Fantasy Races and Originality

[fusangite]

an interesting case could be made for going the other way (which is where I'm currently leaning). Getting rid of the magicallity (maybe simply magic would be right word here?) of the races and exploring themes like: what would it have been like to have two races of "humans" vying for dominance of the planet, ala the coexistence of Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis in Europe? Or, what if humans had been bred by some other race in the same manner that we have bred dogs, cats, horses, cattle, etc. into fairly divergent forms to fulfill specific roles? You can be a bit more exacting about the genetics and heredity and what it means.

Agreed; but I think D20 modern presents game physics more adaptable to this. Still, I like your idea very much here -- basically, what you're suggesting is that we do real genetics rather than 19th century popular culture conceptions of it.

Either way it's the kinda "half-assedness" of the approach to races that is the problem, but both are interesting ways to get around it.

Nicely put!

 

[Dark Jezter]

An original take on traditional fantasy races is one of the reasons I love the Warcraft setting. For example:

Orcs: Instead of the evil, stupid, expendable brutes of most fantasy settings, Warcraft orcs are a noble, spiritual people driven by a strong sense of honor. They used to be evil, but ever since escaping the demonic corruption, it sometimes seems like they're the "good guys" of the setting even more than the humans.

Trolls: In most settings, elves are the "elder race". In Warcraft, the trolls have a culture that predates even the first civilizations of the elves. The tall, wiry, agile trolls are deadly hunters and warriors who practice voodoo magics and speak with Caribbean accents.

Tauren: A different spin on minotaurs. The tauren are a nomadic race of bull-men who have a culture similar to various American Indian tribes.

Dwarves: While Warcraft dwarves do have long beards and swing axes like most fantasy dwarves, they're also rifle-toting exporers and adventurers who seek out ancient ruins and artifacts instead of hiding away in their mountain homes.

Elves: Warcraft has two flavors of elves... First, there are the tall, muscular, purple-skinned night elves who long ago abandoned the use of arcane magic. Then there are the arrogant, racist, magic-addicted high elves (or Blood Elves). Neither race could be described as the "epitome of goodness and wisdom and the best at everything they do" elves of many fantasy settings.

Goblins: The short, wiry goblins are a race of inventors and merchants who are constantly competing with the gnomes to perfect new technologies.

 

[Greg K]

It is funny that we come to completely opposite conclusions, because I basically said that it's funny that in D&D humans are the only race that can have cultural variety .

I suppose that we just point out that humans and "demihumans" are treated mechanically different in this regard. Humans are more painted like real world humans: they have a vast range of different cultures, and that is what makes them different and unique. Opposite to this, for every small cultural twist in demihumans, a new subrace is born. That's how you end up with gully dwarves...

But humans are not painted like real world humans, at least in my opinion. If they were, we should see considerations for altering classes or otherwise taking into account that some cultures have certain skills required of all members or might lack access to certain skills as class skills. Similarly, not all armor or weapons are available in all cultures. Some things to be taken into account

Armor: Armor was not used in many cultures and metal armor in particular was unknown in many parts of the world including the New World and Australia.

Weapons: the only truly cross cultural weapons are the club, knife, hand axe, and spear. The bow is nearly universal, but it is not found everywhere (e.g., among the Australian aborigines). Among some cultures, exotic weapons (e.g., blowguns, bolas, and boomerangs) should be treated as simple or martial.

Skills: Many cultures did not have access to certain skills. Riding might be unknown, but members of a culture might have Endurance feat, a skill for rowing canoes, or a variant of ride (e.g., dog sleds).
Then there are those skills which every member of a culture should have. All members of a horse nomad culture should have ride as a class skill. Pygmies of Africa or people of the Amazon rainforest would have knowledge of poison making, because they use poison in hunting or against the larger people (but not other tribes or clans).

unfortunately, we never see cultural variants that take the above into account for humans.

 

[Nellisir]

So what are your thoughts on this? Can fantasy worlds use the "standard races" and still be original?

Absolutely.

Or are wholly new races neccessary to make a setting fresh and new?

Absolutely not.

But.
Stereotypes & cliches have a purpose. They function as a kind of conceptual shorthand. If I say "my character is an elf", you have an instant idea of what I mean. Pointy ears, nature-loving, magical, etc, etc. As a general rule, you don't have to explain elves, dwarves, and etc to a player.

A new race needs to be explained. If I say "my character is a domovii", almost no one has an idea of what -I- mean by that. That's more work on the DM's part, but in most cases players start off with a clean slate.

If you rewrite an old race, however, neither of those is true. You, as the DM, are fighting a battle on two fronts. You have to a) explain that an elf is not an elf, and b) explain what an elf is. Realistically it can lead to originality and creativity, but it can also lead to frustration and resentment if not done carefully and completely.

