Now, when discussing non-sapient races (centaurs, pic related, dragons, etc) one thing I haven't really seen addressed too often is nutrition and fitness. So, /tg/, how does your race stay /fit/ and what does a "good diet" consist of?
Sorry, I thought "sapient" meant bipedal for some reason.
>>47317495
Astro-oats and multi-squats.
Duh
>>47317495
Centaurs might be omnivores or herbivores.
Dragons are carnivores.
>>47317495
I know lamia would have a diet of small game animals or something, but... maybe a really big treadmill?
>>47317679
>Dragons are carnivores
except when they're magic and they live off of background mana or can polymorph into something else and eat then
hell, some use souls for internal fusion
>>47317679
I think in that Centaur no (something)/Centaur's Worries manga they cover how Centaurs are omnivores and need to stretch a lot
>>47317526
Since most magical beings would be fucked if their biology had to make sense and exist in reality, they would need radical redesigns in order to function, magical beings should not be required to have a functioning metabolism.
They don't need to breath except for magical/symbolic acts.
They don't need to eat either, and are fueled by latent magical energy that is everywhere except where it isn't. Some have internal magical energy sources.
>>47317893
Like this.
>>47317526
I was wondering what you meant for a moment.
The alien you posted isn't actually that far fetched and could be possible without being magical.
>>47318404
Alright, but what would those radical redesigns be?
>>47318790
Well, if you wanted a dragon that can fly and breath fire, it would probably not look like a traditional dragon at all.
Like, bird wings couldn't possible lift a pegasus off the ground unless the pegesi's wings were enormous and featured hollow bones, which would make it also useless as a horse.
Same with a centaur. The spine doesn't work and the human half can't breath deep enough to support two sets of lungs. The centaurs would at least need air vents to do the breathing for the lower half. And reproduction is a mess for them too.
Instead of the traditional half-human half-horse hybrid, a functional centaur would resemble neither.
>>47318996
And a lamia?
>>47317495
As they grow larger, dragons require more and more food until such time as they reach adulthood and become able to sustain themselves on their attuned element alone. After reaching a certain age, they don't even need THAT.
They never lose their taste buds, though, so a good chef can still win their hearts through their stomachs.
FUNFAX: Methanol poisoning being as ridiculous as it is is only a thing for Primates.
The party was at some dinner party on a primitive alien world, and we were about 15 minutes into the meal when one of the party was like "Wait on a second should probably check whether any of this is toxic for us". The alcoholic drinks they were serving turned out to be about 15% methanol.
I, one of two non-humans in the party, was like "Ok good" while everyone else freaked out trying to get reprogram their nanite uplinks to get rid of methanol intermediates inside the 30 minute or so window before it converted to formic acid and killed them.
The other alien in our party can live nearly indefinitely on a diet of fat and salt, which is neat I guess.
>>47317679
Considering the mass of a horse body and the huge amount of energy a human-like brain requires to develop and function, I think centaurs would need to eat an insane amount of vegetables to sustain themselves as herbivores alone; omnivore is far more plausible than herbivore or carnivore alone. That's how I picture centaurs in my settings,anyways.
So,animal-humanoid hybrids should have a diet based on their animal or their human part? Discuss. I think a mix of both or a diet based on the nutritive needs of their bestial half are the answer to that.
>>47321246
And also pic related
>>47321990
Now I dont know shit about brains but couldnt it being more compact n folded solve this problem?
>>47322364
>it being more compact n folded solve this problem
assuming neuron/brain density is the same among mammals, no
>>47322499
There you have your answer; because [insert setting explanation here], centaurs have a higher neuron density,allowing them to fully control their abnormally huge bodies in relation to their tiny human head.
If you are actually using mythological creatures, like centaurs, dragons, fairies in their original mythological form, but at the same time you are running speculative fiction about how their diet and metabolism works, you are doing your fiction building entirely fucking wrong.
Either set up a true fantasy based in mythological "logic" - that is symbolism/aesthetic principle overrides biological and scientific reasoning, then have your pegasi ignoring the fact that their muscle distribution could never sustain their flight and your centaurs being and your centaurs being herbivores despite the fact that no herbivore could ever develop or sustain human like brain development on herbivore diet and stop fucking speculating.
