Colors of Races

[MusedFable]

I’m looking for your opinion on what colors match what race. I guess I’ll give you a little background on me and why I need your opinion. I’m making some pieces for a Risk-like board game (well in that the pieces represent vague “armies”). The pieces will probable start as glass beads or little blocks of painted wood. If ambitious I might make the different races unique by carving the wooden units or making plastic molds.

Here are the 9 races who correspond to the 9 terrain types I have: Human (knight like; plains-grassland); Dwarf (mountains); Elf (Forest); Orc (Swamp); Faceless (desert nomads [think dervish – scimitars and scarves across face]); Pirates (Islands and water [they are mercenaries and have all the other races mixed in]); Beastmen (Arctic Tundra); Lizardmen (Jungles); Undead (Wasteland).

I was first thinking of assigning the primary and secondary colors and some neutrals (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet + black, grey, white). But then I was missing Brown and it’s hard to make orange and red different enough. Then I thought about using RGB instead of RYB because green can be given to so many and aqua and light green are cool looking. Then I got fed up and decided to post it on the internet.

If you’d like to give your opinion on what colors to use, or on anything else please don’t hesitate. I’d love to here comments on different names for beastmen or why pirates don’t deserve a whole racial slot and fish people are much cooler. Thanks for your time.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Here are the 9 races who correspond to the 9 terrain types I have: Human (knight like; plains-grassland); Dwarf (mountains); Elf (Forest); Orc (Swamp); Faceless (desert nomads [think dervish – scimitars and scarves across face]); Pirates (Islands and water [they are mercenaries and have all the other races mixed in]); Beastmen (Arctic Tundra); Lizardmen (Jungles); Undead (Wasteland).

Humans: Royal Blue
Dwarves: Gray, the color of mountain stone.
Elves: Light green, for the forest.
Orcs: Red, because orcs are a bloodthirsty race.
Faceless: Yellow-brown, the color of desert sand.
Pirates: Black, for the black flag.
Beastmen: White, for the arctic.
Lizardmen: Dark green, for the jungle.
Undead: Brown, for the wasteland.

 

[Khaalis]

Stealing primarily from MtG...

Human (Plains): White
Dwarf (Mountain): Red
Elf (Forest): Green (Bright)
Pirates (Islands and water): Blue (Royal)
Orc (Swamp): Black

Faceless (desert): Yellow
Beastmen (Arctic Tundra): Aqua (Light Blue) or Gray
Lizardmen (Jungles): Brown
Undead (Wasteland): Gray or Purple

Just my thoughts. Hope this helps.

 

[Mercule]

I broke it down entirely by terrain. Also, I selected from the color wheel and the only other distinct colors I could think of (brown, black, gray, white).

Plains -- Yellow
Mtns -- Brown
Forest -- Green
Islands -- Blue
Swamps -- Black
Desert -- Orange
Tundra -- White
Jungle -- Purple
Waste -- Gray

I could easily see Jungle and Swamps being exchanged.

 

[diaglo]

you all the evil races have got to be black. to maintain the stereotype.

 

[Dogbrain]

As D&D has taught us, over and over again, for many, many years: Light skinned races are good and dark-skinned races are evil.

 

[MusedFable]

Well all the responses from the various boards have come to one conclusion: Out of 20 people I haven’t gotten more than 4 to have the same color for a race.

Instead of making another thread for roughly the same subject I’ll just add another overly long rant. Here is some background on me and the game I’m creating (It will go public in a box; this isn’t just a crazy pipe dream, well only a little).

I've played a lot of war games, but never found one I liked. Risk is mass luck with a little of trick the newbie/dumb guy. Collectable miniature games are too small scale and have no resource management (besides managing you wallet). I also am not fond of Real Time Strategy games because they are well... not turn based. Most of all none of these have the human interaction even close to an RPG. I searched high and low for a game that is turn based, resource management, mass unit scale, uses human interaction as a mechanic (like monopoly or settlers of catan), and can be played in a short time.

The game is almost ready for playtesting (well almost could be 3 months). The basics are so far a modular hex board (the hexes don’t move around because I came up with a interlocking “region” trays). You start in your castle and build roads/villages/towns/cities. The roads supply you with more resources. Settlements give you closer jumping off points. There are three troop types: Infantry, Cavalry, Archers. Each of the races has a unique quality (the 4 basic are human, elf, dwarf, orc. The others are expansions). The terrains all have unique qualities too. There are two different qualities to units and terrain (movement and attack. Some features add or subtract like rivers or hills).

The rules are also incredible modular they go from chess like skirmish battles to race to collect/control one or more special things/places to controlling the masses (iron fist or benevolent ruler). They can also go from simple 20 minute chess-like game (simplify troops to paper/rock/scissors style combat) all the way to risk like marathon sessions that take all night and have special rules for ships, walls, unique units, unique tiles, controlling regions, and a personalized deck of cards for each player.

Well there are a lot more specifics, but I’d be surprised if anyone cares all that much. Right now I’m working on the look and feel of the game. I’m thinking of going for wood pieces (1/2 inch cubes with 2d image cut out so it looks like a row of troops; sorry no pictures yet). I have the prototype terrain images. Well I guess I can ask another question. Do you think this could be put in a final product?