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 :D
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.
I see it as a flaw only when it presents a clear disconnect, between the rules and setting. I prefer human dominated but not human centric fatasy setting. For example, there are elven and dwarven regions of power and different elven and dwarven "kingdoms" have different goals, different cultures, etc. They may be less common of prolific than humans but thay are not some far away and seldom met species.
My personal pet peeve about non-human species is they always seem to be clearly superior to humans in the game mechanic ways that matter to players (especially power hungry ones). In my own homebrew non-humans are not clearly superior and can be clearly inferior in game mechanic ways attractive to power hungry players, even if the non-humans are superior to humans in setting/social ways.
Quote from: Aos;372022Ironically, 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.
Genius. Call it rare or a limited time offer and people will just have to have it.
Quote from: -E.;372035I'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.
Where it has been an issue for me in the past, was with all the weird monster races that everyone used in their builds in 3E afew years ago (I haven't played enough 4E to comment on whether this is an issue in the new edition). I didn't mind a little of it, but have to admit the proliferation of characters using unusual monster templates and prestige classes, altered the feel of the game enough for me that it disrupted willing suspension of disbelief. Obviously it did depend on the individual campaign. I just felt it pushed our game away from fantasy and more into anime territory. It was a little more exotic and unusual than I was going for.
I prefer humano-centric or human-dominated settings, but not to the point where I won't play other ones. In our 4e games, we tend to just reskin things for the most part so that mechanical profiles don't matter, everyone's just a human.
This sort of thing is one of the reasons I think it's always worthwhile to have a session or discussion of some kind before the game proper begins. You don't just generate characters, you discuss what the setting is like, and what it means to have these characters in this setting, and talk about ways to make it coherent and hooky for both the players and the GM.
Quote from: two_fishes;372057This sort of thing is one of the reasons I think it's always worthwhile to have a session or discussion of some kind before the game proper begins. You don't just generate characters, you discuss what the setting is like, and what it means to have these characters in this setting, and talk about ways to make it coherent and hooky for both the players and the GM.
True.
When you're playing a campaign, eventually someone is going to wonder why the guy with the flaming (or icy) hair is running around with a bunch of relatively "normal" demi-humans, and why people in villages just accept him (or don't).
I still can't think of a good way to include shardminds, though. They're almost Exalted-weird, imo.
Quote from: two_fishes;372057This sort of thing is one of the reasons I think it's always worthwhile to have a session or discussion of some kind before the game proper begins. You don't just generate characters, you discuss what the setting is like, and what it means to have these characters in this setting, and talk about ways to make it coherent and hooky for both the players and the GM.
Definitely a good idea.
Quote from: GnomeWorks;372016I 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?
That is only true for people who grew up on D&D and Tolkien. In proper mythology and folklore name elf applies to all sorts of things. First time I played D&D I thought elves were essentially like leprechauns and I found the whole experience very confusing.
I would wager that up until the LotR movies and WoW, most people we more familiar with the Star Wars universe.
Quote from: Soylent Green;372073That is only true for people who grew up on D&D and Tolkien. In proper mythology and folklore name elf applies to all sorts of things. First time I played D&D I thought elves were essentially like leprechauns and I found the whole experience very confusing.
But, see, you had an idea. Whether or not that idea corresponded to what the game presented "elves" as, you personally had heard the term and had a mental picture for it.
I am willing to bet that you cannot do the same for Trandoshan, or at least could not at the time.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;372050I prefer humano-centric or human-dominated settings, but not to the point where I won't play other ones. In our 4e games, we tend to just reskin things for the most part so that mechanical profiles don't matter, everyone's just a human.
I'm planning on a similar reskinning process for a 4e-Cthulhu campaign I'm planning. Such as allowing a player to use the stats for a Dwarf but making him a human, say a miner or an exile to the mountains, or somesuch. I'll probably have to forbid races that are too magical, such as Eladrin and Devas, but a clever player might be able to convince me otherwise.
Devas are obviously new agey spiritualists. Today we would call them Californians, but i dunno about in the 20s.
Quote from: Peregrin;372059I still can't think of a good way to include shardminds, though. They're almost Exalted-weird, imo.
I can only do it if I make them new to the setting, for whatever reason. Or incredibly rare, but in that case PC shardminds get stared at.
Early on, someone made a post that summed up for me, clarified really, my issue with this whole thing: It breaks immersion. It doesn't seem like its something that ought to, but it does.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Thanlis;372019That'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.
In Amber, the game is set up to be that way, and really the only two things you can play by default are "Amberite" or "Chaos Lord" (and the latter only if the GM wants you to).
I think that game SYSTEM design should consider what it wants. If you have 29 default PC-races, then you want a game world where there are 29 races that are majorly prominent all over the place, unless the premise of the entire game is that player characters ARE definitely Weird Outsiders.
If neither of those are true, and you have 29 pc races but the world itself has "mostly humans and a few elves and dwarves, and everything else is either nearly-extinct, super-rare or far-away", and the default assumes that you're the local boys done good and not a collection of Freaks, then you've fucked up somewhere along the line.
What the game designer ought to do is say "ok, these are the major races: human, elf, dwarf, lizard-man" (or whatever) and make THOSE and only those his default PC races. He can have 25 other pc races presented as OPTIONAL races that the GM can then add or not to his own whim, depending on if the GM feels that he wants the game to have a high Freak Quotient or not.