Or do the speculative fiction approach, but in that case thing of the dietology or evolutionary perspective FIRST, THEN invent creatures in your world - based on the core scientific or pseudoscientific speculation.
But don't fucking mix both. There is a reason why centaurus or dragon look the way they do, but it's incompatible with modern scientific reasoning: it's symbolic.
Mixing the two attitudes is fucking dumb and never leads to good fiction. It just shows that you don't understand the appeal of the original mythological material and mindset, or that your insistence on things being "logically explained" will just highlight how your fiction has glaring "logical" holes in it.
Shit like this >>47322632 makes for incredibly poor fiction. If you need to explain neuronal density of your very conventional greek fucking centaurs, you just fucked up the science and the fantasy in your world and proved that you don't understand either, but inexplicably try to enforce both.
>>47317495
I've always assumed centaurs have to eat way more than their human counterparts, because Horse bodies are lots of energy sinks.
Gorgons/Medusae in my setting are Sillicate based anyway, so the stone gaze gets them dinner. Also acid spit.
>>47317495
>Oaten cakes, apples, herbs, wine, and cheese formed the staple of a Centaur's diet. Centaurs had two stomachs, one of a horse and one of a man, so they had to fill both of these stomachs, making inviting a Centaur over for the week-end a serious thing. Their breakfast might include porridge, pavendors, kidneys, bacon, an omelette, cold ham, toast, marmalade, coffee and beer. They then graze for an hour before eating hot mash, some oats and a bag of sugar.
>>47322748
>grazing with a human head
>grazing with human teeth
>>47322674
Well,that argument depends on the author of the setting using the "mythological logic" of the creatures. If the explanation is magic,then you can twist what logic and biology tell up to some point; for example, if centaurs where a magically engineered race, their creator would have solve the problem of neuronal density/body control.
So your logic is, if hypothetically facing a mechanical question about how can a fantastical being possibly work in a scientifically functional way, your answer is "fuck it,it's symbolic"?
Fuck, giants are giants because the appeal of an enormous human being has fascinated humanity since millenia ago, but their physics would be ridiculous. One of the first Dragon mag issues aborded the topic applying physics, but without fucking up the fantasy element.
>>47322674
well, if you're doing any biological explaining in your mystical setting you're probably failing already
that said, you could just say their brain is structured differently
frontal lobe controls voluntary movement
theirs, in comparison to a normal humans, is larger
because their heads are the same size another part of the brain should be smaller. i want to say the parietal lobe. they have an issue with item association and numbers?
you could just make your centaurs different and not make it an issue
>>47322914
>If the explanation is magic,then you can twist what logic and biology tell up to some point; for example, if centaurs where a magically engineered race, their creator would have solve the problem of neuronal density/body control.
Then you are already A) creating far more questions than answering, and B) taking any sense of mystery out of your magic. It conclusion it's a very lazy way to bridge discrepancy between two concepts that should never fucking had been existing in the first place. Neuronal density should not be an issue in a world where centaurs exist or where magic is a thing. There are very, VERY few fictions that can get away with it - such as Shadowrun, but let's be honest, Shadowrun is not a very good setting, it's just a mess that people enjoy because of it's stupidity - the stupid fiction makes it fun to play around.
But most people do not have the gift for exploiting these kinds of "gray areas" in fiction building. Yet from what I've seen here, majority of them constantly get trapped in this kind of bullshit.
Have magic, but then don't count and speculate about neuronal density. Why? Your world isn't a scientific speculation - you have fucking magic in it. Just play the strenght of fantasy: play with the archetypes, play with the symbolism, the intuition, the mystery. Scientific explanation is not the only intuitive way to understand world, in fact it's not intuitive at all - embrace that if you are doing classical fantasy.
If there is a dragon eats a princes each year, don't fucking ask if the calorine intake from that one princes can sustain the energy output necessary to fly and spew fire:
Tell a fucking tale of chaos and evil threatening social order, a tale of bravery and reward for facing the chaos and being rewarded with what you desired.
