Talking to non intelligent animals in fantasy games

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:36 am

There's many ways to talk to ordinary animals in DnD, but no guidelines that I've seen as to how they talk back. My guess would be, like this.

How have you guys typically had animals talk in games you ran? How did MCs in games you played in handle communication with animals?

crasskris · Post by **crasskris** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:17 pm

When I run a game, I usually let the animals only communicate basic emotions and/or recreate actual memories of sensory input.

The PC can provide real or imagined memories and/or feelings, and the animal can either react with an emotion or a memory that it is reminded of by the input.

Only the smarter ones get (simple) abilities of abstraction or imagination.

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 3:27 pm

I've always liked to portray animals as being dominated by a hardcoded instruction set of instincts, with their mind being more of a swap file than a decision making centre. It doesn't matter what thoughts you put into the mind of a wolf; it's going to go back to being a wolf a moment later anyway. When prevented from reverting to instinct in this manner they get extremely stressed and exhibit pathological reactions.

It's interesting to see how protective people get of their animal allies when they're confronted by the animal being miserable and emotionally exhausted by the sheer effort of overriding its own instincts.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 3:34 pm

I tend to be pretty generous, on the grounds that these effects are intended to be actual useful divinations and not trolling exercises. So the magic allows you to speak with the animal as if they had reasonable intelligence, memory, vocabulary, attention span, and so on. I like to imply the nonhuman viewpoint through unusual turns of phrase, for which my go to is The Jungle Book. A wolf might refer to fire as 'the red flower,' but if asked to clarify would say 'y'know, fire.'

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:50 pm

telepathy using very basic words or images.

have a rat follow someone then the rat can report back what it saw by jsut you seeing the place the person went into.

want to ask about the forest and get images of what you are asking about and maybe a simple word or two. "water, left" means there is a water source to the left of where you are.

it just happens so the information is conveyed, not like V talking to her raven. mostly it happens offscreen and the DM just gives the information dump from the animal to the player.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:29 pm

Well in reality, my cat is pretty good at communicating all of the following to me:

Hungry
Tired
Want to play
Want out / want in
Leave me alone, human
Over there, need to kill it.
Scared
In pain

And mediocre at best at communicating most other things (curious, need scratched, help me dry off). But hey, I'm just a cat owner, not any sort of trainer, animal handler or veterinarian, nor have I trained my cat to do anything beyond know that the bell means dinner. Thus I could readily accept that in reality a cat professional could understand deeper communications from a cat and/or train a cat to communicate with greater nuance.

So I would assume that in the context of magical (or super-skilled) communication in a fantasy game, the communication is at least approximate to chimp sign language level of expressiveness, if not outright human.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:31 pm

If a talking-to-animals ability isn't a valid way to get information, it shouldn't be an ability that costs character resources.

If it is a valid way to get information, the magic (/whatever) should include suitable translation to make that possible.

Having a character take, prepare, and cast speak with animals and get rapid-fire, non-temporally-aware spam of instincts and smells that the player is supposed to decode (if, indeed, there's anything there at all) is kinda like responding to tongues with a stream of idioms and cultural references. Sure, it's 'realistic' and 'defensible', but....

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:23 pm

crasskris: So, they're usually best for 'what did you see/smell/taste/feel (could be useful for magical auras)'? That sounds usable.

Laertes wrote:I've always liked to portray animals as being dominated by a hardcoded instruction set of instincts, with their mind being more of a swap file than a decision making centre. It doesn't matter what thoughts you put into the mind of a wolf; it's going to go back to being a wolf a moment later anyway. When prevented from reverting to instinct in this manner they get extremely stressed and exhibit pathological reactions.

It's interesting to see how protective people get of their animal allies when they're confronted by the animal being miserable and emotionally exhausted by the sheer effort of overriding its own instincts.

Yeah, I feel sorry for my dog when I tell it to sit still and not jump on people and I can see it struggling to obey.

angelfromanotherpin and momothefiddler: I'll make sure they provide useful information even if they talk in unusual ways.

shadzar: That kind of makes sense as I think animals might actually 'think' in terms of stimuli. However the caster shouldn't be able to get the 'exact' stimulus the animal experienced (that would be the domain of telepathy), but should still be able to recognize it if seen later (kind of like the way in which we can recognize faces despite not having an exact representation of them in our minds). But, I kinda like the 'feel' of actually talking to an animal.

Josh_Kablack: Pithy, but informative phrases sounds like a good way of handling it.

Thanks guys

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:37 pm

momothefiddler wrote:... like responding to tongues with a stream of idioms and cultural references.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:39 pm

Pixels wrote:
momothefiddler wrote:... like responding to tongues with a stream of idioms and cultural references.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?

I can't tell if this is an example or a reference (that I don't get) to an example.

Either way, yes, I think so.

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:44 pm

momothefiddler wrote:
Pixels wrote:
momothefiddler wrote:... like responding to tongues with a stream of idioms and cultural references.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?
I can't tell if this is an example or a reference (that I don't get) to an example.

Either way, yes, I think so.

http://xkcd.com/902

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:46 pm

So... both!

