Poll: How do you feel about new PC races?

Artur Hawkwing · Apr 30, 2012

I'm really torn. I think the best approach is take it race by race, break them down and see what they're about. Me, personally, I tend to avoid 'alternative' races unless it is a requirement of the campaign (as my half-red dragon centaur bard would attest), but to have the option of exploration might be good. It would also make us consider that races position with E'n. Like the example already given of the Delta having lizard-folk...

The only thing I can really contribute is that I think, at least at first, there should be a leash kept on the number of new races added. Instead of dumping the whole thing into the wash all at once, try a couple a lot of people seem interested in.

sunshadow21 · Apr 30, 2012

IronWolf said:
I think there is plenty of room to write "ecology of" articles for the wiki to build up fluff for races without the requirement to make them a playable race to justify writing fluff for them.

I don't think adding more PC races in order to encourage the writing of fluff is a good justification for a large amount of races.

I said it could help; I didn't say it was the only way to do it. It is one factor that is worth considering if enough people show interest in playing a particular race or if a region really develops over time to the point where it might make sense to allow that race to be a PC race.

jkason · Apr 30, 2012

As a player, I think I tend to be most interested in new races when they're actually most different. If I'm going to be something non-human, I just think it's fun to be really non-human. A lot of the core races just feel like 'tweaked human' (human that stops growing at child-size, human with pointy ears, squat & dense human that sees in the dark, blended-with-humans that look fairly human anyway). I just think there's so much stuff that reads like everything else, that races that are more 'out of the box' seem to draw my attention.

Not quite sure why tengu and merfolk didn't manage to draw me in. I guess Birdfolk who can't fly or glide make me sad; likewise water folk who can barely move aboveground.

Or I'm turning into a dirty optimizer without even noticing.

I think SK has a point about reaction to races, and I think it's another point we might want to consider in approving or rejecting races: I think maybe part of the integration process might need to include how X race is (normally) received by the various other races. Helps inform character creation, and helps GMs with a bit of a guideline about integration.

Qik · Apr 30, 2012

IronWolf said:
I think there is plenty of room to write "ecology of" articles for the wiki to build up fluff for races without the requirement to make them a playable race to justify writing fluff for them.

I don't think adding more PC races in order to encourage the writing of fluff is a good justification for a large amount of races.

sunshadow21 said:
I said it could help; I didn't say it was the only way to do it. It is one factor that is worth considering if enough people show interest in playing a particular race or if a region really develops over time to the point where it might make sense to allow that race to be a PC race.

Artur Hawkwing said:
I'm really torn. I think the best approach is take it race by race, break them down and see what they're about. Me, personally, I tend to avoid 'alternative' races unless it is a requirement of the campaign (as my half-red dragon centaur bard would attest), but to have the option of exploration might be good. It would also make us consider that races position with E'n. Like the example already given of the Delta having lizard-folk...

The only thing I can really contribute is that I think, at least at first, there should be a leash kept on the number of new races added. Instead of dumping the whole thing into the wash all at once, try a couple a lot of people seem interested in.

My point was essentially what Artur and sunshadow said: that adding more playable races will simply further encourage the development of corresponding fluff, be it historical, political, geological, etc. I think it's natural that one would be more inclined to develop the mythology of E'n when one is directly involved in that mythology.

Also, to be clear: I'm certainly not encouraging a wholesale licencing of monster races for PCs. I'm of the middling variety, in that I'd like to have the option of approving new races if there's something that strikes me as desirable, not just for me, but for E'n in general. I'm not even set on making a Wayang PC, for example, but even if I don't, I'd love to still have the option of doing so.

People (unsurprisingly) seem to differ on what attracts them to a race, but it seems like a fair bit of people at least would like to have the option on the table.

Qik · Apr 30, 2012

I hasten to add that I'm not necessarily declaring a final analysis of public opinion; I more just wanted to draw the distinction between disagreeing on what kind of nonstandard races one would like to have approved for play with disagreeing on whether or not nonstandard races should be approved at all.

DalkonCledwin · May 2, 2012

what about the possibility that if an individual can come up with a reasonable reason justifying why his character should be a given race from a role playing perspective (and not necessarily just from a mechanical perspective) even if that race is not normally allowed in Living Pathfinder, if we then allow the judges to give that player the opportunity for a case by case proposal type situation where for just that one character there is the opportunity to get the race approved.

Granted this could theoretically be a logistical nightmare for the judges, but I could also see it being a huge reward for people who have proven themselves as excellent role players and want to do something special with their second or even third characters. Something on the scale of a veterans perk so to speak?

