Home › Discussions › General Discussion › fantasy races - General Discussion Discussions on Obsidian Portal Community Forums
fantasy races
Discussion time that doesn't revolve the decrepit condition of this site!
How do you feel about different races interacting in your campaign world? This may sound odd but anyone who has played D&D 1e or AD&D And then played D&D 3.5 and later will be struck by the inclusion of races. Originally races in the d&d lived separately and rarely interacted, making heroes from other races rare (and the gane mechanics reflected that) but now all races interact and live together on common footing, making all adventurers of all races equally common.
This is also reflected in scifi RPG's that I've played over the years. I understand that it's a reflection of our times and how cultures are being integrated now. But which do you prefer from a GM or story angle?
How do you feel about different races interacting in your campaign world? This may sound odd but anyone who has played D&D 1e or AD&D And then played D&D 3.5 and later will be struck by the inclusion of races. Originally races in the d&d lived separately and rarely interacted, making heroes from other races rare (and the gane mechanics reflected that) but now all races interact and live together on common footing, making all adventurers of all races equally common.
This is also reflected in scifi RPG's that I've played over the years. I understand that it's a reflection of our times and how cultures are being integrated now. But which do you prefer from a GM or story angle?
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
I like having a certain distance between the races in terms of daily interaction, even if from a historical perspective there are ties between them. Similarly, if there is a non-human in the group, I like to exploit the fact that they are "The Elf" or (or whatever) be an actual issue that colors their interactions with NPCs - it also frequently gives them time to shine when "elf stuff" (or whatever) comes up in the story. Of course, non-human can be replaced by non-whatever if the majority of the group is going to be something else (in a dwarf campaign, then the one guy playing a halfling is the odd man out).
Part of the reason I lean that way is that I think having too many races show up too frequently dilutes the coolness of each. I'd rather return to having elf-ness or dwarf-ness be something exotic, with real impact on the character. As consumers of fantasy games and stories we've become somewhat desensitized to the standards like elves and dwarves, so its easy to think of them as just more people living normal everyday lives (and in some sense they should be), but when was the last time you saw a roleplayer or writer really dive into how being very long-lived (or some other significant but isolated change from the human condition) changes how an otherwise humanoid person or society might think/behave. Its a gold mine for talking about how something as essentially human as mortality really impacts us, but it gets overshadowed by the shiny appeal of being an abyssal half-dragon changeling mummy.
If you're going to have non-human races at all, they should be, well, inhuman.
For me this extends to monsters as well. Give me any day a well-portrayed dragon as a terrifying stand-in for the implacable ferocity of nature and man's relative powerlessness as individuals (or even communities), over the aforementioned abyssal half-dragon changeling mummy (who became a death knight antagonist after the player decided to start a new character).
In my campaign I have the races pretty mixed but I also make racism an important part of the plot. My players can choose to play that Drow Warlock but they know to prepare to not only have a difficult time talking to, but risk having hatecrimes acted against them. I also homebrewed my humans to make them more desirable tp play.
A country that started with all monster races as slaves has abolished slavery, with much of the credit going to the player group.
Just trying to help out.
For many campaigns I think it sits in the background, but if it can be used to drive the story, the drama in the game then go for it.
- Kallak
* are they different species? the fact that you can (in many worlds) have a 1/4 human, 1/4 orc, 1/4 Minotaur and 1/4 gnome hybrid (it was one hell of a party that started that family tree) indicates they are actually all the same species somehow doesn't it? Its weird I never thought about that before !
In a fantasy campaign that has free mixing of species you would likely need some sort of inexpensive and quick means of travel. This would be the case if say teleportation circles were common and inexpensive to use.
But there are some less recent historical contexts where multicultural integration occurred. For example, the discovery of a new land. English, French, Dutch, Spanish and various indigenous cultures (Aztec, Iroquois, Mohawk, Inca, etc) mixed together. Military expansion (former or current) would be another common way to add a couple races into the mix. Think Rome and it's expansions, where you'd likely have varied classes of citizenship in those scenarios especially if the military expansion is relatively new.
Free mixing of species where everyone is equal everywhere, is somewhat hard to believe.
They are among us!
XCom: Defiance - Campaign of the Month November 2016
And NikMak, breeding together doesn't mean they are the same species, the question becomes can helf-elves, etc, breed themselves? If they can't then they aren't the same species, if they can then they are. As in Horse+Donkey=Mule but Mules can't breed so horses and donkeys are different species. The same applies to Lions and Tigers breeding to Ligers (which are real, but like Mules are infertile.)
