Question on fantasy races

[Desdichado]

This is a dual faceted question. The first is about the existance of varying races in fantasy settings. Do you feel that various races are needed to make a complete fantasy setting? Or are humans with various culture enough to make a fun fantasy realm?

No problem. In fantasy literature, human-only worlds are not uncommon at all. I like other races, though. Not necessary, but possibly fun.

The second is this. While I was thinking about creating my own campaign world, I started thinking about elves and dwarves - and I see them as the cookie-cutter fantasy races. Used almost ad-nauseum. Does anyone else agree? I am juggling with the idea of creating new races.

Yes, I'm tired of elves and dwarves. (And gnomes and halflings). I've explicitly and specifically excluded them as playable races for the last three campaigns I've run.

Here is the last section. If I do decide on making new fantasy races for my campaign world, does anyone have any tips, resources, or suggestions about creating new races that aren't too outlandish and could believably exist in a fantasy realm?

Well, the easiest solution is to use some races that are already out there. D&D products, no matter which edition you use, have lots to choose from. It's a bit like a buffet. Just make some other choices instead of elves and dwarves.

My last campaigns (3.5) specifically added azhar (from Freeport; an LA+0 fire genasi), an LA +0 alt.tiefling, full-blooded orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins in place of elves, dwarves, half-elves, halflings and gnomes. I would have been open to some other races too if anyone had been interested in them. I might have mentioned that the psionic races were fair game too.

http://modular-dnd-setting.wikispaces.com/Races

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Don't do furries.....Instead, do races that are tied to the world, much like RuneQuests: Elves are living plants, etc. That's my tip for now.

What's wrong with furries? It's no more lazy that humans with variant ears, faces, and heights. And they can be tied to the world just as well as anything else.

 

[Mallus]

I would rather have none. The simple monoculture too often ends up as an excuse for something, often "humans are better than everyone else because they are so diverse".

That's fair... and it's also true that "Others" are often used as mere foils in various kinds of literature, not limited to SF/F.

I think the problem stems from authors trying too hard: they think they have to make their non-humans stand in groups, so they blow the reach and impact of the culture out of proportion.

I'd say it's an attempt by authors to give their audience exactly what they want: elves and aliens which are simple enough to be known.

In a way, fantasy and science fiction frequently treat races and places as if they were characters in their respective novels. You hear this a lot in the discussion LotR and Dune --two personal faves-- "Middle Earth" as a main character, "Arrakis" as a main character. Races often function the same way. There's a desire to make these pseudo-characters understood.

Then just make them act like everyday people.

I do. I follow a simple rule in my RPG campaigns: if it can talk, it's a person (and virtually everything talks... a lot). However, that doesn't stop me from using gross generalizations and racial monocultures.

My goal as DM is to provide a memorable and vivid setting, not an realistic one, or one that conforms to certain notions of permissible representation.

 

[Desdichado]

What's wrong with furries? It's no more lazy that humans with variant ears, faces, and heights. And they can be tied to the world just as well as anything else.

And he's also been advised not to do humans with variant ears, faces and heights. So... yeah. I'm not sure what you're asking there.

Some people specifically don't like them, I guess. :shrug:

I'm with Mallus. Alternative races don't have to be anything other than cheap stereotypes of human traits. Since a roleplaying game and a fantasy ethnography are unlikely to be successful for the same reasons, I'm best not going with the fantasy enthography. Besides, if you do read any ethnographies, you'll quickly discover that there are human cultures that are much more foreign than anything that's been written about elves, dwarves, orcs, klingons, or kzinti.

Plus, there's that maxim of good writing that some early science fiction writers had rather pointedly told to them: all good stories, at the end of the day are human stories. If you try to hard to make your aliens truly alien, then nobody cares about reading about them.

The same maxim applies to fantasy races, in my opinion. Who's going to get excited about a potential player character who's too alien to relate to? At the end of the day, they need to be all too human to be interesting, excepting a handful of people with exceptionally unusual tastes.

