Same Species, Different System: How do different games treat typical fantasy races?

[AFGNCAAP]

Hello,

This is a question that I've been wondering about for the past few days, & I'd thought I'd bring it up amongst the diverse crowd around here:

How do different game systems (d20, GURPS, Warhammer FRP, Palladium, etc.) treat the different "standard" fantasy demi-human races in their games?

Are dwarves typically the Tolkien-like cave-dwelling pseudo-Norse warriors across the board? Are all orcs a group of barbaric baddies that regularly threaten the PCs? Are all elves slender, human-sized, pointy-eared, magically-inclined forest dwellers? Are halflings treated as pseudo-Hobbits or pseudo-Kender? Are gnomes treated as a cousin-race of the dwarves or as a form of earth elemental?

From what little I know, it does seem that dwarves, elves, & orcs are relatively the same across various game systems (and in some cases, maintains very similar subraces as well, like the High/Wood/Dark Elves, or the "good" Dwarves & "bad" Chaos Dwarves [sorta like Duergar] in Warhammer FRP).

Even stylistic looks are maintained throughout various games: IIRC, Everquest has the typical drow look (jet black skin, snow white hair) for their dark elves, whereas the fantasy realm in TORG used that drow look as the default appearance for their elves.

Just how do the different game systems deal with these standards of fantasy?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Orcs vary the most. Everything from bloody and barbaric to mystic and noble to disciplined and greedy legions roaming and sacking the earth.

There are even some sailor Orcs and Cossack dwarves, though those both come from the same setting.

Elves often vary a great deal based on different environments. Even within the same setting.

 

[Ogrebear]

Orcs in other games

Many systems treat Orcs better than D&D does, for example:

Earthdawn - in that setting they can be Heroes same as every one else, as can the systems version of Trolls and lizard men (T'skrang). There are few restrictions on what they can be/do and they even have their own civilized nation.

Orkworld - very intresting take on Orks. They still have their tribal ways but they are highly devolped and ruled by the Mothers. Lots and lots of detail on how Ork socity and culture works. Definatly not persudo-Tolkein. The main enermy are the Humans who are agressive and pushing the Orcs further out of their traditional hunting/living grounds.

Shadowrun - Orks appear in this near-future setting as magically changed Humans (along with Trolls) who then breed true. They are very strong but are sterotypically regarded as street scum and stupid. Typically they live on the bottom of the social ladder in 2060. However they can acheive as much as anyone and several nations/places have huge Ork populations.

Dwarves in this setting are the world premier mechanics and riggers. Apart from the phyiscal and gruffness little remians of D&D Dwarves.

Dawnforge - D20 world, but not D&D. Orcs here are (like everyone else) are finding their way in the world. They have yet to 'fall' to darkness and become minions of a Dark Lord(s). They ape civilization and with the right Leaders could become a civilized force in the world- at the same time the wrong Leaders and they will become standard D&D stupid Orcs.

Warcraft - Orcs here have the Horde mentallity, and some of them are definatly stupid (peons), but they have Heroes and can (while chaotic) serve Good. They have shrugged off Demonic influance and are trying to find/recreate the Shamanistic traditions of the world they orginally came from.

Warlord - slightly differant take on Orcs here. The tribes of Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Bugbears, Hobgoblins etc have bred and intermingled to become the Nothrog. They are a conquering, enslaving race that treat other races with contempt and seek to overrun the world. They are split into Legions and are definatly not stupid Tolkein Orcs. Their Shamans/Magic Users are all Albino's and women can have an equal role.

Of all the takes on Orcs, the Nothrog are some of the most fastinating. Read about them here: http://www.warlordrpg.com/resources/nothrog.html

The Warlord setting also has Elves that only live to 30 and who spend their quick short lives trying to find a method to extent their lives. They are mostly necormancers and their society is obsessed with Death.

Hope this quick tour helps!

 

[Bagpuss]

Arn't D&D elves generally shorter than humans, while Tolkien and most other fantasy settings have elves generally slightly taller.

