I'm creating a set of races for use as PCs in a fantasy game, and I would like some advice. I'm beyond bored with D&D/Tolkien races so I'm not doing any of those. (Except elves - my co-creator loves elves so we have to have those.) So far we have humans, bear people (I'm stealing the Sodeskayan Bears from the Helmsman books), a seafaring avian race, and some cursory ideas for others. So ...
1) What do you want to know about a race, especially one not well-defined in literature, in order to enjoy playing it? Both for roleplaying and mechanics.
2) What would you consider the defining characteristics for an RPG race?
3) Is there any fantasy race you would love to see in a game that has not been done over and over already?
4) Any general advice on this kind of project? Any lessons learned from personal experience would be much appreciated.
If you want unique races, you could just replace the standard races with a make-your-own-race feature. Let the players choose what they want to play, and then use what they come up with to define the world.
The advantage of traditional races is they come with a pre-packaged set of expectations. You don't have to tell people what a dwarf is, you just have to tell them how your dwarves are different. That's important, because players usually want to play, instead of doing homework, like learning about new races. Your new races should stick to a few fairly distinctive and easy to remember traits, so you don't overwhelm the players. Let the rest be defined in play.
To answer your second question in a way that's probably not exactly what you intended, the defining characteristic of a PC race is they're playable. They can't be over or under powered, need to fit in normal rooms, have to be roughly as mobile as humans, need manipulative digits, should be intelligent and have a large degree of independence, have to be socially tolerable in the main areas of the campaign, they should be able to speak the common language at least passably, and probably a few other characteristics I'm forgetting.
Your third question has a false assumption. There's an infinite variety in just playing plain old humans, and the same is true of any other race that isn't too annoying. Unless you're doing a deep dive into what it means to be an alien -- and almost nobody does that, in RPGs -- it's character that's important, not race. Don't get too distracted by superficialities.
I just went through this exercise, with the exception that I do like elves and dwarves. Obviously it very much depends on what you want to accomplish, but I would be wary of being different just to be different. That said:
- Pick a race to mean something in the setting--or the implied setting if the game doesn't have one. It's more important to do that than to show off special mechanics, which can be counter-productive in races.
If the races you pick have obvious hooks into the normal system mechanics that make sense, you may be able to make the race stand out a little via those mechanics. But the flavor of the race comes first--i.e. don't force it.
Remember that not every race has to be playable as a PC. For example, I've got "halflings" in my current campaign--they just aren't a race that players can use. The race choices should be limited enough that players will consider the new options.
Start with about 50% more races than you think you'll want. Ruthlessly cut the ones that don't shine. Out of several attempts, you'll almost certainly have 1 to 3 duds.
BTW, worry about what the players will use, and not what anyone else will think. I think more than half of the GMs here would throw out my game sight unseen because I ended up with: Humans, Elves, Dwaves, cat-people, wolf-people, and some alternate humans with long-term magical growth into the 8 to 9 foot range. However, my players were interested in playing every single race. Since they are the only ones likely to see this system anytime soon, I think I can live with that. :)
take the components that define a race and let players pick and choose and build their own, treat all outcomes as variations of the same race; a raceless trans-human sort of designer beaker baby sort of thing.
My advice would be to create a humanocentric world but keep some space for mysterious kingdoms nearby. Then let the players decide what non-human races they want to play. If a player wants to play an elf, add elves. If a player wants to play a lizardman, add lizardmen. If a player wants to play cat people, it's time to find a new player.
This way you don't need to worry about the players being interested in a particular race as they already are.
As for designing the race itself, treat it like Chewbacka. At first all we know is that wookies are strong and have a bad temper. That's enough to get started and you can gradually add more details as needed. Another good example of this is Worf, some parts of his personality became typical of the new Klingons while some aspects became contrary.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on December 06, 2020, 06:46:03 AM
Start with about 50% more races than you think you'll want. Ruthlessly cut the ones that don't shine. Out of several attempts, you'll almost certainly have 1 to 3 duds.
Speaking from experience, I have to reiterate this one. I started out with 12 races and the final count is down to 10, but that number doesn't begin to tell the actual story.
One of the first changes that happened was that half-elves and half-orcs got merged into humans as subspecies. That gave me room for a couple of all new races.
My next set of development problems was summed up by joking line about the sprites eating my giants and my dragons.
All three were separate races to begin with, but the fluff for the sprites was boring as all get out, while the giants' was great and both were elemental-themed so I merged them along with some extra options like human-sized and beastly elemental-themed beings into a single species.
Later, continued work on my cosmology led to my original dragon origins (as demons who embodied themselves by creating cysts in reality that are mistaken as eggs) being too problematic (demons went from just evil entities from another dimension who might be able to grow -to- irredeemable spirits of corruption from the dawn of creation), but were close enough to the "Eldritch" that with some tweaking they got merged into the Eldritch as well.
Meanwhile, my dwarves were so bog-standard boring at that point that I had seriously considered just merging them into either humans or mutants as a subspecies... I was maybe a week from pulling the trigger on that until I finally found their shtick in the idea that they kept losing parts of themselves to a wasting condition related to their creation and they replaced the losses with magically crafted artifice.
Lastly, my original Halflings (so named because they were half of the mortal world and half of the Shadow World) were just too creepy for others to be interested in playing (the only time they ever got used was when it was the last available pregen for a playtest) since they were explicitly the shadows of murdered children (the mythology was that whenever someone died before their time, their shadows became untethered from their souls and lingered until their appointed mortal lifetime was over; lacking souls, the shadows of adults twisted into goblins, orcs and ogres... but children's shadows had not had time to grow quite so bitter and so could be a playable, albeit selfish, species).
It didn't help that a strong desire for more traditional and playable orcs led to a redesign of the goblins, orcs and ogres, leaving the halflings only connected to generic shades so ultimately they were cut entirely.
At that point I was down to nine species, but some input led to the reintroduction of most of the halfling's shadow mechanics in Fetches; former psychopomps and hunters of the Grey Host (servants of the Goddess of Death hunts the undead who seek to escape the proper cycle of life and death) who became trapped in the Mortal World after a supernatural cataclysm. They got a built-in culture in their forming into wandering caravans that seek to continue their divine purpose of delivering aid and comfort to the dying and hunting the undead even in their exile that made them far more heroic in nature.
So, yeah... fully HALF of my initial species ended either being merged with others, had major modifications made to either lore or mechanics or were just outright replaced.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM1) What do you want to know about a race, especially one not well-defined in literature, in order to enjoy playing it? Both for roleplaying and mechanics.
What do they look like?
What are they like? (In terms of attitudes, drives, temperament, etc.)
What are they good/bad at? (Strengths, Weaknesses, etc.--not just in terms of game abilities, but also in terms of what sort of professions/specialties they are known for in the world)
What is their role in the word? Why do these things even exist in the game world? What is their "Point"?
What is their relation with other races and the environment?
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM2) What would you consider the defining characteristics for an RPG race?
They're playable and (hopefully) have a place in the world beyond "I'm just tired of trad fantasy races".
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM3) Is there any fantasy race you would love to see in a game that has not been done over and over already?
Several, however, this question gives me the impression that you haven't even thought about what your world is going to be about yet and haven't settled on anything yet, so you're asking people to spitball random ideas. And if that is the case, then maybe you should be asking that question to your players instead, since they're the ones who're gonna end up playing it (presumably). If you're just cooking up a random setting and your only parameter is "no traditional fantasy races (other than elves cuz one guy can't let go of them)" sometimes the best bet is to tell your players and see what sort of races they'd like to see. Maybe even go the Dawn of Worlds (http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf) route and cook up a world collaboratively.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM4) Any general advice on this kind of project? Any lessons learned from personal experience would be much appreciated.
Start with defining what kind of world you want to build and see what kind of races fit in it, rather than the other way around, unless you have a particular race you specifically want to explore for some reason. Otherwise it will just be a random race just for the sake of doing something different. If you have no clue about what world you want to build and are willing to make it collaboratively doing something like Dawn of Worlds (http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf) may help.
I'll definitely second the Dawn of Worlds method; particularly for a home game. It gives each player some input into what they want to see in the world, but still lets the GM be ultimate arbiter... either via extra points, extra turns or just "I'll take this under advisement" depending on the degree of control over the worlds history and cultures you want to give the players.
Most of what I'd want to know has already been covered, with one exception: The culture, or cultures if they have more than one. The first thing I want to know about a fantasy race is what they're like around each other when humans aren't around, and in what ways they think humans (and other races) are weird and different from them. Every being grows up thinking it, and its first way of life, is what the norm of reality "really" is, and in any mindset similar enough to human to play comprehensibly, this is likely to remain true.
Ideally this should be distilled into a couple of "playable attitude" notes. I'll use classical FRPG races here for example but you don't need to be limited to this, obviously.
- All but the very youngest elves are genuinely put off and irritated by the rush, bustle and impatience of most human towns. When you're immortal you're used to doing things in your own good time. (Conversely, if you haven't agreed to a deadline with an elf, you never have to apologize for missing it.)
- Even dwarves who aren't themselves craftsmen are genuinely angered by the frequent human attitude of "good enough" that occurs in so many endeavours, because dwarven culture simply doesn't settle for second-best in craftsmanship. Doing something in a slapdash, half-assed manner for a dwarf is often taken as a personal insult. (On the other hand, if a dwarf sees you've done your absolute best for him at the expense of time and effort, he will value the result even if it's not up to standards he can use.)
- Food in halfling communities isn't just a refueling exercise, it's a genuine social commitment. Halflings not only love to eat but they hate to eat alone; turning down an invitation for a meal without an explanation or, worse, standing someone up for an agreed invitation will genuinely hurt most halflings' feelings -- they don't get violently angry about it but it can genuinely damage relationships. (Offering to cook for a halfling earns you a lot of credit, but being willing to pay for a very good meal elsewhere is almost as good.)
(Momentary obligatory reality check here: In principle any race as complex in its own right as humans should have as many cultures and subcultures as we do, or should have a plausible reason why they don't. In practice, of course, there's never enough room in any given game for this, and even a brief nod to something like two or three subcultures will make all of them sketchier and vaguer. But that's where giving room to the players to help flesh things out can be useful.)
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 09:50:39 AM
(Momentary obligatory reality check here: In principle any race as complex in its own right as humans should have as many cultures and subcultures as we do, or should have a plausible reason why they don't. In practice, of course, there's never enough room in any given game for this, and even a brief nod to something like two or three subcultures will make all of them sketchier and vaguer. But that's where giving room to the players to help flesh things out can be useful.)
If the game is using class and race in the early D&D sense, then I agree. If the race is as much an archetype as the class is, then you've got to embed some culture in that race for simplicity. Much like your examples.
However, if the game is not wedded to that model, then I think it is very much useful to break race and culture out into different elements. In fact, I'd say that this is far more useful than the D&D "background" approach. Not least, it vastly simplifies the racial listings.
Now, I've gone a bit extreme on this with my current design, because I had some very specific approaches that I wanted with cultures. So I suspect my culture list of "Agrarian, Frontier, Herders, Itinerant, Urban, and Wild" is a bit much outside of that context. This did let me get the basics of six cultures on a single 8.5 x 11 landscape, 4 column page, and the same with six races. If certain combos are not likely in the setting (and they aren't, such as Dwarven Herders), then I can cover that elsewhere easily enough. One could, of course, use something like the Runequest Barbarian, Civilized, Nomad, Primitive culture approach instead.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on December 07, 2020, 10:10:41 AMIf the race is as much an archetype as the class is, then you've got to embed some culture in that race for simplicity. ...However, if the game is not wedded to that model, then I think it is very much useful to break race and culture out into different elements.
I agree, as much as possible, although I am also always interested to see, to coin a word, the biopolitics (cf. geopolitics) of a given nonhuman culture as well. The physical differences of a race
are going to make a tangible difference to its culture as well, and often in ways outsiders won't immediately think about.
To grab the cat-people example from earlier, if you assume that they are, like nonsapient cats, obligatory biological carnivores, all of their variant subcultures will be shaped by their attitude towards not only getting hold of enough meat, but (if their psychology is oriented around hunting) how they can get hold of it in ways that will provide social contentment and fulfillment. Even the most cosmopolitan and widely travelled of their kind will probably see agrarian cultures, or urban cultures where food is something you buy in a store rather than hunt for yourself, with amused condescension at best and outright repugnance at worst; calling one of them a "grazer" or "herder" might be a deadly insult.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 10:28:47 AM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on December 07, 2020, 10:10:41 AMIf the race is as much an archetype as the class is, then you've got to embed some culture in that race for simplicity. ...However, if the game is not wedded to that model, then I think it is very much useful to break race and culture out into different elements.
I agree, as much as possible, although I am also always interested to see, to coin a word, the biopolitics (cf. geopolitics) of a given nonhuman culture as well. The physical differences of a race are going to make a tangible difference to its culture as well, and often in ways outsiders won't immediately think about.
