Portland Barbie

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

I'm sure it does' date=' but it's not a flavor I like.[/quote']

 

Nor is it one that I prefer either. Now, if it was a limited campaign, or a one-shot, then I'd be more than willing to do it, as long as I knew that once the story was completed, it'd go back to the racial mash-up i prefer.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

As far as the expectations go' date=' I guess that's on me. If someone were to say 'I'm running an all-X game', I'd be hesitant to play and probably find it not-horribly-interesting; if the GM relented at let in other species, I'd breathe a sigh of relief.[/quote']

 

To each their own. The best game session I ever had playing a character was in a totally human game, and with all prefabed characters . . .

 

I think that a single "class" or "race" styled game lends a unique flavor to the game, one that you cannot get when you broaden the allowances.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Sure you can. 'Play a cleric' date=' druid or wizard', congratulations, you're overpowered in 3e. [/quote']

 

Not necessarily, it just means the GM needs to keep a close eye on your "build" to make sure you don't become overpowered. I've had many spellcasters in my D&D games that weren't overpowered, simply because the players did not know the system well enough to know how to break it, and even if they did, I know what to look for.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Not exactly. If I come to the game expecting an all-orc campaign and people show up playing drows and ogres and Vulcans and clowns' date=' it would still detract from my enjoyment of the game even if they were the best roleplayers on Earth.[/quote']

 

Seconded

Re: Fantasy Hero Companion: Heavy Fighters

The term issue is a good example of the negative aspects of trying to create an extremely detailed package, as was done in the OP. Many players would perceive the term "heavy fighter/warrior" differently, and assume it allowed them the type of warrior they wanted. In this example, I believe Killer Shrike has some good examples on his website, where you start off with a simple, generic template (say one that focuses on STR, CON, and STUN/BODY, with a small "standardized" skill list, which is added to by additional templates (like one focusing on lighter armor and heavy weapons, a second on lighter weapons and heavier armors, and a third on lighter weapons with reach and medium armors specializing in mounted combat). All three of these could qualify as a heavy fighter, but will vary widely in their stats, as each focuses on a completely different combat style.

Yes, this may cause the player to spend as many points as a single detailed template may cost, but it does allow for more customization (and this concept could be included in a single template with multiple "select one of the following" options).

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

I see those as a player issue (in the case of the Drow) and a balance issue (in the case of the Half-Ogre)' date=' neither is a setting issue.[/quote']

 

The issue may have been caused by the players, but ultimately it was a GM issue. He said it was an all orc campaign, and other than those two players, everyone came to the table expecting such. Also, the GM let the group dynamic dissolve to what it became, because he failed to step in when the drow player started telling the other players how to play their characters. I'll be the first to let petty character issues continue, as long as it doesn't disrupt the game, and all the players are enjoying the in-character antagonism, but this example was beyond an in-character thing. Plus it does seem that the drow player was playing the drow simply for it's perceived ooc benefits. And, as it's been said, this is where the problem of race/species/culture options becomes an issue. Yes, there is a gray area here, since all players choose a race because of the perceived benefits it contains, be it rules, abilities, shock value, etc., but when the race's perceived benefits become a focus of the character, then it becomes an issue (imo).

 

The same goes for the half-ogre. It seems that it was chosen for it's min/max capacity and not because of it's uniqueness (this goes for the drow as well). The GM, being a first time GM, possibly didn't realize the consequences of allowing the race, and as a result it unbalanced things. This is when the GM should have taken the player aside and explained things to him, and tried to come up with a compromise (the Savage Species book for 3.X gives balancing options for many different races, and could have been a good starting point). Yes, I know that this is being said from an experienced point of view, and many new GMs might not be comfortable with this option, and even some experienced ones might have issues.

 

And there's always the option that the player would refuse, and eventually cause more issues than before, but from my experience, these are exceptions, and not the rule.

 

The other players could have done the same thing, if they were so inclined, and spoke with the GM, and come up with an option that everyone could be satisfied with.

 

I will admit that the example was more of an issue with GM experience than with racial options, but ultimately, it resulted in in-game problems, which could have been prevented by sticking to the original statement of an "all orc campaign."

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

. . . I have been on receiving end of GMs who say 'You're an (X), you can't do that/must do this' and I find it incredibly stifling and annoying.

