Using Herbivores in RPGs

[Alexander Atoz]

In the dungeon and dragons blog I'm writing (dragonencounters.com) I'm approaching the ankylosaurs dinosaur. This dinosaur is a herbivore, with no particular reason to be aggressive toward the PCs. How would you use such a creature in your games?
I suppose you could have it tamed and used as a powerful mount, much the way elephants were used by some ancient nations as sort of tanks. I have one or two other ideas, but I'm curious to know if anyone has a better idea than what I came up with?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Alexander Atoz
This dinosaur is a herbivore, with no particular reason to be aggressive toward the PCs. How would you use such a creature in your games?

Hippos are strict herbivores, and yet they're considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. Vegetarians don't always have a mild temperament.

For ankylosaurs in particular, they may be territorial, especially during mating season; or they may be guarding a nest, which is probably the simplest option. If the PCs stumble into a communal nesting area, say a broad grassy space in the middle of a forest, they may be instantly charged by one or more protective mothers before they even realize the "ant mounds" are actually incubating ankylosaur eggs.

[J-H]

Yeah, territory is a big one. Also smell. If the party has been in a couple of fights and didn't think of cleaning up, then they're walking around smelling of blood and guts, which is carnivore smell. Sense carnivore -> fight carnivore.

I've heard that the cape buffalo is the most dangerous land animal in the world.

[Melayl]

Moose and bison are terrifyingly dangerous, too. Not necessarily aggressive, but easy to tick off.

Maybe the dino's poor eyesight causes quick movements to trigger an aggressive response. Maybe something had been through their territory recently that agitated them, and now they're hyper-responsive. Maybe they just don't like the cologne one of the PCs is wearing?

We don't always understand what triggers bison and moose and cape Buffalo, etc to attack...

[Biggus]

Hippos are strict herbivores, and yet they're considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.




I've heard that the cape buffalo is the most dangerous land animal in the world.

According to this list (https://safarisafricana.com/most-dangerous-animals-africa/), the hippo is the most dangerous (except the mosquito). Either way, the general point very much stands; ignoring the mosquito, out of the top five most dangerous animals in Africa three are herbivores.

[Unoriginal]

Moose and bison are terrifyingly dangerous, too. Not necessarily aggressive, but easy to tick off.

Maybe the dino's poor eyesight causes quick movements to trigger an aggressive response. Maybe something had been through their territory recently that agitated them, and now they're hyper-responsive. Maybe they just don't like the cologne one of the PCs is wearing?

We don't always understand what triggers bison and moose and cape Buffalo, etc to attack...

And on top of that, there are many ways a foe could upset, scare or even just convince the dino into attacking the PCs or causing troubles.

Although the effects are slightly different if they're in the wilderness or if it's a situation where huge dangerous animals are expected to be tame or bound, like a market.

[Pauly]

Short sighted and aggressive towards anyone that gets clise - rhino.

Territorial - hippo

Aggressive towards anyone who gets close to the herd/babies - cape buffalo

Aggressive towards particular species - donkeys towards dogs (eg aggressive towards bipeds because they look similar to theropods)

Easily spooked and stampeded.

They’re not strictly herbivores and will kill and ear easy meals - chimpanzee

[Satinavian]

Of course, you might want to just want to hunt them for food, materials or prestige.

[Leon]

As part of the background, a sign that maybe not everything is safe around here if herbivorous creatures are well armoured. Some creatures are just ornery by nature and PCs to have a tendency to poke the bear (or Dire Boar...)

[KorvinStarmast]

Moose and bison are terrifyingly dangerous, too. Not necessarily aggressive, but easy to tick off.

Maybe the dino's poor eyesight causes quick movements to trigger an aggressive response. Maybe something had been through their territory recently that agitated them, and now they're hyper-responsive. Maybe they just don't like the cologne one of the PCs is wearing?

We don't always understand what triggers bison and moose and cape Buffalo, etc to attack... For the bison/buffalo, it's usually when they get their cellular bill and see the roaming charges ... :smallsmile:

[Errorname]

In the dungeon and dragons blog I'm writing (dragonencounters.com) I'm approaching the ankylosaurs dinosaur. This dinosaur is a herbivore, with no particular reason to be aggressive toward the PCs. How would you use such a creature in your games?