To grab the cat-people example from earlier, if you assume that they are, like nonsapient cats, obligatory biological carnivores, all of their variant subcultures will be shaped by their attitude towards not only getting hold of enough meat, but (if their psychology is oriented around hunting) how they can get hold of it in ways that will provide social contentment and fulfillment. Even the most cosmopolitan and widely travelled of their kind will probably see agrarian cultures, or urban cultures where food is something you buy in a store rather than hunt for yourself, with amused condescension at best and outright repugnance at worst; calling one of them a "grazer" or "herder" might be a deadly insult.
Eh, I'm not totally wedded to that concept. I imagine that 'civilized' cat-people might reserve 'hunted' meat for cultural or religious holidays (for example, a coming of age ceremony where the young cub goes into the forest to bag an animal) and then just shrug and pick up sides of beef from the butcher the rest of the year, because it's more convenient.
Regular meat was not always a staple in our diets, though, which could make things interesting. A six-foot tall cat person might eat quite a bit of meat, after all -- more than a family of four in a quasi-medieval setting. And such critters might not recognize the idea of 'only nobles are allowed to hunt on these lands' and happily poach anything they can capture.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 07, 2020, 10:51:48 AMI imagine that 'civilized' cat-people might reserve 'hunted' meat for cultural or religious holidays (for example, a coming of age ceremony where the young cub goes into the forest to bag an animal) and then just shrug and pick up sides of beef from the butcher the rest of the year, because it's more convenient.
Absolutely. In fact that might turn into an
internal conflict among the Felinoi, where you have a small cult of them vociferously clinging to "the old ways" in ways that sometimes cause serious embarrassments for the rest of their folk among the world at large.
QuoteA six-foot tall cat person might eat quite a bit of meat, after all -- more than a family of four in a quasi-medieval setting. And such critters might not recognize the idea of 'only nobles are allowed to hunt on these lands' and happily poach anything they can capture.
True; or, alternately, they may respond
very strongly to the idea that "one
does not hunt in a territory not yours" (a carryover from their own competitive days) and become widely hired out as forest rangers known to be absolutely
brutal towards any poachers they catch, in return for sharing some of the noble's hunting rights.
So biopolitics are certainly not determinative, but they
are almost always pretty influential.
Following on from the notes above, it occurs to me that a key answer to question #2, i.e.:
2) What would you consider the defining characteristics for an RPG race?
is, What is its potential to cause conflicts for the PCs to get involved in? This doesn't have to be as outright antagonists, although that's one way, but there has to be some way in which members of the race -- either en masse through their presence in the world, or as individuals through their interactions -- create interesting situations for the PCs.
The Elves are most interesting to your party when they're the only people with the lore to read that old treasure map, but you have to perform some weird task for them before the Master of the Glade will bestow his wisdom. Being a caravan guard on a trip to the Valley of the Lizardfolk is just another job, until one of the Lizardfolk takes it as a personal insult that you're wearing a snakeskin belt (it would really have been nice if your caravan master had told you that!). And to use the Ghouls from GURPS, who are not undead monsters but a secret humanoid race who simply have to eat other humanoid brains to survive, discovering that a trusted NPC friend is one of them could put your PCs in many awkward positions. Ultimately it should all be designed around what will make for interesting adventures for the players.
This might be helpful, something I wrote for my 5e-lite game, haven't published yet:
---
There are usually five types of ancestries, using "traditional" fantasy as a basis.
Mundane (Human). The most numerous people of the setting. They have the largest cities and rule the strongest nation. Sometimes, they are able to breed with other species creating "half-elves", etc., but these are uncommon. They may value any ability (since they are the baseline), but Charisma might by common in cosmopolitan characters.
Tough (Dwarf). Usually a proud, stoic species who values toughness (Constitution) and Wisdom. They are often stable, brave, dour, and traditional types. Some might be resistant to poison, magic, heat, ageing, etc. They might be low on Charisma (lacking social graces) but are often reliable and full of personality. In many settings, they are crafty. Other example: cyborgs.
Graceful (Elf). These species are nimble and otherworldly, sometimes possessing innate magical (or quasi-magical) powers. Maybe they descend from fairy creatures or can travel through fairyland (or other planes). They favor light and missile weapons (Dexterity), and are often smart (Intelligence) or charming (Charisma). Their numbers might be dwindling as the world darkens or becomes more mundane. Other examples: gnomes, fauns, half-angels, half-demons, etc.
Aggressive (Orc). These are violent, expansionist, and often short-lived. They are usually bigger than humans are. Their technology is rudimentary, except maybe for implements of war. They value Strength above all, but also Constitution. Most prefer Wisdom to Intelligence and are too blunt for Charisma. Other examples: lizardpeople, beastmen, etc.
Small (Halfling). These are diminutive creatures, often overlooked by other species. They shy away from direct combat and are good at hiding (Dexterity). They may look cheerful, innocent or even adorable (Charisma) for other species, but some use this trait to deceive and manipulate.
In addition, some setting have intelligent alien species. While all the species described above are slight variations on humans, these are something completely different. Maybe they are six-limbed insect people, formless shape-changers, mutants that are completely different to each other, talking animals with no opposing thumbs, etc.
Other species are combination of two different traits (goblins are small and aggressive; gnomes are small and graceful; etc.) or exaggerated versions of the ones mentioned above (giants can be especially tough; werewolves might be incredibly aggressive; etc.).
You do not need to have all types in your setting, of course, and you can have multiple species of the same type. The "tough" and "aggressive" archetypes are often treated as synonyms, but I find the distinction useful – ignore that if you prefer.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 12:24:43 PMWhat is its potential to cause conflicts for the PCs to get involved in? This doesn't have to be as outright antagonists, although that's one way, but there has to be some way in which members of the race -- either en masse through their presence in the world, or as individuals through their interactions -- create interesting situations for the PCs.
Agree. Ideally, the differences in the races are such that conflicts occur naturally but aren't forced. That is, players that aren't bound and determined to be idiots (nothing can fix them) aren't shoved into dealing with things like Kender kleptomania--something very narrow and likely to be highly annoying if played straight or a throwaway gag if played for laughs. Granted, where to draw the lines on such potential conflicts will very much depend on the interests of the players, even throwing all the idiots out of the equation. Still, the race material ought to at least give the group a fighting chance. Accordingly, I prefer the racial pieces to be somewhat low key and easy for the GM to tweak.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM
I'm creating a set of races for use as PCs in a fantasy game, and I would like some advice. I'm beyond bored with D&D/Tolkien races so I'm not doing any of those. (Except elves - my co-creator loves elves so we have to have those.) So far we have humans, bear people (I'm stealing the Sodeskayan Bears from the Helmsman books), a seafaring avian race, and some cursory ideas for others. So ...
1) What do you want to know about a race, especially one not well-defined in literature, in order to enjoy playing it? Both for roleplaying and mechanics.
2) What would you consider the defining characteristics for an RPG race?
3) Is there any fantasy race you would love to see in a game that has not been done over and over already?
4) Any general advice on this kind of project? Any lessons learned from personal experience would be much appreciated.
There is a huge variety of characters in fantasy writ large. So I don't think there should be a single standard, or even defining characteristics. In my non-D&D games, I've seen a huge variety of characters: talking animals, dragons, ghosts, vampires, demons, angels, Amberites/Chaosites, and more.
Even aside from races, there are a ton of options of having a variety of character without them being races. Like having zodiac signs be majorly important, or nationality, or religion. For example, the sword-and-sorcery world of Xoth has character culture be central: Savage / Nomadic / Civilized / Enlightened / Decadent / Degenerate.
If you're sticking with standard-model races, and you are adapting bear-men, you might consider having a full menagerie. A variety of animal-people are a staple of fantasy from Lewis' Narnia to Redwall and others, but they're less prominent in RPGs.
Re: mundane, tough, graceful, aggressive, small
Quote from: Eric Diaz on December 07, 2020, 01:52:44 PM
In addition, some setting have intelligent alien species. While all the species described above are slight variations on humans, these are something completely different. Maybe they are six-limbed insect people, formless shape-changers, mutants that are completely different to each other, talking animals with no opposing thumbs, etc.
Other species are combination of two different traits (goblins are small and aggressive; gnomes are small and graceful; etc.) or exaggerated versions of the ones mentioned above (giants can be especially tough; werewolves might be incredibly aggressive; etc.).
You do not need to have all types in your setting, of course, and you can have multiple species of the same type. The "tough" and "aggressive" archetypes are often treated as synonyms, but I find the distinction useful – ignore that if you prefer.
(mundane, tough, graceful, aggressive, small) is a good outline of the most common sorts of fantasy races. But in my opinion, it's boring. Just remixing these creates a slightly reskinned Tolkienesque world, which is boring compared to the possible range of fantasy fiction.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 10:59:04 AM
Absolutely. In fact that might turn into an internal conflict among the Felinoi, where you have a small cult of them vociferously clinging to "the old ways" in ways that sometimes cause serious embarrassments for the rest of their folk among the world at large.
True; or, alternately, they may respond very strongly to the idea that "one does not hunt in a territory not yours" (a carryover from their own competitive days) and become widely hired out as forest rangers known to be absolutely brutal towards any poachers they catch, in return for sharing some of the noble's hunting rights.
So biopolitics are certainly not determinative, but they are almost always pretty influential.
Ah, well played. And very true. I had forgotten how big cats will stake out territories.
And to add to the fun: such poachers that are caught by cat rangers may not live to see trial or punishment. After all, meat is so expensive... (bonus points if nobody's sure if that's true or not. Uncertainty is such a wonderful thing.)
Quote from: jhkim on December 07, 2020, 05:40:10 PMThere is a huge variety of characters in fantasy writ large. So I don't think there should be a single standard, or even defining characteristics.
Agreed, with one caveat: As with weapon-armour combinations in tactically savvy games, there shouldn't be one single option among the possible PC-playable choices that is, in itself, so obviously across-the-board superior nobody will want to play anything else, or which will overshadow everybody else in a group if only one player chooses it. A race which has strengths or abilities not shared by humans should also have to contend with obstacles or weaknesses that humans are free of.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 07, 2020, 06:01:13 PMAnd to add to the fun: such poachers that are caught by cat rangers may not live to see trial or punishment. After all, meat is so expensive... (bonus points if nobody's sure if that's true or not. Uncertainty is such a wonderful thing.)
Yeeeessshhh! (shudder)
I think you've just done something people have failed to do for decades; you've hit on a perspective that makes cat-girls scary/squicky, rather than sexy. I tip my hat, sir!
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM
1) What do you want to know about a race, especially one not well-defined in literature, in order to enjoy playing it? Both for roleplaying and mechanics.
Important appearance/physiology characteristics, one or two origin myths, two or three prime motivations (e.g., for humans this could be desire for safety, desire for esteem from peers, desire for freedom). The motivations should be somewhat contradictory, as this will add depth and give players options on how to play the race.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM
2) What would you consider the defining characteristics for an RPG race?
Same as 1).
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM
3) Is there any fantasy race you would love to see in a game that has not been done over and over already?
No.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 06, 2020, 05:38:20 AM
4) Any general advice on this kind of project? Any lessons learned from personal experience would be much appreciated.
Keep it simple. Give the player several strong hooks and let them run with it. Think of elves and immortality or dwarves and the lust for gold. Do not shoulder the player with reams of background they must learn to play the race "correctly." There is much variety in the human race, so there should be the same for other races.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 06:03:28 PM
Quote from: jhkim on December 07, 2020, 05:40:10 PMThere is a huge variety of characters in fantasy writ large. So I don't think there should be a single standard, or even defining characteristics.
Agreed, with one caveat: As with weapon-armour combinations in tactically savvy games, there shouldn't be one single option among the possible PC-playable choices that is, in itself, so obviously across-the-board superior nobody will want to play anything else, or which will overshadow everybody else in a group if only one player chooses it. A race which has strengths or abilities not shared by humans should also have to contend with obstacles or weaknesses that humans are free of.
I prefer to do this by mechanics rather than by forcing the world to fit. In some settings, there are creatures that are flat out more powerful than humans. AD&D1 tackled this by "Monsters as Player Characters" which suggested various means to balance. D&D3 had "effective character level" for some races/creatures. In non-D&D systems, this is handled by having an extra point cost for certain race options, like in Dresden Files.
There are also ways to handle not all PCs being balanced.
In Cinematic Unisystem (used for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG), PCs were divided between "Hero" PCs like a Slayer, vampire, or demon -- and "White Hat" PCs who were ordinary humans. The "White Hat" PCs were objectively less powerful, but were given more options - in this case Drama points.