Don't take creatures from symbolic tales and retroactive try to justify them naturalistically. Every explanation you will come up with will feel like a needless asspull.
>>47322997
>that said, you could just say their brain is structured differently
Why would you bother doing that though? That is the point. You are fucking by explaining this shit to begin with.
>>47322997
The fuck is wrong with that girl's ankles/wrists?
>>47323102
i guess you missed the whole line right above saying exactly that
>>47323076
But what if I enjoy doing that kind of stuff?
>>47323166
No, I did not miss it. I found it curious that despite admitting that it's a bad idea, you immediately went and did just that.
I honestly kinda think that it's irresistability of doing it, even when you realize it does not add to the fiction that kinda is the problem.
I actually think there is some form of perverse appeal in it, maybe just the act of excercise of speculation and the option to apply some knowledge that you generally don't get to throw around, or maybe the joy of creating organized structures, I don't know: but it does seem incredibly addictive and appeal to do this kind of shit.
My point is that no matter how good it feels to speculate about this shit, and the perverse joy of endless stupid nerdy debates (isn't this the core of the appeal of "who would win" style argumets too?), makes for bad fiction. It really, really does. It's a bad habit. I think ESPECIALLY if you want to be a decent storyteller, but in general I think it's a bad habit, even for people who just recieve fiction and don't create it.
If you can't actively shut this need out, you'll quickly find yourself actually not enjoying a lot of things nearly as much as they could be enjoyed.
>>47323221
>But what if I enjoy doing that kind of stuff?
See above. I have good reasons to think it's really a bad habit, like picking your nose or constant complaining: it's gratifying, but in many ways actually kinda unhealthy.
I yeah, before you say it: don't doubt for a second you consider me a crazy person or an autist by for making that claim.
>>47323076
>Then you are already A) creating far more questions than answering, and B) taking any sense of mystery out of your magic.
Ok,I agree with point B, since using magic is already a resource so not having to apply logic to everything in the setting, but if people ask questions about how an element works there are only two possible answers; fuck it,it's magic, or it's a mistery no one will ever figure out. That can (and in most cases will) work with any fantastic element in any setting, but if the narrative depends on how a certain item works (following the example; a scholar is conducting a research on centaurs and their biology), people (players) will have to find a convincing answer to it. If the final answer sounds too much like an asspull, all the atractive of the narration is meaningless since the beginning, because no fucking body will buy it.
What I want to say is, if the existence and perception of a fictional creature depends on its symbolism in a fantasy setting where anything can be explored by the players, then you're doing it wrong. That can only work with beings with a comparably supernatural status respect the "normal" creatures of that world. You could apply that to gods, angels and such, but not to flesh and bone creatures.
>>47323290
Be that as it may, nothing is keeping you from staying in this thread
>>47323290
>>47323354
*not staying
>>47323342
>there are only two possible answers; fuck it,it's magic, or it's a mistery no one will ever figure out.
Actually, there is a third one. Symbolic, or associative. Dragons can spew fire not because "fuck it, it's magic" or "it's a mystery": it actually spews fire because dragons generally (at least in western tradition) are an embodiment of chaos and challenge, and chaos has a tendency to spread and destroy order: what is better representation of destruction of order and organization than fire, which can consume a city in a matter of hours, turning order of urbanism and social systems into chaos of embers and ash. It's actually a completely intuitive association (further supported by the visual association of the flickering snake tongue and a flickering flame, I think) that involves neither mystery, nor magic. And this is entirely functional about flash-and-bone creatures: because this kind of mythological narrative does not actually adhere to the "Cartesian" dichotomy of flash and bones vs. magic and spirit. That is actually a very false dichotomy you don't want to establish to begin with.
Of course, the real problem with this explanation is establishment of consensus between the narrator (GM, storyteller or writer) and the audience/players about what kind of story are we telling here. First of all you have to be a good observer and pick up elements that are actually intuitively (or traditionally) understandable in this way (best by borrowing them from stories that were shaped by thousands of years of intuition, like traditional myths).
Second of all, you do need to consistent in your storytelling.
