explanations don't have to be simplistic and or non-structured or totally hand waved they can be primal.

Magic can/does have rules associated with it and imagining those rules in the context of the game can be part of the fun. "As within so without" being one example... the price of power (thrice-fold returns an expression of it) is another.... and so on.

Vancian magic can make it seem like magic is nonsensical handwaving and
was originally selected from what I heard intensionally because it was disconnected from real world beliefs about magic...It was also one of the first things that chafed about D&D. So it compounds the error. But magic was a part of myth not distinct and separate.

(I am making complete assumptions on what your criticism of "magic explains" so I may be getting it just as completely wrong).

 

[Gilladian]

I freely mix "real" biology and "fantasy" biology in my campaign world.

I have many verminous and ooze type creatures come into existence through abiogenesis (they appear in piles of rotten garbage or cesspools or swamps and fetid water). Even dragons appear to be abiogenetic; dragon eggs are generated by mounds of treasure and hatch when the "parent" dragon finds and warms them. Sometimes new dragons appear where no dragon has been, before.

Dwarves are carved from stone and brought to life by priestly rituals. But half-orcs and half-elves exist, and they can be true half-breeds with a parent of each "race", or they can be descended of a line of half-breed parents themselves. In this case, elves and orcs are closely-related species. Orcs fill the "drow" role IMC more than anything else, though they have nothing to do with spiders. And although this is a lost historical fact, humans are actually an elf-orc halfbreed.

I like my monsters to be fantastical, and when there are small numbers of them, they often have a mythic background. Gods are elevated to that status by having worshippers; monsters are elevated to that status by having believers. So, yeah, the trolls in the swamp are there because the humans have believed they are there for generations (but they were probably normal human refugees when they first went in there, a few hundred years ago).

 

[Drkfathr1]

I like a fairly even mix of both. Myth and magic, but with some biological consistency that does make some reasonable sense. With the "scientific" baseline, magic becomes all the more magical instead of so common its not magic anymore.

Plus, one of the elements of my campaign is all the "secrets" that have a more scientific explanation that are commonly dismissed as magic.

I like peanut butter in my chocolate!

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

But, does anyone actually take this to its logical conclusion in their settings? After all, if hippogriffs, for example, were naturally occurring animals that could be bred, why wouldn't every kingdom worth the name have hippogriff stables? After all, you're not talking huge investments compared to the rewards of having flying mounts.

Of course. Not every kingdom has flying mounts though most have a small contingent. Not everyone uses hippogriffs, of course. some use Spider Eaters, others griffons and one group had a failed experiment with wyverns.

As for the cost/benefit ratio, they're expensive to keep, require exotic training for the animal and rider, and offer limited tactical value in a unverse with other methods of flight, instantaneous travel, and heavy ranged fire.

In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic. They are predictable, in the way that natural animals aren't really fantastic, but a part of the natural processes of the world. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but, I think it becomes very limiting. Kobolds, to use the original example from the other thread, are just short scaley humanoids. They aren't really all that different than a smart kind of ape. They lack ... magic.

Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic. They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.

The problem is one of commonality. The fantastic, by definition, must be rare. Adventurers simply run into too much for the majority to be fantastic to them.

One method to maintain the fantastic is to commonly use non-fantastic enemies like humans and have only the occasional appearance of a fantastical creature. This is the formula used by a couple of Call of Cthulu campaigns I've been in.

The other approach is to use the creatures commonly, but continually reinvent them so every encounter they act differently with different abilities. I hate this approach as it means the players have no opportunity to learn tactics, develop strategy, or predict actions. In fact, under this system there is no reason the player should bother paying attention to the creature and its abilities since the next one will have only coincidental siimilarities.

As for the kobold example, having a race of smart evil critters with a pathological hatred for the adventurers and all of their kind and a penchant for traps and gadgetry is scary in and of itself and requires no further magic. If it doesn't your GM isn't being heartless enough.

 

[Mournblade94]

The discussion on Revisionist Gaming got me to thinking.

In my view, taking a very naturalistic approach to monsters makes them less fantastic. They are predictable, in the way that natural animals aren't really fantastic, but a part of the natural processes of the world. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but, I think it becomes very limiting. Kobolds, to use the original example from the other thread, are just short scaley humanoids. They aren't really all that different than a smart kind of ape. They lack ... magic.

Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic. They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.

As a biologist I have to agree with this. I have found whether it is the ecology of... or some attempt (and that really is all they are) to explain the biology of the monster should be left out of the core sourcebooks at least. 3rd party publishers may publish books on it but then the people that really want naturalism can have their source material.

I have found that the biology is never taken to the ultimate point. This ia case of "where is the line drawn?" If you explain the biology of a monster, you then have to explain how they interact with the world and what they contribute to the ecosystem. MANY MANY of the old Ed greenwood Ecology of... articles made a good show of this, but it fell apart at the level of the community.

I have found that the biology written of in source material is relatively common knowledge, and applied on an individual level. Often this information is misapplied due to rampant misconceptions about animal or plant traits, and concepts. Once you delve into ecology you must assemble the puzzle. It is no longer adequate to assign arbitrary characteristics. Ecology is more than Bad meat eater eats little plant eater.

