Why does D&D have bears?

[Celebrim]

Maybe for some, but I think it's somewhat presumptuous to give such motivation to all fantasy everywhere. What you've said here is not far removed from "all fantasy must be allegorical, or at least heavily fraught with symbolism."

For the details of this discussion, see the Proceedings of the Enworld Debate Society, volumns XXIV through XXXVII. Or not.

 

[Desdichado]

Ha! I thought I remembered this.

"I sense something. I presence I've not felt since..." ***stalks off with a flourish of his black cape***

 

[Celebrim]

Apparently you didn't read my first post (specifically the portion pertaining to horses).

Ahhh... hmmm. So, I guess you are saying that no one can disagree with you except through ignorance?

I'm not suggesting that you give animals a different name and change nothing else. I'm suggesting (again, as I illustrated with horses earlier) that one could grant such animals a remarkable ability or two but have them retain some semblance of normalacy.

I know what you are suggesting, and I'm responding to it.

The horses mentioned can run distances of hundreds of miles in mere hours and their feet produce flames when they strike the ground...

Ahhh.... you mean, like Shadowfax? What you are postulating is merely the uber-equine. Running hundreds of miles in mere hours, and striking the ground so fast that thier feet produce sparks and flames are traits associated with horse-dom and particularly our mythic image of the horse. Fantasy and D&D does that thing all the time. It's not merely a bear - its a dire bear. It's not merely a horse, it's a legendary horse - or a centaur, or whatever.

Not so alien that it's unrecognizeable as a bear at all.

Yes, that's what I said - a bear with bumps on its forehead. Or, a light blue coat. Or insect antenna. Oh wait, I'm already redundant.

 

[Celebrim]

Debates about what's fantasy and what's sci-fi could go on for days...

And have.

Sidestepping that, I could just say "Why does that matter?" If a more alien setting makes a D&D campaign into sci-fi, what the hell? Doesn't sound like a problem to me.

I'm not saying it is problem. I'm just answering the question 'why does [fantasy] have bears?'

but if you're trying to cover things like novels and such, it gets pretty shaky: Elves are not such a default assumption of fantasy there, and I'm pretty sure they weren't even a common phenomenon pre-Tolkien.

Oh, there's little I like beater than defending a seemingly tenously rhetorical position. Dunsany? Who are we talking about here that doesn't have elves? I think that it would be pretty hard to argue that fantasy pre-Tolkien isn't dominated by the fairy tale. Granted, the elves of those (to Tolkien's perspective) 'latter stories' were greatly emasculated and shrivelled compared to there original conceptions, but they are still there standing in the thier green caps and peering out of the glens.

Furthermore, there's a tremendous amount of fantasy lit out there that's set on Earth, and I rather doubt elves were even in the running for a lot of those settings.

A tremendous percentage of fantasy set on modern Earth is of the genera, 'urban fairy tale', and features all manner of elfin creature. No, I think you are going to find that the only way to get away from our more mystic, natural, feral, and fetal (imaginary) friends is if you deliberately try to do so. They are always haunting the edges of our subconsciousness.

 

[jdrakeh]

Edit: Decided to let real mods handle the sniping here.

 

[Celebrim]

He removed his post as soon as he typed it. Taking him to task over it isn't necessary - and in any case, please report problematic posts. Don't turn them into an argument.

Many thanks. ~ Piratecat

 

[Arkhandus]

What you're suggesting though is just change for the sake of change, and more like science fiction than fantasy. It doesn't make the game more fantastic or cool to have wierd creatures in place of normal animals, for no apparent reason other than personal fiat.

PCs:
"Oh, so the riding animals are hreignkadts, and are something like giant lemure-camel-stegosaurs....? Um, okay....."
"So....I can't have a cat familiar? But there's a cat-monkey-pig-mantis-like creature that kind of substitutes for cats? Uh, I guess I'll take that then....."
"I want to get a hunting falcon for this event we're going to....what? No birds? So what is there? Bat-cow-giraffe-goat-snakes? WTF? Are those the things that attacked us a few months ago in the mountains? No? Those were the flying mouse-zebra-chameleon-triceratops-things? .......Alright, screw it, I'm done."

That's more like science fiction and an alien world populated by alien creatures. If you're going to go that route, why on Earth are you only going half-arsed and leaving humans, humanoid creatures, and human-baseline cultures/personalities/linguistics/etc. in the setting? There's no reason to replace all of the normal animals if you're keeping everything else around that makes it a recognizably human world.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, then it's a duck. I don't care if it's actually a scaly horn-beaked three-legged one-eyed whatsit, if it's basically filling the same role as a normal animal, then why for Pete's sake isn't just a normal animal that will be easily remembered?


*secretly wants a cat-monkey-pig-mantis*

 

[Sound of Azure]

Cat-monkey-pig-mantis*

*Some assembly required?

 

[Arkhandus]

It would look like a freakish but somehow loveable version of Momo from Avatar, I think.

 

[jdrakeh]

Post removed. When you see problems, please report the post but don't continue the argument. That way lies madness. MADNESS!

And everyone? No more bickering, please.

~ Piratecat