In Ars Magica, for example, all the players have two PCs: a more-powerful magi PC and a less-powerful companion. The players switch off which characters they're playing, so everyone has a turn being the most powerful. Similarly, I ran a bunch of games based on the Temeraire books where some PCs were humans and some PCs were dragons. All the players had a human PC and a dragon PC, and they switched off who played what.
To be honest there is only one race that I am usually interested in:
Warforged.
Warforged, Elves and Catfolk the one main race that I am interested in.
Quote from: jhkim on December 07, 2020, 05:40:10 PM
Re: mundane, tough, graceful, aggressive, small
Quote from: Eric Diaz on December 07, 2020, 01:52:44 PM
In addition, some setting have intelligent alien species. While all the species described above are slight variations on humans, these are something completely different. Maybe they are six-limbed insect people, formless shape-changers, mutants that are completely different to each other, talking animals with no opposing thumbs, etc.
Other species are combination of two different traits (goblins are small and aggressive; gnomes are small and graceful; etc.) or exaggerated versions of the ones mentioned above (giants can be especially tough; werewolves might be incredibly aggressive; etc.).
You do not need to have all types in your setting, of course, and you can have multiple species of the same type. The "tough" and "aggressive" archetypes are often treated as synonyms, but I find the distinction useful – ignore that if you prefer.
(mundane, tough, graceful, aggressive, small) is a good outline of the most common sorts of fantasy races. But in my opinion, it's boring. Just remixing these creates a slightly reskinned Tolkienesque world, which is boring compared to the possible range of fantasy fiction.
Oh, sure, I agree, but I am sticking close to "traditional" D&D. My preferred setting would be something closer to Tékumel.
Excellent. That is quite a lot of food for thought. I can see that I came to the right place. Thanks, all, for your help thus far.
I'll provide some background to the game since a few posters implied that more information would help.
Premise: About 200 years ago, after a fall of civilization and recovery, explorers from the western continent returned to the eastern continent to restore contact and look for profit. They found a land empty of the expected inhabitants, indeed all intelligent life, and changed beyond recognition from historical records. They also found various types of treasure. A colonial rush followed and there are currently a fair number of city states sponsored by three major powers across the western coastal area. Relations between the various cities and powers vary over time between distrust and open warfare. It's very age of pirates, minus the natives. The city states and surrounding areas are settled, but the spaces between are wild and dangerous, and the areas away from the coast are unexplored and more dangerous still.
Impetus for the game: About a year ago, my 11 year old son asked for a D&D birthday party. He had never played, but he knew that it used to be my major hobby. It was still a bit of a surprise, though. I thought D&D was too complex to be fun for a one-off for brand new players, so I examined my games library to find something that fit my son's interests and came up empty. I wrote a half page rule set, made up some pre-gens, and a good time was had by all. Something about the simple rules really clicked for me, so I've been developing it into a full game. At 60 pages, it no longer really deserves its name, "dead simple roleplaying," but I'm keeping the name nonetheless. The target audience is still my son (and now my daughter) and their friends.
Some comments on the discussion thus far
The thoughts about letting players create their races is very intriguing, but I don't think I want to try it with this group, since they have virtually no experience with RPGs.
I'm tempted to use anthropomorphic animals for all of the races, but I see an issue. All of the literature I'm familiar with that has anthropomorphic animals (except the original TMNT) is for kids, and my kids want to feel grown up, so I think they'll be less interested in this approach.
Moving away from traditional races doesn't have much downside for this group. They do know the Hobbit, but they're more familiar with Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and other more recent stories, so they don't have any expectation that they'll be in the land of Tolkien or the Tolkien wannabees.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 05:51:02 AM
I'm tempted to use anthropomorphic animals for all of the races, but I see an issue. All of the literature I'm familiar with that has anthropomorphic animals (except the original TMNT) is for kids, and my kids want to feel grown up, so I think they'll be less interested in this approach.
Its probably not the answer you're looking for, but if the above is the case I'd argue you should have everyone be human and focus on their cultural distinctions. Game of thrones would have been a lot less serious with warforged and wolf people running around common place.
I think the most important thing to consider is whether you have a "baseline" race/species or not. This is usually the choice with the most neutral/flexible ability modifiers and skill adjustments mechanically, and the most common/widespread inhabitant of the setting. Most games and game settings default to humans filling this role, but it doesn't have to be this way, and some settings may not even have humans in them. This can dramatically change expectations, and playing in a setting with no baseline species can be fun. Note that, oddly enough, humans in D&D 5e are both the baseline and also oddly above the norm in everything (+1 to all ability scores) by default. Consider a D&D world where a race other than humans were the most common/widespread inhabitants and humans were either non-existent or only appeared in very small roles (perhaps they are the dying race in the setting).
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 06:06:07 PM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 07, 2020, 06:01:13 PMAnd to add to the fun: such poachers that are caught by cat rangers may not live to see trial or punishment. After all, meat is so expensive... (bonus points if nobody's sure if that's true or not. Uncertainty is such a wonderful thing.)
Yeeeessshhh! (shudder)
I think you've just done something people have failed to do for decades; you've hit on a perspective that makes cat-girls scary/squicky, rather than sexy. I tip my hat, sir!
When most people think of 'anthro' animal-people, yeah, their mind goes to cutesy cat girls.
My first exposure to animal-people as such was S. Andrew Swann's Forests of the Night, where the 'moreaus' were... quite a bit scarier.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 08, 2020, 06:49:00 AM
When most people think of 'anthro' animal-people, yeah, their mind goes to cutesy cat girls.
My first exposure to animal-people as such was S. Andrew Swann's Forests of the Night, where the 'moreaus' were... quite a bit scarier.
If I had players that thought of cutesy cat girls, I might be more hesitant to include such things. Fortunately, I'm the only one in my groups that have ever heard of that, and I have no intention of replicating it. We might get the barest hint of a Disney Robin Hood vibe from some, but mostly it is just another character to develop into a personality during play, same as a human, elf, or dwarf.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 05:51:02 AMPremise: About 200 years ago, after a fall of civilization and recovery, explorers from the western continent returned to the eastern continent to restore contact and look for profit. They found a land empty of the expected inhabitants, indeed all intelligent life, and changed beyond recognition from historical records. They also found various types of treasure. A colonial rush followed and there are currently a fair number of city states sponsored by three major powers across the western coastal area. Relations between the various cities and powers vary over time between distrust and open warfare. It's very age of pirates, minus the natives. The city states and surrounding areas are settled, but the spaces between are wild and dangerous, and the areas away from the coast are unexplored and more dangerous still.
If the land is empty of inhabitants or intelligent life, then what would be the need for more character species? If that is the case then humans should probably be enough, unless there's multiple races in the other continent from where they come from, in which case we would need to know more about that other continent to provide an educated guess about what sort races would inhabit that other landmass.
But this also brings up another question for me: what if there really are other inhabitants in remote regions of this continent? Maybe there are large tribes of Beastmen at the other extreme end of the continent and the human colonists are in for a rude surprise when the Beastmen become upset with the invaders. Maybe some of the Beastmen tribes are open to trade and those could be potential PCs, but others are hostiles to invaders to their territory.
You also hint to some type of cataclysmic event that destroyed some old civilization here, and there's still treasure from that older age behind. How advanced was this earlier civilization? Advanced enough to leave golem guardians behind? Maybe there's a Warforged-like race of ancient guardians waiting to be discovered in some of these ruins. And what if the precursors of this old civilization are still around, but just went underground? Maybe there's an advanced alien-like race living in underground cities waiting to be discovered. Maybe they're elves adapted to life underground and have become albino or such. That could be where elves from your world come from--unless you want elves to come from the other continent along with the human colonists, or maybe there are two subraces of elves: forest elves that came with the human colonists, and underground albino elves native to this land.
I've gotten some traction with the current rough of my players guide for my setting (https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MNyFJViNcE3YsyQmseZ), so that level of detail for races seems like a reasonable amount.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 07, 2020, 10:28:47 AM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on December 07, 2020, 10:10:41 AMIf the race is as much an archetype as the class is, then you've got to embed some culture in that race for simplicity. ...However, if the game is not wedded to that model, then I think it is very much useful to break race and culture out into different elements.
I agree, as much as possible, although I am also always interested to see, to coin a word, the biopolitics (cf. geopolitics) of a given nonhuman culture as well. The physical differences of a race are going to make a tangible difference to its culture as well, and often in ways outsiders won't immediately think about.
To grab the cat-people example from earlier, if you assume that they are, like nonsapient cats, obligatory biological carnivores, all of their variant subcultures will be shaped by their attitude towards not only getting hold of enough meat, but (if their psychology is oriented around hunting) how they can get hold of it in ways that will provide social contentment and fulfillment. Even the most cosmopolitan and widely travelled of their kind will probably see agrarian cultures, or urban cultures where food is something you buy in a store rather than hunt for yourself, with amused condescension at best and outright repugnance at worst; calling one of them a "grazer" or "herder" might be a deadly insult.
I like both, and see no conflict between the two. I keep racial
mechanics limited to physiological aspects of the race, and also detail cultural aspects separately. This also provides an easy way to visualize, for example, the ol' "dwarf raised by elves" character.
Quote from: deathknight4044 on December 08, 2020, 06:09:30 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 05:51:02 AM
I'm tempted to use anthropomorphic animals for all of the races, but I see an issue. All of the literature I'm familiar with that has anthropomorphic animals (except the original TMNT) is for kids, and my kids want to feel grown up, so I think they'll be less interested in this approach.
Its probably not the answer you're looking for, but if the above is the case I'd argue you should have everyone be human and focus on their cultural distinctions. Game of thrones would have been a lot less serious with warforged and wolf people running around common place.
That was actually my preferred approach. Both for the reason you stated, and because one of my big goals is to keep the game as simple as possible while still doing the things I want to do. However, my son _really_ wants other races, so in they go.
Quote from: HappyDaze on December 08, 2020, 06:11:05 AM
I think the most important thing to consider is whether you have a "baseline" race/species or not. This is usually the choice with the most neutral/flexible ability modifiers and skill adjustments mechanically, and the most common/widespread inhabitant of the setting. Most games and game settings default to humans filling this role, but it doesn't have to be this way, and some settings may not even have humans in them. This can dramatically change expectations, and playing in a setting with no baseline species can be fun. Note that, oddly enough, humans in D&D 5e are both the baseline and also oddly above the norm in everything (+1 to all ability scores) by default. Consider a D&D world where a race other than humans were the most common/widespread inhabitants and humans were either non-existent or only appeared in very small roles (perhaps they are the dying race in the setting).
Baseline is definitely human. It's a human centered world, and most of the people they meet will be humans. The other races will be just common enough to be unremarkable, so the kids don't get punished for playing the race they want.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 02:07:28 PM
Quote from: deathknight4044 on December 08, 2020, 06:09:30 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 05:51:02 AM
I'm tempted to use anthropomorphic animals for all of the races, but I see an issue. All of the literature I'm familiar with that has anthropomorphic animals (except the original TMNT) is for kids, and my kids want to feel grown up, so I think they'll be less interested in this approach.
Its probably not the answer you're looking for, but if the above is the case I'd argue you should have everyone be human and focus on their cultural distinctions. Game of thrones would have been a lot less serious with warforged and wolf people running around common place.
That was actually my preferred approach. Both for the reason you stated, and because one of my big goals is to keep the game as simple as possible while still doing the things I want to do. However, my son _really_ wants other races, so in they go.
Have you spitballed a few concepts with him? Talk about anthropomorphic animal races, elemental races, mechanical races, insect races, brutish savage races, decadent races in decline, changeling babies, werewolves, vampires, little people, big people, divine races, monstrous races, whatever, and see what he bites. You're doing this to fulfill a specific expressed interest, but you don't think he can come up concepts on his own. So why not see what he's really interested in, and then design based on that.
Quote from: VisionStorm on December 08, 2020, 08:24:26 AM
But this also brings up another question for me: what if there really are other inhabitants in remote regions of this continent? Maybe there are large tribes of Beastmen at the other extreme end of the continent and the human colonists are in for a rude surprise when the Beastmen become upset with the invaders. Maybe some of the Beastmen tribes are open to trade and those could be potential PCs, but others are hostiles to invaders to their territory.
You also hint to some type of cataclysmic event that destroyed some old civilization here, and there's still treasure from that older age behind. How advanced was this earlier civilization? Advanced enough to leave golem guardians behind? Maybe there's a Warforged-like race of ancient guardians waiting to be discovered in some of these ruins. And what if the precursors of this old civilization are still around, but just went underground? Maybe there's an advanced alien-like race living in underground cities waiting to be discovered. Maybe they're elves adapted to life underground and have become albino or such. That could be where elves from your world come from--unless you want elves to come from the other continent along with the human colonists, or maybe there are two subraces of elves: forest elves that came with the human colonists, and underground albino elves native to this land.
