A design goal: making different races FEEL different.

[ashockney]

I think this would be very interesting.

You can see/discuss more about how they handled races in Heroes of Neverwinter on this thread:http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/315585-heroes-neverwinter-5e-preview.html

Personally, from a design standpoint, I'm excited by games that give you the chance to mix/match attributes from racial, cultural, professional, and hobbies in a balanced way.

In 4e (and mostly HoN), they give you a regional feat, an encounter power (at 1st), a skill bump, and a stat bump. This seems to be a good way to differentiate. I think what I'm hearing you say is you'd like that played up even more. Perhaps abilities you can as you level could be tied to racial, or cultural, or hobbies. So, for example, every character at 1st, 11th, and 21st could get a racial "utility" power. At 5th, 15th, and 25th, you could get a daily based upon your hobby (which could be a full-fledged multi-class, or just a dabbling). In this way, everyone could PLAN to how their racial/cultural/class/and hobby benefits would blend together to build unique and interesting versions of elven fighter/mages, or halfling rogue/warriors, or dwarven fighter/clerics. If you wanted, you could still take powers (we need a better name for these) that would allow you to build like a more traditional dwarven fighter.

 

[juboke]

In another thread, it was mentioned that (for 5e) it would be nice if the races felt different. How might you accomplish that?

Race as Class perhaps?

For example the "Elf" in Basic D&D can wear any type of armor, use a shield and fight with any type of weapon and cast arcane spells. No other class in Basic D&D is capable of doing this.

 

[DEFCON 1]

4E game mechanics are all similar for everything, and thus you HAVE to use fluff and description to make things feel different. If you don't... then races will never feel different, because they just come down to a couple things to remember that modify the rules on the game board.

All characters need to use Standard actions for Second Wind, except one gets to use a Minor action. Does that in of itself scream "dwarf"? Not especially. There are plenty of other races that probably could have this ability.

All characters make an attack roll against a monster, except one gets to reroll occasionally if they miss. Again, does this in of itself automatically make us think "elf"? I'd say not. Especially considering this exact same mechanic is used for an entire class (Avenger), in addition to this one race. The mechanic is by no means tied to this race.

All characters have to accept the roll an enemy makes against them, except one gets to occasionally make the monster re-roll their attack. Again, does this scream "halfling"? Nope. If you told me the warforged had this ability too, I'd immediately think "okay, the warforged is not flesh and blood, so occasionally attacks that should damage it, do not. Okay, I see how this rule applies to them."

We can continue this right down the line. Now sure, some game mechanic rules speak to a particular race much more specifically than others. Like the character who only needs one square of movement instead of two through Difficult Terrain, most folks would probably visualize Legolas in FotR and say "that's an elf ability!". And likewise, the character who can make a Close blast attack of fire, lightning, cold, acid, or poison... that definitely screams "dragonborn" than pretty much any other race. But those abilities are fewer and farther between.

The only way to make the game mechanics emblematic of a particular race is to really create game rules that are tied into how a race is, so that it immediately makes one think of the race without needing the fluff to help describe it. Because any rule the requires fluff to help justify the choice of game mechanic, immediately makes that racial choice more generic and less specific to it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

See Monte Cook's racial classes in his Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evoved game. It works.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am all for making races different mechanical but really don't want to see those differences tied to level. I think that would produce some strange flavor and unusual interactions. I think frontloading the differences is the way to go (extra skill points, free feats, situational modifiers, etc).

 

[the Jester]

Having mainstream, viable and interesting racial paragon classes is a good start, assuming a 3e style of "one level at a time" multiclassing.

 

[Derren]

[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] - I disagree. Every race ought to be both physically and psychologically distinguishable from humans, otherwise what's the point of having that race? D&D dwarves are significantly different from the average human, having both a lower center of gravity as well as greater density. As a result, their martial arts should differ from that of humans, and I see nothing wrong with reflecting this mechanically whenever reasonably possible.

