I've found that there are some games, where you end up with more than say, 3 demi-human races, where everybody wants to play some kind of freaking lizard man or half-giant or semi-angel or whatever, and you end up with a default world that is assumed to be humanocentric and a default group that is anything but.

Has this been a problem for you before? Do you limit how many people in your party can play non-humans? Do you just go with it?

Is it a game flaw to allow a dozen default races when the setting itself assumes that 10 or 11 of those are actually super-rare or nearly-extinct or from some faraway-continent, and that most of the places "where the action is" are full of humans?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;372007I've found that there are some games, where you end up with more than say, 3 demi-human races, where everybody wants to play some kind of freaking lizard man or half-giant or semi-angel or whatever, and you end up with a default world that is assumed to be humanocentric and a default group that is anything but.

Has this been a problem for you before? Do you limit how many people in your party can play non-humans? Do you just go with it?

Is it a game flaw to allow a dozen default races when the setting itself assumes that 10 or 11 of those are actually super-rare or nearly-extinct or from some faraway-continent, and that most of the places "where the action is" are full of humans?

RPGPundit

It's a flaw.
Typical early mistake with setting design.  ASuper-rare races should only be allowed in particular GM determined special circumstances or in games where race is partially randomly determined.

I mean, that is if versimilitude is important.  Otherwise, 1/2 angels, dragonborne, shadowpeople, etc that would NEVER in a million years all come together can play together.  Might as well trash immersion from the beginning.

This could be a fantasy thing. I see this happen all the time in fantasy settings that are supposed to be centered on Humans as the dominant culture.

But in Star Wars, a galaxy that is inhabited by hundreds of alien species, my players always choose to be Humans. No wookies. No Twileks. No Transdoshans. No Mon Calamari. No Rodians. No Devoronians. No Ithorians. Zero. Zip. Nada. All Human, all of the time.

I have no idea why.

I prefer the more classic humano-centric fantasy worlds, so for me, it's a problem.

I'm not sure if it's a flaw, per se, but given the attitude a lot of players take (it's in the corebook, so it's okay if I'm a special snowflake and the GM shouldn't tell me no!), it's really hard to ignore extra races without pissing off a few people.  

It's one of the issues I have with the diversity of races in 4e and WotC's insistence on working nearly every one of them into a campaign setting.  The mish-mash of content is my biggest gripe with 4e, not the mechanics.  

I have my kitchen sink games.  I don't need anymore of them.

Quote from: LordVreeg;372010It's a flaw.
Typical early mistake with setting design.  ASuper-rare races should only be allowed in particular GM determined special circumstances or in games where race is partially randomly determined.

I mean, that is if versimilitude is important.  Otherwise, 1/2 angels, dragonborne, shadowpeople, etc that would NEVER in a million years all come together can play together.  Might as well trash immersion from the beginning.

With the caveat that the setting might make it feel more verisimilar. In Ptolus, for instance, where it actually can make sense to get some exotic combinations in the gaming group, since the city is pretty much *the* magnet for adventuring groups and various non-human denizens in the Empire of Tarsis.

Otherwise, I have two words for the Pundit: Level caps.

Quote from: PaladinCA;372012I have no idea why.

I think I know why.

Most fantasy races seem to at least somewhat correspond to things we see in literature. Bob's conception of an elf might not be the same as Tom's conception, but at least Bob has an idea of what he thinks an elf is.

The vast majority of the races in SW don't have that advantage. The more hardcore an individual is into SW, the more likely they are to have heard the names, at least... but most people won't recognize them, wouldn't be able to point out where - if any - one shows up in the movies. What the hell is a Trandoshan?

Also, in the actual Star Wars movies, all the main characters are human. Aliens are side dishes: companions, mooks, henchmen, and color in Cantinas. Emulation in the case of Star Wars as an RPG is all-important.

Quote from: Benoist;372014Otherwise, I have two words for the Pundit: Level caps.

Bingo. Also, LV's comment.

Also note that Pundit specified humanocentric.

In other words: not really a problem in Talislanta, where everyone is weird.

Obviously there is some give & take between players and GM in this thing, and if the players insist on all being exotics without expecting that to affect the tenor of the game, then the GM either has to compromise or find another group. However if I were GMing a group that all wanted to play exotics, then I think I could make it work provided the group understood that it would be an issue in the game world.

E.g. if you're all elves in a Tolkienesque game, then as a group you will have to deal with being a group of outsiders from a fading race.