Those are good ideas. The far reaches, separated from the coastal settlement by the continent's spinal mountain range, are only vaguely defined at this point. A lot of things could be out there. My general plan at this point is Shadow of the Colossus meets Jurassic Park as done by Miyazaki, with a bit of the scary part of Celtic folklore thrown in. None of that is incompatible with your suggestions, and I plan on filling much of it in as we go. Right now I'm planning on having all of the player races and NPC races come from the old world, so that they're familiar to each other. There could certainly be some additions as the player explore new regions though.
Quote from: Pat on December 08, 2020, 02:14:00 PM
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 02:07:28 PM
Quote from: deathknight4044 on December 08, 2020, 06:09:30 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on December 08, 2020, 05:51:02 AM
I'm tempted to use anthropomorphic animals for all of the races, but I see an issue. All of the literature I'm familiar with that has anthropomorphic animals (except the original TMNT) is for kids, and my kids want to feel grown up, so I think they'll be less interested in this approach.
Its probably not the answer you're looking for, but if the above is the case I'd argue you should have everyone be human and focus on their cultural distinctions. Game of thrones would have been a lot less serious with warforged and wolf people running around common place.
That was actually my preferred approach. Both for the reason you stated, and because one of my big goals is to keep the game as simple as possible while still doing the things I want to do. However, my son _really_ wants other races, so in they go.
Have you spitballed a few concepts with him? Talk about anthropomorphic animal races, elemental races, mechanical races, insect races, brutish savage races, decadent races in decline, changeling babies, werewolves, vampires, little people, big people, divine races, monstrous races, whatever, and see what he bites. You're doing this to fulfill a specific expressed interest, but you don't think he can come up concepts on his own. So why not see what he's really interested in, and then design based on that.
Yep. The seafaring, pirate avians were his idea, and he's also the one that really wants elves. He's my co-creator on this and is providing a lot of ideas for the setting and the bestiary. Fortunately, he's also a really talented artist, so our bestiary will be illustrated from the start.
Several posters here had lists of types of cultures for RPG races. Does anyone have a reference for such a thing? I'd love to have a fairly comprehensive list to work from, but have not found one online.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 10, 2020, 09:07:07 AM
Several posters here had lists of types of cultures for RPG races. Does anyone have a reference for such a thing? I'd love to have a fairly comprehensive list to work from, but have not found one online.
I never even looked for such a list when doing my cultures. Not that mine are rigorous as setting elements in any way. I made my initial list of cultures by looking at the races and deciding what kind of different cultures the races might have.
I started with the distinctions that I wanted to make, ascribed game elements to them, then named them something close enough to get the point across. For example, my "herders" is broad enough to also include fishing villages, even though pastoral sheep herders, nomadic cattle clans, and a fishing village could be very different. The way I envisioned the (default) setting, such groups would have similar equipment, money, and a lot of overlap in typical abilities. Their differences are express elsewhere in the mechanics. Likewise, the RQ "nomad" culture has a fault line running through it for my purposes, where I wanted to distinguish gypsy and other itinerant types as I expect them to be far more common than they were in a typical medieval culture. In a more normal setting, such peoples would not occur frequently enough to justify their own game mechanical culture.
I also have a lesser mechanical element of Terrain ability that factors into this. "Wild Sea Elves" prompts a different image than "Itinerant Mountain Cat-folk". You put a Class and "Path" (think a cross between sub class and profession) on that, and I've got a 5-word hook into the character archetype.
I compiled the various thoughts in this thread and some of my own ideas into a kind of race design checklist. Credits to everyone in this thread. It seems like it would be helpful in designing races that are a little deeper than re-skinned humans, which is what I'm after. I probably won't fill in every point on the culture checklist, and there are a few that I thought might be helpful but left off because they sounded like too much work, like humor.
I'll run through it with an example race I'm thinking about and report back with what I came up with and whether this list helped
Comments and criticisms are welcome.
Race design methodology notes
Pick a race to mean something in the setting
Start players with a few obvious traits, let them learn the rest on the fly.
Design checklist (work in order)
• What is their role in the word, i.e. why are they important in the game?
• Physical
o What do they look like?
o Physiological characteristics,
• Where do they live?
• Psychology -
o Biopolitics, i.e. how race's biology shapes its psychology and culture.
X E.g. cat-people are obligatory biological carnivores, so all of their variant subcultures will be shaped by their attitude towards not only getting hold of enough meat, but how they can get hold of it in ways that will provide social contentment and fulfillment.
o 2-3 prime motivations (e.g. humans: safety, esteem, freedom). Contradictions add depth
o attitudes, temperament
o in what ways they think humans are weird and different from them. `
o what they're like around each other when humans aren't around, and
o "Playable attitude" notes. E.g.:
x Elves are genuinely put off and irritated by the rush, bustle and impatience of most human towns.
x Dwarves are genuinely angered by the frequent human attitude of "good enough"
x Food in halfling communities isn't just a refueling exercise, it's a genuine social commitment.
• Mechanical
o strengths/weaknesses
o Special abilities
• Strength/weakness in professions and specialties
• History
• Relation with other races
• How they affect the environment
• How can they cause interesting situations, e.g. the elves are the only people with the lore to read that old map, but you have to perform some weird task for them first.
• Culture
o Type (from list)
o Social organizations
o Language
o Dwellings
o Technology
o Economics
o Values
o Customs
o Religion
o Art
o Clothing
o Food
o Recreation
Reference
• Common race types
o Mundane (Human).
o Tough (Dwarf).
o Graceful (Elf).
o Aggressive (Orc).
o Small (Halfling).
• Culture type list
o Agrarian,
o Barbarian,
o Civilized
o Decadent
o Enlightened
o Frontier,
o Herders,
o Itinerant,
o Nomadic
o Primitive
o Savage
o Urban
o Wild
• Playability
o Not over or under powered,
o Fits in normal rooms,
o Roughly as mobile as humans,
o Manipulative digits,
o Intelligent
o Large degree of independence,
o Socially tolerable in the main campaign areas
o Speak the common language
I ran through that checklist with a test case and came up with a race description I'm fairly pleased with. A fair amount of the information generated may not be useful for players, but I like having it in there for when I roleplay NPCs. I pasted in the description below, and I'll apologize in advance for both the length and first-draft quality writing. For anyone who wants to slog through it, I'd appreciate any feedback, specifically,
1) Did I miss any important elements in the description?
2) Would you be willing to play this race, and if not, why?
3) Would this make an interesting addition to a campaign world?
4) Any suggestions?
Chaktak, aka "Artisans"
Precis for players
Chaktak are slightly anthropomorphic crustaceans with a passing resemblance to a praying mantis. While many humans find their appearance disturbing, they tend to be friendly, cooperative, and socially non-confrontational. They value safety and try to plan for any threat. Chaktak are useful in a naval environment, since they can breathe in air and seawater, and are strong swimmers. They are the master craftsmen and artists of the new world. Mechanically, chaktaks are gifted in sense skills.
Role
They produce much of the fine hand made goods and arts, tapestries, woodcarving, and mechanical clocks. They are welcoming, hospitable, and fiercely independent. They make a good group to rescue and a safe haven in hostile territory.
Physical
Overall appearance is reminiscent of a crab, exoskeleton in overall design, but with a 3 segmented body, all oval in shape, forming a kind of "Z" shape when viewed from the side. The lowest oval is about 3' long by 2' wide, and 8" thick, close to horizontal with the back about 2' off the ground and the front about 3' off, supported by 4 powerful legs ending in points. The middle segment is about 2' long by 1.5' wide, leaning back a bit, with a pair of powerful claw arms and hands on the lower portion and a pair of fine arms on hands on the upper part, suited for delicate work. The top oval is horizontal and forward, serving as the head. The faces are similar to the arctic snow crab, but with slightly more protruding eyes, and protruding mandibles capable of very fine manipulation. Color varies but is mostly uniform on each chaktak with some mottling, those in the tropics tend toward bright colors and while those in temperate zones tend towards earth tones.
The lower and mid ovals each have swim fins similar to wings attached to their back. They blend in unnoticeably when not in use, but when extended they appear to be made of stained glass in abstract patterns. They pivot and swing from the outer upper portion of each segment, allowing the chaktak to swim very well, even though they are heavier than water. Chaktak can breathe both in air and in saltwater.
The exoskeletons appear at a distance to be one solid piece, but on close examination that can be seen to be composed of individual plates. The plates grow over their lifespan, allowing the chaktak to grow, Individual damaged plates can heal or be discarded and regrown if injured. They take longer to heal if seriously injured than humans.
Chaktaks live to an age of about 130 years, and are fully functional until the last year.
Dwellings
The chaktaks live in settlements along saltwwater coasts, always half in and half out of the water. The sizes range from villages of 20 to towns of a thousand or so. The old world holds chaktak cities with populations in the tens of thousands, but none of that size exist in the new world. The towns are made of stone and cement, and always have a protective wall. Larger towns will have clusters of buildings several stories tall, but all settlements will have several layers of basement with connecting tunnels.
Psychology
Biopsychology - As a species at one time preyed upon by large aquatic carnivores, chaktaks are defensive minded, and always have a plan in mind to deal with potential danger. Their settlements are fortresses, and have hidden bolt-holes leading out on both the water and land sides. They prefer to flee and hide rather than fight in dangerous situations, but are fierce if cornered. They are slightly agorophobic. They tend to be cautious in most matters.
Prime motivations: security, social tranquility, artistic fulfillment
Additional attitudes, temperament: Chaktak have a drive to create beauty. Anything they make most be both functional and elegant. The tend toward beauty in simplicity rather than ornateness. Chataks have a stronger drive to cooperate than humans, and humans find them to have warm, helpful personalities. While they will follow authority they have assented to, they will fiercely resist having another's will imposed on them at an individual, group, or societal level. Bullies may find themselves mobbed by a group of chaktaks, and more than one warlord has attempted to conquer a chaktak settlement only to find it abandoned as its entire population relocated.
Humans are weird: While chaktak enjoy humans' enterprise and initiative, they find them to be dangerously careless and shortsighted.
Playable attitudes: A chaktak will always have a plan for what to do if a danger appears, and will assume that others do the same, even if it knows intellectually that those of other races probably won't. It dislikes interpersonal conflict, and will often simply leave unnoticed if it does not like its social environment.
Mechanics
Compared to humans, chaktak are gifted in the sense talent and weak in the athletics talent. New chaktak heroes must allocate at least one point to sense, and may allocate up to six. They may allocate no more than four initial points to athletics.
Due to their hard exoskeleton, they have +1 natural armor, but the only recover 3 points of health per full rest.
Chaktak are strong natural swimmers, and gain +2 spaces to any swim movement. They must also place at least one point in the swimming skill.
Chaktak are vulnerable to adverse environments and take double fatigue loss from heat, cold, and exposure.
Professions
Chaktak art and craftsmanship is widely sought. While individual chaktak may be fearsome warriors, their temperament makes them unsuitable as soldiers. They are skilled at farming and hunting in the seas, but lackluster at best in raising food on land
History
Groups of chaktak accompanied Tacha humans from the old world, mostly in a support rather than adventurous role. While old world chaktak cities are spectacular places of beauty and learning, since they reproduce relatively slowly, new world settlements have grown slowly compared to those of other races. Trouble brewed when the Saeng family rose to leadership among the Tacha. While the previous rulers treated the chaktak as equal partners, the Saeng dynasty attempted to treat them as subjects, imposing their will upon them. Almost the entire chaktak population of the Tacha cities departed almost overnight, some creating their own settlements up and down the coast and some moving to Cosk or Solund lands. The Tacha economy nearly collapsed, and after extensive negotiation, some chaktak consented to return. Since this event, most rulers have tended towards a hands-off approach to chaktak within their borders.
Relations with other races:
Chaktak and humans tend to get along well together, both on a personal and societal level. Their is a mutual mistrust with the Kohbi, due to the many pirates and generally lawless nature of this race. Chaktak also find the mizvete likeable, though they are confused by their stories, behavior, and humor.
Effects on environment:
Chaktak settlements tend to be long and narrow along beaches, with stone and concrete walls. They thus tend to block access and passage to and from the water. They have little effect on the land side of their communities, save for harvesting firewood, but create extensive farms under the water, both of animal and plant varieties.
Situational hooks:
For the best arms, armor, art, and craftsmanship, one must go to the chaktak. They have little proficiency at capturing raw materials, so they are a ready market for the sale of wood, metals, textiles, and gems. They will often hire mercenaries of other races to deal with difficult or dangerous situations for them.
Culture
Type: Civilized
Social organization: Chaktak live in families with a male/female pair that produce offspring, their 4-6 eldest children, and 12-20 younger children. The eldest children will remain with their parents for their entire lives and tend not to reproduce. The younger children leave their families and form their own homes once they fully physically mature, at an age of about 30 years. Each settlement has a leading council with about 1 member per 100 adult chaktaks in the settlement. Council members are chosen by discussion and consensus among groups of chaktak, and make decisions in the same way. This works well for the chaktak, though it probably wouldn't work at all for humans. In an emergency a single decisive leader may be chosen. Chaktak form commercial houses of three to 50 individuals for endeavors such as farming and craft production.
