Non-humanoid races?

[sbarron]

Has anyone ever created a PC race for their game that wasn't humanoid?

 

I was just reading JmOz's thread about bat people and I thought, "why does it have to be 'man-bat,' and not just plain 'bat.'" Not to pick on him, mind you. His thread just made me think about how ingrained PC races as humanoids is in my gaming mind.

 

An intellegent race of "bats" 3-4 ft in height would be different. But man-bats...that could just as easily be goblins, kobolds, gnomes, dwarves, elves, gnolls, lizardfolk, ogres, satyrs, minotarus, centaurs, rakshasas, trolls, orcs, halflings, dragon-men, etc. All of these races are humanoid. They all have two arms with which they can all wield the same magic swords; a neck with which they can wear the same magic cloaks; two legs with which to wear pants that appropriately cover their genitals. Even the ones that would logically have paws end up with hands...

 

Where are the races of intelligent slugs? Or energy beings? Or intelligent plants? Or even smart insects, that crawl around like bugs!?! C'mon, they must be out there...

[Uthanar]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

I have Centaurs and Leomachus, but that still stays very close to humanoid. The Leomachus have three interbreeding bloodlines, one of which is a true Man-Cat, one is the Leomachus, and one of which is an intelligent lion. Sadly, none of my players went after that one. I thought it would be interesting. Oh well, maybe next time.

 

So the answer is, Yes....kind of.

 

Uthanar

[Ragnarok]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

I have not been a GM for a game which featured non-humanoid PCs.

 

I think it would be an interesting change, but I have yet to find anyone who is capable of pulling it off. Playing a believable non-humanoid takes an incredible amount of creativity and devotion to pull off.

 

That being said, the two closest things I've seen are centaurs and "beast-men."

[Maur]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

The biggest problem with playing a non-humanoid is just how much stuff would not function/exist for those characters. How would one have been able to build, let alone use transportation, armor, weapons, etc...

[Uthanar]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

In reply to Maur from the race that I envisioned, it is part of a race that also has humanoid members to it. Now certainly this isn't the standard way of dealing with it, but each of the three different members of the race are able to excel at different things because of their form.

 

Uthanar

[sbarron]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

The biggest problem with playing a non-humanoid is just how much stuff would not function/exist for those characters. How would one have been able to build' date=' let alone use transportation, armor, weapons, etc...[/quote']The stuff other humanoid creatures use? They probably couldn't. That's the point.

 

Just because their not humanoid doesn't mean they couldn't build things, though. There could be massive termite colonies filling a whole planet. Termites come pre-built with all the weapons and armor they'd ever need. Their motivations could be as similar or foreign as needed when compared to most other races, though.

 

They might not be looking for gold and magic weapons, the way all other races seem to. But better breeding grounds could be a goal, defeating competing colonies could be a goal. Becoming a queen, breeder, warrior...the options for motivations for the character are really pretty broad for these guys. Its just not the same stuff we're after, so it seems out of place.

 

Now these aren't regular termites, their PCs, so adding something to termite lives might be worth considering to make it a more fun race to play. Maybe if a termite gets in a lot of fights, it releases a protein that causes it to turn into a warrior termite. Maybe it has to eat its enemies to make this happen? I don't know. Maybe it has mental powers that can be developed...telepathy would be good if it didn't have vocal cords...but that's played out. Finding a way to communicate with regular PCs might be interesting.

[Curufea]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

I had the Tyranids as a race - they're 6 limbed non-humanoid.

I've also had Centaurs - also 6 limbed non-humanoid.

And the Leomachi - who were always at war with the Centaurs (carnivores vs omnivores).

[Korvar]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

I've run Dark Sun under Hero, which has the Thri-Kreen, insect-people. They're pretty non-humanoid - and very expensive to build

[Old Man]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

http://www.starfrontiers.com/rules/

 

Somewhere in there are non-humanoid races.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

I did come up with one non-humanoid race, but it was difficult.

 

The children of the race were small humanoid (some would say muppet size), some of the older ones were of adult human mental capability but still having difficulties with some adult concepts.

 

Then a group of them would bond together (physically and mentally) and they would form this hard blob-like horta creature that would be a mental gestalt called a Thok. (From the joke, "it would take a whole group of them just to form a thought.")

 

The Thoks called the smarter children "expendable" and would use them as slave creatures which sadly they didn't mind, since they got to do fun and dangerous things, but it was slowly destroying the race since they wouldn't form new Thoks.

 

It was left as a Star Trek morality puzzle, leave this race as it is, or interfere and demand that the children be allowed to develop into new Thoks. Plus, the players had to discover how the children were made (which I assumed required two Thoks, but I never decided).

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Non-humanoid races?

 

I have done conversions of the Phraints from the old Arduin Grimoire system, they are a bipedal insect warrior with 2 arms, no wings, and are acrobatic jumpers among other things.