Your campaign -- Hangups with generic material

[jester47]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I've never been a fan of the Elven Forest Kingdom where all the elves are chaotic-good or the Dwarven Mountain City where all the dwarves are lawful-good. In my world, the races share the same living space. A kingdom is just as likely to have a human ruler as an elf or dwarf. An empire with a human emperor is very likely to have cities with goblin or elf mayors.

Same thing with religions. It seems in most RPG stuff, the humans have several different pantheons of gods to choose from depending upon where they live, but all of the demi-humans throughout the whole world are expected to just follow one pantheon (the gods of the Dwarves, etc.). Whose to say that all Dwarves follow the same gods? And, why can't elves and goblins and dwarves and humans follow the same religion? So, I also have elves and goblins and such acting as high-level priests in the same religious system.

I agree with this 100%. I would suspect that as goblins and elves were concerned because of racial hatreds and such that there would be segregation. Elves would want thier own area in a city, and everyone would want to put the goblins in a ghetto. But yeah, I do not see why a race should be cornered into an alignment or faith. Maybe they are predisposed to such, but I would not say that they have to follow one pantheon. I think there would be gods that looked out for thier own though. I think that certain cities would ban certian creatures based on politics and such.

No giants are allowed in town not because they are bad but simply because they eat too much and even if the giants could pay for all the food, they would eat too much and may cause a shortage later. Orcs are allowed only if they beheve themselves, Trolls are banned, Goblins are numbered and have to check in and out at the gates, Lizard men are allowed but only if clothed, troglodytes by order of kings ordinance must conduct business through the city sewers, etc. etc...

 

[Plane Sailing]

These sound like nitpicks but most "generic" RPG supplements assume that:
1) Each demi-human race has its own "kingdom" or empire or whatever and they don't live alongside the other races, and

I find this very interesting, since my perception is very different (maybe we just look at different modules!). My campaign world is one where there is massive segregation between races - to the extent that few humans alive have ever seen a dwarf or an elf, and there are no gnomes or halflings at all! I find that every adventure module which I look at throws around elvish bartenders and gnomish locksmiths with gay abandon, so I have to turn them all into humans to suit my campaign.

I guess FR is a good example where there are kingdoms of the elves (which you find difficult to integrate) as well as races mixed throughout all the societies (which I find difficult to integrate).

This is why it is always interesting to hear what other people are doing and looking at... keeps us on our toes, shows us different perspectives

Cheers