Language: The chaktaks have their own language, primarily consisting of had consonants and clicks, but all but the youngest speak patois, and proficiency in other languages is common.
Technology: Chaktaks have the most advanced technology in the new world: steam engines and clockwork. They have a method of making rustproof arms-grade steel. They will sell items of this steel, but will not share the methods of creating it.
Economy: Chaktak have a traditional monetary economy and trade extensively with other communities. Because wealth is shared evenly within an enterprise and within a family, their rich/poor divide tends to be much smaller than that of humans. Also, while food is bought and sold, any chaktak will share food with anyone in need without recompense.
Values: Cooperation, peace, and tranquility are valued highly. Change and new things are treated with caution and distrust. Generosity and self improvement are encouraged, Thievery is almost unknown and is punished severely when found.
Customs: A chaktak will always offer food when visited, even in a store or factory. Every four years each settlement has a maturation festival, where children of at least 30 years old are promoted to adult status. There is a weeklong festival, at the end of which the new adults move to new homes within the settlement or depart. (about 50/50). The chaktak paint their buildings in one to three bright pastel colors, blue and white being the most common.
Religion: Most chaktaks are religious and regularly attend to their devotions.
Art: Chaktak work in every artistic medium, but are best known for metalworking, textiles, and glass. They tend towards simple, elegant form and bright pastel colors in abstract patterns.
Clothing: Chaktak have little need for clothing because of their tough "skin." They will frequently wear vests and belts for the pockets. They also very frequently paint their skins with abstract patterns and realistic images.
Food: Chaktak harvest fish and kelp from underwater farms. Most settlements will also have a small fishing fleet. They cultivate orchards near their towns. They enjoy vegetables but do not grow them themselves.
Recreation: Arts and crafts are both work and recreation to the chaktak. Sea turtles and dolphins are common pets and companions. Music, strategy games, and a sport akin to swimming touch football are popular pastimes.
And for comparison with humans in the mechanics section, here's the baseline talent section in character creation
Talents reflect a character's innate abilities. Each hero starts with seven points that can be distributed among the talents as desired, subject to the limitation that no more than five points may be put into a single talent.
The talents are
Attack - used for all physical attacks
Defense - used to defend against all attacks
Athletics - used for mobility and feats of strength
Guile - used for stealth and deception
Sense - for perception, navigation, and survival
Magic - used to perform and resist magical arts
Conceptually, they seem to be a bit of mess.
- Crabs aren't good swimmers, but you want to them to be swimmers, so you gave them wings?
- Steampunk metal and glass working crabs? Fire doesn't work in water, so they'd need to spend most of their time on land. Not to mention crabs are cooked by boiling, so there's a natural dissonance. Basing them on a specific crab might help, probably some kind of tidal variety. Though even intertidal crabs tend to remain wet, which goes against forges and metal working. Could just make them fully terrestrial.
- I'm having a hard time visualizing them. Are they some kind of centaur-crabs? I can't reconcile three ovals, anthropomorphic, crab, and praying mantis. Complex physical descriptions can be hard, without art.
- How big are they? You're giving the dimension of ovals, but not the overall creature, nor how massive it is compared to a human.
- What do their homes look like? Huts, daub and wattle houses, stonework, hermit-like shells, metal bunkers?
- You're using some absolutist language, like saying they can't be soldiers. Might be better to describe them as tendencies instead.
- You have crabs with "powerful" legs and claws, and you're making them weak? (Athletics.)
- Why would textiles be one of their major industries, if they wear almost no clothes?
- Also, that's way too detailed. Way, way too detailed. Even if you keep a lot of that for your personal use, you need a short summary for the players. I wouldn't go over a single short paragraph, or a half a dozen bullet points. It should clearly give an idea of what they look like, how they think, and their culture, and cut all the extraneous elements and implications.
My observation on the checklist... other than the grossly physical elements, the entire framework only works if the campaign is limited to a comparatively small region. Just variety of culture within human societies c. AD 1250 would require "human" to be a multitude of races (different motivations, social structures, technology, economies, etc.).
Presuming that every elf and dwarf (or whatever) is part of some global monoculture just makes them feel artificial.
To be fair, D&D has been pretty good about creating differences among the primary races; hill vs. mountain vs. deep dwarves or grey, high, wood, wild and dark elves, etc. and their campaign worlds typically focus primarily on a single continental region.
So that's all the more reason to incorporate such elements into your species themselves (unless they're intended to be some minor geographically isolated species).
I found the chaktaks fascinating and I'd definitely play one in a campaign, though I might ask to tweak my particular PC in a couple of ways -- with typical RPG'er contrariness I immediately thought of a chaktak who'd left his home, or possibly was even kicked out of it, because he was, by chaktak standards, incredibly ornery and difficult to get along with (which of course will seem like just normal individuality to most humans).
I can see reasons to leave this out of the players' blurb -- there should always be things that even players don't know about their characters' own kind -- but it struck me that the metalworking secret might be a magical enzyme that the chaktak secrete which functions as an incredibly powerful solvent; it can turn most metals or minerals liquid through an alchemical reaction, and other enzymes allow metals to be reshaped into blades or mechanical components of incredible hardness, durability or tensile strength. This would explain how they got so good at craftsmanship while being limited to aquatic-adjacent environments, and would also explain why they refuse to sell the secret: they can't. (And if anyone ever finds out, chaktak may suddenly become very expensive slaves for any power without any conscience about such things.)
This in turn leads to other questions:
- When the chaktak do organize to fight, what kind of tactics do they use?
- Could they secrete an enzyme that corrodes organic material as well, i.e. spit acid?
- What happens to a chaktak deprived of the ability to enter water? How long can an individual chaktak survive without it? Does it have to be fresh or salt water? Are there different subspecies with different requirements?
- How do chaktak treat those individuals who vary from their social norm? It sounds like exile would be a worse punishment, legally, than imprisonment for them.
- What are some typical vices, weaknesses, and character flaws for chaktak characters? PCs wouldn't necessarily have to share these, but I could see many adventurers running afoul of a chaktak disdain for rudeness, physical ugliness, or violent tendencies -- if all it takes is one other PC losing his temper to a single Chak in a bar at night for every chaktak in town to suddenly start refusing business to the party, this could definitely disrupt a few plans.
- Alternately, I can see an eloquent and crafty demagogue exploiting, through beautiful and commanding speeches, the chaktak tendency to cooperation and love of beauty towards, shall we say, not necessarily benevolent ends.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on the description. I'm not sure if your questions are rhetorical to make a point or actually questions, but I'll treat them as the latter.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Conceptually, they seem to be a bit of mess.
Crabs aren't good swimmers, but you want to them to be swimmers, so you gave them wings?
Well ... yeah. Crabs were the starting point of the design, but not the end point and not the only source of ideas. I was also thinking of the scrab from the oddworld games, Alan Dean Foster's thranx, Feist's cho-ja, crayfish, scorpions, and dragonflies.
I can see how this would be a bit of a mental leap, but I wonder if the issue could be solved with presentation rather than substantive changes. If I just described them as a crustacean rather than a crab, and just described the fins as fins rather than "like wings" would it be more palatable? ('Cause I really do want them to swim)
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Steampunk metal and glass working crabs? Fire doesn't work in water, so they'd need to spend most of their time on land. Not to mention crabs are cooked by boiling, so there's a natural dissonance. Basing them on a specific crab might help, probably some kind of tidal variety. Though even intertidal crabs tend to remain wet, which goes against forges and metal working. Could just make them fully terrestrial.
Not steampunk - I meant more like swiss watches and small steam engines to drive machines in factories. No "magic science" mechanisms in this setting, or mecha, not even steam trains, though that last might be an interesting idea for an adventure.
Good point on need for moisture - I may work that in as a campaign detail.
And the dichotomy is actually mostly intentional. They need fire and dry areas for their crafts, but their food production is mostly underwater. These plus their desire to be able to escape in either direction keeps them on the beaches, right were crabs should be.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
I'm having a hard time visualizing them. Are they some kind of centaur-crabs? I can't reconcile three ovals, anthropomorphic, crab, and praying mantis. Complex physical descriptions can be hard, without art.
[
Yep, definitely need a picture. I'll ask my son to make one sometime soon. "Centaur-crabs" is pretty close. The scrabs I mentioned are probably the closest thing you'll find online to the appearance I have in mind. One detail: when they're swimming, they tuck their arms and legs in and arrange their segments in a straight line.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
li]How big are they? You're giving the dimension of ovals, but not the overall creature, nor how massive it is compared to a human.
They're about five feet tall, three feet front to back, weigh a bit more than a human, but have somewhat less volume.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
What do their homes look like? Huts, daub and wattle houses, stonework, hermit-like shells, metal bunkers?
I was thinking something like pueblos, but smoother. I should add that. I already mentioned that they're made of concrete and stone and painted in bright pastel colors. I'm imagining colors like what you find in a beachside resort town.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
You're using some absolutist language, like saying they can't be soldiers. Might be better to describe them as tendencies instead.
I'll take a look. I do try to avoid absolutes.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
You have crabs with "powerful" legs and claws, and you're making them weak? (Athletics.)
I should modify the language. I like the idea of strong limbs for heavy work and delicate ones for light work like thranx or moties, but I still imagine them as not quite as strong as humans for the most part. Also, the athletics skill list is Throwing, Leaping, Riding, Running, Brawn, Climbing, and Swimming, and I'll probably add sailing if it comes up. Of these, only brawn is necessarily affected by sheer strength.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Why would textiles be one of their major industries, if they wear almost no clothes?
Good catch. I like the idea of them making tapestries, but it may just not fit.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Also, that's way too detailed. Way, way too detailed. Even if you keep a lot of that for your personal use, you need a short summary for the players. I wouldn't go over a single short paragraph, or a half a dozen bullet points. It should clearly give an idea of what they look like, how they think, and their culture, and cut all the extraneous elements and implications.
The "player precis" at the start was intended as such. Plus it will need the mechanics section.
If you have any additional comments or critiques, I'd love to hear them.
Quote from: Chris24601 on December 14, 2020, 10:24:45 AM
My observation on the checklist... other than the grossly physical elements, the entire framework only works if the campaign is limited to a comparatively small region. Just variety of culture within human societies c. AD 1250 would require "human" to be a multitude of races (different motivations, social structures, technology, economies, etc.).
Presuming that every elf and dwarf (or whatever) is part of some global monoculture just makes them feel artificial.
To be fair, D&D has been pretty good about creating differences among the primary races; hill vs. mountain vs. deep dwarves or grey, high, wood, wild and dark elves, etc. and their campaign worlds typically focus primarily on a single continental region.
So that's all the more reason to incorporate such elements into your species themselves (unless they're intended to be some minor geographically isolated species).
Thanks for the feedback.
I think the bit about monoculture is debatable. If a race is truly different from us physically and mentally, and the chaktak are the weidest race I plan to make for this, it's possible that the differences between their cultures would be small enough compared to the difference between their overall culture and ours that they would be virtually unnoticeable. Or maybe not. I don't think we'll ever know unless we meet a species of comparable intelligence to our own.
I will add a section for cultural/regional variations to my list though: that makes a lot of sense.
But for this race, the chaktak were a minor part of the colonial influx and reproduce slower than the other races. I'm placing their total number at about 100k across the entire campaign area, 20% of which live in human cities, so about 10 small cities and numerous smaller settlements. In this case I think a single culture will do.
I'll make a note here too about the campaign area. I tend to make an initial design of the elements of a game in very broad strokes before digging into the details, because each element of the game affects the others. Later I'll detail/replace/file off the serial numbers. For an initial impression of the geography, imagine the game area as the west coast of North America from Juneau to Cabo San Lucas, with the colonizing powers based in Sydney, Bangkok, and Vladivostok.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
I found the chaktaks fascinating and I'd definitely play one in a campaign, though I might ask to tweak my particular PC in a couple of ways -- with typical RPG'er contrariness I immediately thought of a chaktak who'd left his home, or possibly was even kicked out of it, because he was, by chaktak standards, incredibly ornery and difficult to get along with (which of course will seem like just normal individuality to most humans).
I'm glad you liked them!
Your point about ornery individuals actually addresses something I was trying to figure out. If they're safety and defensive minded and highly cooperative, why would they ever leave their homes, much less become adventurers? I'm an advocate of letting players RP however they want, but providing reasonable reactions and consequences.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
I can see reasons to leave this out of the players' blurb -- there should always be things that even players don't know about their characters' own kind -- but it struck me that the metalworking secret might be a magical enzyme that the chaktak secrete which functions as an incredibly powerful solvent; it can turn most metals or minerals liquid through an alchemical reaction, and other enzymes allow metals to be reshaped into blades or mechanical components of incredible hardness, durability or tensile strength. This would explain how they got so good at craftsmanship while being limited to aquatic-adjacent environments, and would also explain why they refuse to sell the secret: they can't. (And if anyone ever finds out, chaktak may suddenly become very expensive slaves for any power without any conscience about such things.)
