What are _____ like in your game?

[DEFCON Clown]

The thread about Elves got me wondering how do you all handle the other common races for a fantasy game? You know what are Dwarfs like in your campaign, what are the Humans like? How about Halflings?

[Captain Obvious]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

The thread about Elves got me wondering how do you all handle the other common races for a fantasy game? You know what are Dwarfs like in your campaign' date=' what are the Humans like? How about Halflings?[/quote']

 

Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Goblins, and all that sort of thing are all fairies in my game world, just with different appearances, attitudes, and magical powers. They're all pretty unpredictable, with only broad tendencies to link them. For instance, Dwarves tend to be more resistant to iron than others, but less resistant to sunlight. Other than that, and the general fact that they're short and beardy, no two Dwarves are alike. And even the iron/sunlight thing isn't a hard and fast rule.

 

Now, I've finally beaten Markdoc to one of these threads. He can say "me too" this time.

[Curufea]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Faeries and Demons were the first races. Elves descended from Faeries (and trees), Dwarves from rock. Elves are about 60% magic. Dwarves are about 90% magic. Dwarves don't have sexes, they are technically "stone golems" and carve themselves out of mountains (similar to Nordic mythology). Humans have their own creation myths but are actually a mutation of Elves with less magic.

Hobbits are a mutation of Humans.

Centaurs and Leomachi are ex-experiments that breed true. However - unlike felines, canines etc - they are human experiments, rather than faerie or elf experiments.

Ghetto-isation or balkanisation is prevalent. Most races have towns and cities where they are dominant in human lands (even if it is only one) except for Centaurs and Leomachi who are competing tribal nomads in the Horse Wilds (Centaur are omnivores, Leomachi are carnivores and frequently hunt centaurs).

Felines are older than the humans as a race, as are lizardmen and canines. They live in a mythic Chinese with some Japanese culture thrown in. Slavery is common in the feline Empire of Kartar - a matriarchy in an area several times larger than China (to support a primarily carnivorous race).

Lizardmen have two classes - cold and warm blooded. Cold being slaves (but which left to grow old will eventually turn into dragons). They live in the deserts to the south in a Arabic/Fremen style culture.

Humans live in four main cultures - Norse (Brondheim), Anglosaxon (Ambria), Norman (Daria) and Gothic German/Italian city states (Duchy of Irolo).

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/WS:Index

 

Everyone has their own language -

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/WS:Race_Names

[Ternaugh]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Dwarves were originally created by one of the gods as servants to the Elves. When they were finally fed up enough, they rebelled, and won independence. Dwarves are great artificers, as well as enchanters. Hill Dwarves tend to be found near cities, and provide a lot of the technology for the setting (including clockpunk devices). Mountain Dwarves, however, tend to remain closer to the "old ways", with an emphasis on mining and metalworking.

 

Halfllings and Felines didn't survive a campaign upgrade.

 

Wood Elves, though referenced in an older part of the setting, are currently not in play (though still present in the world).

 

Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and the like are either fearsome creatures that continually look to attack the civilized areas (Genshar Kingdoms Campaign), or are legendary creatures known only to really old Elves, or known by other names (Badlands Campaign). The older intelligent races (Elf, Dwarf) would tend to fight each other periodically, and legend has it that Theinodor, the God of Mischief, created these younger, faster breeding races to "hedge his bets".

 

Humans, too, were a creation of Theinodor, mainly as a way to counter the Elf-Dwarf aggression. While Humans were used in the many wars on both sides, they ultimately managed to grab power for themselves, mainly by outbreeding the older races, and stealing magic and technology. They are now the dominant force on the planet.

 

JoeG

[Markdoc]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Goblins, and all that sort of thing are all fairies in my game world, just with different appearances, attitudes, and magical powers. They're all pretty unpredictable, with only broad tendencies to link them. For instance, Dwarves tend to be more resistant to iron than others, but less resistant to sunlight. Other than that, and the general fact that they're short and beardy, no two Dwarves are alike. And even the iron/sunlight thing isn't a hard and fast rule.

 

Now, I've finally beaten Markdoc to one of these threads. He can say "me too" this time.

 

Me too

 

Well, two exceptions. I do have halfings - of a kind. They are basically just very small humans and like humans, are culturally very varied. The only thing they have in common (apart from being small) is that the big folk tend to dominate and bully them while the halfings despise and distrust the big folk, who over time have stolen all the good land. Hence the origin of the "halfings as thieves" legend - the wee folk do have a tendency to help themselves to their larger neighbours' stuff when they can. Some normal human cultures lump halflings in with faeries, because they share the tendencies of being light-fingered and liking to hide and then stab you in the back, but they are actually not related.