Even though Mules have an odd number of chromosomes, female Mules produce mosaic eggs that contain an even number of chromosomes, but those eggs rarely contain a chromosome half-set that is complementary to another half-set from a male sperm cell.
There are examples of infertile half races in D&D, Muls in Darksun (a cross between dwarves and humans) were infertile. In a number of campaigns I've been in all 1/2 races were infertile.
They are among us!
XCom: Defiance - Campaign of the Month November 2016
cgregory is right about the mules breeding too, just very very rare.
there is a certain degree to which fantasy races are rooted in pre-modern notions of race, passed on from barely post-Victorian English culture to Tolkein to Gygax (e.g. Orcs and other evil humanoids taking on colonialism-era stereotypes of the non-white savages, that they are all evil by nature and not really individualized... whereas the humans can have the full gamut of the nine alignments) and not scientific understanding (e.g. that humans are a single species, races are a cultural construct and not biological, and all human "races" can inter-breed)
at any rate, I try to have cultural and political diversity within all of my D&D setting's races, and treat half-orcs and half-elves as infertile mule species because there usually isn't much in the way of saying they are building separate societies (further implying they can't breed with themselves)... I tried having a deviant / outcast / good bugbear befriended a party once and it ended up befuddling them more than anything
but there is also a certain clash here between generic fantasy - where young-earth creationism is often literally true, and applying modern biological understanding about what a species is and what mules are, because you need the VAST DEPTHS OF GEOLOGIC TIME to explain speciation
I tend to go with the VAST DEPTHS OF GEOLOGIC TIME because a) I'm a geologist, and toy with having realistic tectonic history explaining gem distribution, for example... b) all of the Lovecraftian elements that have been incorporated into D&D play better with the VAST DEPTHS OF GEOLOGIC TIME than the young earth creationist parts of generic fantasy
(also, the fact that Aurochs, wild cows, weren't extinct until the middle ages, and apparently quite aggressive... suggests a low-level wilderness monster for 1st level parties to encounter, just need to soup up the cow stats)
Back to the original question, I am quite happy to involve racial integration in the cities and realms where we play, although there is some segregation within my world (based on Kobold Press Midgard). In this camapaign there are few elves, no orcs, no halflings and gnomes are not PCs due to cursed devil pacts. Where there is integration, there seems to be no issues, and certainly it does not create any problems within the player group. My group has three humans, a gearforged and a werelion. All get along splendiferously!
twiggyleaf
CURRENT CAMPAIGN: "Mysteria":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/mysteria - set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: "Shimring":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shimring
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
Inner Council Member
But I never let anyone play halflings, I hate halflings. (which is funny because I love Gnomes and oft play a gnome myself) All the campaigns I play don't have Halflings in them at all, as a pc or monster, and I sometimes take other races away (especially in 4e where I think some of the races were ridiculous from an actual roleplaying point of view, I mean the Kalashtar are telepathic how do you play a campaign when one of your players can read your npc's minds?)
But although I don't have halflings in my campaign, the reason is because they just don't exist. I have kobolds instead. I do like a good halfling though!
twigs
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
Inner Council Member
I'm an experienced player who likes playing non-humans.
I've run human-centric campaigns, mutt-campaigns (many races, much interbreeding, few pure-bloods), and even a few in the traditional pathfinder/d&d campaign worlds.
I love them all. I do prefer worlds with working ecologists, but sometimes "magic" plays a bigger part than other times. Single-race games do seem to be fairly rare in fantasy (and fairly common in sci-fi). So long as the races are more than just a way to pile in the bonuses, I'm good with it.
Signs & Portends, Dwarves of Lost Koldukar, In a certain realm
I allow pretty much everything that doesn't have a level adjustment higher than +2, but it depends on the region of my setting that the game is starting in. I don't think my players are getting a choice of what race to play as next time, as that game is set to take place in the Durnskald homeland.
-Abersade
DM of "Rise of the Durnskald - Wrath of the Fallen Goddess":https://rise-of-the-durnskald.obsidianportal.com/
GM of Rise of the Durnskald: Wrath of the Fallen Goddess - February 2016 CotM
GM of Core: The Ashes of Alcarna - April 2020 CotM
GM of Stream of Kairos
Need CSS Help? It may be covered here: Abersade's CSS Hub
As for my current campaign, well, Modern Fantasy lends to a group of mixed races. As of now, we're looking at a Night Elf (from WoW yes,. A Creature of Shadow, see the site for more info), a Valkyrie, a Winter Fae Changeling, the clone of Khan Noonien Singh (before he left Earth), a Half-Dragon Wizard, and undecided. Previous groups included a female Terminator, a daughter of Aphrodite, a White Court Vampire, and a human wizard.