Caim · May 2, 2012

jkason said:
As a player, I think I tend to be most interested in new races when they're actually most different. If I'm going to be something non-human, I just think it's fun to be really non-human. A lot of the core races just feel like 'tweaked human' (human that stops growing at child-size, human with pointy ears, squat & dense human that sees in the dark, blended-with-humans that look fairly human anyway). I just think there's so much stuff that reads like everything else, that races that are more 'out of the box' seem to draw my attention.

Jkason hit how I feel on the head. The common races just feel like humans with some different perks. Is that bad? No but its not necessarily good either. I haven't played a common race since D&D 3.5 launched and especially the Eberron setting, I am playing both a human and a dwarf in two different Eberron setting games however, since I love the warforged and the shifter, 100% roleplaying goodness there. It wouldn't bother me one bit if there was a warforged, shifter, or dragon/lizardfolk race included. I also love dog/catfolk races.

This is what I think on new races.

jkason · May 2, 2012

DalkonCledwin said:
what about the possibility that if an individual can come up with a reasonable reason justifying why his character should be a given race from a role playing perspective (and not necessarily just from a mechanical perspective) even if that race is not normally allowed in Living Pathfinder, if we then allow the judges to give that player the opportunity for a case by case proposal type situation where for just that one character there is the opportunity to get the race approved.

Granted this could theoretically be a logistical nightmare for the judges, but I could also see it being a huge reward for people who have proven themselves as excellent role players and want to do something special with their second or even third characters. Something on the scale of a veterans perk so to speak?

I think a per-player racial allowance not only complicates logistical issues, but also might lead to new player confusion. Consider: new player browses the wiki to get an idea for character concepts. Comes across someone with a unique race and, realizing the race is apparently under-represented, comes up with a character for it thinking she'll be bringing something under-utilized to the table. Then she submits and gets shot down.

All that said, the mention of 'veterans perk' has me thinking on long-ago discussions of alternate DMC uses. I think allowing DMC to get a 'rare race' character runs afoul of the same problem I mentioned above, but I'm wondering if DMC might be useful for things like helping to support the adoption of a given race? Possibly this skews the judge paradigm too much, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

Qik · May 2, 2012

DalkonCledwin said:
what about the possibility that if an individual can come up with a reasonable reason justifying why his character should be a given race from a role playing perspective (and not necessarily just from a mechanical perspective) even if that race is not normally allowed in Living Pathfinder, if we then allow the judges to give that player the opportunity for a case by case proposal type situation where for just that one character there is the opportunity to get the race approved.

Granted this could theoretically be a logistical nightmare for the judges, but I could also see it being a huge reward for people who have proven themselves as excellent role players and want to do something special with their second or even third characters. Something on the scale of a veterans perk so to speak?

One of the issues I have with this is that the criteria you suggest is pretty subjective: it would require us to basically pass judgement on the roleplaying abilities of a specific player, which is something I'm really uncomfortable with. By rewarding players who play the game a certain way, we're tacitly saying that the way they play the game is somehow better, or more correct, than how others do so, which is something I'm really uncomfortable with. It seems too exclusive to me.

jkason said:
I think a per-player racial allowance not only complicates logistical issues, but also might lead to new player confusion. Consider: new player browses the wiki to get an idea for character concepts. Comes across someone with a unique race and, realizing the race is apparently under-represented, comes up with a character for it thinking she'll be bringing something under-utilized to the table. Then she submits and gets shot down.

All that said, the mention of 'veterans perk' has me thinking on long-ago discussions of alternate DMC uses. I think allowing DMC to get a 'rare race' character runs afoul of the same problem I mentioned above, but I'm wondering if DMC might be useful for things like helping to support the adoption of a given race? Possibly this skews the judge paradigm too much, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

Using DMCs is something I'm more comfortable with, in that the whole purpose of DMCs is to incentivise running a game on here. So I could possibly get on board with that; I certainly think we need more options for DMCs.

That said, I'd vastly prefer to make it an all-or-nothing thing, in part for the reasons jk outlined. I'd just rather the choice of races to be equal opportunity. I'm also not sure that rarefying their usage solves any problems in the eyes of the dissenters.

IronWolf · May 2, 2012

Qik said:
That said, I'd vastly prefer to make it an all-or-nothing thing, in part for the reasons jk outlined. I'd just rather the choice of races to be equal opportunity. I'm also not sure that rarefying their usage solves any problems in the eyes of the dissenters.

I'm already on record on wanting to slow down the new races, but I do agree that if I am the minority and we vote in more races, then it should be an equal opportunity and not restricted by subjective role-playing ability or to people with DMCs.