And in any case, there is just much less sense to any game where you have a Half-angel and a Lizard-dragonman and a Midget-chickenman and a Gtaarangh'ararrri and a Darkwylde Emoling, than one where you have three humans, an elf and a hobbit.
The latter group doesn't need nearly as much explaining to justify its existence, and thus doesn't break immersion nearly as easily.
RPGPundit
Quote from: -E.;372035I'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).
GNOME!!!
Did the rest of the party survive?
QuoteI wouldn't think it would be a huge problem though: PC parties are supposed to be at least somewhat exceptional, right?
Yes, but there's a somewhat fine line between "exceptional" and "Polly Shouldn't Be!".
QuoteIf 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?
That sometimes by giving a plethora of ideas up front, rather than in a toolkit format, you are actually limiting the options instead of expanding them.
RPGPundit
Quote from: two_fishes;372057This sort of thing is one of the reasons I think it's always worthwhile to have a session or discussion of some kind before the game proper begins. You don't just generate characters, you discuss what the setting is like, and what it means to have these characters in this setting, and talk about ways to make it coherent and hooky for both the players and the GM.
I do this all the time for my Majestic Wilderlands I call it the Pre-Game from Harn where I first read about the concept. It is useful not just in terms of you and your player talking (which is always good) but also as a way of influencing how the game is setup.
The two things that go with playing non-human races the first is kewl powers and the second is kewl culture. I found it is possible that you can make kewl culture work in favor of keeping the campaign human centric. The trick is to have a variety of cultures that caters to the interest of your players. Plus have a setting that makes is plausible for many of those culture to interact.
Remember treasure and kewl powers doesn't have to be mechanics on a sheet. A 10 howling highland berserkers can be just as effective as a At-Will Flame bolt.
The pre-game give you and your player the chance to explore all what your setting has to offer. The player can ask question and you get to explain the implications of their choices. Including that playing that Dragonborn may not be best idea for where the campaign is located.
Quote from: two_fishes;372103Devas are obviously new agey spiritualists. Today we would call them Californians, but i dunno about in the 20s.
Oh, this is going to be Sword and Sorcery, Hyboria-Cthulhu not Arkham-Cthulhu.
Quote from: RPGPundit;372110I think that game SYSTEM design should consider what it wants. If you have 29 default PC-races, then you want a game world where there are 29 races that are majorly prominent all over the place, unless the premise of the entire game is that player characters ARE definitely Weird Outsiders.
If neither of those are true, and you have 29 pc races but the world itself has "mostly humans and a few elves and dwarves, and everything else is either nearly-extinct, super-rare or far-away", and the default assumes that you're the local boys done good and not a collection of Freaks, then you've fucked up somewhere along the line.
What the game designer ought to do is say "ok, these are the major races: human, elf, dwarf, lizard-man" (or whatever) and make THOSE and only those his default PC races. He can have 25 other pc races presented as OPTIONAL races that the GM can then add or not to his own whim, depending on if the GM feels that he wants the game to have a high Freak Quotient or not.
I'll grant that there can be presentation issues. I mean, I've been doing this a while; I have no problem saying that the campaign I want to run only has these options. I've never actually had a player complain about not being able to play something... no, that's not true, I had someone demand to play a goblin once. But that worked out OK from my point of view.
On the other hand, I've been doing this a while. I do not expect novice GMs to have my confidence.
Quote from: Aos;372022Ironically, 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.
Whaile not mythical or super rare, humans are the third most populous race in Celtricia. Hobyts and orcs are 1 and 2.
You keep talking about immersion for some reason.
As the GM I don't have TIME to be immersed in my setting. I'm too busy being the pika behind the curtain.
The players? They don't really care in my experience. What JOE is doing is not as important for Frank's Immersion.
The problem I have is when you start 'limiting' the weird. See, there are four to six guys around the table other than the GM. If only one guy gets to be the 'weird one', the other three to five are getting shafted. It breeds resentment and 'me too-ism'.
The way I see it: If the setting has 'playable' half angels, then: regardless of how rare they are, if a player (or three) want to play one then they can. Its not that half angels aren't weird, its that they exist and therefore its possible for one to go adventuring.
It doesn't matter if there are only five 'playable' gold scaled lizard-wogs either. If a half angel happens to be hanging out with one of those five gold scaled lizard-wogs, well.... gosh. Its possible, so why should I tell the players that its too weird and would 'never ever happen'. And hey! They happen to have a buddy who happens to be a sentient rock? Well... sentient rocks exist, so it could happen.
I'm not there to arbitrate coincidence and lottery chances. I'm there to say what is, and is not, in the world.
Now, I can always say: Guys, no wierd in this one, m'kay.
Also: THe Hobbit: A party of dwarves led by an angel-wizard and accompanied by a halfling (which almost no one had heard of).
The LotR: Included the last scion of a superhuman line of kings, the only ever buddy-buddy relationship between an elf and a dwarf and not one but FOUR of those uber-rare halflings that no one had ever heard of... all led by the reincarnated form of an angel-wizard. Humans were the fucking hirelings (not to MENTION the god damn Gollum....)
