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Taurus

By Taurus
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zy

zy

Posted
Posted
But that's the thing; in no pen and paper RPG that I've played have I *ever* had to fight hordes of rats. The odd goblin, carrion crawler etc. but *never* rats. Which is why I can't understand the reasons for it becoming such a well-worn trope of videogame RPG design.

Given that most rulesets were intended to be used with figurines and floorplans, rats would be too small to represent individually in lead (unless you made them as big as dogs) and a horde of them would be a nightmare to DM. Thinking back on the old collection, from Ral Partha and Asgard through to Citadel Miniatures and GW, I can't remember a single rat. Rat-men, yes, but not rats. So even though there is a "Giant (Sumatran) Rat" in the AD&D Monster Manual, I can't imagine it seeing much action.

Get to computer games and size/number isn't such a problem, so they can make their introduction. (It's pretty easy to animate rat feet, if you bother to animate them at all).

The other reason for introducing them is to pad out the lower levels of fodder, and I really hate this about RPG convention. The designers seem to want to save all of their best creatures until last, even if it means the player spends their first sessions fighting rubbish ones. You *know* you're going to be hitting bluebottles for hours before getting so much as a whiff of dragon guano. Why not kick off with some fantastic enemies, instead of household vermin? They've even made snakes boring.

Also, there's a geographical spin to this. Look at Japanese bestiaries and you get mushrooms, jellyfish, squid, giant crabs. What do we get in Europe? Rats and wasps.

Like Heidi, I can't believe I'm writing this.

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Lovelyman

Lovelyman

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Given that most rulesets were intended to be used with figurines and floorplans, rats would be too small to represent individually in lead (unless you made them as big as dogs) and a horde of them would be a nightmare to DM. Thinking back on the old collection, from Ral Partha and Asgard through to Citadel Miniatures and GW, I can't remember a single rat. Rat-men, yes, but not rats. So even though there is a "Giant (Sumatran) Rat" in the AD&D Monster Manual, I can't imagine it seeing much action.

Get to computer games and size/number isn't such a problem, so they can make their introduction. (It's pretty easy to animate rat feet, if you bother to animate them at all).

The other reason for introducing them is to pad out the lower levels of fodder, and I really hate this about RPG convention. The designers seem to want to save all of their best creatures until last, even if it means the player spends their first sessions fighting rubbish ones. You *know* you're going to be hitting bluebottles for hours before getting so much as a whiff of dragon guano. Why not kick off with some fantastic enemies, instead of household vermin? They've even made snakes boring.

Also, there's a geographical spin to this. Look at Japanese bestiaries and you get mushrooms, jellyfish, squid, giant crabs. What do we get in Europe? Rats and wasps.

Like Heidi, I can't believe I'm writing this.

Mushrooms aren't beasts, dude!

:(

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Disgraced Toblerone

Disgraced Toblerone

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Given that most rulesets were intended to be used with figurines and floorplans,

No no Noooooo.

D&D, yes. But I played countless hours, nights and week-end on pen and paper RPG, and I never, ever used figurines and floorplans. Well, I bought figurines, but that was a way to pass the time while outside because I missed the climax of the script.

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zuum

zuum

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Rats are a pretty handy catch-all creature because you can plonk them literally everywhere. More interesting creatures need some kind of infrastructure to support them (caves etc) and given that a lot of RPGs start in some kind of secure human settlement you can't have fantastical creatures kicking around as then it would look stupid if the NPCs wandered around without paying them too much attention.

I'm sure I used to plonk in a few rats for starters whenever I used to DM. Not little rats mind: big, big bastards.

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zy

zy

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No no Noooooo.

D&D, yes. But I played countless hours, nights and week-end on pen and paper RPG, and I never, ever used figurines and floorplans. Well, I bought figurines, but that was a way to pass the time while outside because I missed the climax of the script.

Rulesets for resolving combat, obviously. If it was the kind of game that involved a big group skirmish with rules then we'd often like to map it out. That doesn't mean we wouldn't, at other times, spend hours actually roleplaying, just talking, without a single prop or die. Depending on the game.

Maybe just a little over-sensitive in your defence of the hobby? I think your Nooooo is misplaced :lol:

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Mayfair Rick

Mayfair Rick

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Might I just put forward the notion that D&D was IN NO WAY designed to be played with boards and miniatures? Thank you.

Now that is oversensitive in defense of a hobby which I don't even partake in these days. Rats (as it were).

Anyway, Taurus, have you ever tried to kick a rat to death in real life while it scurries around your feet? I can't imagine it being enormously easy. Although I can't imagine it actually suceeding in killing you, come to that.

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Hackign

Hackign

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Posted
Rats are scary. So they make good bad-guys. At the end of the day, a Yorkshire Terrier could probably hold his own against a rat but to fight one of them in an RPG would just be fucked up.

I remember watching an episode of Ducktales where Scrooge and Co were shrunk and in the sewers. Evil rats with red eyes attacked. Thast's scary for a 7 year old.

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Alan Stock

Alan Stock

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I suspect that the rats you face in RPGs are in fact Ninja Rats, able to leap at your face with ease, biting at your eyes and putting you off with their slightly bedraggled appearance. Otherwise it would just be a case of "stop knawing my fucking shoelace, cheeky bitch *stomp*", wouldn't it?

What about Secret of Mana and its rabid rabbits? In the world of RPGs it seems designers try to cleverly manipulate the human pshyche by turning harmless things from the real world into menaces in RPGs, instilling a subconcious horror and subsequent immersion into the player. That, or they're just shitters with no imagination.

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Unofficial Who

Unofficial Who

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The other reason for introducing them is to pad out the lower levels of fodder, and I really hate this about RPG convention. The designers seem to want to save all of their best creatures until last, even if it means the player spends their first sessions fighting rubbish ones. You *know* you're going to be hitting bluebottles for hours before getting so much as a whiff of dragon guano. Why not kick off with some fantastic enemies, instead of household vermin? They've even made snakes boring.

Also, there's a geographical spin to this. Look at Japanese bestiaries and you get mushrooms, jellyfish, squid, giant crabs. What do we get in Europe? Rats and wasps.

Like Heidi, I can't believe I'm writing this.

You make no sense. All the great heros start out by pummelling hamsters and jellyfish. That's why we have no great heros today. The RSPCA would have them arrested before they made two levels.

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