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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mournblade94" data-source="post: 5036866" data-attributes="member: 74608">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.</blockquote>

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