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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5036739" data-attributes="member: 22779">The discussion on Revisionist Gaming got me to thinking.Many people claim that various abilities are tied to the race in some sort of biological way and removing that ability breaks suspension of disbelief.  Now, I think that this has been a fairly common approach to D&D monsters in the past.  After all, umpteen bajillion Ecology Of articles in Dragon, never minding the Ecology/Habitat sections in the 2e Monster Manuals certainly gave the sense that many of the monsters in D&D were naturally occurring and subject to biology.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.There are numerous fantasy authors who've taken this approach as well.  Naomi Novak of the Tremaire series posits a real world Earth with dragons.  National power is derived through the exploitation of dragons.  Stephen Erikson also takes a very naturistic approach to his races, with humans evolving from an earlier hominid that become the T'lan Imass (undead warriors locked in an eternal war with an earlier hominid the Jaghut).  Many of the species in his world are naturally (or perhaps unnaturally) occurring.  But, I think this is not the only way to approach things.  One of my favorite 3e books was AEG's Secrets.  It was a source book which contained, well, lots of secrets for the PC's to discover - like, for example, Dwarves aren't actually born, but rather emerge fully formed from stone statues carved by other dwarves.  Things like that.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.</blockquote>

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