This applies to my fantasy campaigns only. I do not like to bring alot of science into fantasy worlds. It might be because I am a scientist myself. For people outside the field, I suppose it won't really matter because they are not interested in the big picture. Again this is "where do you draw the line". I have trouble stopping the line.

In my alternity campaign which is a mix of Stardrive, Starfrontiers, and Mass Effect (essentially some Star Drive nations thrown into the mass effect world advanced 500 years) I always include the science, to the level that satisfies me. I do not pretend that it is scientifically accurate. I am a molecular Biologist and an ecologist, not an astronomer. I make the science accurate enough for a sci fi campaign.

Fantasy is magic. Science fiction is science. Technically you can mix science into Fantasy and have it still be fantasy. You cannot mix magic in Science fiction and still have it be sci fi true to the definition (Note I am not criticizing any sort of sci fi, For example I love FARSCAPE).

I started watching Fringe with my wife. My wife loves the show. I started liking the show until they started to explain things. Their explanations were so off the wall, I am certain they could not have had a science consultant. It was basically mediocre high school science trying to explain phenomenon, and then getting the high school science wrong because of poor research.

I do not care if any individual DM wants to include science in their campaign. What I object to is source material getting concepts, both basic and complex, wrong.

I do not object to Dragonborn with breasts for example, that is art. Do not however, try to make an appeal to science and try to have it make technical sense in any meaningful way. Leave boobs on dragonborn because they are in a supernatural world. Leave meticlorions out of blood of Jedi. Science epistemology is not arbitrary.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hippogriffs are fairly rare in the wild due to the amount of meat required to keep one healthy, and the amount of grazing land required to supply that meat. It is one thing to keep a single hippogriff (from an economic standpoint), and another to keep an entire stable of them to outfit a platoon.

The Kingdom of Atlantes attempted just such a feat. If you've ever seen a Medieval falconmaster's face, scarred from countless injuries while collecting eggs, then you have some idea of how quickly Atlantes went through hippgriffmasters. Moreover, since each hippogriff ate a great quantity of meat (having a fast metabolism for flying), they used up the resources sufficient for many more horses or people. This caused more than a little unrest among the populace, but the added security was generally agreed to be worth the cost.

Unfortunately, hippogriffs are not very tractable, and do not breed well in captivity. Agents of the kingdom had to go further and further afield to capture new eggs. For a while, poor breeding in captivity coupled with stealing eggs from the wild almost drove the species extinct.

Of course, the Kingdom of Atlantes is no more. It fell in battle almost 120 years ago to its neighbour, the Sultanate of Ymadris, which went into a bulette-breeding program. Bulettes, as everyone knows, are far easier to domesticate, and breed well in captivity. However, they require even more feeding and care than hippogriffs.

As is their nature, the bulettes under-mined the economy.


RC

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I was a park ranger for thirteen years and a biology teacher for two.

If you think mundane animals are boring, I respectfully suggest u r doing it wrng.

Indeed.

A mixture of both is particularly heady and potent, but an understanding of neurobiology and animal (including human) behavior can make for some really interesting interpretations of fantasy creatures and races.

I remember doing a thought experiment on what having Darkvision actually meant for Dwarven psychology somewhere on these boards back during 3e. If I have time over the holiday I'll try to dig it up, but just based on their presumptive biology you can provide very different social and cultural flavors that way than the standard model of "humans with these two characteristics exaggerated."

Actually... I should probably just re-write that thing.... I was a whelp at the time and was not to be trusted.

EDIT:
The hippogriff thing is an excellent example of biology applied well. Carnivores make great pets but bad livestock.

 

[Umbran]

Monsters, IMO, should be fantastic. They shouldn't be consistent, since consistency breeds predictability.

Yes, but unpredictability is a form of predictability. It goes along with the "wonder of magic" argument - 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.

So, I usually save really weird origins for special occasions - most often where the origin is plot relevant to the game.

 

[Mournblade94]

Indeed.

A mixture of both is particularly heady and potent, but an understanding of neurobiology and animal (including human) behavior can make for some really interesting interpretations of fantasy creatures and races.

I remember doing a thought experiment on what having Darkvision actually meant for Dwarven psychology somewhere on these boards back during 3e. If I have time over the holiday I'll try to dig it up, but just based on their presumptive biology you can provide very different social and cultural flavors that way than the standard model of "humans with these two characteristics exaggerated."

Actually... I should probably just re-write that thing.... I was a whelp at the time and was not to be trusted.

EDIT:
The hippogriff thing is an excellent example of biology applied well. Carnivores make great pets but bad livestock.

I agree, and contrary to the diatribe I wrote above, I thouroghly enjoy the thought experiments that individual gamers apply to their games.

I object to printed material applying poor science and adding to misconceptions (Unintentionally)

 

[Raven Crowking]

EDIT:
The hippogriff thing is an excellent example of biology applied well. Carnivores make great pets but bad livestock.

Thank you. You do realize, of course, that it was all just build-up for the bad pun at the end?

If you find your copy of the dwarf psych paper, I'd be interested in reading it.


RC