What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

[Chris-M]

We're going to cover some of the same ground we already discussed in the "We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs" thread, but I wanted to try to have a conversation about designing non-human fantasy races from a game design perspective.

 

Why have non-human races in a setting? I think the traditional reasons are:

 

 

• They can have powers and abilities beyond those of normal humans.
  
• They can be limited or disadvantaged in ways normal humans are not.
  
• They are an opportunity for the gamer (or reader, in fiction) to experience unusual or alien thought processes or cultures.
  
• As a clarification of that last point, they give gamers a more focused personality framework for roleplaying a character.
  

 

The first two bullets raise questions about game balance. Also, I suspect that the powers or abilities are the main reason most gamers pick a non-human race -- as a min-maxing tool (although I feel somewhat guilty about being cynical for saying that -- but bear in mind I'm playing in a 4e campaign right now ).

 

The second two I think point to what in fact should be the coolest thing about having non-human races, although there are a couple pitfalls there as well. The first is the One-Note Race problem (e.g. "We are Klingons! We are a warrior race!"), and related to that is the second: Stereotypical Fantasy Race Syndrome (which we discussed at length in the other thread), common for elves, dwarves, orcs, and such.

 

So what thoughts about designing and building non-human fantasy races do you have (beyond Steve's from the FH book)? Any particular thoughts about building a stable of races to populate a non-D&D fantasy world? Do you think in terms of populating certain "slots" or certain "campaign needs?" What would those be?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Authorial insert characters.

"Yes, this new race is cool. But it's an NPC race only, and you can't play with it. You wouldn't enjoy it on as many levels as I do."

[Chris-M]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Presented like that, authorial insert characters are definitely a bad thing, but handled more deftly I've found them to be very interesting and engaging on occasion. I think, though, it's important not to make them too common. I think they work better as rare or unusual NPCs.

[JohnTaber]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

When I designed my Star Hero campaign I created a set of very unique races and I intentionally had them fill a particular campaign need. In the FH campaign I am working on now I am using a lot of races because I wanted a very diverse feel. I also wanted lots of opportunities for players to experiment. Different motivation entirely.

[Chris-M]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

When I designed my Star Hero campaign I created a set of very unique races and I intentionally had them fill a particular campaign need. In the FH campaign I am working on now I am using a lot of races because I wanted a very diverse feel. I also wanted lots of opportunities for players to experiment. Different motivation entirely.

 

John, what kind of campaign needs did your SH non-human races fill?

 

What kind of experimentation opportunities are you trying to create for your players with your FH races?

 

Sounds pretty cool!

[Curufea]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

1) I don't do balance. Balance has nothing to do with roleplaying in my games.

2) I do "what works for the genre that doesn't stretch the bounds of plausability". So nothing very weird if it's a low magic setting, nothing too "adult themed" if it's a pulp fantasy, nothing too serious or realistic if it's high fantasy and nothing too silly if it's horror fantasy.

 

My players choose their races based on whether they are interesting, not on what powers they have.

[Enforcer84]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

I wanted my world to look like Capcom's Breath of Fire games.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

You have to see this.

 

Tiefling and the Gnome.

[Enforcer84]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Ha.

[The Weapon]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

A good non-human race (fantasy or sci-fi) is different from humans in significant and logically consistent ways. In other words it's not just "guys with funny ears". For instance a race that's immortal will be different not just in that way but in it's outlook on mortality, achievement, society etc. There has to be an answer to "Why is this race different from humans?" and that answer has to lead to the answer to "How is this race different from humans?".

[Killer Shrike]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Personally, I've always greatly preferred playing Human characters. I mean sure I've played elves, and dwarves, and trolls, and tieflings, and whathaveyous, but more often than not and whether I like it or not most other players and GM's have some predefined stereotypical expectations of what characters of such races are supposed to be like and either you play to that type or you play against that type but regardless of which you opt for it constitutes a lot of extra drag that detracts from my enjoyment in constructing and piloting such characters.

 

For whatever reason, you can get away with playing ANYTHING if your character is a human.

 

 

Having said that, personally I look at other races with a very jaundiced eye. Each one has to prove its right to exist to me. A race should bring something to the table other than just being "different" or "like something else except...". If not, its just clutter.

