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Races in a new Campaign Setting
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<blockquote data-quote="Jawsh" data-source="post: 5175912" data-attributes="member: 17061"><p>What I do is I take a bunch of Player's Handbook races, though not necessarily all of them, and add in one or two bonus races. </p><p></p><p>To some extent, the D&D races work on archetype. If you create a new fantasy race that lives in the forest, uses longbows, and has an affinity for magic, well then those are elves, no matter what name you give them. </p><p></p><p>Another thing I find, though this will depend on your group, is when you troll for players, invariably someone will be like "D&D? Sweet! I'll play. Can I be an elven druid?" </p><p></p><p>and you'll be like "um, in my setting there aren't any elves, but you can be a whatsit, which is pretty much an elf." </p><p></p><p>and then when the campaign begins, you ask everyone to describe themselves, and the player says "I'm an elf... sorry I mean a, um, what was it called again? Your elf analogue? Okay, yeah, a whatsit."</p><p></p><p>other players: "what's a whatsit?"</p><p></p><p>whatsit player: "an elf"</p><p></p><p>other players: "okay"</p><p></p><p>It's actually kind of hard to come up with decent concepts that can be archetypalized. There are a few holes in D&D though, that you might be able to fill. For example, I don't know of a suitably archetypal civilized desert race. </p><p></p><p>Often too, in an attempt to create archetypes, creators will resort to animals: "there's a frog race, and a cat race, and a bug race, and a dog race. You'll never guess the next twist: you know the cat race and the dog race? They're mortal enemies." ugh</p><p></p><p>Mostly, it's been my policy to allow the players to come up with the races based on what they want to play. Obviously they can use the PHB as a starting point, and most do, but a few players find really obscure races, and I find it useful to wait to flesh out the campaign setting until I know what sort of creatures the players are going to be, so I can use it as a hook.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jawsh, post: 5175912, member: 17061"] What I do is I take a bunch of Player's Handbook races, though not necessarily all of them, and add in one or two bonus races. To some extent, the D&D races work on archetype. If you create a new fantasy race that lives in the forest, uses longbows, and has an affinity for magic, well then those are elves, no matter what name you give them. Another thing I find, though this will depend on your group, is when you troll for players, invariably someone will be like "D&D? Sweet! I'll play. Can I be an elven druid?" and you'll be like "um, in my setting there aren't any elves, but you can be a whatsit, which is pretty much an elf." and then when the campaign begins, you ask everyone to describe themselves, and the player says "I'm an elf... sorry I mean a, um, what was it called again? Your elf analogue? Okay, yeah, a whatsit." other players: "what's a whatsit?" whatsit player: "an elf" other players: "okay" It's actually kind of hard to come up with decent concepts that can be archetypalized. There are a few holes in D&D though, that you might be able to fill. For example, I don't know of a suitably archetypal civilized desert race. Often too, in an attempt to create archetypes, creators will resort to animals: "there's a frog race, and a cat race, and a bug race, and a dog race. You'll never guess the next twist: you know the cat race and the dog race? They're mortal enemies." ugh Mostly, it's been my policy to allow the players to come up with the races based on what they want to play. Obviously they can use the PHB as a starting point, and most do, but a few players find really obscure races, and I find it useful to wait to flesh out the campaign setting until I know what sort of creatures the players are going to be, so I can use it as a hook. [/QUOTE]
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