Tinker Gnome
Adventurer
I like them a lot, but I could see myself playing in a game with Humans being the only playable race, but even then there needs to be various fantasy creatures in the world, even just as NPCs.
How important are fantasy races to you?
- Thread starter invokethehojo
- Start date
Fantasy is loaded with non-human races. It is an established trope of the genre. If you're trying to do fantasy, and you exclude that trope, you're lopping off one of the major parts of the genre. You can have a fine game that way, but it is limiting your system's flexibility within the fantasy realm. Humans-only is a fine way to play, but it is a niche of a niche, so to speak.
If you design a game with races, individual GMs don't generally cause the rules to break if they exclude one or more of them from the game. However, if your game includes no fantasy races from the start, the GM must now design them from scratch, and work out the mechanical implications himself.
So, it makes lots of sense to put them in your game from the start, and allow the GM to exclude them as he wishes.
If you design a game with races, individual GMs don't generally cause the rules to break if they exclude one or more of them from the game. However, if your game includes no fantasy races from the start, the GM must now design them from scratch, and work out the mechanical implications himself.
So, it makes lots of sense to put them in your game from the start, and allow the GM to exclude them as he wishes.
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Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
I agree, which is why I like everything and the kitchen sink. Restricting races to just a few is like saying "You can use scarlet rouge and cherry lip gloss, but not crimson rouge or strawberry lip gloss." If my GM really feels that such restrictions makes his game more believable, I'll roll with it, but I'll probably be mentally rolling my eyes.
Strangely, I prefer human-only to just a few restrictions. Because if you're gonna be racist, there's no point in being coy about it. Just blast all those elves, dwarves and halflings into the MM.
I think humans, dwarves, elves and halflings in the game are fine - each has a strong tradition in fantasy literature.
I'm also fine with a setting that has just humans on it.
However, I think if you have too many races, it can cheapen things and make each race less special (goliaths, shifters, changelings, devas, minotaurs, dragonborn, Muls, Wilden, etc)
Where the balance is, I'm not sure. Probably the first four I named, plus gnomes, half-elves and half-orcs.
I think most fantasy races should be monsters and/or NPCs.
You can't have a politically correct genocide with only humans.
Actually, I may not be comletely kidding. The gnome/orc/etc. genocide is part of the charm of Dark Sun now that I think of it, for example. So even though they're not there, they kind of are there from a stary perspective.
I admit, I generally play humans in most systems, with Genasi being a D&D favorite and generally hating elves in all games, but that's just personal preference and I'm as a person a rather small portion of the gaming community.
Actually, I may not be comletely kidding. The gnome/orc/etc. genocide is part of the charm of Dark Sun now that I think of it, for example. So even though they're not there, they kind of are there from a stary perspective.
I admit, I generally play humans in most systems, with Genasi being a D&D favorite and generally hating elves in all games, but that's just personal preference and I'm as a person a rather small portion of the gaming community.
Aus_Snow
First Post
I'd say D&D is far more the "niche within a niche" here. Most fantasy protagonists/heroes are human. Overwhelmingly so, even.
But yes, D&D is the number one tabletop RPG, right enough. So in that sense, if you're talking established [D&D] players, providing a variety of PC races does make a certain amount of sense.
Well, your typical game doesn't have a single viewpoint protagonist either - that's more a story structure issue than a setting structure one. If the settign has got non-humans, you'll have people who want to play them.
Oh, you can go beyond D&D, and into all sorts of other games. Look at other RPGs. Look at computer games: from realtime strategy (The original WoW and Starcraft), to non-D&D CRPGs, to MMORPGs, even to action games - the desire for many players to represent themselves with something other than humans is pretty solidly demonstrated.
Just writing off that demonstrated desire is probably not the best business decision.
Dice4Hire
First Post
I am a fan of multiple races in almost any genre I play, except western cowboys and indians games) They add something to he game, especially keeping the game on a simpler political feel for me. The real world is, of course, human versus human, and too much shades of grey. I like some fantasy races and a little bit of black and white in my fantasy.