In this situation, the GM failed to meet the burden of multiple races, imo. Yeah, he was focusing on the race/culture/etc. but that is no reason to limit the player's options. If player 1 wants to play an elf, and doesn't like the "culture" the elves have in the GM's setting, then he can, feasibly play a different type of elf, but by doing so, he is playing an elf who is shunning his own culture, and would suffer negative reactions from other elves, more so than members of a different race, imo. These negative reactions may even trickle over into members of other races . . .

Yes, trying to play a civilized, cultured member of a savage, barbaric society is a stretch, but if the player is willing to go through the effort, then let him go for it, as long as the player understands the GM may need to reign the character in from time to time, just to save verisimilitude . . .

Also, if player 2 wants to play an elf from LotR, and that concept doesn't mesh too well with the established elves of the campaign setting, then mayhap the GM might point out another race that does fall into the concept the player wants . . .

Yes, I understand that there are those players out there who are unwilling to play anything beyond a single concept/culture/race/personality; I've had one in my games for the last ten years. And those players are hard to satisfy if their archetypical character doesn't fit into the GM's world. At this time it's on both the player and the GM to find a compromise . . . If the player is new, and is unwilling to budge, then the best thing for the group might just be to say good-bye to him, and let him find the group that supports his archetype. On the flipside, if the player has been part of the group for a long time, and the new campaign setting doesn't allow his archetype, he may view this as a slap to the face by the GM . . .

But i digress, we're getting more into group dynamics and away from the OP . . .

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Perhaps the problem isn't race bloat but people who insist on running character types that are inappropriate to the setting?

This.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Why do you assume that the person who wants to play Cat People or Bear people are choosing to do so because of Stats? They may like the culture. They may always play Cat people because they like the Species.

 

It's different from wearing clothing mostly due to the fact that a Non Human can't not be NonHuman. A Scotsman is only different from an Englishman until he opens his mouth. They are still both humans. The Scotsman dressed like a Englishman doesn't look that different. It's only when he opens his mouth that someone can tell he's not English. A Cat Person is furry, will always be furry. Even if she shaves off all of her fur her skull is shaped differently. It's the GM's job to play all of the NPC's and their job to play out that NPC's prejudices. Also, Being non human is a larger disadvantage in certain circumstances. ie the Cat Person is in a party who has to go though the Dog People's territories (the Dog People being a long time adversary and hated by the Cat people and who actually hate Cat People back). Well the Cat Person can't hide their species. So the party has to work harder to deal with the Tribe of Dog people. So choosing a race is a MUCH bigger choice than what color Cloak do I wear.

 

You the GM are making a judgement based on some prejudiced idea that you can tell people how to Roleplay. You figure that people don't play a dwarf "right" that they are trying to munchkin the game by picking the best species for their class. Who are you to tell a player that the character they built in their head isn't "Being played right". You may be running the game, but I think you have lost sight of the fact that you are just another player. If you annoy enough of your players by limiting their choices or by running game worlds they don't care for. You may find that you are a GM with no players.

And oddly enough, you just validated my entire argument with this post, even after you "attacked" it (not really upset, everyone has their own opinion, was just pointing this out)

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Just asking for a LITTLE respect for different playstyles. Assuming that people who don't like your playstyle are Powergamers' date=' and only choose other races because they have 'l33t p0wrz' is more than a little insulting to people who like those races because they like being something that isn't human.[/quote']

 

I never said anything about any single playstyle . . . I was simply saying that the burden of the number of races becoming too overwhelming is going to depend on the individual group, and what the GM and players want to do with it. If group A wants to focus on every minute detail between two individual races and has fun doing so, more power to them; on the other hand, if group B simply wants different races because of the various abilities that they offer, and everyone's okay with that, then great, they're still having as much fun as group A . . . I've never said that the differences between the races has to be focused on in order to validate the reason for non-human races . . . I simply said that the question in the OP is going to vary between each group out there because of the varying differences in playstyles.

Re: Fantasy Hero Companion: Heavy Fighters

That's actually exactly what SJG did in the first Dungeon Fantasy PDF - they took a 250 point level for "bad ass' date=' over the top heroes" and made templates, with plenty of room for customization within the template, for all of the D&D-style archetypes.[/quote']

 

Interestingly enough, I'm currently working on conversions of that series for my own "Dungeon HERO" game . . . and yeah, there was a set point cost for each template, but it did include multiple options within the template, and even notes at the end for how to customize the template to fit certain "standbys" for each archetype.

