Should I bother with new races in my Homebrew???

[Gundark]

I am considering going back to homebrewing my settings. I took a long time off of homebrewing when my life became busy. I want to do something different (ie. new core races). The problem is part of me wonders if I should bother. Once thing that bothers me is when I see setting x and with new races and they appear similiar to the standard D&D races (IMO even aracna unearthed does this to an extent). On the other hand I've seen settings where some of the races were different (ie. Trollkin from the Iron Kingdoms). What do you think? If you were one of my players would you want to see new races (done well of course)? Or would you be like "oh race x is just the elves of this world...why don't you just make them elves".

Tell me what you think

 

[Turjan]

I'm also often undecided regarding this question. You should probably ask yourself what you want to achieve with the races in your homebrew. If you repeat some familiar stereotypes, like "the old homeland of race X taken over by some newcomers", then you shouldn't bother renaming your elves to something else. But if you have a truly new concept, you might go with some different race. I don't care for anthropomorphic animals like Sibeccai or Litorians, but just look at the exciting backstory of the Sibeccai: a race made sentient by a different race (the giants), with both races still living in the same lands. That's a very good case of some new race with lots of hooks for interesting relationships. Trolls and trollkin from Glorantha are also a good example of some different race.

You might probably go through your race ideas and see whether they somehow match those big stereotypes: elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, goblins, kobolds and those half-thingies. If you just look at their cultures and their relationships with other races, do they match any of those listed ones? If yes, you better keep the standard races .

 

[Buttercup]

I've never been that big a fan of non-human races myself. So if it were me, my first choice would be a human-only game.

I realize though, that my opinion isn't commonly held. In that case, I think every race added really needs to fill an interesting niche. They should live in (or at least have originated in) a particular terrain type, and be adapted to that. Consider the Bhuka from Sandstorm, for instance. They have physical and cultural adaptations to their environment. You might find them elsewhere, but they'd be cut off from their culture.

Don't have races that are merely elf analogs, dwarf analogs and halfling analogs. That's boring, and frankly if you're going to do that, just stick with the elf, dwarf and halfling and be done with it.

 

[NewLifeForm]

It's a question of taste and style...

Whether you should or shouldn't have original species in your setting(s) is really up to you. Consider, why am I creating a new PC playable creature? Is it to experiment with a rule, it is for atmosphere or just a personal favorite of yours and/or your players. Unlike what most published works say, I deem all to be equally valid. If the new species is just Elves with a different look and culture, then by gosh make them the coolest Elves with a different look and culture the players have ever seen.

My current campaign features all the classic D&D fare plus Trolls (my own not D&D's), Cat People, Dog People, Dinosaur/Lizard Men, Drakes and a host of others. The world of medieval fantasy is magical and so is your imagination. Do what you will.

NewLifeForm

 

[Ranes]

Tell me what you think.

Okay. You've almost answered your own question. If the race you're going to create is just 'this world's elves' then there's no point in doing it. If you're going down a vaguely LotR route, you might as well not bother creating new races and think instead of trying to find ways of making your version of the existing races and their cultures distinctive.

I think a problem with new races is how to make them accessible and different at the same time. Elves, hobbits, gnomes and dwarves are all ideas of beings that most of us have a good idea about. More importantly, they are more like humans than unlike them. This makes it possible to pretend to be one. One of the reasons why, in this age of seamless CGI, most SF film aliens are still bipeds is because audiences would have a much harder time identifying with a genius starfish. Creating a new race is a challenge. I've got a couple of suggestions.

If you are the kind of DM who starts designing his campaign world in broad strokes first, you may find it relatively easy to conceive of races that occupy particular ecological and cultural niches. If two or more such races share a symbiotic existence, there's another angle you can exploit. If you can create three or four races and replace elves, gnomes or whatever else entirely, then you're players will be less likely to make a metagame determination that race x is a replacement for race y. This might make your creations more intriguing and consequently more appealing.

One possibility you might consider is making the new race NPC only to begin with. The easiest way of doing this, without having players turn around and complain about not being given the choice to play one of these beings, is to introduce them after the campaign has begun. Maybe the world is young and only recent explorations into the wilderness by the PCs or other parties have brought the known races into contact with the new race. Maybe an ancient magical barrier that kept the hemispheres of the world apart for millennia has recently diminished, enabling explorers from both hemispheres to venture into effectively new worlds. However you manage it, this approach will allow your players to see the race(s) in action and in context and when, heaven forbid, a PC bites the dust, that player may be very interested to hear you say, "Do you want to play an X?" An advantage of this approach is that it allows you, while controlling such NPCs, to iron out wrinkles in the race design before you grant the players access to them.

You know your players, I presume, so you'll know how accomodating they will be of fundamentally unfamiliar thngs as new races. Even so, your players are only human and they're going to lean towards playing human-like beings.

Good luck. And if you do create a new race, please post it on EN World!

 

[the Lorax]

If I were to start over again with my homebrew, I'd go with humans + only 1 or 2 races as the core (with allowances for those who just have to play something else). The problem is that my homebrew stretches back to before 1e AD&D, and there are a number of concepts that are part of the theme of the world. If you can, keep the number of races down, that way all the interesting things that you want to include into the background of the races can be condensed into a small number of races.

 

[Turjan]

If you can create three or four races and replace elves, gnomes or whatever else entirely, then you're players will be less likely to make a metagame determination that race x is a replacement for race y. This might make your creations more intriguing and consequently more appealing.

If you go too far in this direction, you will most probably meet the Talislanta syndrome. Talislanta is an intriguing world, but the learning curve is that high that most players balk at the idea of playing there. Your idea of human explorers in a new world is, of course, a very good way to handle this problem.

 

[Turjan]

If I were to start over again with my homebrew, I'd go with humans + only 1 or 2 races as the core

I also went with only 2 in my homebrew. I noticed, though, that this makes modern pluralist societies as shown in most fantasy settings more problematic, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but complicates play.

If you can, keep the number of races down, that way all the interesting things that you want to include into the background of the races can be condensed into a small number of races.

Most fantasy races are one-trick ponies. This has the advantage of strong stereotypes that facilitate playing (this is also a reason to pick standard races). If you paint them with broader strokes, they will step on each other's toes, which will in turn make several of them redundant. Which is not a bad thing, but is not always feasible with many players.

 

[Ranes]

Talislanta, Tekumel, Jorune... yes, they all run the risk you describe of literally alienating the players. Fair comment.

 

[Graf]

The only time you should add a new race is when they provide players the ability to tell a story that would be impossible without it.

Look at Eberron Changelings, Warforged and Khalashar all tell stories that are very difficult to do with existing races.
Like wise the differences between gnomes, halflings and dwarves are well deliniated.

Creating new races is a big pain the butt. If you balance them toward the human spectrum, or add in wonky new powers then they detract from the less powerful races (half-elves, etc). If you give them level adjustments players won't play them.
If you make them weak (balanced toward half-elves) people won't play them.

Etc. etc.