A rule I hear in biology is that Predators will kill you because they want to eat you and Herbivores will kill you because they can. Territorial and aggressive behaviour in large herbivores has massive amounts of precedent.

Additionally, an edge you have with any prehistoric animal that applies here is the freedom of uncertainty. There will always be massive grey areas in any animal that we can't observe alive in it's natural environment, we have no way of knowing definitively how these things behaved. So there's a lot of room to invent their behavioural patterns to suit your needs.

If you want Ankylosaurs to be aggressive and territorial because you want to have an encounter with a wild one, you can do that pretty easily, even without having it be mating season. I would say that people expect Ankylosaurs to be generally solitary (this is generally backed up by the fossil record IIRC, we don't tend to find multiple individuals in association like we do with Hadrosaurs or Ceratopsians) but if you wanted to have a small group or a mated pair I don't think your players would complain. It's also pretty common to depict Ankylosaurids as traveling with a herd of a different animal, so if you wanted to embed an Anodontosaurus or something in a herd of Pachyrhinosaurus or Edmontosaurus and have it serve as essentially the boss of a stampede sequence that'd be pretty credible.

You could also have the aggression be abnormal. I mentioned the idea of a stampede, but a trapped animal panicking in a forest fire or some sort of rabies-like disease would also be valid (there's a really memorable episode of Primal with a zombie Argentinosaurus that does the latter). A potential problem with that though is that if the animal is obviously in distress or diseased your players might feel upset about killing it, but you can also invoke that deliberately and there's definitely pros to having it be abnormal or erratic behaviour because they let you put the wild animal into a dramatic sequence rather than just having it be a random wilderness encounter.


I suppose you could have it tamed and used as a powerful mount, much the way elephants were used by some ancient nations as sort of tanks. I have one or two other ideas, but I'm curious to know if anyone has a better idea than what I came up with?

The thing about Ankylosaurs is that they seem like poor warbeasts. Ankylosaurs are short and stocky, well built to survive but poorly suited for military service, it'd be like trying to use a big crocodile as a warbeast. You could do it, but your setting probably has better options.

Like as a warleader, if you let me pick between an Ankylosaurus and a Triceratops, I'm picking the Trike. Not only do Ceratopsians seem like more social animals better suited to be trained for work and war, their weapons are on the front of the animal. Ankylosaurs have a defensive system that works well for solitary animals but would translate poorly to military use, especially compared to the natural phalanx you get from Ceratopsians.

[King of Nowhere]

A rule I hear in biology is that Predators will kill you because they want to eat you and Herbivores will kill you because they can. Territorial and aggressive behaviour in large herbivores has massive amounts of precedent.

I will expand on that:
carnivores will kill to eat, that means that they will be very risk averse. A lion may be able to kill you, but if it means taking a stab wound that may prevent it from running, it may kill him. Taking a potentially deadly risk for one meal? not worth the risk unless it's very hungry and lacking other food. Show resistance to a predator, even one much stronger than you are, you may convince it you're not worth eating. the honey badger does exactly that.
Large herbivores, on the other hand, kill to survive. they are too big and slow to run away from predators, their defence is to fight them away. And if those animals think you are a threat, they will try hard to kill you, and they won't stop. A lion may run away if lightly wounded, because for a lion running away means having to find another meal. A bison is less likely to do so, because for a herbivore too slow to run, giving up the fight means getting killed by whatever predator wounded them in the first place. Therefore, those animals are a lot more likely to fight to the death against whatever they consider a threat.
again, like the honey badger. the reason it fights lions is not because it's insane, or an unstoppable killing machine. it's because lions are faster, so it either fights, or it gets eaten. And the reason it often successfully fights away lions is not that lions can't kill a thing 20 times smaller than they are, if they really tried; it's that for lions getting bitten and scratched aplenty for a small meal is a terrible deal, staying away is the smart option.

[awa]

The thing about Ankylosaurs is that they seem like poor warbeasts. Ankylosaurs are short and stocky, well built to survive but poorly suited for military service, it'd be like trying to use a big crocodile as a warbeast. You could do it, but your setting probably has better options.

Like as a warleader, if you let me pick between an Ankylosaurus and a Triceratops, I'm picking the Trike. Not only do Ceratopsians seem like more social animals better suited to be trained for work and war, their weapons are on the front of the animal. Ankylosaurs have a defensive system that works well for solitary animals but would translate poorly to military use, especially compared to the natural phalanx you get from Ceratopsians.

