The Crazy Character RPG Equation: Which Side of the Screen?

[amerigoV]

It seems to go in cycles in long-standing groups. I see the occassional flurry of odd races but it tends to then drift back to the old fantasy staples. In the groups I frequent, the only monsterous critter right now is an Ogre that my psionist charmed. We let the son of one of our players take him over as a first "fun" PC. The rest are all human, elves, 1/2orcs, etc.

I do not mind them overall so long as the players make the effort to "fit them in."

 

[Stormonu]

It seems everyone wants to do the equivalant of "I wanna play Spock (or Warf)" and no one cares to play Kirk, McCoy or Scotty. I'm guilty of it too; I gotta wear this human skin 24/7, if I'm pretending can't I be something else?

 

[Stormonu]

Has anyone considered implementing a system where players have to "pay" to be something non-human? I'm talking some sort of disadvantage you don't get compensated for to play an unusual race?

 

[Mallus]

Has anyone considered implementing a system where players have to "pay" to be something non-human? I'm talking some sort of disadvantage you don't get compensated for to play an unusual race?

What would the purpose of this "imagination tax" be? Why incentivize the (more) mundane in a fantasy role-playing game?

 

[billd91]

Has anyone considered implementing a system where players have to "pay" to be something non-human? I'm talking some sort of disadvantage you don't get compensated for to play an unusual race?

We used to play 1e AD&D. Level limits were pretty limiting, well beyond the advantages of taking most of the demi-human races.

 

[Stormonu]

What would the purpose of this "imagination tax" be? Why incentivize the (more) mundane in a fantasy role-playing game?

Thinking about it, it's already been done in the past with demihuman level limits and denying certain classes to certain races (dwarf wizards, for example). The idea, is of course, as it was in pre3e days, to promote a humanocentric game world. If you make certain races less appealing, the idea is that less people will play them.

 

[Janx]

I play 3.5E. Most of the time, we stick to the core-rules races.

As a GM, I generally feel uncomfortable starting a new campaign with every PC being non-core. Usually because during the world building stage, I've fleshed out where all the core-races come from to help PCs with their backstory.

If a PC dies, I'm then less reluctant to let a non-core in, as the rarity in the party, rather than the standard.

I suspect the OP has identified some of my discomfort.

 

[Lord Ipplepop]

I had a character, once, that fit this discussion...
He was a Bard whose personality split 4 for 1... at various times, he was a Human Bard, a Gnome Illusionist, a Human Paladin, and a gay Human tailor... of course, he had none of the added skills and benefits of the various classes, and his tailoring skills were... uh... laughable is giving him too much ability...

After a while, we all got bored with him changing, so I ended up buying off the insanities instead of taking new feats, and eventually killed him off

 

[Mallus]

Thinking about it, it's already been done in the past with demihuman level limits and denying certain classes to certain races (dwarf wizards, for example).

Demihuman level limits and class restrictions were more about game balance. For example, AD&D elves and dwarves got significant bonus abilities which were offset --in theory-- by class level limits. They didn't receive disadvantages without compensation, as you were suggesting in the post I quoted.

The idea, is of course, as it was in pre3e days, to promote a humanocentric game world.

If that's the case, it failed utterly, given the number of [insert elven sub-race name here] multiclass characters which were commonplace in the pre-3e era. In fact, 3e did far more to promote humanocentric games by making human a mechanically attractive, if not superior, choice for most characters.

If you make certain races less appealing, the idea is that less people will play them.

It's a bad idea. If you want a humancentric campaign, ban non-human PC's and be upfront about the campaign's tone and expectations/assumptions. Simply making non-humans mechanically disadvantageous strikes my as... I don't know... kinda passive-aggressive. There's nothing wrong with wanting/running a humanocentric campaign --or any kind of tightly-themed campaign, for that matter. But there is a wrong way to go about it.

 

[Mallus]

Let's face it, a lot of us started out in gaming as a social interaction and, I daresay, an imagination/creative outlet.

And for some of us, it never stopped being that!

If anything, the characters my group make have become even more outlandish. As 30 and 40-somethings, we have a lot more cultural, literary, and historical references to draw on. The oddball characters we made as nerdy high school kids pale in comparison to what we create now, simply because we know more, and we incorporate that knowledge in the elves --and Eldadrin, Dragonborn or Tieflings-- we pretend to be twice monthly on Friday nights!