 

I also have ogres - a race of humans magically bred to be big and strong and not too smart. They tend not to have a distinct "ogre culture", but live in various parts of the world, so are either assimilated to the culture they live in (where they typically do jobs associated with lifting heavy things or hurting people) or are essentially tribal, in which case their nature reflects the cultures they are in contact with. The one exception to this is a kingdom which has a long, long tradition of the ruler having an "ogre guard", with their own hareems and living quarters in the central palace. They have an insular culture based very loosely on the Janissaries and revolving around absolute loyalty to the ruler, iron discipline and hurting smaller people.

 

The other races in the game are snakemen, martians and people from the moon, but they are probably a bit far afield for this thread...

 

cheers, Mark

[War Cry]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Dwarves for the most part are the typical archetype. Live in the mountains, excellent miners, smiths and warriors. Culturally, I went for a bit of a twist. My dwarves are loosely "Russian", as in Czarist Russia. Dwarven politics in my worlds aren't pretty. I never liked the dying race aspect, especially at the hands of the orcs, so I had a "what if" moment and most of my dwarven wars have been civil wars. Entire clans have been purged or sent to work in the deep mines until they die. Don't cross the Over King.

 

Goblins are kind of a mix of halfling and gnome. Love to eat and build cool equipment, weapons, and seige engines, but goblin built things usually don't last long. Very impressive stuff for awhile, but it tends to go BOOM! Males are always ugly and females are cute, even beautiful. There's more, but I haven't quite worked it all out yet.

 

Felines are modeled vaguely after the Roma Gypsies. They have no homeland per se but travel from place to place in brightly colored wagons trading and tinkering. Female felines are rather famous for their dancing abilities. All are viewed as thieves and scoundrels.

 

Lizardmen are modeled after "velociraptors", but have fully functional hands and are capable of weilding weapons and wearing armor. They also breed like rabbits. Capable of speech and greedy, they are starting to become a menace. In less than a hundred years, they have overrun a handful of kingdsoms and even taken a couple of Dwarf holds. Very sly and cunning, they are also capable of learning things just by observation.

 

Wolf men have replaced orcs. Travel and raid in packs, led by the strongest. As a wolfman grows, he evolves. For this rerason my ogres, trolls, and even giants are simply oversized wolfmen with special abilities. No one knows what a wolfmans lifespan really is - they die fighting or survive long enough to continue to grow and evolve into trolls. ogres, and giants.

 

Orcs - haven't really done anything with them yet, but I plan on making them a fuedal Japan type of culture, complete with ninja and samurai!

[Seenar]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

It depends on the game.

 

Here is how it is in my Kith Dalton Game:

 

http://www.seenar.com/games/kith_dalton/Races.htm

[Old Man]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

My primary races are Humans, Elf-like folks, Rock People, Goat People (because finding minis for goat people is easy),and Halflings, but not stumpy halflings, just shorter human proportioned people.

 

Didn't really look too much into the origins of the races.

 

My generic bad guys are bipedal badgers.

[Lucius]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

If I may say so - this is almost too broad a topic.

 

Consider that in a related thread I had two posts about how I handle Elves, not to mention my commentary on OTHER people's posts about Elves - and that was an Elf-thread specifically. If we go into the same detail on Humans, Hobbits, Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, Goblins, and Dragons......well. This could be a long thread.

 

But it might be possible to refrain from all that detail and talk about how to handle different species in more general terms.

 

For example: I've never liked the D&D convention of having Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, etc. all running around. For one thing, I never thought there was really enough to distinguish one from another, and no real justification for having so many such similar peoples at large in the same world. And given that "Orc" started as Tollkein's Elvish word for "Goblin" and that "Kobold" "Goblin" and "Hobgoblin" are all basically variations of the SAME WORD!

 

So I've usually tended to assume that "Goblins" are a unitary species, perhaps called by different names in different languages, and possibly manifesting different cultures in different regions.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromedary Crossing - both ways

[Curufea]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Likewise Ettyn, Ent and Giant are all the same.

 

I haven't got any of the "goblinoid" subraces as such - not as races. They can't breed - they're created magically for the sole purpose of army building.

[prodigyduck]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

I usually don't bother coming up with origins for my fantasy races unless I have a very good idea.