And third of all, sometimes you have talk about this thing in the meta part of your game. You of course need cooperation of your players, which sometimes is your of your actual power to achieve.
>>47323354
Obviously, as I have already stated it and no heavenly power struck me down in the process - but the thing is, what I'm saying now is not just some misguided autistic "don't do what I don't like" sort of rave (although I do know it may come across as such, and I'm also aware that I'm doing a poor job of preventing it).
I have actual reasons to believe that what I'm saying is not about my personal preferences, and it's actually derived from some pretty powerful and meaningful theories about narrative and cognition: it's definitely not something I could come up with myself, though I may be the first one actually trying to apply it to traditional gaming type of narrative.
When I claim that this kind of approach to fiction - fantasy and mythology grounded fiction in particular - is not healthy, that it's a "bad habit", I actually mean it in the sense that I do believe it is in a way (probably in a very small, insignificant way, but still...) harmful to people.
>>47323597
Symbolic explanation works perfectly fine with myths and legends, since the correlation between the symbol and what is meant to represent can be explatined fairly easily (the dragon and their fire breath is a perfect example,thank you), but that won't work inside the narrative of a RPG,unless inside said narrative its exposed as an ancient myth or legend. A dwarven warrior is not going to stand right in front of barrage of dragon fire directed at him; to that character,inside his world and reality, dragon fire is far from symbolic. It's too real.
And yes, of course the consensus is vital.In the end, RPG is playing "pretending with rules", applying the concept of suspension of disbelief. You can add as much fantasy as you want, but in the moment your storytelling goes to far with the fantasy component, every magic and fascination woven within the story goes down the drain. Especially if you have a bunch of picky motherfuckers as players, which every RPG player I've ever met turns into sooner or later, even if further down the road they relax and go back to the "it's fantasy, the GM doesn't have to explain everything" mentality. If your party is going to ask questions, you must be ready to answer. Otherwise, the experience will become unpleasant for everybody, and fast.
And that's something that even all the meta-gaming chatting in the world can repair.
>>47317495
in addition to >>47317585, I would think the weird people in OP's pic do some sort of weird deadlifting and training for running 5k's or whatever.
Shit, imagine those fuckers trying to sprint. It'd be the weirdest thing ever.
>>47323804
>And that's something that even all the meta-gaming chatting in the world can't repair.
Damn this clumsy fingers.
>>47323804
>unless inside said narrative its exposed as an ancient myth or legend.
Or unless you are a really good storyteller with a solid intuition about these kinds of things. I should remind you that Tolkien's dwarves and elves have very little to do with the original scandinavian mythologies he borrowed them from, yet they became so insanely popular exactly because the guy had exceptional talent to recognize images and concepts that can be understood and related to this way.
But 99% of fantasy is a pastiche (fuck, I'm not trying to be pretentious, I genuinely can't think of another word for this) of images borrowed from myths or good fiction. Popularity of Lovecraft and his horrors can be attributed to the same effect.
>to that character,inside his world and reality, dragon fire is far from symbolic.
Is it though? First of all, it's usually a product of ruleset ("dragon's breath deals 3d6 + constitution"), you don't really think what happens to the epidermis and the internal organs in the process. A dwarven fighter with sufficent hit points survives dragon fire on the virtue of his health alone, which itself is a symbolic deconstruction of reality. You don't explain that with sufficient health, his skin cells begin to incorporate arsenic into them for high-temperature protection.
I actually think it's MORE natural to think about concepts in games or highly stylized fiction (like anime) as symbolic than real. A high level dwarven fighter survives a dragon breath because he is a legendary hero of many epic tales.
Nobody asks why Goku can fly or how can soft body tissue and bones survive a blow that literally shatters massive blocks of marble on a physical basis. The story is already symbolic to begin with.
I actually really thing the problem of "how" question arises purely when people start examining the world building, not in the process of play. And world-building alone is the same process in good fiction (like Tolkien) or in a tabletop environment.
>>47323804
>If your party is going to ask questions, you must be ready to answer.