I like this a lot, both the idea of racial secrets and this specific one. Consider it yoinked. Thanks!
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
This in turn leads to other questions:
- When the chaktak do organize to fight, what kind of tactics do they use?
This point is also going on the list. Off the top of my head, long spears and shields in phalanx formation on a surface, maybe with crossbows. Mace, pick, or axe for close in fighting. Plus swimming "cavalry" in the water. (They don't actuall ride anything, but they're fast enough to be considered cavalry compared to the walking troops) I'll need to think about this some more though.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
- Could they secrete an enzyme that corrodes organic material as well, i.e. spit acid?
That would be cool but I think might be problematic for a PC.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
- What happens to a chaktak deprived of the ability to enter water? How long can an individual chaktak survive without it? Does it have to be fresh or salt water? Are there different subspecies with different requirements?
I think having penalties for being away from the water would be problematic for PCs, no matter how much the idea makes sense. I did make them more vulnerable to heat/cold/exposure since logically they need to be cold-blooded.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
- How do chaktak treat those individuals who vary from their social norm? It sounds like exile would be a worse punishment, legally, than imprisonment for them.
A good question that I should figure out. Your point about exile makes a lot of sense. I expect it would be terrifying for them.
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on December 14, 2020, 02:32:22 PM
- What are some typical vices, weaknesses, and character flaws for chaktak characters? PCs wouldn't necessarily have to share these, but I could see many adventurers running afoul of a chaktak disdain for rudeness, physical ugliness, or violent tendencies -- if all it takes is one other PC losing his temper to a single Chak in a bar at night for every chaktak in town to suddenly start refusing business to the party, this could definitely disrupt a few plans.
- Alternately, I can see an eloquent and crafty demagogue exploiting, through beautiful and commanding speeches, the chaktak tendency to cooperation and love of beauty towards, shall we say, not necessarily benevolent ends.
A good question on the flaws, I'm adding that point to my list. For the rest, thanks for the excellent suggestions. Those will probably end up in the writeup.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 16, 2020, 03:12:04 AM
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on the description. I'm not sure if your questions are rhetorical to make a point or actually questions, but I'll treat them as the latter.
They're questions that came up while reading the entry. Things I think you should consider. I don't necessarily need an answer, but your answers mean we can continue talking about them.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 16, 2020, 03:12:04 AM
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Conceptually, they seem to be a bit of mess.
Crabs aren't good swimmers, but you want to them to be swimmers, so you gave them wings?
Well ... yeah. Crabs were the starting point of the design, but not the end point and not the only source of ideas. I was also thinking of the scrab from the oddworld games, Alan Dean Foster's thranx, Feist's cho-ja, crayfish, scorpions, and dragonflies.
I can see how this would be a bit of a mental leap, but I wonder if the issue could be solved with presentation rather than substantive changes. If I just described them as a crustacean rather than a crab, and just described the fins as fins rather than "like wings" would it be more palatable? ('Cause I really do want them to swim)
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Steampunk metal and glass working crabs? Fire doesn't work in water, so they'd need to spend most of their time on land. Not to mention crabs are cooked by boiling, so there's a natural dissonance. Basing them on a specific crab might help, probably some kind of tidal variety. Though even intertidal crabs tend to remain wet, which goes against forges and metal working. Could just make them fully terrestrial.
Not steampunk - I meant more like swiss watches and small steam engines to drive machines in factories. No "magic science" mechanisms in this setting, or mecha, not even steam trains, though that last might be an interesting idea for an adventure.
Good point on need for moisture - I may work that in as a campaign detail.
And the dichotomy is actually mostly intentional. They need fire and dry areas for their crafts, but their food production is mostly underwater. These plus their desire to be able to escape in either direction keeps them on the beaches, right were crabs should be.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
I'm having a hard time visualizing them. Are they some kind of centaur-crabs? I can't reconcile three ovals, anthropomorphic, crab, and praying mantis. Complex physical descriptions can be hard, without art.
Yep, definitely need a picture. I'll ask my son to make one sometime soon. "Centaur-crabs" is pretty close. The scrabs I mentioned are probably the closest thing you'll find online to the appearance I have in mind. One detail: when they're swimming, they tuck their arms and legs in and arrange their segments in a straight line.
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
li]How big are they? You're giving the dimension of ovals, but not the overall creature, nor how massive it is compared to a human.
They're about five feet tall, three feet front to back, weigh a bit more than a human, but have somewhat less volume.
These all related. First, the easiest: Humans have close to neutral bouyancy in water. If your crabpeople are denser than humans, they'll sink like a rock. That's probably not what you're going for.
I'm still having a problem with the visual. Partly, it's because what you're describing is not a crab. It's not even close to a crab. This is a fairly typical body design for a crab:
http://www.fiddlercrab.info/uca_morphology.html
No three segmented body parts, no ovals, no fins. You're describing something else.
Which gets back to the presentation. You're comparing them to completely unrelated crustaceans, things that are arthropods but aren't crustaceans like scorpions and insects, and then you're giving them fins, and making them human-like. Crabs alone are hugely diverse, much less all of Crustacea (which isn't a natural group, BTW), or even further all of Arthropoda, not to mention fish and mammals. Here's an idea of how the different arthropods diverge:
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/arthropods_10
There are two ways of approaching that. The first is the fantasy version, where it's a chimera. It's literally made up of the body parts of different creatures from all over the tree of life. It has crab claws, but the torso of spider or insect, for instance, with some anthropormophization thrown on top.
The second approach is the science fiction version. In this case, it's an alien. It's not a crab, it's not a crustacean, it's not an insect, it's something else. The human eye tries to make analogies with more familiar creatures, but it's not that. Since this is a fantasy setting, your probably don't want to go all in on this.
In either case, the visuals are complex, and hard to convey. Notice that the media you referenced are either visual, like video games, or long-form writing, like novels. You can convey a complex shape in a visual medium fairly easily, by simply depicting it. In that case, the important thing is that it's visually striking, not the words you use to describe it. And when writing, you can convey complex concepts to the reader, over many pages. It takes a lot of words to convey complex images, but it can be done. The written media is also a lot better at conveying context, like the the evolutionary logic behind the body design, or what the body parts are used for.
RPGs are neither a visual nor a long-form written medium, but an interactive, verbal medium. The problem is talking back and forth has very limited bandwidth, compared to an image or passive pages of written text. Yes, you can write as long as description as you want, but nobody's going to read them. Art can help, but then the art becomes essential and it helps to have a lot.
This is bad for complex, chimeric creatures. RPGs work best when the words used to convey something like a new race can draw on existing knowledge of the players, similar to the elevator pitch of a movie. Humanoid crabfolk? That's an easy sell. Elves, except with cute little horns? That also draws on preexisting expectations, with a minor shift. A crab that's not a crab but is also a praying mantis and a centaur and humanoid and has stained glass wings or fins... that's becoming very hard convey.
It's fine to diverge a bit. For instance, thri-kreen of Dark Sun are a very popular race. But they're only chimeric in a limited way -- they primarily stick to the praying mantis, just with humanoid/centauroid elements. And they still rely heavily on art.
I actually like the stained-glass wings. That's a great visual, and something unique. It's a good point of divergence. But I think the rest of your design needs to be a bit more coherent. There are too many different scattered pieces to pull together. You could stick to a more crab-like shape, make them more fully anthropomorphic, make them some kind of marine insects (not many), make them more like a krill or a lobster, or something.
One comment on the wings/fins: Brightly painted shells are fine, and brightly painted houses are fine, but they might take away a bit of the wonder of the wings. Too many competing visual elements.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 16, 2020, 03:12:04 AM
Good catch. I like the idea of them making tapestries, but it may just not fit.
Tapestries also rot quickly in damp environments. But to be fair, metal also rusts.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 16, 2020, 03:12:04 AM
Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
Also, that's way too detailed. Way, way too detailed. Even if you keep a lot of that for your personal use, you need a short summary for the players. I wouldn't go over a single short paragraph, or a half a dozen bullet points. It should clearly give an idea of what they look like, how they think, and their culture, and cut all the extraneous elements and implications.
The "player precis" at the start was intended as such. Plus it will need the mechanics section.
The problem is I read the player precis, but then I had to read the rest, and then go back to figure out what you meant in the precis. It didn't quickly summarize all the key elements. No mention of wings, for instance. And it seemed to conflict with the longer description. Only mention of a praying mantis, for example.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 16, 2020, 03:56:51 AM
I think the bit about monoculture is debatable. If a race is truly different from us physically and mentally, and the chaktak are the weidest race I plan to make for this, it's possible that the differences between their cultures would be small enough compared to the difference between their overall culture and ours that they would be virtually unnoticeable.
Which circles back to [someone's] point about making different races
really different. For humanity to feel monocultural would require the racial differences to be wholly alien to anything human. "Good with a bow" won't cut it.
Quote from: Zalman on December 16, 2020, 11:38:04 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on December 16, 2020, 03:56:51 AM
I think the bit about monoculture is debatable. If a race is truly different from us physically and mentally, and the chaktak are the weidest race I plan to make for this, it's possible that the differences between their cultures would be small enough compared to the difference between their overall culture and ours that they would be virtually unnoticeable.
Which circles back to [someone's] point about making different races really different. For humanity to feel monocultural would require the racial differences to be wholly alien to anything human. "Good with a bow" won't cut it.
Yeah, and my point regarding humans and race as defined there was that a lot of the stuff expected to be standard for a race would be wildly different for humans from different areas.
One of the examples was "housing." Okay define for me the standard housing for humans c. AD 1250? The mud and thatch huts of various bushman tribes? The animal hide tents of various plains nomads? The sod huts in some regions or the wood longhouses or how about the people who lived in converted caves or slept out under the stars because their climate allowed it.
At a certain point you're just so generic that it loses all meaning... "humans live in adequate shelter for the region they find themselves in" is meaningless. So is "humans eat just about anything edible that's local to the region" is also basically meaningless.
Its only when you get down to more regional focus that you can start to make more useful generalizations; the staple of most medieval European humans was some type of grain they plant and harvest every year. The peasantry build relatively simple structures using local materials (typically wood, thatch, sod and fieldstone).
That's why I say that a lot of what you need to include for a race depends greatly on the size of your campaign setting. If you limit it to say, the equivalent of Medieval Europe in scope then a single culture might work (particularly if their population is small) though more prevalent races may need several sub-races (i.e. the wood elves are from "Britain", the high elves from "Italy", the grey elves from "Gaul" and the wild elves from "Germania").
By contrast a setting that spans the entire globe should either include many cultures/sub-races (if a species isn't purely local) or only bother with the "bio-cultural" elements (i.e. the effects of biology on culture, such as a race who are entirely carnivorous or herbivorous or who are photosynthetic) and leave the specifics to each region as you come to them.
Quote from: Pat on December 16, 2020, 06:51:01 AM
These all related. First, the easiest: Humans have close to neutral bouyancy in water. If your crabpeople are denser than humans, they'll sink like a rock. That's probably not what you're going for.
I'm still having a problem with the visual. Partly, it's because what you're describing is not a crab. It's not even close to a crab. This is a fairly typical body design for a crab:
http://www.fiddlercrab.info/uca_morphology.html
No three segmented body parts, no ovals, no fins. You're describing something else.
Which gets back to the presentation. You're comparing them to completely unrelated crustaceans, things that are arthropods but aren't crustaceans like scorpions and insects, and then you're giving them fins, and making them human-like. Crabs alone are hugely diverse, much less all of Crustacea (which isn't a natural group, BTW), or even further all of Arthropoda, not to mention fish and mammals. Here's an idea of how the different arthropods diverge:
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/arthropods_10
There are two ways of approaching that. The first is the fantasy version, where it's a chimera. It's literally made up of the body parts of different creatures from all over the tree of life. It has crab claws, but the torso of spider or insect, for instance, with some anthropormophization thrown on top.
The second approach is the science fiction version. In this case, it's an alien. It's not a crab, it's not a crustacean, it's not an insect, it's something else. The human eye tries to make analogies with more familiar creatures, but it's not that. Since this is a fantasy setting, your probably don't want to go all in on this.
In either case, the visuals are complex, and hard to convey. Notice that the media you referenced are either visual, like video games, or long-form writing, like novels. You can convey a complex shape in a visual medium fairly easily, by simply depicting it. In that case, the important thing is that it's visually striking, not the words you use to describe it. And when writing, you can convey complex concepts to the reader, over many pages. It takes a lot of words to convey complex images, but it can be done. The written media is also a lot better at conveying context, like the the evolutionary logic behind the body design, or what the body parts are used for.