Just sayin'.
Quote from: Spike;372134You keep talking about immersion for some reason.
As the GM I don't have TIME to be immersed in my setting. I'm too busy being the pika behind the curtain.
The players? They don't really care in my experience. What JOE is doing is not as important for Frank's Immersion.
The problem I have is when you start 'limiting' the weird. See, there are four to six guys around the table other than the GM. If only one guy gets to be the 'weird one', the other three to five are getting shafted. It breeds resentment and 'me too-ism'.
The way I see it: If the setting has 'playable' half angels, then: regardless of how rare they are, if a player (or three) want to play one then they can. Its not that half angels aren't weird, its that they exist and therefore its possible for one to go adventuring.
It doesn't matter if there are only five 'playable' gold scaled lizard-wogs either. If a half angel happens to be hanging out with one of those five gold scaled lizard-wogs, well.... gosh. Its possible, so why should I tell the players that its too weird and would 'never ever happen'. And hey! They happen to have a buddy who happens to be a sentient rock? Well... sentient rocks exist, so it could happen.
I'm not there to arbitrate coincidence and lottery chances. I'm there to say what is, and is not, in the world.
Now, I can always say: Guys, no wierd in this one, m'kay.
Also: THe Hobbit: A party of dwarves led by an angel-wizard and accompanied by a halfling (which almost no one had heard of).
The LotR: Included the last scion of a superhuman line of kings, the only ever buddy-buddy relationship between an elf and a dwarf and not one but FOUR of those uber-rare halflings that no one had ever heard of... all led by the reincarnated form of an angel-wizard. Humans were the fucking hirelings (not to MENTION the god damn Gollum....)
Just sayin'.
Dude, you ripped off my LotR quote.
But those aren't PCs. If you are letting your players be the last scion of a superhuman line of kings or the reincarnated form of an angel-wizard...well the game has balance issues.
I mean, every game is different, and we have fun in different ways. But we have to remember that the primary difference between a great book and a great game is that in the book, no one has to worry that Meriadoc's player is pissed off that his character is a useless burden for 80% of the game.
One of my favorite games is Talislanta, which doesn't really have "humans" in it, per se.
It does have, however, the Archaen races, which are the descendants of the old time über-race. They are basically the same race, and can interbreed, although they have wildly differing skin colors and other appearances.
They are sort of the humans of Talislanta. Having said that, there are a zillion other races, most of them expected to be played.
So, I don't really have a problem playing the unusual races.
It basically boils down to communication between the GM and his group. He should make it clear what kind of game he is running, and what sort of things are going to happen. In most groups that should work.
The problem arises when you get a player, or sometimes an entire group, that has "beautiful and unique snowflake" syndrome.
That one guy who wants to create a character sheet with stats that no one has ever seen before.
Sure, they SAY you can create a Human Fighter, and give him an interesting background and personality, and he'll likely become the core of the group, the regular joe everyone can relate to, but that would take actual roleplaying skill, and well, doesn't give that feeling of instant cool.
That's kind of the thing. The real weirdies don't fit in, and get old fast. The guy playing them doesn't seem to be in it for the long haul. He just wants that instant "Look at me! I'm cool!" gratification.
I am sure that most of you can give me an exception to that, and tell a story about a player who created the weirdest thing they could think of, and made it the greatest character in the game. And that's awesome. I just think that most people confuse an unusual character sheet with an unusual character.
Side note: I played Over the Edge once, which is set on earth, but also lets you play any weird thing you can think of. The characters were things like half-angels, and former military detectives. My character was an accountant whose exceptional ability was that he was really really likable. I enjoyed playing him.
Brian
Quote from: BillionsixMy character was an accountant whose exceptional ability was that he was really really likable. I enjoyed playing him.
That makes me really happy. I like this.
Quote from: PaladinCA;372012This 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.
Honestly, I think it is more of a Special Snowflake thing. In Star Wars games, I have seen this demonstrate itself by a Player's desire to be a Force-user of some kind. It isn't tied as specifically to race as to genre, i.e. Force-users are the special ones in the Star Wars universe.
Quote from: Spike;372134Also: THe Hobbit: A party of dwarves led by an angel-wizard and accompanied by a halfling (which almost no one had heard of).
The LotR: Included the last scion of a superhuman line of kings, the only ever buddy-buddy relationship between an elf and a dwarf and not one but FOUR of those uber-rare halflings that no one had ever heard of... all led by the reincarnated form of an angel-wizard. Humans were the fucking hirelings (not to MENTION the god damn Gollum....)
In some ways the 'vanilla fantasy' world is one where the Fellowship of the Ring are typical.
Quote from: LordVreeg;372143Dude, you ripped off my LotR quote.
But those aren't PCs. If you are letting your players be the last scion of a superhuman line of kings or the reincarnated form of an angel-wizard...well the game has balance issues.
I mean, every game is different, and we have fun in different ways. But we have to remember that the primary difference between a great book and a great game is that in the book, no one has to worry that Meriadoc's player is pissed off that his character is a useless burden for 80% of the game.