TwinBahamut
First Post
I'm a little unsure whether this discussion is talking about the typical fantasy races of elves and dwarves, or the idea of fantasy races in general. A little specificity would be nice, especially for terms like "the fantasy races". It makes it a bit hard for me to figure out what to put in the poll.
Generally, I don't think the idea of fantasy races are at all necessary for works of fantasy. Plenty of good things have gone human-only and have been perfectly fun and interesting. Many stories and settings only work if you abandon such ideas. In fact, I think it is best if a setting only includes them if it has a good reason to do so, rather than starting with the assumption that all fantasy needs fantastic races.
As for the typical races of elves, dwarves, orcs, and such... I see no unique value in them. I tend to prefer fantasy settings that use other races and ideas.
Generally, I don't think the idea of fantasy races are at all necessary for works of fantasy. Plenty of good things have gone human-only and have been perfectly fun and interesting. Many stories and settings only work if you abandon such ideas. In fact, I think it is best if a setting only includes them if it has a good reason to do so, rather than starting with the assumption that all fantasy needs fantastic races.
As for the typical races of elves, dwarves, orcs, and such... I see no unique value in them. I tend to prefer fantasy settings that use other races and ideas.
I like pumping up the importance of the 'demihuman' races, so that there are entire countries full of dwarves, elves, etc. (unlike quite a few settings, that have 50 human countries and then some elves in the woods, and some dwarves in the mountains, and the gnomes and halflings living under tables and eating scraps, since they don't even have wilderness regions to inhabit).
In most published settings, that means taking the most 'appropriate' human nations and waving my hand and saying, 'Yeah, the Snow, Ice and Frost Barbarians? All dwarves. Mead-drinking, dragon-prowed longboat-sailing, a-viking-raiding, skald-chanting barbarian *dwarves.* That gives them at least a little bit of 'presence' on the map of the setting, rather than have them make up minority presences in a few out of the way human nations or pointing at some mountain range stuck between two ginormous human kingdoms and saying, 'some dwarves live here, but didn't rate mention on the map...'
Humans remain dominant, but there might be actual nations, even multiple nations (that maybe don't even like each other very much, just like rival human nations), of different demihumans.
Other races will exist as the mood takes me, or as the players request them (and I'm not violently opposed...), but there won't be kingdoms of changelings or serpentfolk or goliaths, there'll just be enough that if a player wants to use one (or I want to use one), they'll exist in the setting.
On the other hand, for the most part, my players have chosen almost exclusively humans (and one lonely halfling) since 3.0 came out, so they probably wouldn't care if I made a game world with no dwarves, elves, etc. at all...
It's just tradition, at this point, and a reminder of the 1st and 2nd edition eras, when we almost exclusively played elves.
In most published settings, that means taking the most 'appropriate' human nations and waving my hand and saying, 'Yeah, the Snow, Ice and Frost Barbarians? All dwarves. Mead-drinking, dragon-prowed longboat-sailing, a-viking-raiding, skald-chanting barbarian *dwarves.* That gives them at least a little bit of 'presence' on the map of the setting, rather than have them make up minority presences in a few out of the way human nations or pointing at some mountain range stuck between two ginormous human kingdoms and saying, 'some dwarves live here, but didn't rate mention on the map...'
Humans remain dominant, but there might be actual nations, even multiple nations (that maybe don't even like each other very much, just like rival human nations), of different demihumans.
Other races will exist as the mood takes me, or as the players request them (and I'm not violently opposed...), but there won't be kingdoms of changelings or serpentfolk or goliaths, there'll just be enough that if a player wants to use one (or I want to use one), they'll exist in the setting.
On the other hand, for the most part, my players have chosen almost exclusively humans (and one lonely halfling) since 3.0 came out, so they probably wouldn't care if I made a game world with no dwarves, elves, etc. at all...
It's just tradition, at this point, and a reminder of the 1st and 2nd edition eras, when we almost exclusively played elves.
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