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harpy
2010-03-04, 11:46 AM
If dinosaurs weren't in the very beginnings of D&D they were nearly so, there is that familiar image of the party fighting the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the expert set module.

Still, in all of these years I can't think of any setting that has really integrated Dinosaurs. You might find them on an undiscovered land of the lost island, or Eberron has halflings riding velociraptors, but nothing seems to work them in like James Gurney's Dinotopia book series.

My guess is that in part, Dinosaurs just don't fit the quasi-medieval fantasy tropes, and with all of their names built off of Latin scientific terminology it creates this modern conceptual wall to properly integrate them into a fantasy setting.

"You see a huge lizard like creature with a maw larger than yourself filled with teeth?"

"Ah! What is that?"

"It's a Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"Oh"

Another problem is that all of the famous dinosaurs are really large and lethal to any low level characters, and so because of that it's difficult for your quasi-medieval setting to have castles, farms, etc if massive herbivore creatures are slurping up all of the plant life in the region, meanwhile being stalked by apex predators which would make even dragons pause.

I know I suffer from that conceptual gap. It doesn't seem right to have dinosaurs in a fantasy world, however I also know that there is a modernistic theme to their existence, despite the fact that they harken back to ages undreamt of...

So has any RPG setting gone about trying to get dinosaurs to really fit into the world, going through the trouble of thematically renaming everything, having them fit into the ecosystem, etc?

It seems as if they need a special treatment, where the author really works and making them integrated into the world rather than just being another random option in a monster manual.

RagnaroksChosen
2010-03-04, 11:54 AM
wasn't there one in secound ed?

DragoonWraith
2010-03-04, 11:57 AM
The Talentia Plains in Eberron are the only things I can think of that make any attempt to use dinosaurs (and not just velociraptors).

That said, homebrewing Dinotopia probably would not be that hard (plenty of source material), plus it would be awesome. You'd have to go pretty low/no magic, but that's possible, or you do your own take on it where there is magic (and that would probably be the only difficult bit, figuring out how the addition of magic would change Dinotopia).

Man, I love that book. Easily my favorite as a kid (except when I was real little, when it was Richard Scary's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (http://www.amazon.com/Trucks-Things-Giant-Little-Golden/dp/0307157857). There are not words sufficient to describe my toddler self's obsession with that book.

Drakyn
2010-03-04, 12:50 PM
The Talentia Plains in Eberron are the only things I can think of that make any attempt to use dinosaurs (and not just velociraptors).

That said, homebrewing Dinotopia probably would not be that hard (plenty of source material), plus it would be awesome. You'd have to go pretty low/no magic, but that's possible, or you do your own take on it where there is magic (and that would probably be the only difficult bit, figuring out how the addition of magic would change Dinotopia).

Man, I love that book. Easily my favorite as a kid (except when I was real little, when it was Richard Scary's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (http://www.amazon.com/Trucks-Things-Giant-Little-Golden/dp/0307157857). There are not words sufficient to describe my toddler self's obsession with that book.

The other big problem for D&Difying it, besides putting magic in Dinotopia (which sounds like less of a problem and more of an opportunity for unbridled AWESOME - Troodon Arcane Tricksters! Epic level Brachiosaur wizards with spellbooks made out of TREES!), would be filling it with horrible conflicts that require solving through violence. Some sort of parallel-universe version of Dinotopia, where everybody was never able to put aside their differences and get along, where Hadrosaurs hate Triceratops and everybody wars constantly. Like all those comic book earths where the Nazis won WW2, but with more giant angry reptiles.

Superglucose
2010-03-04, 12:55 PM
That said, homebrewing Dinotopia probably would not be that hard (plenty of source material), plus it would be awesome. You'd have to go pretty low/no magic, but that's possible, or you do your own take on it where there is magic (and that would probably be the only difficult bit, figuring out how the addition of magic would change Dinotopia).

Even the movie was good. I'd saw homebrew it with low (no) magic. I need to go read the book though.

Rappy
2010-03-04, 12:59 PM
I'd say the closest thing you have to magic in Dinotopia would be the sunstones that power the mecha golems strutters. Otherwise, beyond than the fact that there are...you know...sapient dinosaurs, there's not that much supernatural about Dinotopia.

lightningcat
2010-03-05, 12:52 AM
There is the Broncosaurus Rex Setting from Goodman Games. It is a scifi setting, but has all the sentient dinos you could want, including ones that never existed. You could reflavor it, or better yet just use it for inspiration.

LemonSkye
2010-03-05, 01:18 AM
wasn't there one in second ed?

Yep. Hollow World (http://prehistoricpulp.blogspot.com/2007/08/dungeons-dragons-hollow-world-by-aaron.html) was a subset of the Mystara campaign setting, and it included a "Lost World"-type area and a whole lot more. It never really took off, but you might be able to find some conversions from 2nd ed. online somewhere.

The Savage Tide, the last adventure path Dungeon ran while it was still in Paizo's hands, also had a few dinosaur-filled areas, and I know a couple of Dragon Magazines from the same time period covered the Hollow World in their "Campaign Classics" issues. One of them even had stats for the dinosaur god, Ka, updated to 3.5.

Rappy
2010-03-05, 05:34 AM
There is the Broncosaurus Rex Setting from Goodman Games. It is a scifi setting, but has all the sentient dinos you could want, including ones that never existed. You could reflavor it, or better yet just use it for inspiration.
Be forewarned if you take this advice, though...B. Rex is 3.0, so it'll need some hammering out of the rough edges.

bosssmiley
2010-03-05, 10:44 AM
wasn't there one in secound ed?

The Isle of Dread - Skull Island + dinos (the Isle was rehashed for Savage Tide)
The Hollow World inside Mystara - set up by a dinosaur god (Ka the Preserver)
Thunder Rift was another Mystaran Lost World setting
The dino-riding pygmy culture in Champions of Mystara
Holmes D&D had an implicit Hyborian Age/Eocene interglacial setting (look at the number of giant and/or dire animals and dinosaur holdovers in the bestiary)
You also had weird saurian/reptilian beasts of burden in Dark Sun. Not strictly dinosaurs though...