Two points:
1: At what point does Gandalf or Aragorn ever reveal themselves to be more powerful than a typical player character... much less their fellow PC's? Hell, man, in Old SKool D&D gandalf was 5th level by Canon from what I've heard. The only thing about being a superhuman scion of an ancient line of kings that made a damn lick of difference was that Aragorn got to be king at the end of the story. Both the damn Elf and the Damn Dwarf got hella more kills than he did.
2: That's a group dynamic issue. I've got 'useless' characters at my table now and no one gets pissed that they are being carried because I, the GM, set the challenges up for the party as they are, not as they should be. In the D&D game I play in twice a month, the Druid/arcane hierophant is fucking useless because he never does shit and that pisses off half the players. Because he won't, not because he can't. A lot of it has to do with the players attitudes. Maybe Merry's player is a charming bastard and everyone wants him to game with them because he tells the filthiest fucking jokes they ever heard? And its a great game because of it.
Quote from: Spike;372347Hell, man, in Old SKool D&D gandalf was 5th level by Canon from what I've heard.
Counter-sense, to me. There's no such thing as "canon" in Old School D&D, if you exclude EGG's grandstanding of what AD&D was supposed to be and remain officially (TM) for TSR to retain the control of the game's IP, of course.
Quote from: Peregrin;372013It'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.
Yes!
Seanchai
Quote from: Spike;372347Two points:
2: That's a group dynamic issue. I've got 'useless' characters at my table now and no one gets pissed that they are being carried because I, the GM, set the challenges up for the party as they are, not as they should be. In the D&D game I play in twice a month, the Druid/arcane hierophant is fucking useless because he never does shit and that pisses off half the players. Because he won't, not because he can't. A lot of it has to do with the players attitudes. Maybe Merry's player is a charming bastard and everyone wants him to game with them because he tells the filthiest fucking jokes they ever heard? And its a great game because of it.
Yeah, more times than not regardless of system, uberness and special snowflake status are something a player makes for himself as opossed to having it handed to him by system quirks.
Also I think Merry's player probably gives good head, if you can get past the goatee.
Quote from: Spike;372347Hell, man, in Old SKool D&D gandalf was 5th level by Canon from what I've heard.
I think this is from
Dragon magazine, but not by one of the creators of the game:
by Bill Seligman
What?? I hear you scream. Impossible, you cry; Gandalf was at least 30th, 40th, even 50th level!! After all, he was an Istari, and he had lived at least 2000 years! Oh, really?, I reply. Let us take a look at all the magic he ever performed, and see what was so high level about him.
First, let us leaf through the Hobbit. In order, Gandalf's spells were: 1) To make fancy colored smoke rings and have them fly about the room. This is no more than a variant on Pyrotechnics, with perhaps a bit of Phantasmal Force mixed in. 2) Tricking the trolls with Ventriloquism, a first level spell. 3) Lightning Bolts from his staff to kill the Orcs as they kidnapped the Dwarves and Bilbo. Third level spell. 4) Pyrotechnics to confuse the Orcs to rescue the Dwarves and Bilbo. Second level spell. 5) Lighting the way for the Dwarves and Bilbo while in the caves, with a glow from his staff. Second level spell. 6) Making pine cones catch fire and tossing them down upon the Wargs from a tree. A variant on Fireball, Pyrotechnics, and even the Druid spell Produce Flame. It is not specifically a spell mentioned on the D&D lists, but it is not terribly powerful all the same. 7) Tossing Sauron out of Dol Gul-dur. He did this in combination with the White Council, and so this does not count as an individual effort. (Besides, as I shall later show, Sauron was no more, or not much more, than 7th or 8th level.) 8) A combination of either Lightning Bolt or Light from his staff to warn the "good" side of the Battle Of Five Armies to get together, as you wish. Depending on the spell system you use, you may be able to change these figures by a level or two, but so far Gandalf has shown no abilities above 5th level.
Now, let us go to The Fellowship of The Ring. 1) His fireworks display at Bilbo's party: again, assuming they were magical, which does not have to be true, a variant on Phantasmal Forces, Pyrotechnics, etc. No more than second level. 2) Lightning Bolt battle with the Nazgul. Third level spells. (All right, if you wish to call the taming of Shadow-fax magical, O.K. After the episode at the gates of Moria, there is no reason why Gandalf could not speak Equine, but a "Charm Animal" spell would be easier than Charm Person anyway.) 3) Adding fighters to the foam of the river that was overflowing the Nazgul. Phantasmal Force, perhaps a variant on Monster Summoning I (since we have not a hint as to the level of these fighters). 4) Lighting a fire in the middle of the snowstorm. A touch of Fireball, or even Produce Flame. (Note here Gandalf reveals how even this simple bit of magic can be detected for such a large distance. This shows the magical "weakness" of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Ah ha, you say, I see where you are wrong! Hold on, I'll come to that point later.) To continue: 5) the flames when fighting the Wargs. Variant on Fireball, 3rd level. 6) Lighting the way in Moria. 1st level spell. 7) Fighting the Balrog. In his description of the battle, it seems to me he used only, or mostly, Lightning Bolts, with perhaps some Fireballs if you are generous. Still only third level. 8) Being resurrected. But this is not done by Gandalf, he was "sent back"back" and therefore had nothing himself to do with the feat.
