Introducing Ecology & Evolution & Dungeons & Dragons

A Rational & Explanation

I’m an evolutionary biologist who thinks a lot about dungeons and dragons. Or, I’m a dungeons and dragons player/DM who thinks a lot about evolutionary biology. Either way, I’ve got a lot of thoughts about the intersection of the two. I’m using this platform to tell people about those thoughts for a few reasons:

• My writing will improve the more I write, and science involves a lot of writing so I best get good at it
• I’ll be spreading the good word about my field, which could always use some good press
• Hopefully it’ll get people interested in both topics, because we’re always in need of more scientists and there are never enough dungeon masters

Some of those reasons are selfish, some a bit more altruistic. Either way, I’ll try to be entertaining and informative here. So what am I actually doing? The idea is that I’ll use tropes from fantasy role playing games (Dungeons and Dragons) as jumping off points to talk about different aspects of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Things like, What can we learn about speciation from the existence of playable races like Humans, Elves, and Half-Elves? What ecological niche would a dragon have? How do you evolve a giant flying predator? What does the ecology of a dungeon look like? And anything else I can pull out of that material.

I’m not sure where this material will eventually go, it may simply live, and die, here. Or it may get published in some format someday, in a magazine or even a book. In any event, I welcome and beseech you all for feedback on anything here, the writing, science, format, whatever. Peer review makes the scientific publishing world go round. There won’t be a comment section for a bunch of reasons (the internet can be a mean place, and I don’t really want to learn how to implement one anyway) but any feedback you would like to give will be appreciated for the help that it is intended to be, and can be sent my way at david_morgan@brown.edu.

An Introduction

I imagine three types of readers of this blog:

1. Fantasy RPG Nerds
2. Science Nerds
3. General Nerds

If you feel you fall outside any of these categories, then I’m sorry, but check again. You too may be a nerd. Personally I embrace it, and sort myself into all three categories. Who else would write this stuff? Who else but a nerd would read it?

Whoever you are, and in whatever categories you belong, welcome. This is for you. Yes, you specifically! It’s also for everyone else, but especially you. In it I will try to accomplish three things. One: To explain logically, and with the absolute minimum of resorting to magic, something about real world science using the tropes of fantasy role playing games. Two: To do so in an entertaining manner, without getting too bogged down in the minutiae that belong more in a textbook than here. And Three: To get you, the reader, at least a little more interested in both of those topics than you were before you picked up this tome.

I am a scientist and dungeon master, I will assume all of you understand the first and that hopefully at least half of you understand the second. Probably many of you are one, the other, or both. I am writing this with a very particular goal in mind: to get you more interested in science. Science, as a field, needs you! It needs people excited to tackle the questions and problems that we’re faced with. My personal interests lean toward Evolutionary biology, but science comes in many delicious flavors, try as many as you can. Anyone can be a scientist, especially you!

If you’ve already got a career (and if I can’t convince you to switch) then I still hope you’ll enjoy this blog, if I’ve done it right it’ll be fun and interesting and thought provoking. If it isn’t, hey who knows maybe it’s you?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m going to do my best to keep the magic to a minimum here. Yes, I know that magic is a pretty important part of fantasy as a genre and in fantasy RPGs in particular (that’s role playing games, for the uninitiated) make pretty heavy use of it. And no I won’t be able to totally explain dragons using real world biology, but I’ll do my best. There wouldn’t be much point to a book like this if I could just wave a wand and explain that things are the way they are because of magic. Not a very satisfying answer to my mind. So I’ll be taking real world analogues for different characteristics of dragons, and dungeons, and whatever else I can use, some of which may even have been the templates that these tropes were drawn from to begin with.

Now that you’ve been welcomed, warned, and teased; here’s the show!