[Eberron] Why I like Warforged

[bento]

I've found when I've DMed an Eberron game that players who choose to play a Warforged end up with a character with no personality.

I've read both of Baker's Eberron novels and most of the character development going on with Pierce (the party's warforged) is his internal dialog about his role with his group and in society. This is especially true in the second novel, "The Shattered Land" where he has to decide where his loyaties lay. As far as outward personality though, he has none. His role is to basically kills or subdues opponents.

 

[Mallus]

I like warforged. Not for their powers, but for what they represent - a player character race that is entirely different from the usual races.

So do I. So much so I'm starting to use them in my homebrew setting, CITY. I also created a sister-race of mechanical camp followers called the "Whoreforged", well, umm, because CITY is a place where danger and a truly awful joke are lurking around every corner...

Most non-human PC races are just "humans in funny suits".

While that's true, its also about the best you can hope for. You'll find the 'humans in funny suits' syndrome all throughout science fiction and fantasy. I think that has less to do with lazy authors and more to do with the virtually impossible task of pioneering new modes of cognition. How does one go about thinking not like a person? It hard enough making convincing human characters...

Usually the best you can do is give each alien race a shitck ("They all logical"), or a very human concern they prioritize ("They're honorable" or "They''ll do anything for their children"). The racial equivalent of what one of my old professors called 'giving every character a limp. There's a very good reason why fictional aliens (as opposed to the real ones, I suppose) are often just humans with certain traits exaggerated.

If we're writing them, what else could they be than something inside us?

Elves, dwarves, orcs, and so on - they might have different societies and cultures and different strengths and weaknesses

Most DM's, GM's, hell, published authors would by lucky to create semi-believable societies and cultures...

But warforged are different. They don't eat, they can't procreate, they essentially live forever unless destroyed. They simply don't have the same instinctual urges as humanity - unlike almost every other sapient species out there.

So how successful do you think you're going to be in getting inside one of these things heads? Or I should say 'making up what's inside these things heads'.

I agree that Warforged are interesting, full of roleplaying challenge, but in the end the best you're going to get is another human with a shiny metal as..... I mean, in a funny suit.

And to those people out there who can routinely cook up convincing nonhuman psychologies for their RPG characters, please, put down the d20 and start writing novels! I, for one, would eat them up like candy.

 

[Hussar]

I've found when I've DMed an Eberron game that players who choose to play a Warforged end up with a character with no personality.

I've read both of Baker's Eberron novels and most of the character development going on with Pierce (the party's warforged) is his internal dialog about his role with his group and in society. This is especially true in the second novel, "The Shattered Land" where he has to decide where his loyaties lay. As far as outward personality though, he has none. His role is to basically kills or subdues opponents.

See, now this is why novels don't translate into games very well. The internal monologue makes for cool reading. Blows chunks at the gaming table though. Players have to realize that pretty quickly or their characters will be totally forgettable.

Off topic, this is the problem I have with the "strong silent" type characters as well. Strong silent characters in novels talk all the bloody time. It's just that they talk to themselves. By and large, we have a pretty good window into their mind. Even in movies, the strong silent gumshoe has a running monologue throughout the film.

At the gaming table, this archetype can be done, but, it has to be done very, very well or it falls flat. You have to use a lot of body language to convey the character. Otherwise, it's about as interesting as watching paint dry.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Given these comments, I'm not sure why thri-kreen always comes up as a bad race for PCs. I personally thought they were very intriguing for exactly the same reasons you mention for the warforged.

I like thri-kreen, but they do have issues:

1) Powergaming. For some reason, some people see "four claws" and think "four weapons" or, worse, monks. Thri-kreen of Athas made wielding three weapons difficult and four weapons impossible. The DM starts thinking anyone who wants to play a thri-kreen is a munchkin. You never see "wild" thri-kreen quadro-wielding. TKoA also made it abundantly clear that thri-kreen don't learn martial arts. If you want your thri-kreen to kick arse with claw attacks, give him four levels of fighter.

2) Thri-kreen of Athas is not a common book. It explains their motivations, behaviors, etc, quite well, but hardly anyone knows it exists. It did have two bad RP issues however: shopping (not a big deal in a low magic low resource setting like Dark Sun but a big deal in a 3e "no magic shop = wussy PC environment" - I just have to say I hate the way thri-kreen shop) and also their attempts to take over a group. Generally the first thing a thri-kreen joining a group is supposed to do is duel the leader (in a perfectly fair unarmed combat contest) for the leadership of the group.

 

[el-remmen]

While I am sure not everyone would have this same feeling or experience, for me war-forged is the kind of thing that once it is done once any additional times it is overdone and has lost its specialness.

But heck, I feel the same thing about most non-human races. I am a human kind of guy. .