On to The Two Towers: 1) The bursting into flame of Legolas' arrow. A mild Fireball, perhaps even an unusual form of Protection from Normal Missiles. 2) The awakening of Theoden. A combination of Lightning, Light, and Darkness. No more than 3rd level. 3) The breaking of Saruman's staff. This could have been a natural result of one Istari saying that to another, a mild Charm Person effect, or something of that nature. It is not spectacular enough, in any case, to go beyond third level spell-casting.
And now, The Return of The King: 1) The beams of light used to rescue Faramir. No more powerful than Lightning Bolt, for all the effect they had. They could have been the 3rd level spell Firebeam described in, I believe, Alarums and Excursions #12. 2) In the Battle of Slag Hills, when Gandalf should perhaps have used the maximum amount of his powers, he did nothing mentioned in the book. Perhaps he used Lightning Bolt of Fireball/-beam, but still this is no higher than 3rd level spells. 3) Talking mind-to-mind with Elrond and Galadriel. You don't need any more than ESP to make this work.
And that is it. If I have left any spells out, like Gandalf using the
Hold Portal or Wizard Lock in Moria, it is not intentional. But I do not think that they would go beyond 3rd level. If the words I have used such as "variant" make you think that he must have been at least 11th level to research the spells, remember that he had his Staff, and the ring Narya the Great, which was associated with fire-type spells anyway. Since he was forced to use them several times, when, as I have shown, a 5th level mage did not need them, perhaps he was even less than 5th level, but I shall not try to press my point too far. If you ask how he lasted so long battling a Balrog, I reply that that is a fault with the D&D combat system, so the point that a 5th level mage could not withstand the blows of the 10th level Balrog does not quite hold water. (I am referring only to the Balrog in D&D, not including the Eldritch Wizardry characteristics, as this type of Balrog is usually said to be too weak for a true Tolkien Balrog. In fact, when placed in perspective with Gandalf's battle with one, the Balrog described by Gygax and Arneson originally was of normal strength. As far as I am concerned, the type VI demon is a type VI demon, not a Balrog.) As for Sauron: without going to too much detail, Clairvoyance, ESP, and perhaps an advanced Wizard's Eye, with much longer ranges than described in D&D. But since he had the Palantir, maybe he let the thing do most of the work for him, and his "Red Eye". If you are going to be nasty, then let him have Control Weather, which makes him 12th level. Still not spectacular, when there are those who regard Sauron as 75th level or so.
So how do we reconcile our intuition with the bare facts? Well, for one thing, as I hinted above, the universe of LOTR was magic-weak. It is easy to assume that it was run by " a very tough DM" who rewarded experience so slowly that it would take 2000 years for a pseudo-angel to get to the 5th level, and 6000 years or so for an EHP to reach 12th. But it is still unsettling. I would rather place the blame on the scale we are using: the D&D magic system. It seems a more likely thing for Gygax and Arneson to misjudge the spell levels. So what can we do? Change the spell system, the experience system or the levels of the spells, or all of the above? What is your response?
I don't care what level Gandalf was or is.
Never gonna wind up playing him, neither will any players that I GM.
Hell, I don't even like levels in roleplaying games.
Gandalf was an NPC ally that was mostly trustworthy .
Thats all he really was.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;372361I don't care what level Gandalf was or is.
Never gonna wind up playing him, neither will any players that I GM.
Hell, I don't even like levels in roleplaying games.
Gandalf was an NPC ally that was mostly trustworthy .
Thats all he really was.
- Ed C.
and that is my point.
What's the problem with non human races? Most of them are no more or less like typical people (humans) than most of the character types in most games. Is james bond more or less like a typical human than a vulcan? Is a wookie all that less like a typical human than conan?
Just because a character is nominally human doesn't make him like a real human being(Before the big reboot, james bond was utterly non human.) and just because a character is physically non human doesn't make him all that different than some real people.
I often play non humans in RPGs and have had GMs say that I usually do a good job of it. I had a game where I was playing a mechanoid character who could not understand why the team was going to a nudie bar after work.
"So, you go to these places and have naked human women stimulate your sexual arousal, you spend a lot of money there and because it's forbidden to actually have sex with them you return to your homes and masturbate, essentially."
(Human PC) "Uh, well, yeah, sort of."
"So why not just go home and masturbate directly, saving the money you'd spend at the strip club?"
"Uh, well, the girls look nice and you can get lap dances for a few bucks."
"But no actual sex, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"It must be one of those human things that no rational intelligence can understand."
(The GM and the rest of the players broke up on that. I got an extra XP for good role playing.)
I've had a couple GMs specifically ask me to run a non human player character in some games as they know I can do so usually, as long as it's a race I can identify with in some way and not something like a klingon, which is basically just an obnoxious, overbearing asshole with testosterone poisoning and not all that much of a 'non human".
Quote from: Pika from the PitsHell, man, in Old SKool D&D gandalf was 5th level by Canon from what I've heard.
Sorry kiddo, but even back when I played D&D....I always told people that the game did a particulary shitty job modelling LotR. I read the piece AoF reperinted from the Dragon, and that just makes the point.
D&D ≠ LotR.
