Animals in RPGs Before designing creatures for use in roleplaying games it is useful to consider the role they will play. In RPGs I run, animals tend to appear in one of four broad roles: animals the characters may trap or hunt in survival situations, domestic animals which characters or NPCs make use of, annoying animals that may appear on Fortune Tables, or dangerous animals which directly threaten the PCs. It is important to note that animals may appear in multiple categories - deer are a classic example of an animal that players may hunt but in large numbers may represent a threat to a party. Hunting Tables This is a useful place to list animals which can provide flavour during travel scenes without stopping the flow of the game. Typically hunted animals should be relatively small - most mice, squirrels, or birds are plentiful in forests and too small to threaten even a non-heroic individual. On Taarsh especially large and non-venomous ‘spiders’, ‘centipedes’ or ‘slugs’ may fulfill...