 

Dwaves of Embria were a race of earth elementals who were enslaved on the Mortal Realm by the ancient Cyclopians. Despite being elementals, they could breed true with each other. With the assistance of the elves, the dwarves won their freedom. In the early Ages, dwarves, as elementals, had no souls. If a dwarf died, they were gone forever. This is were dwarves got their dour mentality and their penchant for a vengful attitude. If you threatedned a dwarf's life, you were threatening everything it had! Eventually, a goddess took the dwarves under her influence and now, all dwarves have souls able to ascend to the Higher or Lower Planes (depending on their life choices).

[Lucius]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Likewise Ettyn, Ent and Giant are all the same.

 

I haven't got any of the "goblinoid" subraces as such - not as races. They can't breed - they're created magically for the sole purpose of army building.

 

I can't imagine why you would say that Ent is the same as Giant. Other than being bigger and stronger than Humans, they seem to me to be very different in conception.

 

It's like saying an Elf and a Goblin are the same, because they're both about Human size and shape but not Human.

 

Heck, an Ent isn't even SHAPED like a Giant - it's more like a tree.

 

Oddly enough, after I said that I saw no point in having multitudes of supposedly "different" Goblinoids, Markdoc made the same point in the Elf thread about the same thing.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And the inevitable palindromedary

[Gary Miles]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Dwarves are pseudo-scottish, complete with kilts and th' pipes. They are the most technologically advanced race- they have flintlock firearms and primitive steam engines.

 

Elves are fairly typical elves, but are also similar to American Indians- wood elves wear buckskins & beads, sea elves live and dress like South Seas Islanders, etc.

 

I don't have halflings, but rather a small race called "kif", which sort of combine halfling & kender (but not the bad parts of kender!).

[Sir Ofeelya]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

I like, and use, the Harn idea that they (dwarves and elves) came from Midgaard. Let Tolkein worry about their origins.

[Curufea]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

I can't imagine why you would say that Ent is the same as Giant. Other than being bigger and stronger than Humans, they seem to me to be very different in conception.

 

Mainly because it means "giant" in a different (real world) language. In this case, Anglosaxon. Ents are a Tolkein invention as far as I'm aware - just like Hobbits. It's often the case that to create new races or subspecies, game designers (and writers of fiction) will just use a word from a different language that essentially means the same or similar to what they want. Hence Ettin (or Eotin) in Norse, Ent in Anglosaxon etc all mean "giant"

[Kristopher]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Ever want to share something, but worry that before you can finish the work it's part of, you'll see it show up, "borrowed", in someone else's work?

[Lucius]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Mainly because it means "giant" in a different (real world) language. In this case' date=' Anglosaxon. Ents are a Tolkein invention as far as I'm aware - just like Hobbits. It's often the case that to create new races or subspecies, game designers (and writers of fiction) will just use a word from a different language that essentially means the same or similar to what they want. Hence Ettin (or Eotin) in Norse, Ent in Anglosaxon etc all mean "giant"[/quote']

 

Well, Tollkein may have been the first to use Ent to mean a tree-man, but there are "oak men" in English folklore. Also, he did not invent Hobbits either, or even the idea of them living in holes (although he may have invented their hairy feet.)

 

Interesting you should mention Ettin - Tollkein also used that word, dubbing a region infested with Trolls the "Ettinmoors."

 

Lucius Alexander

 

As far as I know, I was the first to use the word "Palindromedary" - but oddly, several other people came up with it independently at about the same time. The year 1991. Or maybe it's not so surprising.

[Lethosos]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Perhaps it's better to play the Race Game in terms of what others see them, or how their culture plays off their usual strengths and weaknesses.

 

For example... one could say that the Tiger-kin bears similarity to Elves in the sense that they are both noble, yet flighty or tempermental, due to their connection the element of Sky, associated with emotion control. (Their Gift is the ability to slightly alter one's emotional perception for a short while, like an aura.)

[Manic Typist]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

 

I don't have halflings, but rather a small race called "kif", which sort of combine halfling & kender (but not the bad parts of kender!).

 

Um... what parts of the kender aren't bad?

[Lethosos]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Um... what parts of the kender aren't bad?