So it does not make you wrong or right, nor I. It just means that using D&D to call Gandalf and the rest of the crew underpowered in an RPG sense does not work,
Quote from: LordVreeg;372717Sorry kiddo, but even back when I played D&D....I always told people that the game did a particulary shitty job modelling LotR. I read the piece AoF reperinted from the Dragon, and that just makes the point.
D&D ≠ LotR.
So it does not make you wrong or right, nor I. It just means that using D&D to call Gandalf and the rest of the crew underpowered in an RPG sense does not work,
Trying to base characters and performance off stories is a sucker's game. The characters in a story have a "level" equal to the needs of the plot, and subject to the plot's needs, not a consistent level of power.
The best a game can do is make a setting where things like the story can happen IF the dice roll right. In a story there are no dice, just the writer, his plot and it's needs. The characters performance is determined by those.
I don't get into arguments over that sort of thing, I just say something like "Well, gandalf must have rolled a critical there" or "the bad guys rolled a critical at that time but not the later one."
Given a near infinite selection of choices, my players have almost always chosen humans or core races. Me, I like weird races. I love anthro races in particular. But tend to run humancentric games. Humans maybe the most common race, but they aren't the only game in town. I would like to run a campaign where humans are just another minority amongst a true polyglotal population. I have always been bugged by how humans are always the 'vanilla' race. The default 'base' from which all other races diverge in some way or another. What if we find out that humans are the strongest race in the galaxy, or the fastest? Or the most lecherous... human doesn't have to be the default and they don't have to be vanilla.
I say just let it happen...
I mean we ARE talking about PC's, who regularly stomp through town fully armored, with flaming swords and toting severed monster heads...in the long run is it really going to be much worse if they have blue skin, horns, or prehensile elephant trunks where their nipples are supposed to be?
Quote from: Shazbot79;372908I say just let it happen...
I mean we ARE talking about PC's, who regularly stomp through town fully armored, with flaming swords and toting severed monster heads...in the long run is it really going to be much worse if they have blue skin, horns, or prehensile elephant trunks where their nipples are supposed to be?
Hey, my guys put the werewolf head in a bag!
(after they used a herbal poultice preservation on it..so it was a good smelling severed werewolf head.)
In my experience, if a group is not composed of a certain minimum number of humans (or whatever the main area race is), then the whole thing falls apart. And if the group is composed of more than half Weird-Ass-Races-That-Are-Super-Rare, it falls apart much faster than if the group is composed mostly of elves or dwarves.
I think the answer to this is to create a certain minimum quota in a gaming group of "humans vs. everything else" and also of "normal demi-humans vs. Freak Races".
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;372957I think the answer to this is to create a certain minimum quota in a gaming group of "humans vs. everything else" and also of "normal demi-humans vs. Freak Races".
Personally, this isn't a viable option for me. I would find it too limiting and restricting if the RAW dictated to me and my group how and when we could have non-human races played in our games.
YMMV, of course, and I wouldn't fault anyone for creating some kind of House Rule to this effect for either a specific game or as a blanket rule for their group and games as a whole.
Quote from: LordVreeg;372950Hey, my guys put the werewolf head in a bag!
(after they used a herbal poultice preservation on it..so it was a good smelling severed werewolf head.)
Wait...what are they going to use a severed Werewolf head for that they need to preserve it indefinitely? 0.0
I don't recall any spells that use werewolf head as a material component...
Quote from: Shazbot79;372971Wait...what are they going to use a severed Werewolf head for that they need to preserve it indefinitely? 0.0
I don't recall any spells that use werewolf head as a material component...
Shaz, I have my own ruleset. It's used as a reagent in some Animist spells for creating protection from lycanthropy...but the fact it smelled cinnamon-fresh never stopped being amusing...
Quote from: Thanlis;372019That'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.
A good point. The rest of the campaign world could be almost exclusively humans, but by definition, adventuring groups do not fit the norm. It would be a good opportunity to explore themes of isolation and alienation as well.
Quote from: Xanther;372040My personal pet peeve about non-human species is they always seem to be clearly superior to humans in the game mechanic ways that matter to players (especially power hungry ones). In my own homebrew non-humans are not clearly superior and can be clearly inferior in game mechanic ways attractive to power hungry players, even if the non-humans are superior to humans in setting/social ways.
Another important point I was going to raise after reading the rest of the thread. If you want the demi-humans to be less common as a campaign theme, make them more mechanically mundane, at least as PCs. If they are just short humans, or humans with pointy ears and not much else, I think you will find players choosing them less often, for the reasons described above.
Quote from: two_fishes;372057This sort of thing is one of the reasons I think it's always worthwhile to have a session or discussion of some kind before the game proper begins. You don't just generate characters, you discuss what the setting is like, and what it means to have these characters in this setting, and talk about ways to make it coherent and hooky for both the players and the GM.
Quote from: Peregrin;372059True.
When you're playing a campaign, eventually someone is going to wonder why the guy with the flaming (or icy) hair is running around with a bunch of relatively "normal" demi-humans, and why people in villages just accept him (or don't).
Voted up, and instruct me on subscribing to your newsletter.
Quote from: LordVreeg;372950Hey, my guys put the werewolf head in a bag!
(after they used a herbal poultice preservation on it..so it was a good smelling severed werewolf head.)
my guy pickled the head of his hated enemy in a jar of brine.
