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Are humans mandatory for a setting to succeed?

Started by Valatar, March 30, 2025, 06:45:07 AM

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HappyDaze

#30
March 31, 2025, 11:20:02 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 31, 2025, 10:00:48 AM
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 31, 2025, 09:54:31 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 31, 2025, 09:52:07 AMthe most recent editions have unilaterally forced you to start off as a newbie who was only recently recruited. In the case of werewolves, their initiation rituals typically involving locking the new werewolf in with groups of innocent people to force a massacre in order to break their sanity.
Source?
https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/horror-in-games-is-there-a-line.9733/post-459454
To zoom in on the list, it looks like I have to register for their forums. OK, that shouldn't be too hard. After that, since I have the 5e book, I'll look through it and see how what's in the book compares to that list.

jhkim

#31
March 31, 2025, 11:37:37 AM Last Edit: March 31, 2025, 12:00:19 PM by jhkim
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 31, 2025, 11:20:02 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 31, 2025, 10:00:48 AM
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 31, 2025, 09:54:31 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 31, 2025, 09:52:07 AMthe most recent editions have unilaterally forced you to start off as a newbie who was only recently recruited. In the case of werewolves, their initiation rituals typically involving locking the new werewolf in with groups of innocent people to force a massacre in order to break their sanity.
Source?
https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/horror-in-games-is-there-a-line.9733/post-459454
To zoom in on the list, it looks like I have to register for their forums. OK, that shouldn't be too hard. After that, since I have the 5e book, I'll look through it and see how what's in the book compares to that list.

I don't have the 5e book, just 1e. Here's the text from the image, which is said to be from Werewolf 5e character creation.

Quote10 Dramatic Turning Points

If you want a First Change for a character that has lasting consequences, use these suggestions either as inspiration or verbatim:

1. They kicked you while you were down one too many times. Their laughter turned to screams as you rose as something much bigger, and much deadlier than a bully.

2. It was a horrible car wreck. You only survived because you instinctively changed the moment before impact. The other passengers did not.

3. Everything came down to this moment: your grades, your future and more. The first slide was in the wrong place and everything went wrong from there until all you heard were screams and all you saw was red.

4. The feelings were too intense. You suddenly knew you had to run away from them even though you were willing to share your bodies with each other. You never saw your first love again.

5. You didn't expect to walk into a robbery when you hit the corner store at 2am. They weren't expecting you to turn into a howling beast when they smashed you in the face with a gun.

6. For a week you dreamed you were a wolf running through the forest. One morning you woke up thirty miles from home from your family on the side of the road and never looked back.

7. You weren't expecting them to lock the doors at the wedding. It was at that moment the long line of Garou in your family bloodline revealed their strange tradition about the First Change. To prove you were worthy of the wolf, you had to kill your way out of the room after they triggered the change. After that, nothing the Wyrm can do fazes you.

8. It was just supposed to be a summer job. But then you began to smell the blood of the butchers everywhere. You gorged yourself on raw meat one day and transformed when your boss found you.

9. They tricked you into thinking it was a camping trip. They drugged your food and water, put a bag on your head and then left you in the wilderness. They said it was for your own good, to help you become the wolf, but you quietly seek your revenge someday, even though you survived.

10. It was obvious what they were doing to the young people put in their care and that nobody in power would take action. You bottled up your rage until you convinced them to do the same thing to you. You let it all out in the secluded spot, covering the car in their blood and your claw marks.

So it looks like BoxCrayonTales is talking about #7 in the list of optional First Change experiences if the player wants a First Change with lasting consequences. So this is not typical (as BoxCrayonTales suggested) but it is possible.

EDITED TO ADD: To the bigger question, I own Werewolf 1e and played in one campaign in the 2000s, and two or three one-shot games since then. I'd never heard of such a ritual, but it was understood that werewolves were brutal and that there were a few who thought little of killing humans in the cause of fighting the Wyrm. PCs were generally more humane.

Festus

#32
March 31, 2025, 04:50:52 PM
Quote from: Valatar on March 30, 2025, 06:45:07 AMSo I'm curious about folks' opinions on whether a setting must include humans in it to have a hope of doing well.

Doing well commercially? Yes, humans are required - or non-humans who are so "human" as to make no difference, i.e. stocky bearded humans, hairy-footed short humans, pointy-eared nimble humans, humans with lycanthropy, etc.

No matter the game, humanity remains the baseline and non-humans are defined in terms how they differ from that baseline. The further all of the character options deviate from that baseline, the weirder and more uncomfortable that game will be for many potential players. Doesn't make it a bad game but it limits its appeal.


"I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it."     
- Groucho Marx

yosemitemike

#33
March 31, 2025, 09:46:43 PM
Quote from: Ruprecht on March 30, 2025, 02:13:06 PMI never played it but I think Jorune had no humans and the ads in dragon made it look a bit unapproachable. Like you have that much more to learn just to get to a sort of base knowledge required to play.


Jorune has regular humans as a player race option. 
"I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice."― Friedrich Hayek
Another former RPGnet member permanently banned for calling out the staff there on their abdication of their responsibilities as moderators and admins and their abject surrender to the whims of the shrillest and most self-righteous members of the community.

Man at Arms

#34
March 31, 2025, 10:53:20 PM
Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 30, 2025, 11:26:23 AMHumans serve as a baseline for regular people with good reason. All players are human and can thus relate to the "normal" behaviors of the general population. Without that familiar frame of reference it becomes more difficult to define other races. Even if no one plays one, humans in a setting provide that backdrop by which other races are compared.


I agree.

Spooky

#35
April 01, 2025, 01:35:29 AM
I only like settings with white males as the protagonists.

But for a real role-playing challenge try a setting of inanimate objects. Just use GURPS to stat up a circa -1000 point character (all disads including lack of limbs and lack of bodily functions).

GM: "What do you do?"
Player: "..."
GM: "Excellent role playing. 1 character point awarded."
Motoko Kusanagi is Deunan Knute for basic queers

RNGm

#36
April 01, 2025, 09:09:59 AM
Quote from: Spooky on April 01, 2025, 01:35:29 AMBut for a real role-playing challenge try a setting of inanimate objects. Just use GURPS to stat up a circa -1000 point character (all disads including lack of limbs and lack of bodily functions).

GM: "What do you do?"
Player: "..."
GM: "Excellent role playing. 1 character point awarded."


Bonus xp if you don't try to cheat by using some sort of psychic/magic/super powers to affect the world like a minmaxer.  I'd only do this in a campaign though where you get automatic xp just for attending so I could take a nap for full character/RP immersion.

Spooky

#37
April 01, 2025, 09:37:36 AM
Quote from: RNGm on April 01, 2025, 09:09:59 AM
Quote from: Spooky on April 01, 2025, 01:35:29 AMBut for a real role-playing challenge try a setting of inanimate objects. Just use GURPS to stat up a circa -1000 point character (all disads including lack of limbs and lack of bodily functions).

GM: "What do you do?"
Player: "..."
GM: "Excellent role playing. 1 character point awarded."


Bonus xp if you don't try to cheat by using some sort of psychic/magic/super powers to affect the world like a minmaxer.  I'd only do this in a campaign though where you get automatic xp just for attending so I could take a nap for full character/RP immersion.

GURPS doesn't have XP.

I'd play Maggie Cheung's scooter seat in 1984..
Motoko Kusanagi is Deunan Knute for basic queers

Omega

#38
Today at 01:29:33 AM
No you do not need humans.
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