How important are fantasy races to you?

[invokethehojo]

We were having a discussion the other day about shadowrun and how most of us felt that they totally screwed up by shoehorning in all the fantasy races. However, a friend of mine made a point that customers play fantasy games expect those races in an RPG, and leaving them out would have decreased shadowrun's marketability.

What do you think? How important are fantasy races to an RPG? Do they influence your decision to play a game or not?

 

[Rhun]

I believe that in a fantasy game that fantasy races are extremely important. With that said, I would still probably play a game that didn't have them.

 

[Morrus]

I'm quite old-style about fantasy races. I like seeing the elves, dwarves, etc., but I've never been keen on a Star Wars style millions of races setup - dragonborn, tieflings, goliaths, warforged, etc., etc. Feels too "everything but the kitchen sink" to me.

It fits in a sci-fi setting across a galaxy (hundreds of alien races) but on one fantasy world I prefer the number to be much smaller.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, even half-orcs. That's my upper-end limit.

 

[Dragonbait]

I prefer a limited set of fantasy races, with humans being the most common. I've learned that I really enjoy having elves and dwarves in a fantasy setting. I also like to have one monstrous race like dragonborn or something.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I'm going to sound odd, but maybe it's because I'm sick of every EDO RPG making humans the dominant race. Really? Elves and Dwarves wouldn't have kicked our butts if the Orcs didn't get us first? There is only so far my suspension of disbelief stretches.

That said, it's hard for me to think of a fantasy race as anything other than a cosmetic choice unless they're really, really different. World Tree's "you're human like, but you're still an animal" approach to exaggerating minor instincts really sticks with me.

Naturally, I'd prefer people use something other than EDO that isn't just EDO with the serial numbers filed off.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

We were having a discussion the other day about shadowrun and how most of us felt that they totally screwed up by shoehorning in all the fantasy races.

I like to have choices in race, but depending on the setting I'm OK with humans only.

As for Shadowrun, I disagree that the races were shoehorned in. The setting material and the ebb and flow of magic as it works across Earthdawn and Shadowrun is very interesting to me and the re-emergence of the races when magic began to wax again is key to making Shadowrun something more than "Cyberpunk 2020 with spells."

 

[the Jester]

Depends, not on the setting, but rather on the campaign for me.

For an actual game system? I don't need a bunch of races. Moreover, I'm okay with having them but not for pcs.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I most often prefer the weird, the exotic, the "other", to be largely confined to, well, others. That is to say, monsters, NPCs, etc. It's a lot harder, for example, to have Elves be truly alien/otherworldly/mystical/magical/whatever, when you can have Elven PCs. Doable, yes, but much more challenging. Only suitable for certain players/groups.

So, human tends to be the baseline. Anything else is optional. Very much depends on the style of game.

And on the flipside (from the "difficulty" angle), frankly, with the minimal differences (mostly cosmetic, and even there, barely so) you get with most RPGs... why bother. It seems a bit pointless, unless it's simply in line with a given tradition, or something else that is (most likely) similarly arbitrary. Why play an elf, when all that means is pointy ears, +2 here [and here?] and possibly -2 there, and some kind of "flavour" ability / skill bonuses / whatever. It's a little underwhelming, to say the least, in most cases.

That said, I'm fine with whatever the setup is. Within reason, I suppose, but that hasn't been put to the test so far.

 

[Stormonu]

I strongly enjoy having other fantasy races in my fantasy game, though I somewhat strangely prefer for the non-human races to be "rarer".

And, as an aside, I've been trying to incorporate a humanoid dragon race into my gaming world since at least '84 - so I snatched up dragonborn as soon as I saw them (but mine have wings).