 

The gibblets? *runs away really fast*

[Markdoc]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Well' date=' Tollkein may have been the first to use Ent to mean a tree-man, but there are "oak men" in English folklore. Also, he did not invent Hobbits either, or even the idea of them living in holes (although he may have invented their hairy feet.).[/quote']

 

Oh, he invented them all right. There's nothing even remotely comparable in prior literature or myth. He simply borrowed the name of a goblin or goblins from english folklore - just as Orcs are his invention, despite the prior existence of the word "orc" meaning a monster.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Ever want to share something' date=' but worry that before you can finish the work it's part of, you'll see it show up, "borrowed", in someone else's work?[/quote']

 

If it's that rarest of things - a truly original idea - keep it to yourself. If you post it to the web, be prepared to share it. My response when I put stuff on the web is that it is available to all. I ask people for credit, if it's used, but I am well aware that it is often used without credit. If I couldn't live with that, I simply would not post.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Oh, he invented them all right. There's nothing even remotely comparable in prior literature or myth. He simply borrowed the name of a goblin or goblins from english folklore - just as Orcs are his invention, despite the prior existence of the word "orc" meaning a monster.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Hm. Maybe it depends on how "remotely." I do seem to remember other little people living under hills.

 

But on the other hand, I don't want to deny that Tollkein was a creative genius and other than the name and the living in holes bit, I concede that Hobbits as we know them are his invention.

 

It was actually dwarves that tipped me off to the fact that I didn't need non-human races in my game at all. I had one player (actually a good player) who played a grumpy, greedy dwarf - very characterful, if a bit stereotypic.

 

Then we played to gether in a "realistic" dark ages game set in England. He played the *exact* same character and I realised that his dwarf was simply a Viking who been washed on too high a temperature setting. In fact, as I looked around, all the dwarves I saw being played by different people were like that - essentially heavy-gravity vikings.

 

Since I had already decided that it was stupid to have 42 (or whatever) different races of similar orcish/goblinish creatures and had compiled them into one race, with differing characteristics, that was the beginning of the end for non-human races as player characters.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I obviously agree that a plethora of Goblinoid species is superfluous. I also think you have a point that we don't need non-Humans to have a wide variety of cultures and character types.

 

But I will say if Dwarves for example are coming across as "A Viking who had been washed on too high a temperature setting" then the problem is that Dwarves (in my opinion) aren't being done right - either by the player or the Game Operations Director, or both.

 

Not that I think there's one "right" way to do Dwarves, per se. But I think it's worth asking what any given non-Human race brings to the table that makes it really distinctive, or if you want a given fantasy "race" to ask HOW you can make it something other than a Human with pointy ears or whatever.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary for example is much, much more than simply a bicephalous cameloid.

[Markdoc]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

But I will say if Dwarves for example are coming across as "A Viking who had been washed on too high a temperature setting" then the problem is that Dwarves (in my opinion) aren't being done right - either by the player or the Game Operations Director' date=' or both.[/quote']

 

Yeah, it's easier said than done, though, since the stereotypes are so firmly fixed in most gamer's minds.

 

In the end, that's why I dropped Elves/dwarves/goblins entirely from my game. I didn't want the D and D races, (who automatically bring something of the D and D mindset with them: it's a goblin! Kill it!) but despite my best efforts, that's what I got.

 

In Runequest, where they also have Elves (which, as described in the game, are closer to dryads than anything else) and Dwarves (which, as described in the game, are sort of automatons) various authors have expended countless pages emphasising that these are NOT elves and dwarves, a la Tolkien or D and D and providing hundreds if not thousands of pages describing their unique origin, culture, religion and behaviour - but it's a lost cause, because 90% of the time, they are played as versions of the D and D races.

 

Not that I think there's one "right" way to do Dwarves' date=' per se. But I think it's worth asking what any given non-Human race brings to the table that makes it really distinctive, or if you want a given fantasy "race" to ask HOW you can make it something other than a Human with pointy ears or whatever.[/quote']

 

Oh, I'd agree. The problem is, the perception of dwarves and elves is so heavily skewed by the D20/D&D juggernaut on one side and the swarming hordes of Tolkein/Tolkein imitators on the other side, that to make something unique out of them is (IMO) simply too much trouble. I'd use them if I *wanted* a D and D type fantasy world. But then if I did, I'd probably just save myself some time and buy the Ebberon or IK setting.

 

But I don't want that, so I decided to simply ditch the names and all the associated baggage that comes with them. If I want a unique fantasy take on dwarves, it's far easier (IMO) to call them something else. Which is, in fact, exactly what I have done

 

cheers, Mark

[Susano]

Re: What are _____ like in your game?

 

Oh' date=' he invented them all right. There's nothing even remotely comparable in prior literature or myth. He simply borrowed the name of a goblin or goblins from english folklore - just as Orcs are his invention, despite the prior existence of the word "orc" meaning a monster. [/quote']

 

Sea monster, to be specific, IIRC correctly.