A broad flat back makes it great for a small tower full of archers, or spear men. you probably wouldn't use a bunch of them together but as just something so tough its hard to remove from the field you could do worse. Remember that you build the army you can not necessarily the army you want so the fact that some dinosaur might be better does not mean that is an option in fiction or should limit you as a game designer.

[Errorname]

A broad flat back makes it great for a small tower full of archers, or spear men. you probably wouldn't use a bunch of them together but as just something so tough its hard to remove from the field you could do worse.

Eh, Elephants can carry a Howdah just fine, a broad flat back isn't necessary. The Howdah is also very much a secondary weapons system, your main damage dealer on a War Dinosaur is going to be the big dinosaur.

I'm not saying you can't do a war Anyklosaur, it's just not what I would pick. They're relatively small and short, they have to turn backwards to use their most effective weapon, and they don't seem to have been particularly smart or social animals. It's big and armoured and if I saw someone riding an armoured one into battle as their personal mount I would think it was cool, but I do think you have better options in the context of "dinosaurs to put in a fantasy army"


Remember that you build the army you can not necessarily the army you want so the fact that some dinosaur might be better does not mean that is an option in fiction or should limit you as a game designer.

Go to war with the army you have is advice for generals, not writers. We're not actually waging war, we're writing fantasy. We can actually just build the armies we want. That's good if you want to do war dinosaurs at all, because riding an armoured T. rex into battle or having a Sauropod be a moving fortress are things that sound metal as hell but also have a lot of potentially unsolvable practical problems that we as fantasy writers and designers do not have to worry about unless we want to. I personally just think that Ankylosaurs are not prime candidates for a fantasy war beast. They're cool animals make no mistake, but they would not be my first pick if I had to fill out an army with trained war dinosaurs

[awa]

Go to war with the army you have is advice for generals, not writers. We're not actually waging war, we're writing fantasy. We can actually just build the armies we want. They're cool animals make no mistake, but they would not be my first pick if I had to fill out an army with trained war dinosaurs


That's the point the fact that another dino might be more effective doesn't matter. As a writer you can say well they the character picked these because its the only option they had while you the writer picked them because they looked cool or what ever.

You dont have to fill out an army with trained war dinosaurs you are choosing to fill out an army and in that case all you need is a plausible excuse for why any given dino was chosen.

What you do with the dinos will be different and imply different things triceratops imply an aggressive charging army that smashes the opposition Ankylosaurus implies a more defensive reactionary army holding ground against the attacker.

The social nature or intelligence of the dino doesn't matter because lets be honest the odds that any of these things could be domesticated is extremely small.

[Errorname]

That's the point the fact that another dino might be more effective doesn't matter.

Maybe I'm not being clear, I think other options are more effective for the writer and designer. Ankylosaurs are relatively small and not particularly mobile dinosaurs that tend to be portrayed as solitary and territorial and whose most impressive weapon is really unwieldy in the context of a larger formation. They're not unworkable but I've sketched out a lot of Dinosaur armies and I've never felt a strong desire to include them. If I did it would probably be as the personal transport of an important commander where the main goal is something that's visually impressive that stands out from the rest of the army.


What you do with the dinos will be different and imply different things triceratops imply an aggressive charging army that smashes the opposition Ankylosaurus implies a more defensive reactionary army holding ground against the attacker.

I would disagree, I think Ceratopsians can absolutely be played as defensive and reactive (https://youtu.be/eQah4McU2ww) and Ankylosaurs can absolutely be played aggressively, both groups possessed impressive defensive and offensive adaptations. These were living things capable of defense, aggression and retreat.

I'd also say that generally, when I've seen settings which had multiple dinosaur armies and not just one faction with dinosaurs, they tend to divide species along Carnivore/Herbivore lines.


The social nature or intelligence of the dino doesn't matter because lets be honest the odds that any of these things could be domesticated is extremely small.

Humans literally have domesticated dinosaurs, and are pretty good at taming and training a bunch of the wild ones too. There is zero doubt in my mind that people could train and domesticate non-avian dinosaurs.

[LibraryOgre]

In the dungeon and dragons blog I'm writing (dragonencounters.com) I'm approaching the ankylosaurs dinosaur. This dinosaur is a herbivore, with no particular reason to be aggressive toward the PCs. How would you use such a creature in your games?
I suppose you could have it tamed and used as a powerful mount, much the way elephants were used by some ancient nations as sort of tanks. I have one or two other ideas, but I'm curious to know if anyone has a better idea than what I came up with?