Beautiful.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:14 pm

In case it wasn't clear, the strip is based on a real Star Trek: the Next Generation episode.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:32 pm

Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:34 pm

radthemad4 wrote:shadzar: That kind of makes sense as I think animals might actually 'think' in terms of stimuli. However the caster shouldn't be able to get the 'exact' stimulus the animal experienced (that would be the domain of telepathy), but should still be able to recognize it if seen later (kind of like the way in which we can recognize faces despite not having an exact representation of them in our minds). But, I kinda like the 'feel' of actually talking to an animal.

"feel" is a good concept, but i don't know about how the specific spell or ability would translate to senses other than just sights. maybe the smell is conveyed instead of an image. also not really sure how "non"-intelligent it is, thus why i suggested a few words. the more intelligent the more developed a language could be had where Radaghast is actually talking to the birds that live in his hair.

when in doubt it went something like this for a squirrel i talked to once.

Me: find the X thing.
DM: squirrel returns later and you "communicate" about the location
Me: where is it then?
DM: You can't really tell where it is, but you will know it when you see it.

~later~

DM: hey this looks familiar to what the squirrel described to you.

it will really depend on how much info the players "require" and if they accept to trust the DM to remember that the player should have an "AHA!" moment later when the info is needed.

also gives the PC plausible deniability, if that is wanted, since they really don't know an exact location. of course as above. the more intelligent the critter, the more accurate the information given could be and more details the PC does get.

i am actually beginning to liek the concept of animalistic sense as information like smells, tastes, sounds, etc as being the information and catalyst to understanding that information. hell bees dance! the PC would have to dance back to the bee to talk to it!

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:07 pm

shadzar wrote: the PC would have to dance back to the bee to talk to it!

Not necessarily; you can talk to a dog just fine, and the dog will understand some of it, even though dogs don't talk themselves.

You still might have to find a method that the animal understands though, even if it's not the same way the animal answers.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Fri Jun 27, 2014 2:15 am

Late studies show animals do exhibit activity in the areas of the brain related to awareness/free will, which means it's probable they think in ways more similar to ours than we thought.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:35 pm

Most animals can speak just fine, they just have a tiny vocabulary and it's built from things people don't intuitively understand like ear or tail positioning and frequency of body movements. Simple sentence structure is limited to big primates. No one knows what the fuck whales are doing, but it's probably just music. Oh, someone taught dolphins to speak in verb-noun constructs but then they stumbled on give-fish and that was the end of that.

Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish. Give-fish.

But Speak with Animals is magic and you just talk to them. Like how corpses can't talk and then you Speak with Dead and they can. Stop over-thinking it.

"Woof."

"What's that Lassie? Jeffie fell down the well?"

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:47 pm

yeah, yeah, magic because magic. but where is the fun in that. that is what the DM info dump is to just shortcut to the magic is magic. sometimes it is fun to figure out HOW in theory something could work and see if that could be used in practice.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jun 29, 2014 7:31 pm

There's always the possibility that Speak With Animal includes translation of concept and vocabulary into words the caster would understand. I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion about Comprehend Languages and such with idioms.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:09 am

I was asking about how animals should 'talk', not how the spell works. But, hey, it's always fun to speculate.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:16 am

They should talk like the sparra from red wall. They should also be familiar with concepts from their point of view, they don't get the idea of a house or castle, and you would have to explain to a wild animal about that shit using terms they'd understand, but a door mouse would know that you're talking about the "giant's burrow" when you point at the villager's huts.

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:50 am

radthemad4 wrote:I was asking about how animals should 'talk', not how the spell works. But, hey, it's always fun to speculate.

Animals would talk in such a way that it shows that they think with their own conceptual framework. For example, if you talk to a cat, an important part of their thought would be the concept of mine. If you talk to a dog, an important part of their thought would be the concept of in charge. If you talk to a rat, it might be family or a clear escape route. These things would be the basic measuring sticks by which they judge any new concept you show to them.

It's like talking to a mildly autistic but essentially honest libertarian. No matter what you say, they are going to translate it into terms of "community bad" and "individual profit good"; they are going to see certain types of coercion as "government" and others as "the free market." You cannot speak to them in any other terms, nor can you persuade them that their ideas are anything but the absolute foundation of all thought. If you try to tell them something that doesn't fit into their neat pigeonholes, they'll use thought-stopping to close down the line of inquiry. If you point out the inconsistencies in those ideas, they'll grow angry.

If you happen to be a libertarian yourself, then recast that paragraph above, substituting in the word "socialist" and your favourite socialist talking points. You know the ones I mean.

That's how I'd run them. It lets people explore mental gymnastics, which is fun; and it plays up the essential alienness and dogmatism of an instinctual mind.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 1:12 pm

Laertes wrote:If you happen to be a libertarian yourself, then recast that paragraph above, substituting in the word "socialist" and your favourite socialist talking points. You know the ones I mean.

Nice.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 5:05 pm

Maybe there is a vocabulary but they talk in metaphor. "Temba, his arms open", "Shaka when the walls fell", "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel".

the magic lets you here this, but also understand the metaphor. Gives the DM a chance to play with new ideas and to give crazy names to animals, and names that animals call things.

example: a squirrel talking about buried treasure "My nuts in the winter", or would this be a squirrel talking about some place really cold?