Quote from: RPGPundit;372007I've found that there are some games, where you end up with more than say, 3 demi-human races, where everybody wants to play some kind of freaking lizard man or half-giant or semi-angel or whatever, and you end up with a default world that is assumed to be humanocentric and a default group that is anything but.

That's your mistake right there -- you're conflating the world design with the PC group design. Sometimes they are the same, but they don't have to be the same. If you want to have a group of PCs that stand out and it's OK for them to be unusual, you just set the party of bird men and lizard men and angels into the mundane backdrop and there you go.

Amber, of course, is the extreme example of this. In your average Amber campaign, there are only a handful of Amberite royals -- and the PCs are a huge percentage of them.

I think the big issue here is a bunch of people playing super rare or special races. Usually the way I deal with it, is make something like that have an impact on the game. With things like elves and dwarves it usually isn't a big deal (depending on the setting). But if they are playing a race that is not normally seen in populated lands, I assume the race is rarely seen for a reason (fear, hatred, etc). The more unusual the race, the more likely I think this becomes. By playing this up, I find it encourages people go for more standard races.

On the other hand, I have been in a few campaigns, where all the players decided to be the same race. This is an instance where playing one of the unusual races can lead to interesting things.

Ironically, humans are the super rare, nearly extinct race in my setting (so much so that many think they are mythical creatures) and I've had human PCs in ever campaign I've run with it so far.

In a similar vein, back ages past when our group played Wheel of Time setting (and RPG) heavily, every bugger wanted to be Ashaman (rare crazy male wielders of the source). Even after treating them harshly, ostracising them and sending all of them insane, they kept coming back for more.

Several groups of my players I've gamed with over the years do the same thing. If there is a remote chance to play the super rare exotic thing, the players will go for it, regardless of the ramifications.

I have even gone as far to gift humans a very significant social and game-mechanic advantage in one setting and still no-one played a human.

Even when we played Star Wars it has been the same. I did a major facepalm when a player announced proudly that he was going to be a wookie sith in our good campaign. Fuckers

So while I don't think it is a flaw, I just think the people I play with are out to be obstreperous bastards.

I make the races PCs pick common in the setting, especially if there are more than one of them.

Even if they aren't common, humans will know where they are from and where they are going. It takes the edge off. You might not like the flavor of it as a GM, but it makes everyone happy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;372007I've found that there are some games, where you end up with more than say, 3 demi-human races, where everybody wants to play some kind of freaking lizard man or half-giant or semi-angel or whatever, and you end up with a default world that is assumed to be humanocentric and a default group that is anything but.

Has this been a problem for you before? Do you limit how many people in your party can play non-humans? Do you just go with it?

Is it a game flaw to allow a dozen default races when the setting itself assumes that 10 or 11 of those are actually super-rare or nearly-extinct or from some faraway-continent, and that most of the places "where the action is" are full of humans?

RPGPundit

I'm trying to think of when this has been an issue, and nothing in recent memory is coming up... the last D&D game I played in someone played a gnome... but it wasn't a problem and gnomes aren't super-rare anyway (and the PC wasn't the only gnome around -- there were NPC gnomes in the game before I knew about the PC).

I wouldn't think it would be a huge problem though: PC parties are supposed to be at least somewhat exceptional, right?

If the PC's are *so* alien they can't have anything like a normal interaction with people it might be an issue (if everyone's playing terrifying undead, then they're unlikely to be hired to escort the Princess to her wedding unless she's totally Goth...) but that's why it's a good idea to adapt the game to the PC's.

Where's the harm, exactly?

Cheers,
-E.

Edited to add: If I had a game I really wanted to run that required a predominately human party, I'd just set that as a character parameter -- I doubt it would be a big deal unless I failed to mention it before characters were made.

I'm currently running a earlier age 3.5 game with no human PCs - there are 'humans' in the setting but they're actually all Vasharans (the Book of Vile Darkness variant humans), not that the players have worked that out. I have an Irda, a jungle elf and a shifter (dwarf-based).

This is probably partly in response to the players liking weird races which are good for munchkin reasons. Some weird races can be great campaign wise - e.g. we had a half-gold dragon paladin awhile back who was a great labour-saving device to me as GM (he helped substantially with generating plots) but he's the exception rather than the rule. If someone just wants to shift a snow elf out of the Antarctic regions to avoid a Con penalty, I actually find it rather irritating.