Herbivores have two basic strategies towards defense.

RUN AWAY!
and
**** YOU!

Really big herbivores tend towards the second. Bison and moose are fast, but they also know that they're bigger than you, and so will often try to frighten predators off. An ankylosaurus might do the same.

Using them as pack animals is also a cool idea, of course. Or as a creature hunted by people for some reason... maybe taking part in an ankylosaurus hunt is a ritual of manhood for some tribe or another.

[Errorname]

Using them as pack animals is also a cool idea, of course.

There's a few Nodosaurine Ankylosaurs that have really prominent shoulder spikes. It's probably not necessary or even super effective from an engineering perspective, but it'd be a cool visual to use those as attachment points for a harness.


Or as a creature hunted by people for some reason... maybe taking part in an ankylosaurus hunt is a ritual of manhood for some tribe or another.

Not hard to imagine that. Probably not great meat-wise since you have to cut through so much bone, but it'd be a big impressive kill and the bones would make for pretty killer trophies, maybe even useful materials for a pre-metal working culture.

[awa]

Ankylosaurs are relatively small


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankylosaurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triceratops
5 to 8 tons compared to triceratops 5 to 9 tons is not that big a difference




Humans literally have domesticated dinosaurs, and are pretty good at taming and training a bunch of the wild ones too. There is zero doubt in my mind that people could train and domesticate non-avian dinosaurs.
Citation needed
unless your just talking about birds but in that case its just a non sequitur as a chicken has very little in common with a triceratops.

The short answer is I disagree with your opinion

[Errorname]

5 to 8 tons compared to triceratops 5 to 9 tons is not that big a difference

There's a pretty significant difference in height that isn't reflected if you just look at the weight, but also size was one of many things I brought up as a point against it generally. There are much smaller dinosaurs that I think are much more viable as fantasy domestic animals.


Citation needed unless your just talking about birds but in that case its just a non sequitur as a chicken has very little in common with a triceratops.

I mean, it's not. Birds are the only living dinosaurs, and we're pretty good at training those. You could also make the comparison to Crocodilians, which aren't dinosaurs but are their closest living relative, and they're also surprisingly trainable.

Large dinosaurs would probably be very difficult to train, but it would be for the same reason that large mammals that fill similar ecological niches are difficult to the train, they're big and powerful animals that can easily kill you if you mess up, but I don't think it would be impossible, just very dangerous.

[lightningcat]

While using them as straight warbeasts doesn't make a lot of sense, as their primary weapon is behind them. I think that ankylosaurus might make a decent pack animal (much theorising here), but they look like they would have a fairly slow maximum speed (although it is noted that they might be able to put in bursts of speed), but a solid constant speed - which is good for a pack animal. And they are already big enough that another ton or 2 of cargo would not affect them badly - as that is around 20% of their body mass. Plus as their main weapon is their tail, it seems that their instinct in a fight would be to stop, instead of running away - which would make stampeding them harder. Of course you might really want to tie stuff down solid, as those bursts of speed were likely for spinning - got to maximize that tail damage.

[Alexander Atoz]

Sorry for not responding back to this thread earlier. (My computer was giving me trouble entering the forum.)


Yeah, territory is a big one. Also smell. If the party has been in a couple of fights and didn't think of cleaning up, then they're walking around smelling of blood and guts, which is carnivore smell. Sense carnivore -> fight carnivore.

I loved this idea. The idea of territory, and the idea of nesting mothers, I actually thought of myself (and I still want to thank the people who suggested it. Confirmation is very useful.) but this took me by surprise, and makes a lot of sense.

Regarding war tactics: 1) I tend to feel that in D&D world, any creature should be domesticable unless there is very strong reasons to say otherwise. We don't have the benefit of Suggestion, Detect Thoughts, and probably multiple other spells that would make connecting to the creature vastly easier. In this specific case, the creature is a beast, which means that druids and maybe rangers should find it easier to connect with.
2) In our world, the fact that it's so strong that it can break through formations (tightly packed soldiers) would make it as useful, if not more so, than the triceratops. That said, I doubt formations exist in D&D world, as they would be suicidal in a place where wizards can cast Fireball (among many other spells.) I don't think anybody really has the capability to figure out what civilizations would look like in D&D world.