Actually, I think that fantasy games work better when the setting has more exotic races than just humans along with short, gruff humans, lithe, pointy-eared humans, furry-footed humans and savage, green-skinned humans.
I'm more inclined to disallow Dwarves, Elves, Half-Elves and Halflings than I am Thri-Kreen, Tieflings, Gnomes or Warforged.
I think it works as long as the GM makes the effort to expand upon these races...things like culture, values, taboos, society, etc.
Quote from: Shazbot79;373062Actually, I think that fantasy games work better when the setting has more exotic races than just humans along with short, gruff humans, lithe, pointy-eared humans, furry-footed humans and savage, green-skinned humans.
I'm more inclined to disallow Dwarves, Elves, Half-Elves and Halflings than I am Thri-Kreen, Tieflings, Gnomes or Warforged.
I think it works as long as the GM makes the effort to expand upon these races...things like culture, values, taboos, society, etc.
Uh huh... and why exactly would that work better?
RPGPundit
Back to the original topic: I like tons of nonhuman races. No reason exactly.
Well, ok there is a reason. It's an instant roleplaying hook. Grumpy dwarf. Mysterious elf. sinister tiefling.
Quote from: RPGPundit;373093Uh huh... and why exactly would that work better?
RPGPundit
Fantasy should have an element of the fantastic...therefore I think that fantasy races serve that notion better when they are stranger and more alien than your typical Tolkien demi-humans. Especially when juxtaposed with plain old humans.
It can work, as long as the GM is operating under the assumption that while a certain level of racial tension is inevitable, people can be more cosmopolitan and aren't necessarily going to lynch someone on sight just because they have a sandwich for a head or whatever.
It comes down to personal taste I suppose...some people like their fantasy worlds gray and drab while I like mine to resemble Cirque Du Soleil on mescaline.
It's essentially Lord of the Rings vs. Perdido Street Station.
Quote from: PaladinCA;372012This 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.
Yup...pretty much the same experience over here. I have to insert alien NPCs into Star Wars or it would be all-human, all the time.
Quote from: Shazbot79;373099Fantasy should have an element of the fantastic...therefore I think that fantasy races serve that notion better when they are stranger and more alien than your typical Tolkien demi-humans. Especially when juxtaposed with plain old humans.
It can work, as long as the GM is operating under the assumption that while a certain level of racial tension is inevitable, people can be more cosmopolitan and aren't necessarily going to lynch someone on sight just because they have a sandwich for a head or whatever.
It comes down to personal taste I suppose...some people like their fantasy worlds gray and drab while I like mine to resemble Cirque Du Soleil on mescaline.
It's essentially Lord of the Rings vs. Perdido Street Station.
Uh huh, so what you really mean to say is "I think its hipper to like freak-races than the standard myth-archetypes our culture considers normative". Because, in case you haven't noticed, pretty well fucking EVERYONE knows what Lord of the Rings is, and what a Dwarf or Hobbit is, without much need of explanation, whereas pretty well fucking nobody knows "perdido street station".
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;373275Uh huh, so what you really mean to say is "I think its hipper to like freak-races than the standard myth-archetypes our culture considers normative". Because, in case you haven't noticed, pretty well fucking EVERYONE knows what Lord of the Rings is, and what a Dwarf or Hobbit is, without much need of explanation, whereas pretty well fucking nobody knows "perdido street station".
RPGPundit
Yes...I think it's hipper.
I think that normative races are boring and overused.
I think that Middle Earth, along with all it's bastard progeny has had every ounce of creativity that they ever had to give wrung out of them and is now the literary equivalent of a rundown roadside motel next to the world's largest wad of lint.
Quote from: RPGPundit;373275Because, in case you haven't noticed, pretty well fucking EVERYONE knows what Lord of the Rings is, and what a Dwarf or Hobbit is, without much need of explanation,
RPGPundit
Do you include half-mermen in that?
People who don't like Tolkien are the new swine.
Quote from: RPGPundit;373275Uh huh, so what you really mean to say is "I think its hipper to like freak-races than the standard myth-archetypes our culture considers normative". Because, in case you haven't noticed, pretty well fucking EVERYONE knows what Lord of the Rings is, and what a Dwarf or Hobbit is, without much need of explanation, whereas pretty well fucking nobody knows "perdido street station".
But within Tolkien's Middle Earth, Hobbits are a weird race. Almost no one except those close to the Shire has heard of them. They are almost never seen in human lands. Further, while everyone has heard of elves, they are similarly rare and exceptional in human lands. And Aragorn's Numenorean heritage is nearly unique.
In a typical D&D setting, you can go into a town and find some halflings or half-elves or dwarves scattered around it. However, in the world of Middle Earth, the Fellowship of the Ring was a bunch of freaks including strange races that are unknown or legendary in a typical town they walk into.
I think an important question is whether you are regurgitating Tolkien, or are you imitating him? Hobbits weren't a standard myth-archetype prior to Tolkien - he invented them basically out of whole cloth. While I'm up for role-playing in Middle Earth, I think it's completely valid for role-players (or RPG writers) to be similarly creative and come up with their own weird new races, rather than just regurgitating Tolkien.
