Don't Give Animals to PCs in D & D

Veteran D & D DM here. I have recently been DMing new people to get them into enjoying the hobby and the love of role play games. I currently DM three different groups of relatively new players.  I mix high fantasy, fun, drama, and modern stuff into a fantasy campaign. Think a Knight’s Tale at times. You can find pizza, coffee, along with ale and Orc Gut Beer. But I digress.

The first group of newbies I ran for, was soon after 5^th ed was released. They were looking around the town bazaar seeing if anyone was selling magical items or healing potions. They saw a tent selling animals.

“What kind?”

“Umm…dogs, cats, rabbits. Oh and they have a parrot for sale.”

Parrot must have been the rogue’s trigger word. From then on, he wanted that parrot. He was going to have that parrot. The person playing the rogue was a young teenage kid in a group of adults, so I gave him some rope to see where it went.

First; he had the bright idea to try and run in, grab the parrot and tumble out. The rest of the group who had been looking at other tents realized their young cut-purse was not with them and started to look for him.  I had him roll to see if he could stealthily sneak in and tumble out. Massive fail. The proprietor of the tent was a very large half-orc who had watched him literally fall on his face.  The half-orc was so shocked that anyone would attempt something so brazen and stupid with him in there, that he didn’t do anything when the rest of the party rushed up apologizing.  The group started to haggle with him on how much the parrot was. I hadn’t expected this, so the half-orc just said 25 gp.

This group had only been on one adventure so far, so funds were really, really low, since they had jus re-supplied. The rogue had some silver and copper but no gold. He begged for a loan. But the rest of the party was not real thrilled with the idea of having a parrot along; it might give away their position at a critical time. But the rogue was not to be deterred. Finally, after 45 minutes of real time of arguing, the half-orc agreed to sell the rogue the parrot and to pay him when the group got back from the current adventure they were about to go on. The half-orc just wanted them hone. I rolled for the reaction of the parrot to his new owner. Contempt would be the best word to describe the parrots feeling to his new master. I rolled reaction for the parrot and the rest of the group, with the wizard getting an extremely high reaction. For all his trouble, the rogue got a parrot that would rather ride on the wizard’s shoulder than his. But that still didn’t deter him; he kept trying to feed and coax the bird.

Another group rescued and bought off a farmer, an old cantankerous donkey called “Granny.” They thought to use her to transport their supplies and treasure. Sometime later, the party wasn’t sure what to do or where to go. Not an unusual occurrence with new players. I had told them about ‘divine intervention’ (see Confession of a Dungeon Master, 1980 Psychology Today) and that any character can pray real hard to their deity and they might get a response. Usually the PC never rolls high enough to get anyone’s attention. Well, the Cleric of the group seemed like the obvious person to pray for guidance. I make the PC actually ask what guidance they are seeking in their prayer. Depending on how they do, it gives me a range for the dice roll.

She was nervous and gave a prayer/question about whether they should enter this mysterious village.  She rolled percentage dice in the open, and got a 99!  Within seconds of her prayer she slowly sees everything slow down and stops. As she turns around, her donkey starts to glow. The voice of Pelor, her deity, speaks to her through the animal and gives her some words of wisdom.  The glow fades and everything returns to normal.  They now call the animal the ‘Holy Donkey of Pelor.’

Another group rescued a small dog from the underground sewers they were exploring (because the game store we were playing at had one running around). This small dog always seemed to be able to escape from its leash. They got an enchanted collar so they could always locate it. I had considered making the pup some evil, nasty thing in disguise/polymorph. But the group had joked about that and was expecting it. So I just used the pup to have them scurry off after it; some of the party wanted to just let it go. But the female Cleric was adamant.

I was asked by a group of board gamers to run D & D for them. No problem. They were in the Keep on the Borderlands and were trying to figure out what equipment to get, worrying about torches and such. This was boring the female Tiefling Warlock. She wandered off, and I had a cat some up and rub up against her just to see what would happen. The Warlock loved the cat. So did most of the party, the human Cleric being the only non-catified person of the group. This group went overboard for over an hour getting things for this cat. The group bought a cat carrier (two baskets tied together) which they strapped to the Tiefling’s back, cat toys (string on a stick, small stuffed animal) and invented a lazer pointer (a map case with a hole in the top, a light spell on a rock placed in it).  When they go into combat, their battle cry is “For Cuddles!”

During the last session the Cleric was of the opinion to leave the cat. This earned him the wraith of the rogue who loved cats. He used his hands to explain that it would be the cat first, the rest of the party second, the goblins, kobolds (all of which they had been fighting) and then close to the floor would the Cleric. In real life these two are friends.

Amazing what even unreal animals do to people.