Brithright made some of the biggest changes to the D&D races.
It's halflings are able to move between the prime material plane and a sort of shadow plane, and take others with them. Birthrights dwarves are considerable heavier than standard D&D dwarves and could carry loads much greater than a human of the same strength rating could (I think double). The legend was they were actually forged from stone. Birthright elves never needed to sleep, were immortal (IE: never died of old age), could run as fast as a horse (even through woods, and along branches), and only needed to rest for 4 hours of a day.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Eberron orcs are intensely religious, druidic mystics, and a race fading from the world. The "orcish hordes" role is filled by the goblinoids - goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears. In fact, the hobgoblin leader of Darguun, Lhesh Haruuc, looks very much like a slimmer version of a Warhammer orc, or like an orc as they appeared in earlier editions of D&D.

 

[Gez]

A bit off-topic, but I still want to have, in my next setting, dwarves and elves be respectively the males and females of the same species.

 

[WayneLigon]

RuneQuest:

Elves are forest-dwelling creatures tied to the Plant rune; they are, in fact, plants themselves (they have wooden bones, for instance). They are somewhat savage. Not very Tolkien-like, in that they have no real 'artifact-creating' civilization.

Dwarves are tied to the Earth rune. They are mountain-dwelling technologists. They invented gunpowder and use blunderbusses, etc.

There are no orcs.

Trolls are humanoids tied to the Darkness rune. They vary the most from the 'stereotype' of most trolls. They are cruel and savage but they have reasons for being that way. They are the first created race, since they come from Darkness. In fact, they were created before almost anything else was and due to that fact they can eat anything that came after them. Trolls can actually survive on a diet of air and stones if needed.

'Goblins' are actually Trollkin, twisted, stupid, puny caricatures of trolls. They are born in multiple births due to a curse on the Troll race. Trolls treat them as slaves and food.

 

[Ferret]

The only races I might keep in a campaign I'm running are humans and elves.

Humans would be very primitive (Post stone age before enslavement), and the elves would be a mix of halflings and gnomes, quite like myths of elves (AFAICT) short, mystical etc.

There are other but they aren't core races.

 

[JDJarvis]

Are dwarves typically the Tolkien-like cave-dwelling pseudo-Norse warriors across the board?

Pretty much. sometimes they are more technologically apt then other folks but most dwarves PCs could be moved from game sytem to game system without a horrible degree of change to thier basic nature regardless of differences in stats. In Runequest 2nd edtion they were all from one common culture and I don' think there were any female dwarves and they were alien in mind set compared to men but not terribly different from sterotypical dwarves really.

Are all orcs a group of barbaric baddies that regularly threaten the PCs?

All games don't have orcs. But those that do often use them the same way unless they are trying to be different to look unique. In the Fantasy Trip (proto-GURPS) Orcs are just as capable as humans individually but the culture is harsher then that of men and they cooperate poorly in large numbers. In HARN orcs are anasty brutish race smaller then men on the average that have a very different physiology and society from men, thier culture is sort of ant-like.
In settings where orcs are pretty much just people I often wonder why the heck they aren't simply humans with a different culture in that setting.

Are all elves slender, human-sized, pointy-eared, magically-inclined forest dwellers?

Most of the time.

Are halflings treated as pseudo-Hobbits or pseudo-Kender?

Hallfing don't always turn up but when they do they tend to be more like hobbits then they are like kender.

Are gnomes treated as a cousin-race of the dwarves or as a form of earth elemental?

Gnomes as a PC race turn up far less often then halflings in other game systems from what I've noticed. gnomes do turn up here and there as a form of earth elemental.

 

[JDJarvis]

'Goblins' are actually Trollkin, twisted, stupid, puny caricatures of trolls. They are born in multiple births due to a curse on the Troll race. Trolls treat them as slaves and food.

There are races known as "goblins" on Glorantha that are not trollkin at all, they are more like degenrate races of elves tied to small plants and fungi.
Red Elves (slorflings) are a race of "goblins" related to ferns and mosses as the elves are related to trees.