RPGs are neither a visual nor a long-form written medium, but an interactive, verbal medium. The problem is talking back and forth has very limited bandwidth, compared to an image or passive pages of written text. Yes, you can write as long as description as you want, but nobody's going to read them. Art can help, but then the art becomes essential and it helps to have a lot.
This is bad for complex, chimeric creatures. RPGs work best when the words used to convey something like a new race can draw on existing knowledge of the players, similar to the elevator pitch of a movie. Humanoid crabfolk? That's an easy sell. Elves, except with cute little horns? That also draws on preexisting expectations, with a minor shift. A crab that's not a crab but is also a praying mantis and a centaur and humanoid and has stained glass wings or fins... that's becoming very hard convey.
It's fine to diverge a bit. For instance, thri-kreen of Dark Sun are a very popular race. But they're only chimeric in a limited way -- they primarily stick to the praying mantis, just with humanoid/centauroid elements. And they still rely heavily on art.
I actually like the stained-glass wings. That's a great visual, and something unique. It's a good point of divergence. But I think the rest of your design needs to be a bit more coherent. There are too many different scattered pieces to pull together. You could stick to a more crab-like shape, make them more fully anthropomorphic, make them some kind of marine insects (not many), make them more like a krill or a lobster, or something.
I can see you've done some very thorough thinking on this topic. There are parts I don't entirely agree with, but all of it helps me clarify my thinking, so this is great.
With this design I really am going for the "alien" approach you mentioned, not the chimera or mild divergence. The various sources are meant to describe inspiration and near cases, not an exact description. I needed a point of departure, so I picked a crab, but as you noted I quickly diverged from that design.
I'm fascinated by the idea of true aliens, that are actually different in body and mind than we are. They're difficult to find in fiction and nonexistent in real life. The best example I can think of, by the way, is CJ Cherryh's Chanur books, where the aliens range from strange to incomprehensible. I've met a fair number of peopple with a similar interest. I'm hesitant to speak for him, but Mr. Tannhauser seems to be of the same mind, for example.
But as you pointed out there are challenges to this approach with RPGs. The first is communicating the nature of the race. You pointed out the challenges, which was very helpful, but I think it can be done. I can see I'm going to have to work at it though. I'll need a variety of high quality pictures and a clear, condensed description of behavior and psychology. And the exact physical appearance is not as important as the psychology and the rest. If it turns out to be too hard, I can simplify the body, as you suggested.
The second challenge is going to be interest. My target audience is 10-13 year old children. Are they going to want to roleplay slightly alien creatures? I would have at that age, but they may just want to bang on things with swords and blow stuff up with magic. I guess I'll find out. If not, at least I'll have an NPC race that I enjoy.
Quote from: Pat on December 16, 2020, 06:51:01 AM
One comment on the wings/fins: Brightly painted shells are fine, and brightly painted houses are fine, but they might take away a bit of the wonder of the wings. Too many competing visual elements.
I'm glad you like the wings, and that's a really good point. With the wings I'm going for unexpected beauty on an otherwise ugly creature. ( I was also hoping to make any of them who've read the Elric books nervous when they saw pastel towers, though they're not as graceful as the Melniboneans'.)
Quote from: Pat on December 16, 2020, 06:51:01 AM
Tapestries also rot quickly in damp environments. But to be fair, metal also rusts.
Oh yes, hence the comment about rust-proofing. I worked for many years in the development of various modern war machines, and they all had specs regarding salt spray environment. I couldn't just ignore that.
Quote from: Pat on December 16, 2020, 06:51:01 AM
The problem is I read the player precis, but then I had to read the rest, and then go back to figure out what you meant in the precis. It didn't quickly summarize all the key elements. No mention of wings, for instance. And it seemed to conflict with the longer description. Only mention of a praying mantis, for example.
Well, it is a first draft. I sat down and wrote the whole thing in about 2 hours nonstop. The second will be much better, especially when I take into consideration the comments of folks such as yourself.
Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2020, 12:59:38 PM
Yeah, and my point regarding humans and race as defined there was that a lot of the stuff expected to be standard for a race would be wildly different for humans from different areas.
One of the examples was "housing." Okay define for me the standard housing for humans c. AD 1250? The mud and thatch huts of various bushman tribes? The animal hide tents of various plains nomads? The sod huts in some regions or the wood longhouses or how about the people who lived in converted caves or slept out under the stars because their climate allowed it.
At a certain point you're just so generic that it loses all meaning... "humans live in adequate shelter for the region they find themselves in" is meaningless. So is "humans eat just about anything edible that's local to the region" is also basically meaningless.
Its only when you get down to more regional focus that you can start to make more useful generalizations; the staple of most medieval European humans was some type of grain they plant and harvest every year. The peasantry build relatively simple structures using local materials (typically wood, thatch, sod and fieldstone).
That's why I say that a lot of what you need to include for a race depends greatly on the size of your campaign setting. If you limit it to say, the equivalent of Medieval Europe in scope then a single culture might work (particularly if their population is small) though more prevalent races may need several sub-races (i.e. the wood elves are from "Britain", the high elves from "Italy", the grey elves from "Gaul" and the wild elves from "Germania").
By contrast a setting that spans the entire globe should either include many cultures/sub-races (if a species isn't purely local) or only bother with the "bio-cultural" elements (i.e. the effects of biology on culture, such as a race who are entirely carnivorous or herbivorous or who are photosynthetic) and leave the specifics to each region as you come to them.
I do think that having multiple cultures for each race makes sense, but there's a tradeoff. I'm only willing to spend so much time on this part of the game, and if I introduce multiple cultures for each race, I'll need to go into the races in less depth, or use fewer races, neither of which I care to do.
Fortunately, the size of the play area, described in a previous post, might be such that having single cultures might not bother you too much.
I still think that large differences from humanity can make cultural differences unnoticeable to us. Your housing example is a good one. I'll take some examples from an unfinished game I worked on a few years ago. The premises were a specific type of dimension travel (akin to Amber shadowalking) and multiple races that had taken very different approaches to technology. I don't have the notes in front of me, but I think I can remember enough to make it clear.
Humans build dwellings out of natural material they gather and shape.
The short, skinny lizard people make everything with biotechnology, never invented any other type of tech, and never manipulate themselves. They make plants and fungus grow into the form of living buildings.
The big burly lizard people also exclusively use biotechnology, but only on themselves. They don't need buildings. Everything they need is either within them or can be formed from them. Frex, if they need a hammer, they will form one of their limbs into one.
The wasp people use material exuded from themselves.
The spooky raccoon people make their homes of pure magic and build across dimensions.
I could also postulate races that use nanotechnology to form buildings whose walls and structures are also high power computers, homes made from forcefields, homes burrowed out of rock, buildings made of pocket dimensions, and so on.
The point is that none of these guys are going to care whether human homes are made out of stone or thatch or bamboo or whatever, which we would consider a critical part of their culture. They all see it as just a pile of stuff. We would probably look at the differences they think important and think them trivial as well.
And none of these races was all that different from humans in their thinking.
Quote from: Chris24601 on December 14, 2020, 10:24:45 AMD&D has been pretty good about creating differences among the primary races; hill vs. mountain vs. deep dwarves or grey, high, wood, wild and dark elves, etc. and their campaign worlds typically focus primarily on a single continental region.
In that they are mostly following Tolkien. If you look at the D&D invented races such as dragonborn or goliath there is a lot less variety.
The variation you get in Tolkien comes from his many years of world building. He created a world from genesis through to the point of his stories. But he still limited himself to one region and a few key races. He is much more vague in his writing when it comes to other parts of the world or races like the Pukel-men.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 17, 2020, 06:22:53 AM
I can see you've done some very thorough thinking on this topic. There are parts I don't entirely agree with, but all of it helps me clarify my thinking, so this is great.
That's the intent. I don't like telling people what to think, so I explain my reasoning. That way people can decide on their own whether they agree or disagree. Glad you're taking it in the right spirit.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 17, 2020, 06:22:53 AM
With this design I really am going for the "alien" approach you mentioned, not the chimera or mild divergence. The various sources are meant to describe inspiration and near cases, not an exact description. I needed a point of departure, so I picked a crab, but as you noted I quickly diverged from that design.
I'm fascinated by the idea of true aliens, that are actually different in body and mind than we are. They're difficult to find in fiction and nonexistent in real life. The best example I can think of, by the way, is CJ Cherryh's Chanur books, where the aliens range from strange to incomprehensible. I've met a fair number of peopple with a similar interest. I'm hesitant to speak for him, but Mr. Tannhauser seems to be of the same mind, for example.
But as you pointed out there are challenges to this approach with RPGs. The first is communicating the nature of the race. You pointed out the challenges, which was very helpful, but I think it can be done. I can see I'm going to have to work at it though. I'll need a variety of high quality pictures and a clear, condensed description of behavior and psychology. And the exact physical appearance is not as important as the psychology and the rest. If it turns out to be too hard, I can simplify the body, as you suggested.
The second challenge is going to be interest. My target audience is 10-13 year old children. Are they going to want to roleplay slightly alien creatures? I would have at that age, but they may just want to bang on things with swords and blow stuff up with magic. I guess I'll find out. If not, at least I'll have an NPC race that I enjoy.
I've only read a few more fantasy-oriented Cherryh books, so I can't really comment on her aliens. But I've read the Strugatsky Brothers, Le Guin, Niven, Lem, Bear, and many others. Getting beyond humans with bumpy foreheads is one of the most difficult feats in writing, and it's even harder in RPGs because of the limited bandwidth and reliance on popular tropes. The same problem happens in fantasy races, where conveying the alien nature of the fey is often glossed over in favor of humans with powers. More familiar races like the elf just become fashion statements, and more exotic races tend to be defined by their powers. The best you can hope for is something like the aliens of Traveller or Star Frontiers, and even that requires a significant commitment from the players. With children of that age, who tend to be immersed in pop culture, and want to see themselves in everything, it's even harder. I'll applaud if you can pull it off, but I'm skeptical.
One thing I'd recommend is rolling with the punches. If they get invested, fine. But if they just want to play a crabby version of themselves, accept it. Playing race police, and constantly trying to force them to play according to your conception, is a great way to suck the fun out of something.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 17, 2020, 06:22:53 AM
Quote from: Pat on December 16, 2020, 06:51:01 AM
One comment on the wings/fins: Brightly painted shells are fine, and brightly painted houses are fine, but they might take away a bit of the wonder of the wings. Too many competing visual elements.
I'm glad you like the wings, and that's a really good point. With the wings I'm going for unexpected beauty on an otherwise ugly creature. ( I was also hoping to make any of them who've read the Elric books nervous when they saw pastel towers, though they're not as graceful as the Melniboneans'.)
Towers? That diverges a bit from pueblos. If you're going for unexpected beauty, then you could juxtapose rough dull shells and bright wings with a similar architecture: Rocky, dull exterior but brightly painted interiors.
Quote from: Mishihari on December 17, 2020, 06:22:53 AM
Quote from: Pat on December 16, 2020, 06:51:01 AM
The problem is I read the player precis, but then I had to read the rest, and then go back to figure out what you meant in the precis. It didn't quickly summarize all the key elements. No mention of wings, for instance. And it seemed to conflict with the longer description. Only mention of a praying mantis, for example.
Well, it is a first draft. I sat down and wrote the whole thing in about 2 hours nonstop. The second will be much better, especially when I take into consideration the comments of folks such as yourself.
Perfectly reasonable.
I finally got back to the chaktak to do a second draft and thought I'd share the results and a couple of comments on the process. Comments and feedback are welcome, but I'll be setting this down now to work on the next race and won't get back to it til I do the third draft of the entire book. I'm not planning on presenting any other races here, but at some point I'll make the game available for anyone interested in looking at it.
I found that while the format I previously employed was useful for the design process, it did not do a good job of presenting the information in a clear manner. I ended up reorganizing and splitting the material into 3 sections for different parts of the game book, one for chargen, one for the setting description, and one for the narrator section. The intent is that players only need to read the chargen section, but the setting section is there for additional info if they want it.
While I still intend to use nonstandard races for my game, I'm starting to see the wisdom of using the ones everyone knows. This was kind of a lot of work and I felt like I was writing a textbook. If I was using dwarves in the game, I could just say "they're dwarves" and add a few mechanics and be done with it.
I will really, really need some good drawings for these guys.
You'll probably notice that I incorporated many of the comments and ideas from this thread, so thanks to those who contributed.
So before the description, here are a couple of blurbs from the rules that are necessary to understand the mechanics.
Talents
Talents reflect a character's innate abilities. Each hero starts with seven points that can be distributed among the talents as desired, subject to the limitation that no more than five points may be put into a single talent.