 

I've talked about my Rule of Three before -- in my opinion there should be at least three reasons to do something and at least one of them should be good. Same thing applies here; there should be three reasons to have a race, and at least one of them should be convincing. These reasons can vary; it might be fills a necessary role in the backstory, interacts with a magic system in some way, fulfills some useful "niche", plays to the preferences of a significant fraction of the player base, offers access to a particular aspect of the game exclusive to them and its a net add vs just some uber thang, etc etc etc.

[Drhoz]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Believably different customs are always good, too. They don't even have to be biologically consistant - look at all the ridiculous customs humans have, after all. Just put it down to religion

[Shadowsoul]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

I'd agree that a particular culture is important. Quite a few fantasy races are based around the idea of a different shape or abilities but a different perspective on life is what makes them really interesting to play. One easy trick is to pick a real-world culture like the Incas, classic Hawaiians, Celts or ancient Persians and apply it to the race, or pick aspects of several different cultures and stick them together.

 

Usually I'd say come up with the world and then start working on some racial concepts. In my New Dawn setting I was going for dark apocalyptic fantasy. I wanted some vestiges of civilisation but I wanted them to be inhuman, so I designed a couple of 'creepy' races - Bat People who lived in the clouds and Lizard People who lived beneath the earth. I created a race of assassins because they fitted the feel of the setting. I'll admit to adding in a long lived race of magically enhanced humans in order to fill the 'Elf niche'.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that every race must justify its existence but each original race should be interesting to play and fairly well detailed. There are limits though, unless the players ask about it I'm not going to go into details on what sort of pottery this race specialises in or the specifics of their marriage vows etc.

[Enforcer84]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Personally, I've always greatly preferred playing Human characters. I mean sure I've played elves, and dwarves, and trolls, and tieflings, and whathaveyous, but more often than not and whether I like it or not most other players and GM's have some predefined stereotypical expectations of what characters of such races are supposed to be like and either you play to that type or you play against that type but regardless of which you opt for it constitutes a lot of extra drag that detracts from my enjoyment in constructing and piloting such characters.

 

For whatever reason, you can get away with playing ANYTHING if your character is a human.

 

 

Having said that, personally I look at other races with a very jaundiced eye. Each one has to prove its right to exist to me. A race should bring something to the table other than just being "different" or "like something else except...". If not, its just clutter.

 

I've talked about my Rule of Three before -- in my opinion there should be at least three reasons to do something and at least one of them should be good. Same thing applies here; there should be three reasons to have a race, and at least one of them should be convincing. These reasons can vary; it might be fills a necessary role in the backstory, interacts with a magic system in some way, fulfills some useful "niche", plays to the preferences of a significant fraction of the player base, offers access to a particular aspect of the game exclusive to them and its a net add vs just some uber thang, etc etc etc.

Actually, this is what I've been thinking of while updating my Edean Races, the Old Gods created most of the off shoot races from humanity, one was simply, "Selective Breeding", one was "hey, plants live a long time..." and the animal hybrids were considered mostly for their natural combat abilities/appearance for the war games. The High Trolls were elevated and bred with humans to make really tough soldiers. It was noticed later that some of the hybrids were really suited for particular tasks, some were modified to make them moreso. The unusual Priodons, large sized humanoid armadillos (swiped from Breath of Fire series and then altered to make more sense to me) were basically used as naturally armored gladiators and miners.

 

I think I keep most of your fantasy tropes alive with my various races but there is a bit of different to be different. All the races came from humanity originally and there are no "Good Races/Evil Races"

[Chris-M]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Good answers, guys.

 

I've used the approach of designing non-human races patterned after historic Earth cultures (although I always try to emphasize more than just one or two obvious facets of the base culture). I've also created non-human races by picking some important difference between the new race and humans and then building outward from that, similar to the Weapon and Shadowsoul's comments.

 

I've never built up a stable of races working from a cosmological origin sequence as Enforcer discusses or as Tolkien did, but that's an interesting possibility. I think the closest I came to something like that was designing a world that was based on five different "primal energies," and each race had evolved to take advantage of a different energy (and there were no humans in this setting, which, surprisingly, my players didn't have a problem with -- I was really expecting more hassle on that point).

 

I dig where Shrike is coming from, although I also feel it's sometimes good practice not to make everything too rational or too logical -- you can end up with settings that feel too designed and not naturalistic enough. That said, I think it's good to have a compelling reason for adding in something, be it a non-human race or whatever (as long as it fits the setting), but that reason could simply be "because my gut tells me it's a good idea to have put that element in." Only time and results will tell whether listening to your gut is a good idea or not.