Quote from: jhkim;373343But within Tolkien's Middle Earth, Hobbits are a weird race. Almost no one except those close to the Shire has heard of them. They are almost never seen in human lands. Further, while everyone has heard of elves, they are similarly rare and exceptional in human lands. And Aragorn's Numenorean heritage is nearly unique.
In a typical D&D setting, you can go into a town and find some halflings or half-elves or dwarves scattered around it. However, in the world of Middle Earth, the Fellowship of the Ring was a bunch of freaks including strange races that are unknown or legendary in a typical town they walk into.
I think an important question is whether you are regurgitating Tolkien, or are you imitating him? Hobbits weren't a standard myth-archetype prior to Tolkien - he invented them basically out of whole cloth. While I'm up for role-playing in Middle Earth, I think it's completely valid for role-players (or RPG writers) to be similarly creative and come up with their own weird new races, rather than just regurgitating Tolkien.
Agreed. And Tolkien re-inforces the point I made earlier. If you want a humano-centric world, then populate it with humans and leave the players alone.
Quote from: One Horse Town;373335Do you include half-mermen in that?
Well, within the context of The Setting (the official setting of FtA!) the Half-mermen are meant to be the equivalent of melniboneans or viridians, what's left of a once-powerful great race that ruled long ago.
But in terms of game mechanics I specifically included the Half-mermen as an example of how you can have a non-standard race in FtA!; but you'll note I didn't fill the list of races with non-standard races.
I'm not against the idea of there being freak-races around, just of games that create a plethora of them, make them statistically superior to humans, and then at the same time present settings where Humans are supposed to be the vast dominant species of the area where PCs are meant to play and all the aforementioned races are super-rare or virtually extinct (neither of which are qualities the Half-mermen have in The Setting, by the way).
RPGPundit
What if you're just sick of seeing Dwarves and Elves all the time?
What the fuck?
Has anybody ever gone really original with a fantasy setting?
What about tossing a "Sci Fi" humanoid race into a Fantasy setting or vice versa?
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;373404What if you're just sick of seeing Dwarves and Elves all the time?
What the fuck?
Has anybody ever gone really original with a fantasy setting?
What about tossing a "Sci Fi" humanoid race into a Fantasy setting or vice versa?
- Ed C.
There are levels of uniqueness.
Sometimes you can make a statement about races in terms of how culture affects them. Culture trumps race.
I purposely have races that were once 'monster' races as playable, acculturated ones. This always is interesting.
and adding a few different playable races. I have a FratreCanis (DogBrother) race that is a playable race that is not typical.
Tolkien's Middle Earth is a very bad example for most gaming questions except the 'human-centric' one.
Quote from: Koltar;373404What if you're just sick of seeing Dwarves and Elves all the time?
What the fuck?
Has anybody ever gone really original with a fantasy setting?
What about tossing a "Sci Fi" humanoid race into a Fantasy setting or vice versa?
- Ed C.
Lots of people have. You know why no one is talking about them?
Because they suck. Truly original shit is rare and frequently 'too weird to live'.
Perdido Street Station is up there: It had a flash in the pan popularity and a few ultra-hipster fan wankers but damn few people read it and even fewer remember anything about it except that 'it was weird'.
Without familiar touchstones its not worth the effort.
Here's some stuff in that vein that doesn't suck-
I don't care about popularity.
Dark Crystal
Kamandi
Den of Earth
WAll-E
Wizard of Oz
I'm sure I could think of more, but no one told me there as going to be a quiz.
Also the setting, and the cast of Perdido Street Station is dominated by humans, regardless, I vastly prefer The Scar.
Quote from: Koltar;373404What if you're just sick of seeing Dwarves and Elves all the time?
What the fuck?
Has anybody ever gone really original with a fantasy setting?
What about tossing a "Sci Fi" humanoid race into a Fantasy setting or vice versa?
- Ed C.
I have to admit...though the names, physical features, stats, and cultural minutiae may change, most fantasy races boil down to these five (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveRaces).
Of course the Borg might make an interesting addition to your D&D game.
I've toyed with the idea of using the Fraal from Alternity in my games...but I decided to just use the Gith races instead.
Quote from: RPGPundit;373374I'm not against the idea of there being freak-races around, just of games that create a plethora of them, make them statistically superior to humans, and then at the same time present settings where Humans are supposed to be the vast dominant species of the area where PCs are meant to play and all the aforementioned races are super-rare or virtually extinct (neither of which are qualities the Half-mermen have in The Setting, by the way).
RPGPundit
I don't really think that the vast majority of gamers out their create characters based on mechanical superiority.
My assumption is that most of us form an idea of the character in our heads and then paint a portrait of them using the game rules, choosing options that are thematic rather than what is superior.
Even the cats on WotC's "How to make a character that can one-shot god" boards do this most of the time.
Quote from: Spike;373440Perdido Street Station is up there: It had a flash in the pan popularity and a few ultra-hipster fan wankers but damn few people read it and even fewer remember anything about it except that 'it was weird'.
Without familiar touchstones its not worth the effort.
I'm a huge fan of that book.
The thing that sticks out most in my mind is the deft mashing of genres, rich descriptive language and one of the most satisfying endings I've ever read.
Perdido Street Station was simply tits, as was the Scar and The Iron Council.
Gamma World
I love hobbits. Probably because I am one.