Who Else likes the Cantina?

[Rechan]

I think the cantina effect has it's place, but that it's in a more planar or borderland area. When I play D&D, I prefer for only one PC to pick an unusual race that really sticks out. Look at the heroes of the same movie. They're basically human with one really unusual character - Chewie (not counting the droids; they're sidekicks/hirelings).

By comparison, you have Babylon 5, where the only humans were the folks in charge. Which makes those differences important. Take Delen, where her choice to be half-human had an impact with everyone.

If only one guy in the group is human, then he is the freak. He is the guy that stands out.

You even get this with You even get this with Mass Effect (1 and 2), where the majority of the "crew", the main characters, are aliens and you only have 3 humans to the 4 aliens. Humans are the new upstarts on the scene, trying to get respect from the more longstanding aliens. Just like in B5. Humanity's importance and relevance in the galaxy was the undercurrent of the plots.

 

[FireLance]

I only left in the quote the parts I wanted to comment on. I have a problem one that I know for a fact other people who run games have. Any time I have seen someone try to run a setting of their own the players get very upset and suddenly want to play anything exept what the GM has said is alowed in their world setting. (See gamers 2: Dorkness rising to see a perfect example of this). If I said to my players I perfer to not have teiflings and devas in my world because the gods demons ect do not directly interact with the world that there is a barrier that prevents heavenly being from interacting exept when preists use certain spells, at least one person would suddenly have a need to play a Teifling Warlock. Its a certain amount of entitlement players have, if its in the book I am entitled to play it and the gm regardless of the fact that he puts so much work into the game and my having fun, cant tell me not to play it.

IMO, that is a problem with the player, not a problem with the Cantina as a concept.

 

[SKyOdin]

I for one love races that are wildly different and unusual. Heck, if I had my way, dwarves would have skin that was literally made out of stone and elves would be replaced by fairies. Then throw in cat-people, dog-people, centaurs, and about thirty other weird and unusual races.

I think it is also worth noting that as far as Sci-Fi goes, I hate rubber-forehead aliens with a passion. I would have had Star Fleet staffed with crustacean people, talking crickets, and telepathic rocks. The Star Wars Cantina scene is populated by too human-like of aliens for my tastes.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Is there anyone out there, besides myself, who likes the Cantina effect? Who enjoys the multi-Species approach to fantasy?

Generally, I myself enjoy the cantina for my own games. I love Planescape, and that lets me play d6's with mechanical limbs, eerie faces, and a predilection for making sense out of nonsense.

But I recognize that it is not always what you want in a game.

What bothers me (and only a little) about the Cantina being the default in 4e is that settings that want to limit options more have bigger problems doing so officially, leading to an exclusion of awesome things that don't have a lot of species diversity.

Like, if 4e Dark Sun feels the need to include Eladrin as a key component, I will be a Sad Panda.

If 4e can have some balls and can nix some races where they're not welcome, this is merely an academic concern.

I think the Cantina is a little out of place in PoLland, but only a little.

And I specifically think Dragonborn have a silly name (though the concept of a warrior-race is nice), and Tieflings were better when they were gutter-trash instead of being haughty imperial also-rans from Conan fanfic, and blink elves have kind of a silly main ability that exacerbates my dislike of pushing minis around on a plastic board, but those are all much more specific cricitisms.

I don't have any problem with default 4e being a cantina, as long as they can kick things out of settings where such things do not belong. Kind of like it, actually.

 

[Stormonu]

By comparison, you have Babylon 5, where the only humans were the folks in charge. Which makes those differences important. Take Delen, where her choice to be half-human had an impact with everyone.

If only one guy in the group is human, then he is the freak. He is the guy that stands out.

Ah, nice counterpoint. An all alien group, with one "token" human works in a manner similar to the all human one alien group.

Now, if a game were run in say, Planescape, I'd expect the characters to be a mix of aasimar, teiflings, modrons or even stranger characters. A game set in the Shadowfell would likely have a group consisting of various undead. A group adventuring in a lawless triangle between a goblinoid kingdom, elvin kingdom and a dwarven fortress-nation would probably have a pretty wild composition.

But if the campaign were something like Greyhawk set in the great city itself, or in the FR Dales, I'd expect a party composition that was, well, rather conservative. I suspect most games fall into this sort of human-dominated take. Certainly 1E through 3E encouraged this, and 4E does to a bit.

However, I think if you look closely at B5, the only real "wild" main character I can recall is J'car. Londo* (my favorite) and D'len*, while clearly not human might almost be considered dwarf & half-elf** if they were fantasy races; their appearance was fairly human and their alien traits overall subtle. The remaining primary characters of the series - Garibaldi, Franklin, Ivanova, Sheridan & Sinclair, were humans surrounded by alien cultures - though those cultures tended to be "off-stage" pieces.

Star Trek does this as well. There is a huge variety of races in the Star Trek universes, but among major characters, there tends to be only one or two really unusual characters in a given serial. Spock in TOS, Warf & Data in NextGen, Odo & Quark in DS9 (Dax could arguably be an "elf"), T'Pol and Phlox in Enterprise. (Sorry, don't know Voyager well enough to comment there, but I think you get the gist).

* In this case, I am counting Londo's "moon-faced assassin of joy" assistant, D'len's assistant and J'car's assistant as minor/follower characters instead of main characters.
** I guess the entire Minbari race would be "elves"?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I don't mind the Cantina in general, but I prefer not to play in such a setting for a long campaign (for fantasy). It's got advantages and disadvantages, just like a single-race-only campaign has.

 

[Kzach]

For me it really depends on the dynamic of the milieu. A dark sun game with dozens of races just wouldn't feel right. Even a Greyhawk game would lose some lustre if it didn't focus on the core four (humans, dwarves, elves, halflings) with a few extras for spice.

But somewhere like Faerun, especially the 4e version, where there are multitudes of planar gateways and worlds criss-crossing and disparate pockets of races scattered throughout the multiverse, sure, the more the merrier.

In fact, I think Toril with it's shattered landscape and numerous planar gateways to the Shadowfell, Feywild, various elemental rifts, motes, Underdark and whathaveyou, lends itself well to a Cantina style of play.

 

[Leatherhead]

I happen to believe that non-human races should be, non-human.
I dislike elves that are little more than pointy-eared hippies, and dwarves who are simply short Scotsmen.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Warforged, living crystals, Insect People, fey plants, animal-human crosses? Hell yes.

/signed

 

[erf_beto]

I dislike elves that are little more than pointy-eared hippies, and dwarves who are simply short Scotsmen.

Well, for me, this is the reason why I like them in the first place.

They are relatable.

You know how a human acts, thinks and (more importantly) feels. So its easier for noobs to roleplay them.

I said "for noobs".

It might be difficult for some to understand why you kill monsters, when all your friends are monsters too.

When you get past that stage, cantina style can be very interesting and fun, even though I prefer the other way. I like my worlds dominated by humans, with other races being very, very rare. I don't know, I just don't like it. I don't have a problem with a player wanting to try something different, but in a world (my default world), where most towns and castles and kingdoms are pratically xenophobic human-centric, it's harder to start a heroic adventuring carreer when your whole group is playing as insectoid fey-plant crystals from another dimension...

But that's just me.