 

[Ariosto]

Plus, there's that maxim of good writing that some early science fiction writers had rather pointedly told to them: all good stories, at the end of the day are human stories. If you try to hard to make your aliens truly alien, then nobody cares about reading about them.

That's also why faster-than-light travel, common biology, galaxies of cultures roughly at the same tech level, and so on are "hand waved" in SF stories that take hard looks at other things. The stories are about those other things, and ultimately about aspects of our world here and now.

"What might yet be" is one thing -- what (or so it seems) never can be, what stands out as impossible, is quite another. The utterly fantastic (as opposed to at least partly speculative) tale is basically either about timeless things or about nothing real at all.

As Gygax put it in the DMG, "The game features humankind for a reason. It is the most logical basis in an illogical game."

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

In a way, fantasy and science fiction frequently treat races and places as if they were characters in their respective novels. You hear this a lot in the discussion LotR and Dune --two personal faves-- "Middle Earth" as a main character, "Arrakis" as a main character. Races often function the same way. There's a desire to make these pseudo-characters understood.

That "whole race as a character in its own right" makes a great deal of sense. I think what miffs me about it is that then the people within that race start to become a sort of not-really-people because they're just existing for the benefit of the bigger picture. I prefer to see the small picture of people.

My goal as DM is to provide a memorable and vivid setting, not an realistic one, or one that conforms to certain notions of permissible representation.

Me too. In my case I just don't want to have to conform to this notion that cultures have to be identified and delineated.

(Also I just happen to hate humans and want to see them portrayed as the not-so-great-as-they-think people they are.)

And he's also been advised not to do humans with variant ears, faces and heights. So... yeah. I'm not sure what you're asking there.

I just encounter people talking about furries as if they're a bad thing. I wanted to know from one of them why. The question was important, the other two sentences just pre-emptive rebuffs to questions about my position I knew might be asked.

 

[Mallus]

In my case I just don't want to have to conform to this notion that cultures have to be identified and delineated.

Again, that's fair. I was just pointing out, what in my experience, is a common expectation among science fiction and fantasy fans.

(Also I just happen to hate humans and want to see them portrayed as the not-so-great-as-they-think people they are.)

Ah, misanthropy is a fine and storied tradition. Have you tried the literature of the French?

 

[Doc_Klueless]

What's wrong with furries? It's no more lazy that humans with variant ears, faces, and heights. And they can be tied to the world just as well as anything else.

and

I just encounter people talking about furries as if they're a bad thing. I wanted to know from one of them why. The question was important, the other two sentences just pre-emptive rebuffs to questions about my position I knew might be asked.

As I stressed at the beginning of my post: It's the way I like to play. They're not inherently bad. I just don't like 'em.

I'll try to be clearer: I don't like non-humans portrayed as humans with funny features. It downplays the alienness of the fantasy race. I don't expect a cat or a dog to think like me or any other human. Heck, I suspect that the simple fact that they are carnivores and not omnivores would greatly change their whole psychology. Therefore, I expect furries to think differently than humans. However, most furries are portrayed as humans with fuzzy features. No different than the cookie cutter elves, dwarves, etc. which I also stated I could live without.

I want and like my fantasy races to be 1) extremely rare and 2) very different than funny looking humans. I want an encounter with them to be out of the ordinary and memorable. And since the OP was asking for our opinions and suggestions. I gave him mine.

Do I happily play in games that have furries and common non-humans: you bet! A good DM can do wonders with anything! I also have no opinion on how others play the game; they should play the way that makes them happy.

 

[jbear]

Someone may have mentioned this already:

George R. R. Martin's a Song of Fire and Ice (which is also a fantasy rpg) is a human only world. It also happens to be the best fantasy novel I have ever read.

It might be worth your while to check it out.

 

[Starfox]

What's notable in D&D is how common and 'naturalized' nonhumans typically are, how little they are really unearthly. The Dwarves and Elves seem commoner even than those of Tolkien's fiction, and those in turn are not so removed as their prototypes in Norse myth.

Se Al-Qadim for an example where this is taken to the extreme; all races are closely integrated. Only unrefined barbarians distinguish by race. Its kind of refreshing, really.