Re: Detailed (mundane) armor

I'm not sure if i could justify to myself a reason to have a different level of rPD than PD for armor, since rPD applies to Killing Damage, and that's the whole reason to wear armor in FH . . . but since I'm using the Hit Locations in my game, I did vary the level of protection provided to the various locations depending on the suit of armor. Now, since I'm running a simplified game (nothing really more than an extended dungeon crawl with a single town to sell loot) to introduce new players to both role-playing and HERO, it's not as complex as it could be . . .

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

How much is a burden? That's going to vary from GM to GM . . . How many before you strain credulity?

Exactly. There's no hard-set number of races/cultures/species that, once exceeded, suddenly makes the game unbearable, or whatever.

My post you quoted was not stating anything about it becoming burdensome to the GM at a certain point, at least not as I'm assuming you took it. My reference to " . . . the burden of the GM" was in regards to making sure the number of races/cultures/species doesn't become too much for both him/her and the players. Once the game world becomes so inundated with variations of humanoids that it becomes difficult for the GM to maintain the "uniqueness" of each race, then it's become too much. Naturally this will vary depending on the individual GM, and to a lesser extent, the players since even if the GM can managably juggle 100 different races, without them blurring into "different looking humans with weird abilities", if the players don't really pay attention to the type of humanoid it is beyond the differentiation between "helpfiul npc" and "monster/source of loot" then there's not really a point for the GM to even put forth the effort.

And looking through the posts in this thread, I think the answer to the OP can be easily summed up as "it depends on the feel of the campaign, and the play-style of your players, combined with how much effort you are willing to put forth to make the races seem unique, and not just a set of abilities and different veneer thrown onto humans."

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Just throwing my two cents into the ring . . . for those of you who don't like the idea of non-human races in your world, the op could be changed to "how many cultures/different societies become too much." As you've been apt to point out, a new race is nothing more than a huyman with a different veneer, which I disagree with when done right, so it comes down to this: How many different race/species/culture/society options becomes too much in a fantasy game setting?

And like my original post, I'll posit that it becomes a burden of the GM, and that the answer is however many he can portray as a unique race/species/culture/society without it turning into the whole "you're sitting in the tavern and up walks a stranger . . . " commonality. It will vary from game to game, player to player, and GM to GM.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

. . . When gods are thrown into the mix' date=' cultures could be more static or drift apart even faster, especially if different gods claim different species or groups.[/quote']

 

Take a look at the old TSR Hollow World Setting . . . the "gods" (Immortals) created the realm as a "preservation" of cultures/creatures/races that they didn't want to die off or evolve/merge with others culturally. Yes, there was still some minor cultural alterations after various lengths of time due to interactions with other cultures, but part of the setting was the fact that very dissimilar cultures, or those that would be extremely antagonistic to each other were placed in separate ares, and they tended to be cut off from others around them. Add to that the magic that was used to allow the inner world to support life and to prevent it's discovery/destruction also played a part in preventing the cultures from advancing on their own, to become more savvy technologically, socially, or even magically . . . and the most extreme example was when the "gods" reached out and saved the Empire/Island of Alphatia from complete destruction by relocating it to the Hollow World.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Personally, I don't think it comes down to a specific number. Yeah, there is the possibility off having too many races in one area of the game world, but that can stem from the gm not playing up the 'rarity' of those races which are small in number. If the party has, say, a catfolk character in it, and there are few, if any, other catfolk in the area, and he doesn't put some focus on that (having passers-by stop and gawk, little kids point and say 'kitty', merchants try to treat the character according to a well-known stereotype, etc.) even if there is no Social Complication (even in the most cosmopolitan city you will encounter this occasionally) then the race looses it's 'flavor'.

That being said, there is also the flip-side: having every new npc encountered being some new, exotic race. Eventually it becomes old-hat, and players no longer focus on any character's race.

It boils down to the individual gaming group, imo, and what their personal tastes in the matter are. But the big question to ask when looking at including the race is what niche does it fill, and just how similar are it's abilities to the existing races. Are you including it simply to have another race, or do you think it has a hook that could appeal to at least one player? Keep in mind that most FRPG settings tend to have individual regions set asi cde for each race (however remote they may be) and you either get a landscape of mutlnational confusion, running the risk of not having any truly 'wild' areas, or some races need to be from far-away lands, decreasing their number, and leading back to the start of this post.