 

I don't mean to sound too cavalier about this issue of adding in new non-human races. I certainly don't advocate throwing in a ton of new races willy-nilly just to do it. But they can add a lot to a fantasy context, and I think they're fun to do, if you can do a good job, and veteran fantasy gamers will, in my experience, be happy to take a break from the usual array of races.

 

That reminds me. Something else I try to do is to think about the relative population ratios of different races if I have more than one (that is, more than just humans). I typically don't do settings where there's some relatively equal populations of several races. Typically humans are the largest and the most geographically dominant, and I give a lot of thought to who's the next largest and so forth (and how much smaller than next largest race's population base is). It can be a fun twist, if you do it right, to have humans as the second-largest racial group -- or even a relatively rare and isolated group. If handled well it can give you a really different and really interesting feel to the campaign.

 

Sorry about dropping into Ramble Mode there, but anyway, a few new thoughts.

[Guest Admiral C]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Aside from things already mentioned a good fantasy race to me has to meet a few basic criteria.

 

1) They can't be easily homogenized with humanity. That is that they are most distinct as a race and culture when they dominate their villages, towns, and cities. Stereotypical elves want their hidden cities deep within their great forests, stereotypical dwarves want their cities underground with many places sized just for them, stereotypical halflings want their quiet shire with home after home too small for average humans. Each of those races often has to live seperately, even though they can mingle, because the enviornments they are comfortable in are not compatible with your average, stereotypical human settlement.

 

2) They might have a few taboos but can and often cultivate all manner of skills and trades like humans do. Whole classes of skills and abilities should not be barred to them.

 

3) If they have any cool or nifty abilities it should first be decided (to me the most important part of designing a new race) is how those powers allow them to monopolize a niche or enviornment that humans typically have trouble in. Dune Orcs need far less water, jungle elves are immune to all jungle borne poisons and diseases, peak or snowcap dwarves have LS Expanded Breathing: Thin Air for their mile high mountain top fortresses.

 

4) When designing their culture what elements are most important to me that I should keep. When a new player walk in the door and I describe my current fantasy game I want our ideas of what an "elf" is to be not too disimilar. Likewise their are elements associated elven culture like appreciation of art beauty, and nature, superior craftsmanship, a place old elves travel to than no non elf can go. Some of these are practical, if you've been making baskets for 1200 years your going to be very good at it. Some of them are for balance, having 1200 year old wizard retire to Evermeet certainly keeps him out of the picture. But some of them like the stereotypical immortal aloof nature can go right out the window.

 

5) Is there some idea I'm dying to give flesh? A race of flesh golems mass produced by pocket dimension made up of an amagalem of slaughterhouses across the campaign world possessed by the spirit of a goblin necromancer? No good reason for that one, but it could be pretty cool. Hyena people? Sure, I do a better hyena impression than an chipmunk and I'm reasonably sure I can make them different enough from gnolls. A variety of lizardmen that have frills and spit all sorts of nasty venoms? A nice sub race.

 

6) Can I do what I want with one race or three? In my current fantasy game I have the fey as a race but the players know that fey is more like a group of similar races that are related. Some turn to stone in sunlight, some don't, some are intelligent while others are animalistic brutes, but they are never thought of as multiple races. The fact that their magic and qualities are so fantastic (like turning to stone in sunlight) gives them an unreal quality that makes have them so wildly different not only make sense but feel right.

[Chris-M]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

2) They might have a few taboos {...}

 

Your whole post was great, AC, but that line about taboos reminds me of a few questions I try to answer when developing a culture for a fantasy world, be it a human culture or a non-human one:

 

 

• What is a behavior that these people consider "bad" that the default "normal" culture of the world think is fine? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find this "bad" behavior acceptable?
  
• What is a behavior that these people consider "good" that the default "normal" culture of the world think is wrong? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find this "good" behavior unacceptable?
  
• What is a personal quality that a person or thing can possess that these people find particularly admirable or desirable to a degree that is different from the default "normal" culture for the world? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find that quality bad or undesirable?
  
• What is a personal quality that a person or thing can possess that these people find particularly bad or undesirable to a degree that is different from the default "normal" culture for the world? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find that quality good or acceptable?
  

