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Fantasy Race Bloat?


Ragitsu

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

but is it really bloat. If the party fights Orcs' date=' Tieflings, Asimaars, Kobolds, etc. Why not allow a player to explore one as a PC?[/quote']

 

Because that isn't the point of the campaign. Or because they are defined as evil and all the existing PCs are good. Because they are unbalanced compared to existing PC races. Because the players are incapable of playing them different from humans. Because the GM doesn't want to have to create a new culture and history for that race so the player can properly roleplay it. Because of many, many things. Just because something exists in the world, or is introduced as an opponent, doesn't mean it should be a PC in that campaign. In others, sure, but in many campaigns being different is not the goal.

 

I think some of this discussion is between those who like Low Fantasy games like Conan's Sword and Sorcery and those who like D&D style High Fantasy.

 

I think it is more to do with those that like the standard D&D game worlds, and those that think high fantasy is something rather different. While I have often played in a standard D&D type world, I have usually found them to be quite silly, and often they discouraged any serious roleplaying. It isn't high fantasy to me - it's goofy fantasy. I get very serious about world design, history, and culture when I roleplay, and so choose not to participate in dungeon crawls and the lighter aspects. I don't think high fantasy needs any non-human races to be successful. I can be quite happy with just humans, or doing a Norse mashup with just humans, giants, and dwarves, but limiting PCs to humans.

 

There's also often a disagreement between those who look at races from a mechanical vs roleplaying aspect. I personally don't care how many racial templates can be built, or how they differ rules-wise, as that is completely uninteresting to me. I don't want dwarves to be described as grouchy beer guzzlers, but otherwise exactly like humans. If a player can't put significant effort into making them a different race and culture, then I don't want them to try and roleplay them in my games.

 

So assuming you are running a High Fantasy game how many Sentient Humanoid Species is too much? Or is one world big enough to contain all of that intelligent life?

 

I do not think non-humans are necessary to declare a story high fantasy, although I'm betting many would dispute this. Human, elf, dwarf as PC eligible races, with the last two being optional, is all I want or need. More than this is overboard. I'll use orc, giant, lizardmen, gnolls, and maybe a couple others as enemies if needed, but can also do a high fantasy campaign where all opponents are humans, undead, and the rare summoned demon. Rather than including every possible race, I'd rather have a small number of highly detailed ones that fit into the overall design.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

I have to say that although I like having fantasy races around, I nearly always play humans. I have a hard enough time playing one of those without also dealing with infravision or immortality. I played a Dralasite in Star Frontiers once and constantly forgot he could change shape.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

I have to say that although I like having fantasy races around' date=' I nearly always play humans. I have a hard enough time playing one of those without also dealing with infravision or immortality. I played a Dralasite in Star Frontiers once and constantly forgot he could change shape.[/quote']

 

I never play humans ... I'm one of those 24/7, why would I want to be one when I'm trying to escape from reality for a while? I'm more likely to create a fantasy world without humans than with them.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

So I was doing this underwater adventure, and I left my notes at home! Bummer. Grabbed the old Jarl of the Mountain Dwarf's Steading module, instead. No problem, underwater is cool, and we ate up most of the session with random encounters. But, well, the guys deserved a Big Bad at the ending, so I just used the module. Swap "Sea Dwarf" for "Dwarf," and there you go! Didn't go quite so well in the Underdeep, but what was I going to do after the players found that secret passage to the unmapped area? I didn't have time to cook up anything better than Deep Dwarfs.

 

I admit that the thing with the Hill Dwarfs (they're like Mountain Dwarfs, only in hills!) was a bit of a joke, but it was also a setup for the Desert Dwarfs that came the session after. The players are all, like, "it's the dwarfs, only in a place schtick" again. Fooled them! They were totally a ripoff of the Fremen from Dune instead. Fremen are uber! I had to jigger up the rules for it to make sense that they carried crysknives instead of axes, but who cares if the crysknife is a little overpowered compared to a battleaxe? They're just a monster race. Well, Jack wants to play a Desert Dwarf ranger for his next character. I can't see how that could possibly go wrong.

