How to avoid Furry Fandom?

[Rothe]

I intend to use the setting partly as a medium to explore what it means to be human and what the difference between being an animal and being a human is.

Sound like your going for the Island of Dr. Monroe.
To avoid the "furry" label try to go with images that are not cute.
It seems OK if it is a natsy creature and/or doesn't have fur. Gnolls and Minotaurs are both anthromorphic but I've never seen anyone lump them into "furry fandom,' likewise Centaurs and Satyrs, and in Greek myth the are certainly laciviuos, often in the extreme (but not cute) way.
Still there is plenty of people that will see an anthromorphic creature and prejudge what it is all about, dismiss them as I doubt thet'd want to explore such introspective themes.

 

[Felix]

And on second thought, Island of Dr. Moreau is more the feel of these beastmen that I am trying to go for.

Definitely the result of wizardly transmutations, then.

My DM was a big fan of the Encyclopedia Arcane books put out by Mongoose; Crossbreeding would be the one for you if you wanted to play up the result-of-arcane-experiments angle.

EDIT:

As long as the entire setting is anthromoporphic animals, you'll have a heck of a hard time getting away from any furry tendancies any player may bring to the game; even if a player doesn't have that agenda, the fact that furries (human-animals) breed all the time in your setting already puts it there.

If you want to give players an option for the hybrids, then make standard humans available who cannot crossbreed with the hybrids, while the hybrids are the result of experiments who can breed within their own population. And at no time are proper animals the result of hybrid-hybrid mating.

That'll cut down on the "furry fandom", as much as it's possible for what you want.

 

[Tonguez]

I
Also, I thought I might avoid some problem by restricting the setting to African animals as that cuts out most of the really iffy ones... like foxes and wolves... although I guess lions might cause problems too.

I might actually end up just using shifters with slight modifications as the player races.

Unfortunately cats and foxes (fennec) are African animals

I'd go for mostly human but with some animal traits/powers or quie possibly just go shifter.
This would be consistent with African myth too. The other option (also looking to African myth) is for the PCs to be mostly human but with animalistic deformities (so Buffalo Woman has a hunchback and elongated face) and Elepahnt Man is 10 ft tall and almost as round...

 

[Gentlegamer]

Honestly, if you are anthropomorphizing animals, you're already deeply into the 'furry' fanbase.

C. S. Lewis begs to differ.

 

[Torm]

I think that if you make it clear to your players that, beyond possibly the occasional light bit of humor, you really aren't interested in running a sexually-themed game ("furry" or not), most players will be more than happy. Most players I know would in fact be downright relieved, and maybe curious as to why you brought it up....

Also, I'm sorry, and I'm not really into "furries", either, but it is mandatory for me to mention in any thread like this that Cheetara was hawt. My serious point being that I think there is a big difference between someone who finds some mostly-human anthropomorphs a little exotic and attractive, and the sort of people who attend those furry conventions. "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Maybe you're too worried? Or is one or more of your regular players a reason for this to be a specific concern?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

To be honest, I've never liked the cliched dwarves and elves.

In a homebrew campaign that I'm working up, which I think I'll call "Skyland," the humanoid races are all going to be somewhere in between human and various African animals. The most human-like will be called Priman, and they will (obviously) be a hybrid of humans and apes. I like to have more information about my setting than is really needed for the players to interact with. I've decided that productive breeding is only possible between two members of the same type of hybrid. In that case, 1 out of three children is born as an animal, and the remainder are born as new hybrids. (This corresponds to a genetic cross where having two of the one allele is fatal, two produce hybrids, and one produces a pureblood of the other allele.)

Because of physiological similarities between different species of hybrid, they have the anatomic capability to mate, but never produce offspring.

Maybe you should remove this last bit. You could say they're just not attracted to each other (and thus are basically becoming new species) - they hybrids think that humans are ugly, along with the other parent species. You could mutter something about the gray tree frog if they ask for a biological explanation. (There are two closely related species plus hybrids. Female hybrids are much more attracted to the calls of the male hybrids rather than of their parent species; the genetic reasons behind this are unknown.)

(It is technically possible for a human to "mate" with a horse or chimpanzee, but most settings don't need specific rules to prevent humans from doing so. If you're worried already, you have good reason to be, and should find some non-social reason to ban it, since the social reasons for banning it should be fairly obvious.)

In fact, it almost sounds like the original hybrids were created through direct mating between humans and animals ... you could say there was a magic ritual involved that was lost so it doesn't come up anymore (regardless of whether magic was used to directly create the hybrids or just enabled attraction and fertility).

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Apparently there's a side to anthropomorphic-animals in fantasy that I've been mercifully unaware of until I read this thread. I'm going to try and forget I ever understood what is being implied by these posts...

 

[BroccoliRage]

Uh, judging from posts previous to mine, "Furry Fandom" most be anthropomorphic erotica?

Yeah, that's a little wierd.

But I've run Narnia games with players playing Talking Beasts. We've also played Redwall games. I like the idea of special races of animals that fight and talk, but I'd prefer not to think of the sexual lives of my D&D characters. Maybe it doesn't come off so wierd because we aren't like the freaks who roleplay in-game sex and all that.

Did I offend you with that last statement? I really don't care, the wierdest damn people I have ever met are the ones who roleplay sexual acts in D&D instead of just stating they happened.

 

[Psion]

Apparently there's a side to anthropomorphic-animals in fantasy that I've been mercifully unaware of until I read this thread. I'm going to try and forget I ever understood what is being implied by these posts...

I think it's blown out of proportion, but some people can't help but bitch about it. But honestly, I've never heard about it outside of the internet. You can find people to bitch about anything on the internet.

 

[interwyrm]

Apparently there's a side to anthropomorphic-animals in fantasy that I've been mercifully unaware of until I read this thread. I'm going to try and forget I ever understood what is being implied by these posts...

It's something you can't forget, no matter how hard you try.

I think I will remove that last bit about interspecies mating, as it is basically the same thing as bestiality, and it is easily justifiable as something socially unacceptable.

I am considering at some point having there be a genetic anomaly which produces a pure human, and the pc's will be assigned to capture it and transport it to a zoo. (Whether or not they comply is their choice).

I'd like to thank everybody who posted here, as it's been kept a mature discussion for the most part. I feel better equipped to run this sort of game and avoid certain distasteful ends. I don't think any of the players I usually game with will take it to that place, but I have gamed with people before who would, and I'm just a little... wary, I guess.