I think these are useful thought exercises in themselves, but what I'm also trying to do is drill down into their mindset and worldview (and hopefully the practical reasons they possess their mindset and worldview). But I think when working these things out, if you want to create a really rich and engaging, and more naturalistic, culture, you want to not only figure out the surface qualities, but the exceptions as well. The seeming contradictions and inconsistencies are what make a race or culture really interesting and engaging to me, especially if you feel like you can scratch the surface a little bit as to why those contradictions and inconsistencies exist.

[CTaylor]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Mostly the thing that makes a good PC race is something people want to play that fits your campaign. The abilities are secondary to the fun and game play. If people love playing your purple man race just because he's purple and you gave them a really weird personality and lore - so be it, they don't need any special abilities. As long as you can build stories around the race, like them in your campaign, and the players like them, it's a good PC race.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

 

I dig where Shrike is coming from, although I also feel it's sometimes good practice not to make everything too rational or too logical -- you can end up with settings that feel too designed and not naturalistic enough. That said, I think it's good to have a compelling reason for adding in something, be it a non-human race or whatever (as long as it fits the setting), but that reason could simply be "because my gut tells me it's a good idea to have put that element in." Only time and results will tell whether listening to your gut is a good idea or not.

 

Sure, a gut feeling is a reason. I trust my instincts and go with my gut all the time. I just look for two more additional reasons beyond "it feels right". Those two reasons might be as simple as "seems like it will be fun" and "won't hurt anything if I'm wrong". Although, preferably at least one of the reasons would be more concrete.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

You have to see this.

 

Tiefling and the Gnome.

Maybe I'm getting old, but this was just not funny for me. In fact, it was kind of sad.

[Guest Admiral C]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

• What is a behavior that these people consider "bad" that the default "normal" culture of the world think is fine? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find this "bad" behavior acceptable?
  
• What is a behavior that these people consider "good" that the default "normal" culture of the world think is wrong? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find this "good" behavior unacceptable?
  
• What is a personal quality that a person or thing can possess that these people find particularly admirable or desirable to a degree that is different from the default "normal" culture for the world? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find that quality bad or undesirable?
  
• What is a personal quality that a person or thing can possess that these people find particularly bad or undesirable to a degree that is different from the default "normal" culture for the world? Why? What are the circumstances under which these people would find that quality good or acceptable?
  

 

You are certainly right about figuring out the whats, hows, and whys and thereby making the race as a whole more organic and believable.

 

If I was trying to create taboos for a race I would take what makes them different from humans and what envionrments they inhabit that humans might not, or at least in the same way. For what they respect it's simply a matter of what makes the person in question 'seem' more like them or relate better to them, or even respect them by imitation. Back to elves again, a lot of sources have them aloof, naturalistic/holistic and fastidious. Being aloof is good trait for them as they live a reeeeeeeeally long time and being loud and obnoxious for a decade may be hard to live down for the next several centuries. You see how hard pressed humans are to let stuff drop, but imagine if your neighbor whose been complaining about your lawn not being cut that one summer in 92 and how it bred weeds into his bermuda grass for years dryg that dead horse out for a month or two periodically over the next two thousand years. Being quiet and thoughtful would be a trait aloof elves would appreciate and value in others because it makes living amongst themselves tolerable.

 

The others are easy. The focus on nature and druidism? They live in the woods, all their ewok style villages demand a little wilderness forthought in construction and maintnence. Natural magics and items constructed from them are plentiful in example as well as material. Their fastidiousness? It goes back to them living a really long time, no one wants to be branded as a slob and their whole forest world should be neat like them too. Making a ruckus in the woods by having your home 'not blend in' or making excessi racket that disturbs the woodland envionrment would be un-elfy. Unhealthy or termite eaten trees are removed when they are young and when no one is looking, dangerous animals are relocated, I've even heard of elven cultures that take elven infants who have obvious deformaties and quietly burying them somewhere because it offends their elven sense of beuty and nature.

 

Of course not elves are the same. But think about it, how many elves in sterotypical fantasy have birth defects or are stepping in bear dung?

 

Great Old Elven Wizard: "You may have the scroll of my forbearers but it is in the attic where I dare not tread."

Adventurers: "Is it guarded by an ancient beast?"

Great Old Elven Wizard: "No, there is this big honking wasp nest up there and I'm allergic to yellowjackets."