 

With the Ice Dwarfs in the Quest to the Glacial Peak thing, it was just a matter of my notes getting jiggered up. They were supposed to be an introductory adventure for an adventure highlighting my homebrew "Arctic environment is awesome" rules (with Ice Schooners!) What can I say? Loved Ice Road Truckers. Anyway, thing is, the dwarves were supposed to be orcs, and their warren was supposed to be the first encounter. Got my mapsheets transposed, and they ended up being mid-level, so I just templated the Arctic Powers set on them and made them dwarfs, instead. Pete wants to play one in the next campaign, and since I'm letting Jack be a Desert Dwarf, I guess I have to let Pete do it, too. It's not like an at-will Wall of Ice is going to be misused, right? It's just a barrier!

 

Besides, I have bigger fish to fry. This one's going to be in space! And not lame Spelljammer space, either! There's an old article about spacey items that I'm trying to hunt down, and I'm going to lift monsters out of Gunn and Williamson's Reefs of Space books, have Darth Vader as the big bad....

 

Now, before they can asteroid mine this planetesimal, they're going to have to beat some kind of NPC race that's infested the Ancient's underground complex. This isn't hard. I've learned how to do it! I'll just throw a Space Powers template on top of an existing NPC race. It won't be dwarfs, of course. I've overdone them. It's not like I'm going to be so upset that one of my players has found a gaping 'sploit in one of my builds that allows him to build the ultimate melee character that I'll end up ripping off his build and throw, say Crysknife Dual-Wielding Space Desert Dwarf Rangers With Space Powers at him, or anything like that....

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

Wouldn't that happen using humans from different cultures as well?

 

It definitely can, but at least there's some real life frame of reference when it comes to humans, so it's not as hard as bring nuance to different cultures, or as easy to make up excuses.

 

Which is funny since in real life humans have trouble perceiving other humans as members of their own species.

 

Ain't that the truth.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

I agree. Each there own and all though.

 

Yep. This is why I make as much stuff available in a game as I can. It's not all about me; the players need things available that they want to play. This prohibits me from, say, making an elf-less gameworld even though I don't like them; my players do.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

But why not an elven Hyborian Age Wizard, a human Shemite rogue, and an elven warrior from Khitai?

 

(And as you've probably just guessed, I have absolutely no idea what Hyborian Age, Shemite, or Khitai mean.)

 

 

Hyborian is the name of the age and continent-Hyboria' date=' Shemite are the Israelites and Khitai are Chinese.[/quote']

 

To be a bit more specific, the Hyborian Age is the fictional pre-historic world in which Robert E. Howard placed his stories of Conan. The Hyborians are the dominant human ethnicity/ culture in the Western part of that world (mostly a European analogue). Shemites are inspired by the more modern "Semites" of the Middle East, including Israelites and Arabs (but still polytheistic pagans), while Khitai is the name for the general region of the Far East, and "Khitans" for its main ethnicity, although far less defined in Howard's works than the West.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

he may have also been inspired by the legend that the three sons of noah fathered three peoples

 

If you mean Robert E. Howard, the Hyborian Age features many more than three peoples. Howard actually wrote an essay describing a detailed ethnic history for his setting before and after the time of Conan, and since it pretends to be a "true" history of the Earth unknown to most moderns, it reflects and ties into the ethnic diversity of the real world, at least as it was widely understood in his day.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

To respond to the original question, I and the folks I've gamed with enjoy the variety and exoticness of non-human races, for background color and for role-playing opportunities, so the settings I run or play in usually feature a half-dozen or so "major" sapient races, i.e. widely spread over the world and/or having their own independent nations competitive with human ones. But we might also have as many "minor" races with much smaller distribution, independence, or influence.

 

In that regard, Hero Games's own Turakian Age is right about in my comfort zone.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

To be a bit more specific' date=' the Hyborian Age is the fictional pre-historic world in which Robert E. Howard placed his stories of Conan. The Hyborians are the dominant human ethnicity/ culture in the Western part of that world (mostly a European analogue). Shemites are inspired by the more modern "Semites" of the Middle East, including Israelites and Arabs (but still polytheistic pagans), while Khitai is the name for the general region of the Far East, and "Khitans" for its main ethnicity, although far less defined in Howard's works than the West.[/quote']

 

I don't have my essay available but I'm pretty sure that Shemites are soley the sons of Shem. He has other arab analagous races, such as afghulis and Hykerninans to name two. And he choose Khitans because that was an OLD name for China, not necessarly for a specific culture.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

I don't have my essay available but I'm pretty sure that Shemites are soley the sons of Shem.

 

Yes, exactly. More or less what Lord Liaden said, right?

