Exactly wrong.K wrote:At the end of the day, "few races" as an option just looks like lazy and uncreative design.
You know that a design is perfect not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Username17
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That's a really good question.angelfromanotherpin wrote:Look, the system has to be able to have whatever setting put into it. Some people want kitchen-sink settings with seven superfluous flavors of elf, and while that may or may not be lame, I think it's madness to try to stop them. That's what they want to do, let them.
So what are we actually talking about here?
You can't play "stranger in a strange land" when everybody just says, "Oh, a half-dragon, half-construct gnome vampire? Cool, I haven't seen one of those in weeks!"K wrote:Playing "stranger in a strange land" is as much of an RPG hook as any other, except you also get to do racial RPG when people from your race follow you to where you are("on no, ninjas/my tribe/guildmen have tracked me down to repay an old debt/avenge someone/bring me back by force!).
Also: cultures, species, and races in a magic setting can be difficult to distinguish.K wrote:At the end of the day, "few races" as an option just looks like lazy and uncreative design.
No.FrankTrollman wrote: If you have a party that has an L5R samurai, a Dark Sun Psychic, and a Krynnish Tinker, you do not have a game. That's not a cooperative storytelling game of fantasy adventure, that's a TFOS team. Anything too out-there and absurdist to make it onto a Saturday morning cartoon show is just indescribably lame.
The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pmNobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.
So the first time someone says "I want to play a different race" or a DM says "I want to add a race" and the system doesn't do that and they have to stop using your system and homebrew it, then your design is not perfect?FrankTrollman wrote:Exactly wrong.K wrote:At the end of the day, "few races" as an option just looks like lazy and uncreative design.
You know that a design is perfect not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Username17
I played 2e, and I don't recall half-elves ever being cool.Tydanosaurus wrote:You can't play "stranger in a strange land" when everybody just says, "Oh, a half-dragon, half-construct gnome vampire? Cool, I haven't seen one of those in weeks!"K wrote:Playing "stranger in a strange land" is as much of an RPG hook as any other, except you also get to do racial RPG when people from your race follow you to where you are("on no, ninjas/my tribe/guildmen have tracked me down to repay an old debt/avenge someone/bring me back by force!).
I can't begin to tell you how disappointed my wife was when we switched from 2E, where her half-elf was presented as a kind of cool, somewhat unusual race, to 3E, where you could easily be whatever the hell you wanted.
Ssssssssssstrawman.K wrote:Making only five races and many cultures has just as much or as little bigotry as many races and many cultures. It just means that in the few races system, people say things like "All Westerners are evil" rather than saying "all orcs are evil."
Xenophobia affects cultures just as easily as race, and minimizing races doesn't affect that.
Absolutely not. This is perhaps the single most destructive and pernicious idea inflicting itself on game design the world over, and it has got to stop. Systems don't have to be able to have any setting input into them. They can't. When you make a system, you make the world with it.Angelfromanotherpin wrote:Look, the system has to be able to have whatever setting put into it.
Here is what a strawman argument is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. Feel free to come back when you know what the hell you are talking about.Tydanosaurus wrote:Ssssssssssstrawman.K wrote:Making only five races and many cultures has just as much or as little bigotry as many races and many cultures. It just means that in the few races system, people say things like "All Westerners are evil" rather than saying "all orcs are evil."
Xenophobia affects cultures just as easily as race, and minimizing races doesn't affect that.
The issue isn't xeonphobia or evilness, but the immutability of characteristics. If eviliality is tied to race, a lot of people are going to go w/ the 3.x "Orcs are pure evil" theory. Cultures are always changeable, so the currently despicable and evil British Orcs can soon become our allies, the freedom-loving and peppy British Orcs.
There aren't "minor races." There's just races that can be played, and races that can't. If a race can be played, it will be, and from that point on it's not a "stranger" to your table.K wrote:Whatever. I see your point that a "half-dragon, half-construct gnome vampire" is a bloated concept, but I don't see your point as to what that has to do with the RP.
At the end of the day, you pick your setting and your major races and anyone from a minor race plays "stranger from a strange land."
Sure you can. It's RP, so you seriously can have peasants come out and throw rocks and merchants refuse to make lizard-man armor. You can even assign penalties like "-4 to social checks when near your allies."Tydanosaurus wrote:There aren't "minor races." There's just races that can be played, and races that can't. If a race can be played, it will be, and from that point on it's not a "stranger" to your table.K wrote:Whatever. I see your point that a "half-dragon, half-construct gnome vampire" is a bloated concept, but I don't see your point as to what that has to do with the RP.
At the end of the day, you pick your setting and your major races and anyone from a minor race plays "stranger from a strange land."
