Large, aggressive animals in real life are very scary.
Imagine encountering an enraged bear or pack of wolves while hiking in the woods.
Monkeys like baboons and macacques can move very fast, have strong muscles and fangs. Chimpanzees have been known to rip people's arms out of their sockets and people's faces off. Gorillas can kill an unarmed human at will, and presumably even if you were armed with hand-to-hand weapons, you had better get the first blow in. Something with that strength and agility would be curiously squashing your skull before it noticed that you had slashed it with with your sword.
Yet in an RPG these are the most mundane, boring encounters.
Then you get monsters. Have you seen how real spiders move? One the size of a horse that could actually move at speed could basically kill anyone. They wouldn't circle around you and trade blows in multiple combat rounds. Strike, sever head or leg, game over.
I think the key factor that is different in real life and RPG combat is the speed and strength of creatures. Fighting with brute animals is very swift and wounds are egregious.
Do any RPGs reflect these realities? Is it worthwhile tying to capture the actual feeling of tension and fear that you might get when walking through the forest and encounter a troop of gorillas or a lion? Or is it more fun just to escalate to wacky mythical creatures and leave animals to bestiary entries that are mostly ignored?
My underlying feeling is that something is lost when players wade in to all sorts of creatures for the umpteenth time, without having a visceral feel for the realities of physical combat.
And no, I'm not just, or even primarily talking about D&D.
Imagine encountering an enraged bear or pack of wolves while hiking in the woods.
Monkeys like baboons and macacques can move very fast, have strong muscles and fangs. Chimpanzees have been known to rip people's arms out of their sockets and people's faces off. Gorillas can kill an unarmed human at will, and presumably even if you were armed with hand-to-hand weapons, you had better get the first blow in. Something with that strength and agility would be curiously squashing your skull before it noticed that you had slashed it with with your sword.
Yet in an RPG these are the most mundane, boring encounters.
Then you get monsters. Have you seen how real spiders move? One the size of a horse that could actually move at speed could basically kill anyone. They wouldn't circle around you and trade blows in multiple combat rounds. Strike, sever head or leg, game over.
I think the key factor that is different in real life and RPG combat is the speed and strength of creatures. Fighting with brute animals is very swift and wounds are egregious.
Do any RPGs reflect these realities? Is it worthwhile tying to capture the actual feeling of tension and fear that you might get when walking through the forest and encounter a troop of gorillas or a lion? Or is it more fun just to escalate to wacky mythical creatures and leave animals to bestiary entries that are mostly ignored?
My underlying feeling is that something is lost when players wade in to all sorts of creatures for the umpteenth time, without having a visceral feel for the realities of physical combat.
And no, I'm not just, or even primarily talking about D&D.
Shouldn't fighting beasts be a bigger deal?
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