My answer to this is usually: "play your damn character and ask questions your character could ask. Unless your character has somehow gained - in the world where concepts of scientific logic aren't present - access to comprehension of problems of physical laws and biochemistry, then you are asking questions that don't belong to this table."
Usually though, I don't come across people asking these questions to begin with.
Although: this is not entirely fair of me to say, because honestly, I haven't been running a mythology based fantasy in a good while. I actually started playing around with the opposite idea, the actually full-on speculative kind of fantasy.
That meant sacrificing almost all mythological and fantastic imagery. No elves, dragons, fairies, dwarves. I do have "giants", but they essentially people with hereditary form of giantism and don't grow above what people suffering that disorder grow - they also suffer very similar health issues.
The world I've been running for the past year or so is actually based quite heavily on the "everything must be explainable by at least plausibly sounding technobable, pseudo-physics or pseudo-biology and must be internally consistent. Needless to say, no "magic" in the conventional sense.
I'm just trying to explore the polar opposite of the traditional mythological fantasy. It's actually probably much more akin to sci-fi, even though the setup is very low tech. And it does come with tremendeous amounts of creative restrictions and planning.
>>47324042
>A dwarven fighter with sufficent hit points survives dragon fire on the virtue of his health alone, which itself is a symbolic deconstruction of reality.
That's narrative RPG,where there are no maths and all that matters is interpretation. And it's also an interesting activity made insuferable by anime desu newfags,the kind that plague the roleplaying forums.
Also yes,a high level is A HIGH LEVEL character, something akin to semi-divine heroes like Sigurd and his invulnerability,obtained from the dragon's blood, Heracles (who was a demigod to begin with, and got things similar to high level magical items, like the Nemean Lion's hide). A level 3 or 4 character is basically a veteran, who depending on your setting may or may not have a low level magical item, and a if he gets engulfed by the fantastical equivalent of a flamethrower rafague,that character is pretty much gone. The symbology here is just background; if you're playing in a fantastical setting asuming everything is symbolical rather than concrete and real, then your character is not going to enjoy a long life.
>>47324190
Of course, whatever information you give as a repply to a character's question must be in level with what that character knows; if you give a detailed depiction of how the flame throwing organs of a dragon (if there's such thing in your setting) work to a character who doesn't even have a single point in the characteristic that would give him access to even the smallest piece of information about dragons, then you're doing it quite wrong.
I've been running high fantasy campaigns for some years now, and believe me, eventually people ask questions about the mechanics of fantasy.
>>47322807
Who said they had human teeth?
>>47324388
>That's narrative RPG,where there are no maths and all that matters is interpretation.
Is it? Because I think it's equally consistent with rule-heavy play. Saying "I survive that because the rulebook says my health was higher than the dice-rolled damage" is not narrative play. Narrative play avoids this by the storyteller simply coming up with a narrative explanation, rule-heavy play say "you survived because you are sufficiently high level and have the appropriate build." And in most systems, the rules and builds are specifically designed to mechanically represent the kind of heroic mythological tales we are talking about. They enable logically and scientifically impossible feats by ditching the causality in favor or symbolic rule set tailored to heroic stories. Of course not all rulesets work the way, but the most popular ones (like Dn'D) do. And I think that is where their mainstream popularity derives from.
>A HIGH LEVEL character, something akin to semi-divine heroes like Sigurd and his invulnerability
But in Dn'D, you don't obtain high level by drinking the dragon's blood: you obtain it by simply being a part of the story long enough, being "important enough".
>if he gets engulfed by the fantastical equivalent of a flamethrower rafague
True, but then again you don't set level 4 character against level 45 dragon or whatever. And the explanation that level 4 character died to dragons breath because he was nobody (while a high level hero survived because he is a legendary hero) is actually entirely viable. In fact intuitive. More than explanation that high level character has arsenic in his skin that helps him resist high temperatures, don't you think?
>a single point in the characteristic
You don't have to have a characteristic that represents capacity to understand dragons in modern, real-world-esque scientific fashion to begin with. Such characteristic should exist.
>>47324444
Always look a gift-centaur in the mouth.and assIn case of concealed, possibly halfling, assassins with far too many ranks in escape artist
We never really answered OP's question did we