I don't think there's an argument that a system requires less xenophobia or evilness with fewer races. That is a strawman you created on your own. The issue was whether that bigotry would as automatic and reflexive, and as immutable, with races rather than cultures as the issue.K wrote:Here is what a strawman argument is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. Feel free to come back when you know what the hell you are talking about.Tydanosaurus wrote:Ssssssssssstrawman.K wrote:Making only five races and many cultures has just as much or as little bigotry as many races and many cultures. It just means that in the few races system, people say things like "All Westerners are evil" rather than saying "all orcs are evil."
Xenophobia affects cultures just as easily as race, and minimizing races doesn't affect that.
The issue isn't xeonphobia or evilness, but the immutability of characteristics. If eviliality is tied to race, a lot of people are going to go w/ the 3.x "Orcs are pure evil" theory. Cultures are always changeable, so the currently despicable and evil British Orcs can soon become our allies, the freedom-loving and peppy British Orcs.
Frank and I long ago agreed that "alignment" would not be tied to race except in the extreme case of things like angels and devils. Since we have at no point in this thread discussed assigning immutable racial "good and evil" tags to people, your whole argument is as meaningless as it is erroneous.
Wow, you've just required "strange" species to invest more in social skills. Or create a system where some people just suck at stuff, I'm not sure. Either way, I bow to your leet skills.K wrote:Sure you can. It's RP, so you seriously can have peasants come out and throw rocks and merchants refuse to make lizard-man armor. You can even assign penalties like "-4 to social checks when near your allies."Tydanosaurus wrote:There aren't "minor races." There's just races that can be played, and races that can't. If a race can be played, it will be, and from that point on it's not a "stranger" to your table.K wrote:Whatever. I see your point that a "half-dragon, half-construct gnome vampire" is a bloated concept, but I don't see your point as to what that has to do with the RP.
At the end of the day, you pick your setting and your major races and anyone from a minor race plays "stranger from a strange land."
The rules of the system inform the setting, and RP penalties can seriously be felt if you try at all. Either works to make a minor race strange and exotic.
Also, as a note "stanger from a strange land" is a way of interacting with the game world. It doesn't matter what other PCs do, only what NPCs do.
You have half a point there.FrankTrollman wrote:[
In a game based on James Bond spying, there should not be a Willpower defense at all. Higher level characters all have high Willpowers unless they have a disadvantage that makes them weak willed. Defenses in such a system should be along the lines of Toughness, Speed, Stealth, Unobtrusiveness. Crap like Willpower and Magic Resistance don't exist, and they shouldn't appear in the system. D20 Modern was crap because it attempted to take a system designed for Rifts: Fantasy and tried to apply it to Gumshoe Detectivery, and that's bullshit.
Dude, I've played very specific games. I've played The Mountain Witch, which is the best Reservoir-Dogs-meets-ronin-fantasy-in-a-journey-up-Mount-Fuji-to-kill-a-witch game there is. That style of design can work - but I don't think too many people are here for that. People are looking for a kickass level-based fantasy system that they can do their own world-building for.FrankTrollman wrote:Absolutely not. This is perhaps the single most destructive and pernicious idea inflicting itself on game design the world over, and it has got to stop. Systems don't have to be able to have any setting input into them. They can't. When you make a system, you make the world with it.Angelfromanotherpin wrote:Look, the system has to be able to have whatever setting put into it.
Totally. To be strange, a race has to have blue skin and really big eyebrows. Or covered in feathers. Or have a giant bug for a head. Or orange skin and shark teeth. Or green skin and big tusks.Tydanosaurus wrote: You can monkey your setting around all you want, but there is no way on gawd's green earth that you can make it exotic to play a dwarf. Or a human. Or any other standard race. You will pretend that your setting, in which minotaurs, goblins and trolls are the main races and barbarian elves live as desert nomads (or whatever your creative concept is) is sooooo different, but an elf is an elf. And whatever standard race your system allows is just that, a standard race.
Shorter: Familiarity = not strange.
Unless you go with a "raceless" system where every race gets no extra abilities, some races are going to be better at some things (either slightly or greatly). Show me a system where that is not true and I'd take it under consideration.Tydanosaurus wrote: Wow, you've just required "strange" species to invest more in social skills. Or create a system where some people just suck at stuff, I'm not sure. Either way, I bow to your leet skills.
I played 2e for around five years. Yes, I would have liked to play a new race because I got really bored with the basic races.Tydanosaurus wrote: I doubt you actually played 2E much, or you'd remember how truly cool it was to think of a Drow character, or a Minotaur character. I know you never played 1E, or you'd remember how revolutionary it was to think of playing a Centaur or a Werebear. Those, K, were "strangers in a strange land." You didn't need minor changes to social skills to feel the difference, regardless of setting.
In the end, I think we have a difference of opinion here. I think unless you impress the other players at the table, there's not much point in playing a "strange" character. YMMV.
And that's the core of why you're wrong. It's a cooperative story. The important thing isn't just that you are happy, it's that everyone is happy. Your character doesn't just have to fit into your mental story, it has to fit into the mental story of every single player.K wrote:Since it's an RP choice, all that matters is that I'm happy.
The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pmNobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.