Creating non-stereotypical game worlds

[Lwaxy]

Thanks to the thread about "Cultural Approbation" I'm working on new societies for my games again. Now I'm curious, what societies and subgroups of well known races have been created by everyone? How much did you mix up existing ideas (especially existing human culture and stereotypes) and how well did it go over with your players?

 

[Tristantak]

Well, my dwarves are beardless and matriarchal, if that counts. I've also got a race of elves that live in the desert and wield six-foot swords passed down in the family.

But I think my favorite is my honor-focused human culture. Men often wear their hair in topknots, women in intricate braids. They are kind to the needy and the destitute. Honor is fundamental, and it is what marks one's status. People wear honor-beads in their hair, showing their honor with both the number of beads and the length of the hair. They must be very careful to grow their hair only to the length their honor allows.
One who has no honor has their head shaved and tattooed, and can be sold as a slave. The Honorless are the betrayers, murderers, and others- sometimes including those who ignore the needy. However, they can earn back honor. It's just harder for them, because they are considered to have negative honor.

 

[CaptainGemini]

I don't bother with trying to be nonstereotypical. There's a stereotype for everything, and the only way I could make something nonstereotypical is to make it completely unlike anything humanity has ever conceived of before... which, ultimately, makes a game that is incredibly difficult for players to get into.

Instead, I try to make it interesting. Elves who live for eternity in the woods, are nigh-immortal magical powerhouses, and which can hear an atom split? Boring! Elves who are blood-thirty, slightly-zenophobic technology masters who love warfare and bloodshed and very much focus on function over form... Players tend to sit up and take notice.

One of the fun things is to give a culture no written language, but instead rely on alternate ways of passing information along. Imagine how players react when they find out those strands of colored beads they see all over the place are actually sign posts that convey quite detailed information.

What's even better is when a player argues that a minor detail I've included in a civilization couldn't have evolved with that civilization... and I say they're right and that the custom originated elsewhere. It plays up that there is a larger world and that these civilizations do interact and influence each other.

 

[dracomilan]

One of the human subraces I'm more proud of are the Chakbash, the Humans of the Eternal Night. They had to move underground to survive a magical catastrophe, and are generally LE, militaristic and fanatical. More here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116298/Alfeimur--Chakbash--Humans-of-the-Eternal-Night

 

[Dioltach]

In my campaign world, the elves live in ancient dark forests and summon demons. My dwarves are builders -- aided by armies of enslaved giants -- but also masters of poison. My halflings are a mixture of Eberron's dinosaur riders and Dark Sun's canibals, but their race is also the product of genetic experiments by the elves -- the races share an implacable hatred of each other.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Thanks to the thread about "Cultural Approbation"...

(cackles like Palpatine)

Arguably you can go deeper than the usual - no dwarves, no elves, etc. Humans are possibly only a recent phenomena (many travelers, or colonists, or something). Try to take nothing for granted.

 

[CaptainGemini]

(cackles like Palpatine)

Arguably you can do deeper than the usual - no dwarves, no elves, etc. Humans are possibly only a recent phenomena (many travelers, or colonists, or something). Try to take nothing for granted.

I think you just described something like 20 different webcomics. Oh, and one DnD setting I remember seeing way back when.

The "humans are recent arrivals" shows up a lot in DnD settings and DnD-based works. IIRC, even showed up in Forgotten Realms at one point.

 

[Lwaxy]

Thing with that is, hardly anyone wants to play it. Just look at Talislanta. Many people love the idea, but playing it? Nope. Too much reading to do on all the new races and animals which are hard to remember. One player told me that while it is a good concept, he wants to just be able to delve right into the game without hours of required reading. and for the GMs, it is the same. My planned Talislanta game is on the back burner because I never seem to find the time to read the books often enough to know the world well enough to run a game in it.

Knowing the basics (dwarfs are short and sturdy, elves have pointed ears etc) helps people to connect,even if a dwarf culture happens to shun beer over wine and lives on the mountains instead of under.

Making a human only setting is of course possible, but I don't really want to do that as people want to play different things. Humans just recently arrived could work, and add a good amount of conflict.

 

[MarkB]

Personally, if I was going to remove a race from a setting, my first choice would be humans. Oblige players to engage with the setting by not playing the generic race.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Personally, if I was going to remove a race from a setting, my first choice would be humans. Oblige players to engage with the setting by not playing the generic race.

What if humans weren't the generic race but a weird minority race instead?