Stealing From Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom for your RPGs

Dinosaurs have been a part of the Dungeons and Dragons experience for decades. this wiki stub provides a brief breakdown but falls to include the new 5e product Tomb of Annihilation which features more dinos in the jungle.

But what does that have to do with the new summer blockbuster Fallen Kingdom? Let's see what you can easily steal from it:

1. Fallen Kingdom: Have the players or the people in the campaign run through an area that has now fallen into ruin? Did an old campaign fail with the players not saving Waterdeep? With Shadowdale being destroyed? Have the new players go through those ruins. Have them see the price of failure.

2. The environment as a challenge: While 4e may be hated for many reasons, it's skill challenge system had some potential. It allowed your characters to try and succeed at something with a certain number of successes needed before hitting a certain number of failures. Need to jump onto a crumbling spiral stairwell while lava burns through the roof? Need to dodge falling boulders while driving a carriage unto a boat that's leaving dock? Set some skill checks and devise some penalties for each failure. Maybe you get splashed with acid. Maybe you get jostled on the vehicle. Maybe a nearby monster gets to take a bite at you.

3. Minions: While it's great to give players equal opposition and sometimes even have them go against stronger foes, giving them numerous opportunities to knock out weaker foes gives them a chance to flex their own physical prowess.

4. New Enemies: In a game like Dungeons and Dragons, one of the most iconic monsters is the owlbear. Fallen Kingdom introduces the much cooler indoraptor, a super raptor.

In a game like dungeons and dragons where half-orcs, half-elves, half-dragons and more often hit the standards as a player race, well, seeing some new and unique type of dinosaurs is an almost assured thing. More importantly, though, it should serve as an example of making your own mark on a campaign. Has a new wizard decided to follow through with owlbear variants? Has a new dragon cult determined that dragons crossed with demons are stronger than those crossed with devils? Many many moons ago, Mongoose Publishing created a book dedicated to this type of monster creation, Crossbreeding. Well worth a look for ideas.

5. Random Events: The biggest failing for me of Fallen Kingdom is the surprise savior bit that keeps getting played out over and over. Hero comes to save kid! Blue comes to save hero! Love interest comes to save both! But from that idea, comes the idea that if the heroes and villains are fighting in a wilderness-based area, perhaps there are other things out there that will gladly take turns and bites out of both groups?

6. Unique Features: The inoraptor has a distinct feature, outside of its own unique look. It taps one of its talons on the ground. It's something that instantly gives it personality and character. The raptor blue has enough features that it's no longer 'just' a raptor, it's a character. The big old T-Rex that's been around forever? It's now scarred but still standing and still doing its iconic poses and roars. Try to remember when the party isn't fighting nightless hordes to give them something to remember about the encounter.

7. Feature Expansion: At the end of the movie, the 'genie' is out of the bottle. Even though, you know, as technology progressess it would've been out of the bottle years ago. Dinosaurs are hinted to be at a much more involved state of the world. What if in most fantasy setting with a demon infestation that infestation explodes outwards? Overall perhaps smaller but in more 'mundane' areas? What if that magical desert starts spiking out in odd growth patterns and intrudes in other rareas? What if an outer planar feature that was just a portal becomes a city or opens up for much longer? Some huge ramifications and some serious thought should be given to such an event.

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom isn't perfect but it's a fun summer film and can provide numerous opportunities to add fun elements to your own campaign.

Monsters Resurrected: To Hyper Specialize or Not Hyper Specialize?

So one of the stranger dinos on this show, Spinosaurus is showcased as being another of these dreaded 'apex' hunters. (Seriously guys, get a thesaurus or something.). It's one of the largest dinos in its time. It's arms actually look to have some functionality to them. They end in massive claws. It's so powerful that it's teeth aren't designed to rip meat off the bone, but rather, it shakes the prey until it is ripped apart and then repeats the process.

But... and here's that dreaded but again, when its own food source goes away, it now has to compete with another type of creature that's smaller, faster, and uses pack tactics. In some ways, sounds like the good old terror birds against the wolves.

Acrocanthosaurus aka the Great American Predator, is like a variant of the T-Rex in that its another top level predator. It's jaws are designed to pull that meat right off the bone. Its neck designed to not break. Its arms, despite their small size, having vast strength. Its downfall? Its food source goes out and all these specialized features it has aren't that handy in taking down the other types of prey about. And it too has to compete with smaller and dangerous predators. And yeah, there's the whole "my eggs are laying on the ground and easy for predators to eat thing."

And as I'm watching these shows, and they push out millions of years at a time like I would discuss waiting for a bus. "In a manner of 15 minutes, the bus had arrived." but you know, "in a mere fifteen million years, the reign of this predator was over." But no, brain, come back to the point.

Because so many of these creatures are hyper specialized, when their niche is gone, so are they.

And to be honest, as a GM, I both play to, and play against players who do that.

In terms of playing to? I'll let the players know what type of campaign I'm setting up, What I expect to be using in terms of some of the major enemies. It allows the players to theme out if they wish. If I'm going to run the Age of Worms, they know that undead are probably going to be popping up left and right for example. In such instances, I encourage the players to pick up the pace when it comes to making characters that may specialize in the field of destroying undead, even offering them some advice in terms of useful feats and Prestige Classes they may not have heard of.

But at the same time, when I see a player whose so dug into his niche, like a warrior without a single missile weapon, yeah, it's on. Kobolds have slings, goblins have short bows, gnolls and orcs have longbows, duergar and hobgoblins have crossbows and of course other such assaults.

Mind you, I give them plenty of time to shine as well, but I've got no problem hitting them with the highlights just to point out, "Uh, you might at the very least want to you know, carry a hand axe or something to throw."

The same can also be done with wizards. I've seen some get so into their theme that they refuse to work out anything that goes past that. In some cases, this can be great as its the player roleplaying their differences, their style, their choices. In others, they're just bin min-maxers. I'm not going to tell you what's going on at your table. You're already there. You'll know from the way the player acts, how he reacts, and what he does in the future as his character advances.

Just don't be reluctant to shine a little light on them.