I tend to mix. My upcoming campaign has relatively traditional elves (faerilven), half-elves (ha'ilven), dwarves (dweorh), and gnomes (gnomes), but it also features new races: fuah, troldfolk, domovii, leshii, korrigan, roane, firjotun, and talvijotun. Plus the human cultures: Aesar, Amerite, Ceildin, Haluar (and the assorted tribes), Tuonar, and Vanar. Most of the races are wilderness or quasi-wilderness races -- human civilization (complete with cities, castles, and loggers) is at nature's mercy in my campaigns, not vice versa.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Turjan]

But humans are not painted like real world humans, at least in my opinion. If they were, we should see considerations for altering classes or otherwise taking into account that some cultures have certain skills required of all members or might lack access to certain skills as class skills. Similarly, not all armor or weapons are available in all cultures. Some things to be taken into account.

You mean there aren't any settings that do that? This is highly setting-specific information. Of course, WotC is wary of alienating potential customers by restricting their options. In the age of half-dragon half-gelatinous cubes, this is not really hip.

unfortunately, we never see cultural variants that take the above into account for humans.

Well, even the FR do this to a certain extent, with regional feat packages. Fortunately, they are most of the time not race- but culture-bound, as it should be.

 

[Imret]

I'd like to think you can do something interesting with the classic races and that it's often a lot more original than either putting elves in an even funnier suit with a new name and dumping them back in the woods, or splitting them into a dazzling array of subraces (elves of the coast! elves in the mountains! elves that are all left-handed!). Yes, this happens to all the races, but you can't tell me that elves don't see the worst of it.

I've split the elves into three subraces only: the Dawn elves, dwellers in the Worldroot Forest and its central mountain cluster, pale copper of complexion and dark-haired, warriors with bow and spear and thinblade; the Dusk elves, island-dwellers off the southern coast, black-skinned and white-haired, the developers of most "Oriental" exotic weapons; and the Zenith elves, now figures of myth and legend, wiped out in the Lost War. The two remaining subraces are split between eight kindgoms (3 among the Dusk, 5 among the Dawn) whose ruling aristocracy together forms the Deliberative, answerable directly to the immortal regent for a long-missing god-king. While there has never been open elf-on-elf warfare, not all of their kingdoms are as closely allied as their common government would suggest.

A lot of the races are still being worked, but I can definately state that orcs are not the evil raider/cannon-fodder species of most worlds; fashioned by the giants from earth, blood, and fire, they rarely venture out to the surface world and are utterly unrelated to goblins. They still war with the dwarves, but it's primarily over living space (and the fact that orcish corpses burn at the correct temperature for a forge...).

That being said, I think there's a place in a D&D world for new PC races, particularly when they replace a PC race in only a small number of criterion, or fit into a new niche.
Brief digression from the point - Does anyone have a handy link to the Small catfolk posted somewhere on ENWorld? I'd like to get a look at them for a starting point -I'm seeing quasi-paranoid, largely instinctual mystics...

 

[Greg K]

Well, even the FR do this to a certain extent, with regional feat packages. Fortunately, they are most of the time not race- but culture-bound, as it should be.

Yeah, but I mentioned in my original post that I was not including published settings

 

[Greg K]

You mean there aren't any settings that do that? This is highly setting-specific information. Of course, WotC is wary of alienating potential customers by restricting their options. In the age of half-dragon half-gelatinous cubes, this is not really hip.
.

How is it any different then presenting subraces in the DMG and environmental variants of the other races in UA? Wouldn't those be setting specific as well? If the authors can present variants for the other races why should they also not not address how to create variant cultures for humans by tweaking the standard armor, weapons, and skills available- they just need to avoid assigning stat modifiers.

 

[Turjan]

Yeah, but I mentioned in my original post that I was not including published settings

Which, in my opinion, strips the discussion of its base. Cultures are setting-specific and should be handled as such.

How is it any different then presenting subraces in the DMG and environmental variants of the other races in UA? Wouldn't those be setting specific as well?

Of course, this would be setting-specific. They just wanted to show us some more +2/-2 modifiers for our collection .

If the authors can present variants for the other races why should they also not not address how to create variant cultures for humans by tweaking the standard armor, weapons, and skills available- they just need to avoid assigning stat modifiers.

But what else matters in a generic treatment, if not stat modifiers? They probably thought we knew something about humans. Did you ever hear anything about arabs or innuit ?

Edit: Of course, you did. But this comes to the core of what we are talking about: the different treatment of humans and "demihumans" in the rules. I suppose, you would prefer a treatment of humans similar to "demihumans", and I advocate the opposite. That's about it .

 

[howandwhy99]

It's pretty damned Eurocentric to say that elves, dwarves, gnomes, and the like are just part of "human mythology". Hell, it's northern-Eurocentric to say so - there are no such creatures in Greek mythology. A setting which treated Greek mythological creatures the way D&D treats Germanic mythological creatures would have humans, satyrs, centaurs, dryads, et cetera as zero-LA options, perhaps.

You're right. I know what I said can come off as eurocentric. What I was trying to express that there is a lack of creatures, probable to play as PCs or not, who have no root in ANY human culture.

Racial Levels like those in Savage Species could work if you wanted to set your campaign outside of medieval europe's dark ages.