 

Same thing for negative traits. In my current fantasy game a race of intelligent trolls living underground started a war with the local surface kingdom. The cause? The trolls brok into their underground vaults and starting eating the mummified remains of their kings. The trolls have several negative traits in my world, they're percieved as cannibalistic and they are. Not much food underground for being as large as they are and as much tunneling work they must do to make it livable. The war, which has dragged on for sometime, is a quandry to the trolls because while they lose some of their number there larders are getting full and they can breed pretty fast if they accelerate their metabolisms and breeding cycle in turn. But to the surface world they appear warlike because they do things that make them charge down into the underground to kill them over it.

 

A classic, dwarven miserliness or greed. Why? If I was to hazard a guess there is so much in the way of precious metals floating around your average dwarven city that for any dwarf to be actually considered rich he has to have a lot of money, enough for his fellows to really notice the difference. That and much of what dwarves can do in ig caves is dig more caves or do something with you dig out. A big imnpetus to get money is nothing more than the impetus to keep searching for something underground worthwhile.

 

So...

1) What makes them different in their everday lives from humans and

2) What enviornment do they inhabit or inhabit differently than humans and

3) What could the average human do to relate/empathize/intergrate with them more?

 

To take apart another race, the average merman.

 

1) The obviously don't come onto land and can go to about any depth.

2) The oceans, lake, and rivers

3) Navigate their enviornment half as well as they do and don't do anything destructive to their home like overfishing.

 

So a merman would likely not value money because he can't use it except to trade with surface dwellers. Having a more or less even tempatured enviornment to them they don't value a lot of materialistic things and probably would look down on those who did. Sound travels better underwater so they tend to be quiet as their enemies could magically discern their location based on sound alone. Not having elaborate construction tecqhniques they either inhabit ruins or are nomads. They have little fear from superstition as their dead are quickly devoured by all manner of creatures and they often explore things like caves and ruins underwater like a human would explore and abandoned warehouse. The understand how tough their envionment is to humans and respect people who brave those elements, fishermen in the midst of storms, pearl divers, underwater druids, etc. A human who can jump in to save a friend from a shark with nothing more than a knife is someone of note. Likewise a person of afraid of the water, can't swim, or rides the waves in huge boats are of little concern.

 

I'm sorry if I'm rambling a bit but I rarely post to the boards.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Maybe I'm getting old' date=' but this was just not funny for me. In fact, it was kind of sad. [/quote']

 

I didn't post it for the humor value, but it seemed so perfectly appropriate to a discussion on play balancing races. I found the humor to be quite cathartic since I've played games where my character was vaporized and my minion punted to the background, all for a very small bag of gold while I was still going "I've got a LAIR! How cool is that?"

[Chris-M]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

I didn't post it for the humor value' date=' but it seemed so perfectly appropriate to a discussion on play balancing races. I found the humor to be quite cathartic since I've played games where my character was vaporized and my minion punted to the background, all for a very small bag of gold while I was still going "I've got a LAIR! How cool is that?"[/quote']

 

I thought it was funny and sad -- and a perfect encapsulation of 4e versus old school D&D. You have your dorky little gnome with a few minor bonuses and penalties on the one hand, and you replace that with the tiefling, which are a more modern, kewl-fantasy, race absolutely loaded with powers and benefits.

[Kristopher]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Maybe I'm getting old' date=' but this was just not funny for me. In fact, it was kind of sad. [/quote']

 

Yeah, I had the same reaction, or maybe just "meh".

[ThothAmon]

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race?

 

Just tossing in the background the races I designed in my original FH 1st Edition campaign and adapted to 4th and 5th...

 

In fantasy lit (and RPG) lot of lipservice is paid to the idea that non-human races predate humans. Rarely does the implementation go beyond window-dressing for the world. I wanted a world where the humans were the newcomers, picking up on tropes from pulp-era fantasy from REH, HPL et al. The end result definitely leaned towards the MAR Barker model, no bad thing really. Flavours from Vance and Leiber also seemed to come through.

 

At the risk of self-promoting, I'll cite an example; a race of nomadic cat-people, sociologically a mix of Aboriginal and Plains Amerindian Cultures (oral history, close to nature, spiritual development over tech development).

 

My own take was from POV of worldview. Start with the world and grow the races semi-logically. The idea of a race filling a niche is a bit weird for me. It's probably the atheist / Darwin / Dawkins influence.

 

Anyways, I've found it tough to stay out of this topic so apologies if I'm coming in too late or too haphazard.