 

[Mallus]

And another thing... setting aside the enormous difficulty of 'thinking not like human being' --a culturally and linguistically bound one, at that-- there's the issue of what I like to call 'functional demands'. In the context of a D&D game, any investigation of the alien still has to conform to the demands of the game, in other words, it has to result in a character will familiar enough motivations/mindset that allow it to participate in the typical in-game activities.

A Warforged still needs to find a reason to delve into a dungeon, or save the princess. It can't decide to sit down in front of a mountain and contemplate it for 100 years. So any attempt at creating its truly nonhuman psychology is unavoidably circumscribed by the need to make it work as a D&D character.

I suppose you could play a character with an utter disconnect between its actions and its interior state, which behaves like a typical adventurer, but really isn't inside its unfathomably crazy metal head... but is that any better than a human in a funny suit?

I think its fun to play nonhumans, to dabble in what amounts to a very cursory kind of extrapolation of nonhuman traits. But in the end, all you wind up with is the funny suit...

 

[Umbran]

I like warforged. Not for their powers, but for what they represent - a player character race that is entirely different from the usual races.

Hm...

Most non-human PC races are just "humans in funny suits". Elves, dwarves, orcs, and so on - they might have different societies and cultures and different strengths and weaknesses, but they still are more similar to humans than not. They still desire to eat, procreate, take care of their young and engage in all those activities that animals raised to sapience do. They are all not that different from us, really.

I thoroughly disagree with this. Cats and dogs and horses also have all those same desires, but are entirely different beasts from each other and from humans. There is no particular reason Elves and Dwarves have to end up as humans in funny suits, except that the players don't choose to play them otherwise. Playing a human in a funny suit is easier, certainly, but there's nothing saying they must be so.

Similarly, when given no direction at all, is not a player apt to go the easy route? The Warforged, who lack all these drives, are then just as apt to end up as humans in metal suits, since the player is given no clear direction, and the character is thus apt to just mirror humanity.

Ultimately, how a character is played is the responsibility of the player, not the racial definition in the book.

 

[shilsen]

I'm going to disagree with you about whether people can play a different species without doing the "humans in funny suits" bit or not, but I think that simply comes down to where we're individually setting the bar. But where this...

And another thing... setting aside the enormous difficulty of 'thinking not like human being' --a culturally and linguistically bound one, at that-- there's the issue of what I like to call 'functional demands'. In the context of a D&D game, any investigation of the alien still has to conform to the demands of the game, in other words, it has to result in a character will familiar enough motivations/mindset that allow it to participate in the typical in-game activities.

A Warforged still needs to find a reason to delve into a dungeon, or save the princess. It can't decide to sit down in front of a mountain and contemplate it for 100 years. So any attempt at creating its truly nonhuman psychology is unavoidably circumscribed by the need to make it work as a D&D character.

...is concerned, I agree. I don't, however, find it a negative thing. Finding a way to explore an alien psychology and doing so within the exigencies of the game only makes it a little more challenging. And since the aim of the game is to have fun, if I can embark on such an exploration and enjoy it, however hackneyed or philosophically/psychologically ineffectual it may be, and still add to the group's enjoyment, that's a win-win situation, right?

I think its fun to play nonhumans, to dabble in what amounts to a very cursory kind of extrapolation of nonhuman traits. But in the end, all you wind up with is the funny suit...

I'd say that's partly a matter of definition and however one defines it, just ending up with the funny suit is okay too. Maybe the funny suit helps one enjoy the character more, or try something in the roleplaying arena that one wouldn't if playing a human, or just add a little flavor to the game. All of which are valid reasons for justifying the dabbling, IMO. After all, the aim in most D&D groups isn't to achieve actual insight into how an alien thinks (and even if you did achieve it, without the alien frame of reference actually prsent, how would you know?), but to enjoy oneself. If the dabbling is beneficial to that end, I figure it's a good thing.

And to those people out there who can routinely cook up convincing nonhuman psychologies for their RPG characters, please, put down the d20 and start writing novels! I, for one, would eat them up like candy.

I figure I can give it a decent shot, but whether I'm right or wrong, you have to be kidding about putting down the d20. Fame, fortune, and the Nobel are all well and good, but gaming kicks their collective asses all over the map.

 

[tzor]

Given these comments, I'm not sure why thri-kreen always comes up as a bad race for PCs.

Ever since I saw them in Dark Sun, I could never shake the feeling that the Thri-Kreen were just a blatent rip off of the anchient Arduim Grimoire's Phraints. This of course always got me thinking of the Arduim Grimoire and of course the legendary drawing of Shardra the Castrator. And this of course got me so far off track that I basically never bothered with them as a race.

And they just seem out of place outside of Dark Sun.

 

[Nifft]

I too like the "created being" aspect. In this respect, they remind me of some of the better aspects of Stephen R. Donaldson's books. (The worse aspects belong in a different topic, please!)

The exploration of morality for a created being vs. for a "natural" being is interesting indeed.

-- N