Death to all Cat People!!

[Sejs]

As others have mentioned, I don't like cat-people who are all good and noble and uber in every way. Cat people should be lazy, vain, hedonistic, ill-tempered, and superior-acting.

Interesting aside. Expanding on that somewhat, and drawing off the fact that two general traits of cats that most people can agree upon is that they're both A) proud, and B) territorial as crap, it would seem to suggest that a society of cat people would, just a point of course, developed a healthy dose of barbarian manners.

Which is to say that their social interactions would be quite ritualized and exceedingly polite. Similar to how in certain eastern cultures it's considdered very rude to outright tell someone 'no', only moreso. They themselves know that they're ill-tempered, territorial, snobbish, violent thickheads, and so when dealing with one another they're very careful to stick to etiquette so that neither party has the excuse to rip the other a new one, halfway up their spine. Not offending the party being addressed while at the same time doing their best to not show weakness themselves.

"You rock, and you're a total badass, but so am I, so we shouldn't screw with eachother otherwise we're both going to wind up dead on account of our completely equal awesomeness. Also, I am here to barter for a bolt of cloth and some iron pins, for which we will find a mutually agreeable price."

Anyway, just a thought.

 

[helium3]

Cat races are the racial equivalent of the kewl ninja, a dumping ground for what I guess you'd call cat fanboyism. Cats are graceful so let's give them +2 Dex. They're pretty so let's give them +2 Cha. Sometimes they stare at the wall after licking their butts so they must have some really deep sixth sense, +2 Wis. Also they should always land on their feet, slow fall 10'. And a bite attack, and a claw attack, and hey, how about some natural armor? Cats are mildly active in the 6 hours a day they aren't sleeping so let's give them +2 to all physical skills.. etc., etc.

Then of course comes the cat race society, which is of course proud, enlightened and utopian because cats are not territorial wrecks who pee on your couch if they so much as suspect another cat is nearby. Their only weakness is a compulsion to bat around balls filled with rare, sacred herbs.

Having seen this exact same approach no less than a hundred times, any cat race that I don't have at least ten years of nostalgia with is impossible to take seriously. And if I ever hear your rakshasa say "nyu", I'm keying your car.

So what you're really saying is that the only way to create an acceptable cat-race is to give them the personalities of beholders?

 

[Sejs]

So what you're really saying is that the only way to create an acceptable cat-race is to give them the personalities of beholders?

Yes. Also, conversely, the only acceptable beholders are the ones that behave like 5-month-old kittens.

Little energetic buggers, zooming around, floating up to places they're not supposed to go, chasing their own eyestalks, you know how it is.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm in the 'dislike cat people' camp on the grounds that more often than not it is merely lazy design of a new race. I was incredibly disappointed that Monte Cooks AU contained cat people and dog people; it probably put me off the setting more than anything else. On the other hand I was delighted to find Eberron populated with changelings, kalashtar, shifters and warforged new and distinctive races which owed nothing to anthropomorphised animals.

Cheers

 

[jeff37923]

Before joining in all the cat people hate, could it be the way the cat people race in particular has been played instead of the race itself? There seems to be a lot of stereotyping here about the felinoid races.

Stop the bigotry! Learn to accept your Cat people brothers and sisters!

You can all still hate Kender, though. They were designed to be annoying.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

"You rock, and you're a total badass, but so am I, so we shouldn't screw with eachother otherwise we're both going to wind up dead on account of our completely equal awesomeness. Also, I am here to barter for a bolt of cloth and some iron pins, for which we will find a mutually agreeable price."

Anyway, just a thought.

Wow. Sejs wins again.

 

[Henrix]

I think Plane Sailing has hit the nail on the head, a lot of anthropomorphic races are just lazily designed, the cat people from MiHB/RotW included.

But there are some really good cat people races around in fantasy, like the insidious, moon sugar smuggling khajiit race in The Elder Scrolls CRPGs (DaggerFall, Morrowind, etc.). (Perhaps they're more tiger or lion than cats, though.)

 

[Ripzerai]

I think there may be a little confusion in this thread.

Rakshasas are a race of fiends with backwards hands who often have heads similar to those of beasts, usually tigers or apes.

Rakastas are a race of proud, intelligent, neutral-aligned catlike humanoids from the Mystara setting. They're fine artisans, have a code of honor called the Sri'raka, and ride sabre-toothed tigers into battle. The Sri'raka compels them to never refuse to fight, to either carry their wounded back with them when they retreat (or, if this is not possible, to kill them), to hope to die in battle as the most honorable form of death, to neither give nor accept mercy, to retreat only to regroup, to attack again after a retreat within two sunrises, and to never, ever surrender. They first appeared in an adventure called Castle Amber in the early '80s.

There is also a race of leopard people called tabaxi. They were in the 2e Monstrous Manual.

 

[Ripzerai]

This page has a 3e write-up of tabaxi; the designer decided to link them to Larry Niven's kzinti.

 

[BaldHero]

okay, there is enough information here to get started...heres my plan.
i suggest we pool our money, put up flyers, and gather together the most capable band of snobbish, unnaturally immortal, we-live-for-ever-becuase-we-are-so-close-to-nature, elves; along with a group of drunken, axe wielding, scottish stonemasons and metalsmiths of short stature; and a few chubby halflings incapable of anything but thievery and Napolean Syndrome. Once we have such a group, we can send them to spay and neuter as many cat people as they can find.
Or am i being to hard on them?
Seriously, i dont think the way any cat people are played has influenced my personal opinion, its mostly just the background and write up that kills me. For every race that is written up well with a well thought out background and culture, there is a handful of people that want to cast the Thundercats into a setting. After a while you just stop looking at the interesting ones because there is so much crap.
As for Rakashas, nasty critters of legend, and pretty tough to boot. Evil things. Those are pretty good cat people as long as the DM has no intention of making them into furry happy things.