The talents are
Attack - used for all physical attacks
Defense - used to defend against all attacks
Athletics - used for mobility and feats of strength
Guile - used for stealth and deception
Sense - for perception, navigation, and survival
Magic - used to perform magical arts
Races and talents
The various races have strengths and weaknesses as compared to humanity with respect to talents. If a talent is strong, then a new hero must allocate at least one point to that talent, and may allocate up to six. If a talent is weak, then no more than four points may be initially allocated to that talent.
And here is the description...
CHARGEN SECTION
Chaktak heroes (need pic)
Chaktak are amphibians with a chitinous exoskeleton, segmented into three flattened ovoids. They can breathe in air and saltwater, but not fresh water. When standing, with a height of about five feet, their segments are arranged in a "Z" shape, giving them a centauroid appearance, and when swimming, assisted by powerful fins on their back, their segments fall into a straight line. They have four legs attached to the nether segment and four arms on the center segment, while the upper segment serves as a head.
While a chaktak's appearance is disturbing to many humans, those who get to know them find them friendly, cooperative, and helpful. Chaktaks dislike interpersonal conflict, and will often simply leave unnoticed if their social environment is uncomfortable.
A chaktak will always have a plan for what to do if a danger appears, and will assume that others do the same, even if it knows intellectually that those of other races probably won't. While chaktak enjoy humans' enterprise and initiative, they find them to be dangerously careless and shortsighted.
Chaktaks are the master craftsmen and artists of the new world.
Mechanics
Chaktaks are strong in the sense talent and weak in athletics.
Due to their hard shell, they have +2 natural armor, but they only recover 3 points of health per full rest.
Chaktak are strong natural swimmers, and gain +2 spaces to any swim movement. They must also place at least one point in the swimming skill.
Chaktak are vulnerable to adverse environments and take double fatigue loss from heat, cold, and exposure.
SETTING SECTION
Chaktak
Physical (really, really need pix)
Chaktak are amphibians with a chitinous exoskeleton, segmented into three flattened ovoids. They are comfortable in air and saltwater, but cannot breathe in fresh water.
When standing on a surface in air or underwater, they arrange their segments in a "Z" shape, giving them a centauroid appearance about five feet tall and three feet long. The lower segment has four legs used for locomotion, each ending in a point. The center segment has an upper pair of arms with small hands for delicate work, and a larger lower pair of arms for heavy labor. The top segment is the head, housing the mouth, sensory organs, and mandibles used both for eating and very fine physical manipulation.
When swimming, the segments are arranged in a straight line, and the arms and legs are tucked close to the body. The central and rear segments each have a pair of hard swim fins similar to a ladybug's wings, which when extended make the chaktak strong swimmers. When the chaktak is standing, the fins are tucked in to the body and are indistinguishable from the rest of the exoskeleton.
Chaktak bodies are rough and bumpy with dull colors: grey, brown, green, and blue. Mottled combinations of two colors are not uncommon. The fins, when extended, are translucent and appear similar to stained glass windows in abstract patterns. It is very common for chaktaks to paint small images, symbols, and designs on their bodies in bright pastel colors.
On close examination, the seemingly monolithic exoskeleton can be seen to be composed of individual plates. The plates grow as the chaktak ages, and can heal or be discarded and regrown if injured. Chaktak take longer to heal if seriously injured than humans. They live to an age of about 130 years, and are fully functional until the last year.
Mental (motivations, strengths, and weaknesses)
Chaktaks are defensive minded and tend to be cautious in most matters. They always have a plan in mind to deal with potential dangers. Their settlements are fortresses, and have hidden bolt-holes leading out on both the water and land sides. They prefer to flee and hide rather than fight in dangerous situations, but are fierce if cornered. They are slightly agorophobic.
Chaktak have a drive to create beauty. Anything they make most be both functional and elegant. They generally prefer simple, elegant designs to ornateness.
Chaktaks greatly value social tranquility. They have a stronger drive to cooperate than humans, and humans find them to have warm, helpful personalities. While they will follow authority they have assented to, they will fiercely resist having another's will imposed on them at an individual, group, or societal level. Bullies may find themselves mobbed by a group of chaktaks, and more than one warlord has attempted to conquer a chaktak settlement only to find it abandoned as its entire population relocated.
Once they have made up their mind on a subject, they resist changing it. If offended, they are slow to forgive. They tend to be more susceptible to social pressure than humans. They are judgmental of correctable ugliness of any sort and poor craftsmanship. Either will cause them to think poorly of the individual involved.
Social organization
Chaktak families consist of a male/female pair that produces offspring, their four to six eldest children, and six to ten younger children. The eldest children will remain with their parents for their entire lives and tend not to reproduce. The younger children leave their families and form their own homes once they fully physically mature, at an age of about 30 years.
Each settlement has a leading council with about 1 member per 100 adult chaktaks in the settlement. Council members are chosen by discussion and consensus among groups of chaktak, and make decisions in the same way. This works well for the chaktak, though it probably wouldn't work at all for humans. In an emergency a single decisive leader may be chosen. Chaktak form commercial houses of three to 50 individuals for endeavors such as farming and craft production.
Each city, town, and village is independent, with no nation or larger governmental unit tying them together, though settlements commonly cooperate on projects of mutual interest.
Territory (population, settlements, environmental impact, buildings)
The chaktaks live in settlements along saltwater coasts, always half in and half out of the water. Of the estimated one hundred thousand chaktak in the new world, about twenty thousand live in human cities. The remainder inhabit four cities of about ten thousand, eleven towns of about one thousand, and numerous smaller villages and settlements ranging in size down to twenty chaktak. The old world holds chaktak cities with populations in the tens of thousands, but none of that size exist in the new world.
Chaktak settlements tend to be long and narrow, following the coast. Chaktak develop the land side of their territory only minimally, with a perimeter cleared around each settlement for defensive purposes and firewood, and possibly a few orchards. The chaktak only rarely build roads, instead relying on ships and undersea travel for transportation. On the underwater side of settlements, they create extensive farms, both of animal and plant varieties.
Buildings are made of stone and cement, and are similar in appearance to pueblos. Their exteriors are rough and painted in natural colors, similar to surrounding rocks and sand, but the interiors are painted in bright pastel colors with simple, elegant patterns. Larger towns and cities will have buildings up to five stories tall, and all chaktak buildings have multiple basements with connecting tunnels between them. All chaktak settlements have a stone and cement wall.
Recent History
Groups of chaktak accompanied Tacha humans from the old world, mostly in a support rather than adventurous role. While old world chaktak cities are spectacular places of beauty and learning, since they reproduce relatively slowly, new world settlements have grown slowly compared to those of other races. Trouble brewed when the Saeng family rose to leadership among the new world Tacha. While the previous rulers treated the chaktak as equal partners, the Saeng dynasty attempted to treat them as subjects, imposing their will upon them. Almost the entire chaktak population of the Tacha cities departed almost overnight, some creating their own settlements up and down the coast and some moving to Cosk or Solund lands. The new world Tacha economy nearly collapsed, and after extensive negotiation, some chaktak consented to return. Since this event, most rulers have tended towards a hands-off approach to chaktak within their borders.
Industry (Technology, Professions, Economy, Trade)
Chaktaks have the most advanced technology in the new world: their most advanced devices include small steam engines used to power machines in manufactories and highly accurate mechanical clocks. Chaktaks steel and cloth are highly valued because of closely held methods used to give them exceptional strength and durability, as well as a resistance to degradation from exposure to saltwater.
The chaktak are widely considered to have the best artisans and artists in the new world. They do well with their underwater farms, but are lackluster at best in raising food on land. They also tend to be less proficient in professions dealing with harvesting natural resources, such as logging and mining. Professional soldiers are very rare among the chaktak, due to both their distaste for the hierarchical organizations required and their aversion to danger.
Chaktak have a traditional monetary economy and trade extensively with other communities. They buy raw goods from other races and sell them finished goods, especially arms and armor, tools, furniture, and art.
Because wealth is shared evenly within an enterprise and within a family, their rich/poor divide tends to be much smaller than that of humans.
Relations with other races
Chaktak and humans tend to get along well together, both on a personal and societal level. Their is a mutual mistrust with the Kohbi, due to their generally lawless nature and previous conflicts. Chaktak also find the mizvete likeable, though they are confused by their stories, behavior, and humor.
Social Behavior (values and some sample customs, crime and justice)
Cooperation, peace, and tranquility are valued highly. Change and new things are treated with caution and distrust. Generosity and self improvement are encouraged.
A chaktak will always offer food when visited, even in a store or factory. Also, while food is bought and sold, any chaktak will share food with anyone in need without recompense. Every four years each settlement has a maturation festival, where children of at least 30 years old are promoted to adult status. There is a weeklong festival, at the end of which the new adults move to new homes within the settlement or depart. (about 50/50). The chaktak paint their buildings in one to three bright pastel colors, blue and white being the most common.
Crime is rare among the chaktak, and violent crime is rarer still. Those convicted of property crimes are required to make restitution and enter a period of service to the community under the direction of the council, which can range from several days to years. Violent crimes are punished by banishment, as is refusal to serve a service sentence. Banished chaktak who engage in further crimes against the community may be executed.
Culture (Language, Food, Clothing, Art, Religion, Recreation)
The chaktaks have their own language, primarily consisting of hard consonants and clicks, but all but the youngest speak patois, and proficiency in other languages is common.
Chaktak harvest fish and kelp from underwater farms. Most settlements will also have a small fishing fleet. They cultivate orchards near their towns. They enjoy vegetables but do not grow them themselves.
Chaktak have little need for covering and protection because of their tough shells but they wear vests and belts for the pockets. Small symbols and patterns painted on their bodies in bright pastel are common.
Chaktak work in every artistic medium, but are best known for metalworking and glass. They tend towards simple, elegant form and bright pastel colors in abstract patterns.
Most chaktaks are religious and regularly attend to their devotions.
Arts and crafts are both work and recreation to the chaktak. Sea turtles and dolphins are common pets and companions. Music, strategy games, and a sport akin to swimming touch football are popular pastimes.
Combat
When chaktak fight in an organized fashion, they use phalanxes with shields and spears. When this is not practical, they will use weapons that are effective against their thick shells, such as picks and axes. They have a strong preference for fighting defensively, especially from fortifications or in narrow tunnels. When swimming, they wield spears, employing their speed in the water to execute hit and run attacks.
Cultural/regional variations
The kritak are a freshwater variant of the chaktak. They control several old world regions with large inland lakes and river valleys. While similar to the chaktak, they are larger, xenophobic, and aggressive within their territory. Since they do not get along with other races and cannot cross the ocean on their own, none have made the trip to the new world.
NARRATOR SECTION
Chaktak
Rationale for encounters
There are a variety of reasons for the heroes to seek out chaktak. High quality weapons, arms, and equipment are made by the chaktak and are available for sale. They are also an attractive market for the sale of valuable raw materials, such as metal, gems, and fine wood, often willing to pay more than market price for such. Chaktak settlements are useful refuges in otherwise hostile territory. The chaktak are welcoming to visitors that behave well, and their towns are very well defended. Finally the chaktak have a history of hiring groups of other races for missions of various sorts, since they prefer to stay home themselves.
Individuals encountered
While the chaktak description in the Setting section describes most individuals the heroes will meet reasonably well, individuals can vary significantly. The further a character is from chaktak society, the greater the likely variance. Chaktak living among other races tend to take on some of their attitudes and values. Those traveling in small groups such as trade caravans and oceangoing ships will be much bolder than usual. Solo chaktaks met by the heroes are likely to be exiled criminals.
Complications
A hero who offends a chaktak through violation of his social norms may find that all of the chaktak associated with him become uncooperative: prices are raised, inns are suddenly "full," needed craftsmen are unavailable, and so on. Heroes whom the chaktak find admirable can encounter an opposite problem: pestering by chaktak trying to be helpful. In a few cases individuals have taken advantage of chaktak culture by first ingratiating themselves, then using the chaktaks' cooperativeness to manipulate them into activities not in their own best interest,
Racial secrets
Every race can have secrets, most known by at most a few individuals. Here are a few examples of chaktak secrets the narrator can choose for his game. One or more of these may be true in a particular game, and the narrator is free to make up his own.
• The secret of the chaktaks' saltwater-proof weapons grade steel is a tiny amount of their own blood. Placing a drop of blood in molten metal is a chaktak tradition. Even they don't know what it does.
• Chaktak saltwater-proof textiles come from a particular type of kelp grown in deep, hidden farms.
• Chaktak and kritak are actually the same race, with the physical and psychological differentiation brought about by incubating eggs in fresh or salt water.
• Executed criminals are eaten by the community.
• Chaktak children receive a portion of the memories of their parents.
• Hidden communities of chaktak exist in deep underwater caves. Certain plants convert seawater into breathable air.