 

He has other arab analagous races' date=' such as afghulis[/quote']

 

The Afghulis are analogues to Afghans, not to Arabs.

 

and Hykerninans

 

As I recall, the Hyrkanians were more analogues to Turks, not Arabs

 

to name two.

 

To name two analogues to non-Arab peoples

 

And he choose Khitans because that was an OLD name for China' date=' not necessarly for a specific culture.[/quote']

 

Most of his names were like that. I don't think Howard invented many original names.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Looking for an analog palindromedary, but these are all digital

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

Yes, exactly. More or less what Lord Liaden said, right?

 

 

 

The Afghulis are analogues to Afghans, not to Arabs.

 

 

 

As I recall, the Hyrkanians were more analogues to Turks, not Arabs

 

 

 

To name two analogues to non-Arab peoples

 

 

 

Most of his names were like that. I don't think Howard invented many original names.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Looking for an analog palindromedary, but these are all digital

 

Turks or arabs the same thing right Lucius? Well more or less. And I think (which right now I can't check) but the Hyrkanians are Iranian which are probably more Arab than Turk.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

Turks, Arabs, and Persians are definitely not the same ethnicity or linguistic heritage. While currently inhabiting contiguous areas of the broad region of the Middle East, they all entered it at different times from different places. I've had opportunity to deal with many different people from the Middle East over the years, and I assure you that telling an Arab to his face that he's the same as a Persian or a Turk will get you a cold glare at best, or a punch in the snoot at worst.

 

As for the Khitans, they were a Mongolian people of the Far East, related to but distinct from the Han Chinese. While Robert E. Howard may have borrowed the name for his own Far East analogue, historically the Khitans were a separate people and empire largely outside China proper.

 

For anyone interested in the distinctions among these ethnicities, here are a few relevant online articles:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semites

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_people

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_people

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khitan_people

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

Turks, Arabs, and Persians are definitely not the same ethnicity or linguistic heritage. While currently inhabiting contiguous areas of the broad region of the Middle East, they all entered it at different times from different places. I've had opportunity to deal with many different people from the Middle East over the years, and I assure you that telling an Arab to his face that he's the same as a Persian or a Turk will get you a cold glare at best, or a punch in the snoot at worst.

 

As for the Khitans, they were a Mongolian people of the Far East, related to but distinct from the Han Chinese. While Robert E. Howard may have borrowed the name for his own Far East analogue, historically the Khitans were a separate people and empire largely outside China proper.

 

For anyone interested in the distinctions among these ethnicities, here are a few relevant online articles:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semites

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_people

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_people

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khitan_people

 

Would Robert E Howard understand or care about those distinctions when he wrote the books? Or are some of those distinctions that we have become more aware of in modern times?

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

Would Robert E Howard understand or care about those distinctions when he wrote the books? Or are some of those distinctions that we have become more aware of in modern times?

 

For the most part they would have been known in Howard's day by anyone who cared to study the relevant sources, although the scholarship made some mistaken assumptions which have since been corrected. The fact that Howard knew these names suggests he had some familiarity with that material. In his Hyborian pseudo-history essay he describes how peoples who existed in that era evolved into the peoples from real-world history.

 

Ultimately, though, Howard seems to have been most concerned with creating a solid, colorful background to hang a good story on. The Hyborian Age has a lot of internal consistency, but REH borrowed just as liberally from mythology, the popular antediluvian occultism of his day, and the concepts of his fiction-writing contemporaries, as real history.

 

Now, just to turn back a little toward the thread topic ;) , the Hyborian Age is almost totally the domain of the human race. There are a few pre-human remnants, but virtually all of them are few in number, isolated, and usually decadent and dying out. OTOH the varieties of human ethnicities, languages, and cultures are nearly as diverse as exist over the same area of the real world, so there's plenty of variety even if everyone is of the same "race." A Stygian priest of Set, a Zamoran thief, or a Vanir barbarian warrior, are all very different.

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Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

 

A Stygian priest of Set' date=' a Zamoran thief, or a Vanir barbarian warrior, are all very different.[/quote']

 

Culturally and occupationally to be sure, but it's clear some people want to play characters with significant physical differences. I'm not one of them, but neither do I feel compelled to deny others the ability to do so.

 

That said, I do prefer fantasy PC races to be humanoid and mammalian. Dwarves and (gag) elves are fine. Felines and erqidlit, okay. Thri-kreen and aarakocra start to bother me.

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