Re: Fantasy Hero Companion: Heavy Fighters

Oh' date=' I agree. I just think we're approaching this from different directions. I'm asking, "Can a complete novice use this to create a playable, balanced character in 15 minutes?"[/quote']

 

To be fair, can experienced HEROphiles create a playable, balanced character in 15 minutes? (Without relying on old "standby" abilities.)

Re: Fantasy Hero Companion: Heavy Fighters

To be honest, looking at the template, and the options, I'd say it's way too constricting. Yeah, I can understand that It may be written with new comers to HERO in mind, but it's too cookie-cutter. As said above, part of the appeal of HERO is the idea of being able to make a unique customized character no matter what genre or type of game being run.

Personally, I would suggest, slimming it down to just the base "standards" - those that would apply to every fighter of the type, then sit down with the players one-on-one (or even back and forth through email/texts/etc.) and discuss what the concept they have for their character is, and show them how they can do it using the system.

Writing up detailed templates like this run the risk of making the player think it's typical, and falling into the "class" template that many other systems use.

Having said that, I can see taking the time to write-up "standard power" that members of various classes may have, as a time-saver or simply examples of how to build abilities, but not including them as parts of a template, unless all characters of that type would have the *same* ability, with the same mechanics behind it.

Re: Fantasy Hero Companion: Heavy Fighters

Any chance you could post the write-up/Template on here for those of us who don't have HERO Designer?

Re: Cannot be resurrected

Yeah, the whole elves cannot be resurrected thing was killed many editions ago, and was simply to add flavor to the race, and taken from the alfar of Norse mythology (same place Tolkien got his elves, more or less) who had no soul or spirit to speak of, since the Nordic religion didn't make a differentiation of the soul/spirit and body. . . there was no dualistic nature. The concept of the soul leaving the body behind came about later through Christian missionaries.

The elves were considered to be supernatural creatures (created from maggots Odin found crawling on the corpse of Ymir after he created Midgaard from it) and given sentience and form, but not created by the gods like mankind . . .

Re: Grimoire: Elemental Earth spell - Create Tower

The 6E write-up says "Summon one tower built on up to 300 Total Points . . ." and without the Advantages, you're paying 60 Active Points, giving you the 300 Active Points to play with, which is technically the same cost as purchasing Base straight up . . . so, no, you don't get the 5-for-1 exchange a second time. That would be too much.

Re: Grimoire: Elemental Earth spell - Create Tower

Yeah, from what I've read, the spell summons a tower built with the Base rules. You might want to check out the Ultimate Base, it has expanded rules, and helpful tips on creating a Fantasy HERO base (among those of other Genres). Another Possibility would be to build a smaller version with a combination of Barrier/Life Support, I suppose, but without taking a good look at it, and knowing just what functionality/use the tower would have, it's kind of hard to see which would be a cheaper build . . . Also, remember that first and foremost, the spells in the Grimoire are meant to be guidelines and time savers, not the "official" word on how to do something, so the player could very easily reduce the amount of points used to build the base, or use the Barrier/Life Support idea, if they didn't need something as big as what the spell, as written, suggests.

Also, you might want to take a look at Fantasy Hero Battle Grounds, or Castles and Sieges (if you don't have The Ultimate Base, it's just the Fantasy HERO exerpt, and fairly cheap on the online store).

Re: Has anyone tried doing an Hyborian/Conan game using Fantasy Hero

I'm actually working on some package deals/templates right now, should have them finished in a week or so, depending.

Re: World building resources

I like a fair amount of realistic detail in my games as well.

I think it's a necessity, to be honest, and doesn't just add to the flavor, but helps with the immersion into the setting. The more the world seems believable, the more the players can place themselves in it. And this goes for not following real-world guidelines as well, since knowing what isn't typical, and coming up with a reason for why it exists works just as well as simply following the "standards."

Re: World building resources

But some people like the verisimilitude that comes with solid research. . . This kind of stuff has never played in the foreground of my games' date=' but it does make for a good background.[/quote']

 

Exactly, I'm not talking about rules on how and when to determine if there's an earthquake, or anything to that extent. The Worldbuilder's Guidebook only discusses plate tectonics as they apply to geographical features, allowing you to build a world that is more "believable" geographically. But, like most sourcebooks, you don't have to use them if you don't want. I was simply mentioning a source for those who wanted a bit of knowledge without having to take some college course on geography.