There are of course differences between a human and a dwarf, but as far as the rules are concerned this difference is not so big as that "racial levels" etc. are needed or even sensible.
In the end you just have a short guy hitting things with an axe and a long guy hitting things with an axe. Give them crossbows and the difference is even smaller and both of them wouldn't be different from a elf shooting someone with a crossbow either.

Imo its a better idea when the difference between races is mainly culturally instead through extra rules. I don't want "dwarf levels" and dozen of "dwarf powers". One difference at character creation is enough. The real difference should be made by role playing and world design.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I am all for making races different mechanical but really don't want to see those differences tied to level. I think that would produce some strange flavor and unusual interactions. I think frontloading the differences is the way to go (extra skill points, free feats, situational modifiers, etc).

This is an interesting point.

At first thought, I wouldn't want a race to not feel like itself unless it were of a certain minimum level.

Of course, if the bonuses scaled to level (e.g. domain abilities in 3.5, or even better, in Pathfinder), then dwarves being, for ex. master smiths would be that they'd be better at lvl 1 than a lvl 1 halfling, and still markedly better at lvl 10 than a lvl 10 halfling (not just a piddly 1 point better out of, say 15 points in the skill).


On second thought, another thing occurs to me. Some races (e.g. elves and dwarves) are thought to be longer lived than humans. Might elves not be "better" than humans overall, with a "true, adult elf" being of a certain minimum level and age? Make pc elves starting at lvl 1 as the elven equivalent of tweens, but the human equvalent of adults. Heck, even make them 18-30 years old, as with many human starting ages.

 

[the Jester]

Imo its a better idea when the difference between races is mainly culturally instead through extra rules.... One difference at character creation is enough. The real difference should be made by role playing and world design.

Well, the problem is that your dwarf, my halfling and Bob's human all play the same if there's no mechanical differentiation.

In 1e (and, to a lesser extent, 2e), each race played differently because each had minor abilities ("determine depth underground") and was channeled into certain options. In a game where pcs were lucky to reach 4th level, let alone 20th, that was sufficient.

In 3e, the races had lots of ways to emphasize their "elfieness" or whatever- racial sub level, racial paragon paths, racial requirements on prestige classes, etc. But if you didn't take anything race-specific, in the end, your 20th level elf fighter looked and played an awful lot like my 20th level dwarf fighter.

In 4e, at least you get a special move of some kind that you can actively employ to underline your "dragonbornness" or what have you. I think that the initial concept of feats in 4e was to highlight racial stuff- that's why so many of the first couple of years' worth of feats were race/class combo specific. However, this just led to tons of sub par options and option overload. I shouldn't have to look through 200 feats to find the 20 my pc can use.

I think it would be great if you had the option to take (f'rexample) Dwarf levels that improved your ability with traditional dwarven schticks: Oh, I get +1 to hit with axes, +2 to skill checks involving the underground, darkvision, the dm makes passive Perception checks at +3 to notice stonework traps, etc.

Meanwhile Mr. Elf gets bonuses to his senses, to archery, to checks involving natural animals, etc.

I just wish there was more noticeable difference at high levels between your dwarf fighter and my elf fighter than "I'm 1' taller and 45 lbs lighter than him, oh and I speak Elven and he speaks Dwarven."

 

[Derren]

Well, the problem is that your dwarf, my halfling and Bob's human all play the same if there's no mechanical differentiation.

Thats the fault of the players now is it?
Its not that dwarves have a third arm or something. They are all basically just humans with differences in height and ear length.

Look for example at Spock from Star Trek. He was more intelligent and stronger than a human, but that were all the differences between him and a humen. Most of the time you didn't even notice that. What did make him noticeable different than the other crew was his behavior and values/culture. And that is not something you can codify in rules.

Imo 3E did the difference just right. Different stats and some minor abilities like darkvision at character creation and that was it (ignoring all those racial paragon stuff which came later). No artifical level restrictions like in 2E and no "every race needs special powers" like in 4E.