Thanks for all the replies, and I wish I could respond to all of them.

[Catullus64]

It's a niche situation, but so far nobody's mentioned 'Trying to eat the Wild Magic Sorcerer who has turned himself into a potted plant.'

[Jophiel]

I mean, it's not. Birds are the only living dinosaurs, and we're pretty good at training those. You could also make the comparison to Crocodilians, which aren't dinosaurs but are their closest living relative, and they're also surprisingly trainable.
Dinosaurs are a big group and modern birds derived from ancient theropods, but ornithischian critters like ankylosaurs & triceratops are about as far apart from that branch as they can be and still have "They're both dinosaurs" be true.

What we have left of crocodilians diverged even earlier and only a tiny splinter of closely related semi-aquatic carnivores remain. I wouldn't use that as a basis for behavior in a far removed animal that filled a completely different niche. "Surprisingly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement -- American alligators are fairly docile and there's individual stories of someone owning a crocodile but it's a long road between "Lets me put meat on its snout for the tourists" and "Acts as an effective beast of burden or war animal"

[King of Nowhere]

2) I don't think anybody really has the capability to figure out what civilizations would look like in D&D world.


well, this would depend a lot on the specific setting. what kind of magic exhist, what doesn't exhist, how widespread it is, how many monsters are around... so there can be very different answers for very different tables.

so yes, you can do pretty much anything if you can justify it reasonably enough

[Errorname]

I tend to feel that in D&D world, any creature should be domesticable unless there is very strong reasons to say otherwise. We don't have the benefit of Suggestion, Detect Thoughts, and probably multiple other spells that would make connecting to the creature vastly easier. In this specific case, the creature is a beast, which means that druids and maybe rangers should find it easier to connect with.

I would agree with this. Magic changes the calculus. I'm used to thinking about this sort of question in the context of a lower fantasy setting where war animals are reliant on real animal husbandry and real logistical constraints, where you can't speak with animals and you can't summon food on the march.


In our world, the fact that it's so strong that it can break through formations (tightly packed soldiers) would make it as useful, if not more so, than the triceratops.

The tail is definitely a more powerful weapon than most other animals of that size would possess, but the difficulty of getting it into position means that I think it would be of limited usefulness against formations. It's big and fancy and intimidating, but I think you could get better results from other things.


That said, I doubt formations exist in D&D world, as they would be suicidal in a place where wizards can cast Fireball (among many other spells.) I don't think anybody really has the capability to figure out what civilizations would look like in D&D world.

D&D tactics on mass scale is an interesting puzzle that I'm not really equipped to solve. I would say that my instinct is that you build formations around casters who can buff and counterspell.


Dinosaurs are a big group and modern birds derived from ancient theropods, but ornithischian critters like ankylosaurs & triceratops are about as far apart from that branch as they can be and still have "They're both dinosaurs" be true.

Yeah, it's a major source of frustration that the closest relatives on both sides of the tree are so distant. It's the best we have but it's still far from ideal.


"Surprisingly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement -- American alligators are fairly docile and there's individual stories of someone owning a crocodile but it's a long road between "Lets me put meat on its snout for the tourists" and "Acts as an effective beast of burden or war animal"

Nobody has ever said "hey this ambush predator with tiny legs would be really effective as a beast of burden or war animal". It's not like we tried and failed to harness a crocodile for war and labour, it's just not an animal built to do the things humans value in domestic animals.

[JusticeZero]

This dinosaur is a herbivore, with no particular reason to be aggressive toward the PCs. How would you use such a creature in your games?

The most dangerous animals in the wild are herbivores. Carnivores carefully size up every fight and avoid tangling with anything that's going to be difficult; they can't afford to be disabled by a bad fight. Herbivores on the other hand are territorial, will absolutely go off if you're anywhere even remotely close to a child, and care about status and for them, scars are cool. What's the worst that can happen? They're huge and if they end up with a limp, it's not like the grass is going to outrun them.
I live in Alaska. We're concerned about bears, yes, but are terrified of moose — a herbivore slightly smaller than an elephant. They will pop out of nowhere because you disturbed them accidentally and stomp you flat.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's a niche situation, but so far nobody's mentioned 'Trying to eat the Wild Magic Sorcerer who has turned himself into a potted plant.' Brilliant. That's a great idea.