Keelah Se'lai,
Keryth
"Shadows Over New York":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shadows-over-new-york
"2013 Campaign of The Year":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/2013-coty-shadows-over-new-york/
"Campaign of the Month July 2013":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/shadows-over-new-york-julys-campaign-of-the-month/
I typically end up playing or running two kinds of groups: nearly homogeneous humans or elves and melting pot. I recall one campaign whereby the party was half humans and half elves, with one catchphrase for a while being "Go Team Elf". Another campaign (with mostly the same players) had multiple human, multiple elf, dwarf, minotaur, and the humans and elves were from different ethnicities (and one elf was even wed to a Drow and as such had completely different feelings on the subject from even other elves).
Since most of my campaigns tend to begin in a trade city or other hub, it's easy enough to explain the presence of most any party member; the fun is more often when they travel beyond it, as the further out the go, the more homogeneous the area (with an occasional alternative thrown in for "reasons"). I've never run or been in a truly one-race game, so I can't speak to how that would go.
As Always,
_~Mae_
~Mae
CotM Selection Committee
a group of clerics (all players were elven clerics from the same temple) with a sacred relic to deliver to the other side of the continent, and a group of soldiers delivering a top secret message to an allied army (all human with all fighters apart from a single ranger)
They worked very well as a game and had strong narrative reason for the party to be together for the duration that worked really well for me and my group. They were without doubt my favorite 'classic high fantasy' games I have played to date
That said though, we only played those adventures through once each, and the group then returned to a more traditional mix of races of and classes.
Keryth I'm always so interested in your campaign world. There is just so much there with all the different concepts and series used and yet they seem to blend so effortlessly. I mean just looking at that list of races I'm think everything but the kitchen sink, but looking at your campaign it just seems to work. And that is a sign of a good GM. It makes me rethink some things about my campaign actually.
And Mae and NikMak I looooove the concept of running a campaign with a group of mostly or all one race, but like you pointed out NikMak, it would have to probably be short, my players would kill me if restricted them too much in character creation. Some of them love pulling the most random things out to be. I'm all about making the players face the consequences of the choices they make, it's actually one of the points I always try driving home in my campaigns. So racism is often a concept I use for that very reason.
Though, to be honest, the key to things working seamlessly as you say is more due to my players. They make it work with their character concepts and how they interact with what I throw at them. Like the Female Temrinator. She was a bad guy NPC originally. Something to be a nod to "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and someone for the group to see as a threat but beat. Instead, they capture her, spend FATE points to reprogram her, and she eventually not only became part of the group, but the girlfriend of one of the PCs (who happened to have been a coward when the campaign started). Another case was a Halloween tribute I did. The game took place on Halloween night, so, I did part of the campaign where the group had to basically go to the Poltergeist house in Amityville NY to go through a portal to the NeverNever (the spirit realm in Dresden) and as a throw away, I put Norman Bates Mother sitting in her rocker (skeleton in dress like at the end of Psycho) and his knife on the floor. Well, even after warning them, one of my PC's picked the knife up, and became possessed by Norman Bates, his own spirit trapped in the knife. And he played it to the hilt too. And when NOrman went a little Psycho, he added in his PC now in the body of a underage prostitute drug addict who had taken shelter in the house and touched the knife. So, to free everyone, the group had to go to Camp Crystal Lake and perform a ritual while avoiding Jason Voorhees, during which they entered a house and had an encounter with Freddy Krueger. It turned into an awesome session.
Keelah Se'lai,
Keryth
"Shadows Over New York":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shadows-over-new-york
"2013 Campaign of The Year":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/2013-coty-shadows-over-new-york/
"Campaign of the Month July 2013":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/shadows-over-new-york-julys-campaign-of-the-month/
Good drugs.
~Mae
CotM Selection Committee
And that campaign was full of moments like that. Season two had some, but was decidedly shorter, and honestly, I cannot wait to see what Season 3 has in store
Keelah Se'lai,
Keryth
"Shadows Over New York":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shadows-over-new-york
"2013 Campaign of The Year":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/2013-coty-shadows-over-new-york/
"Campaign of the Month July 2013":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/shadows-over-new-york-julys-campaign-of-the-month/
Keelah Se'lai,
Keryth
"Shadows Over New York":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shadows-over-new-york
"2013 Campaign of The Year":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/2013-coty-shadows-over-new-york/
"Campaign of the Month July 2013":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/shadows-over-new-york-julys-campaign-of-the-month/