Fantasy Communities - Melting pots or racially pure (ish)?

[Cor Azer]

Well, my current 'point of light' D&D setting is a small mountain valley kingdom, with human areas, a halfling shire, an elven forest, and dwarven hills. Humans are dominant, and the races keep largely to themselves, but all serve the same human king who once united them to overthrow the tyrannical rule of an evil sorcerer.

I'm doing that to a small degree in my upcoming campaign, but what lead me more to the melting pot is... do the dragonborn, tieflings, gnomes, (half-) orcs also get their own realms?

I guess that's my issue. I realize its just a game, but to some degree, I don't see how it's "fair" that dwarves and elves get their homes, but other standard demihuman races don't.

Maybe it's just that the other races don't have as well defined/stereotyped homelands? Is that an issue the "purists" have overcome?

 

[Mercule]

One thing I hate in my fantasy, though, are truly melting pot worlds. From a literary point of view, why have a different race if it isn't, you know, different? From a simulationist perspective, we can't all get along in the real world -- now throw in gods who really do tell their followers "kill all elves" and see what you get.

I just like the races to stand out. They do that best if they aren't all always in your face.

There is a bit of "both", though. Even in Medieval Europe, there was a certain amount of foreign residents. That holds true in my D&D games.

 

[S'mon]

I'm doing that to a small degree in my upcoming campaign, but what lead me more to the melting pot is... do the dragonborn, tieflings, gnomes, (half-) orcs also get their own realms?

I guess that's my issue. I realize its just a game, but to some degree, I don't see how it's "fair" that dwarves and elves get their homes, but other standard demihuman races don't.

Maybe it's just that the other races don't have as well defined/stereotyped homelands? Is that an issue the "purists" have overcome?

I wouldn't give the half-breed races their own realms. No dragonborn or tieflings in this (3.5e setting based on Mentzer classic D&D), but half-orcs are found as individuals on the fringes of the orc-infested northern marshes.

 

[Treebore]

I have it be like it was in GH. Mostly one race, usually 95%+, then ghettos of other races. However, I do not push "ethnic" conflict because we still see too much of that in real life.

I like being fantasy enough to pretend that everyone can get along as well as they don't want to kill you or dominate you, or enslave you.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Depends on where in the world they are. In the larger human cities, it tends to be much more melting pot-esque. The dwarves will occasionally have a foreign quarter depending on the size of the city, and the halflings typically welcome just about anyone. Most of the other races, though, are far too xenophobic to regularly allow other races into their cities.


Which isn't to say the cities that are more melting pot-esque are happy and nice and have rainbows everywhere. While nation vs nation conflict is fun, urban conflict is just as good. None of my players suspected the leader of the halfling community in the city of being the major crime boss...

 

[EricNoah]

In my games it tends to depend on the size of the community -- smaller communties are often more isolated and more homogeneous; huge cities are more cosmopolitan and diverse. I certainly do tend to have "elf kingdoms" and "dwarf kingdoms" but not necessarily "gnome kingdoms" -- certain races seem to lend themselves to isolationism more than others I guess.

 

[Cor Azer]

One thing I hate in my fantasy, though, are truly melting pot worlds. From a literary point of view, why have a different race if it isn't, you know, different? From a simulationist perspective, we can't all get along in the real world -- now throw in gods who really do tell their followers "kill all elves" and see what you get.

I just like the races to stand out. They do that best if they aren't all always in your face.

There is a bit of "both", though. Even in Medieval Europe, there was a certain amount of foreign residents. That holds true in my D&D games.

Very true. Whenever I make a melting pot community, I still try very hard to make each of its component cultures stand out - dwarven buildings full of hard right angles compared to near-gardenlike elven villas set away from the road, with humans often stealing the best/easiest ideas from others (or having something completely different). I also try to indicate behavioral/cultural differences - in my latest campaign, burial rites/traditions stand out, particularly because there's relatively few people in the area, each loss is keenly felt by the community. The humans, and a small smattering of others who emulate them, set fire to funeral boats as they plunge over a great waterfall, where as the small halfling neighborhood maintains an isolated graveyard of cairns and barrows, and the dwarves have delved great familial tombs that circle, unendingly according to some rumors, into the depths. The elves and eladrin have less concern for the actual bodies, but maintain a tradition of tying a thong of leather into knots - one for each significant memory of the deceased - and attaching the finished cord to a willow tree so the soul of the fallen is kept protected from the the dangers of the Shadowfell.

Generally, I can't stand "humans with funny ears" depictions, so even if most races live together, they re still separate peoples.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Melting pots for me.

I figure there are distinct melting pots, however, with different sets or races melting in different pots.

I also figure that since these are distinct species they are going to have distinct places even within the same pot.

So that even though all the citizens of the valley use the same marketplace, owe service to the same dynasty, and serve in the same militia they still live as dwarves, eladrin, and dragonborn in whatever parts of the valley are most comfortable for their bodies and cultures.

Given that that is true, places with a really strong climactic tendency can be close to racially pure even if they still belong to the same alliance.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Ehh, depends on the setting for me. Though the most common I find in my campaigns are;

-Small, isolated refugee bands where it is very much a melting pot since every relies on eachother to survive.

-Major cities where one race or a couple live comfortably, while other races are forced into ghettos, viewed as insignificant, etc.

Generally I almost never have, one-race societies, but the dynamics between the races change radically from place to place and setting to setting.

 

[S'mon]

I like being fantasy enough to pretend that everyone can get along as well as they don't want to kill you or dominate you, or enslave you.

In my current Willow Vale setting elves, dwarves, halflings and Vale humans all get along well. Half-orcs are tolerated. The northern orcs and southern (hob)goblins are minor threats, but the major threats are two different human ethnicities, the fierce, Viking-like Trosk barbarians of the southern mountains, and beyond the mountains the desert land of Kalara, ruled by the veiled priests of Baphomet.

Treebore, do you not have 'evil' enemy races in your setting for PCs to kill - orcs, goblins and such? That always seemed inherent iin D&D and Tolkienesque fantasy. In the Tolkien (or CS Lewis) approach, it's the external Evil threat that unites a divergent bunch of races and ethnicities.