LotR gets filtered from D&D more with each edition.

[Red Archon]

It's not even about what the dwarf needs on his journey, ie. the "I have rations for 10 days" is completely viable. But when you enter a dwarf town, everything you design about it has to come from somewhere. Usually? Bullshit you made up/picked up from Tolkien or some other dude who also barely gave it thought. Like; is the city entirely underground? Why/why not? Do they have cattle? Do they have farms? Mushroom cavern farms? Where do they get their water? Do they even need it? The whole city map alone is going to be either "human guys living in a hole" or an actual setting-specific point of interest. If it's just "human hole," it's got little to do with a setting, it's just a group of humans with +2 con, -2 cha and no bonus feat and skill.

Wheter or not that's somehow a bad thing, I'm not the guy to give that judgement. But to me, adventure is also about adventure sites, not just the foes I fight (also, by the way, related to the biology/ecology of the area) and what loot I get (which again is tied to the lifestyle of the inhabiting race). I don't need to be told by the DM how many fucking calories the Fiendish Squid Mucus is that the ancient tribe of Muchabubathixes eat. But I'd like to be going to the Squid Lake instead of Generic Barbarian Nest.

There's no way of making a city asides from Generic Mall without it being tied to the biology, ie. the feces of the inhabiting race. Biology has everything to do with politics.

[A Man In Black]

And there is nothing wrong with that. Except for the fact that it means that none of the races are actually very alien at all. They can't be, because all of their basic information is being filled in as "humanlike unless stated otherwise."

And I'm okay with that, because unless the author is prepared to offer me a good story to go along with the unusual biological quality of the race, I don't care. While a book that details the races down to specific biological qualities would be interesting, a sketched-out game setting that is written in such a way that the Book of Biology would be impractical is not deficient for me, because such a book is unlikely even if the setting allowed it.

I don't think having 37 million races makes it unlikely that they'll get the biological treatment that you're talking about. Instead, it's rather that you need an RPG author with a Tolkien-grade obsession with xenobiology to even see such descriptions in the first place. When we do get xenobiological descriptions in RPG material, it's almost always unusuable shit. (WH40K is lousy with completely impractical and unusuable xenobiology, for example.)

So while it'd be great to see a game/setting/whatever that did go into that sort of detail, I don't see a design decision that makes that level of detail impractical as a design flaw. And if someone wants to go into that level of design detail on cultures, as long as you're willing to tolerate Star-Wars-style unrealistic diversity, having 37 million races is not an obstacle.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Like; is the city entirely underground? Why/why not? Do they have cattle? Do they have farms? Mushroom cavern farms? Where do they get their water? Do they even need it? The whole city map alone is going to be either "human guys living in a hole" or an actual setting-specific point of interest.

I don't see what's so hard about it. Answer all of the questions randomly or towards what you think would be the coolest answer and then reverse-deconstruct why.

And once you have enough 'why's you can use it to answer more questions if need be. That's why it's important to hit the big questions first. We don't actually need descriptions of how dwarves love to decorate their armor with gemstones, we can infer it from the fact that they live underground. We don't need long amounts of description about how elves love bows and spears and eschew metal equipment, we can infer it from the fact that they live in the damn forest.

[Username17]

We don't need long amounts of description about how elves love bows and spears and eschew metal equipment, we can infer it from the fact that they live in the damn forest.

What the fuck?

Let me introduce you to one of the iconic armies of human history who come from the forest: The Teutonic Knights.

Forests are a major source of charcoal, which is a key ingredient of steel. Forests make really shitty farmland, so people who live in and around forested areas tend to not farm much. Which pretty much leaves hunting and industry as ways to sustain your settlement. You have plenty of historical reality to lean on having the woodland dwelling dudes be extreme plate armor and steel swords people. If you want them to be leather and wood using pre-metal empire builders, you fucking have to say so. There is no way to reliably infer that from the fact that they come from the Schwarzwald.

Answer all of the questions randomly or towards what you think would be the coolest answer and then reverse-deconstruct why.

Sure. You go answer all of the questions randomly, and I'll go answer all the questions randomly, and then we'll see how many of our answers match up. I'm guessing some number less than half. And what that means is that if we tell a cooperative story we are going to have numerous continuity errors. That is to say that it will end up like the Trill in Star Trek, where the Trill in the original TNG episode The Host look and act completely different from the Trill in DS9, and the facts talked about them are totally incompatible - different DMs, totally different forehead aliens.

And believe it or not, that can be worked to your advantage. If and only if you open up the big list of forehead aliens to the players. When everything is totally in flux and there are continuity errors that make you say "Wait... what?" all the time, you might as well pull down the good part as well: the fact that your world is totally covered in white space that any of the players can draw on. And then yeah, the players can pull out some race that hasn't gotten much screen time like a minotaur or a raptoran and then write in any damn thing they want. The player who grabs one of these races can write in any damn thing he wants and it won't tread on any canon and it won't contradict or interfere with any other story thus far. Maybe the Raptorans hatch from eggs and have no way to know who their mothers are, so they are all raised communally in village creches. Maybe Raptoran bones are hollow and filled with air so that they can make tones by flicking their arms at different points along the length. Whatever.

But the price you pay for giving every player that much white space is that once they've filled it up, it won't look a damn thing like anyone else's filled white space - so shared worlding becomes a cruel hoax at best. Also: furries are going to tell you at length about how they filled that white space with giant penises on Gnoll women in their own games.

But yes, a kitchen sink setting can be empowering to the players if you allow them to grab anything they want out of the sink and develop it freely. I don't think a new version of D&D could hope to survive if it was anything else.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

A Shadowrun Ork is actually a homo sapiens and is exactly and specifically a human being. And it is nevertheless more different from a regulation human than a D&D Orc is because it has basic data written up about basic biological functions.

What book has these kinds of things written up? I didn't notice anything like that in the core book.

[Prak]

But any day that you don't get told specifically about someone fucking a dragon is by definition a good day.

This is true. But it's also a two pronged question.

damnit frank.. that was just bad...

See, everything you don't spell out for the races of your game world defaults to human standard. Which means that if you don't specify something, those dragon men are going to have some sort of biologically compatible wang that they can fuck human maidens with. In short: if you don't devote a little bit of text to dragons fucking other dragons, you're going to be bombarded with fanfiction about dragons fucking elves, and horses, and whatever else.

And some people want that in their stories. Some people want dragons that fuck anything that moves, some people want dragons that can breed themselves an army of dragon men by kidnapping a few kingdoms worth of nubile virgin princesses.

But some people don't. And I understand that.
Personally, I like the idea of Dragons being omnifertile, with the evil ones breeding super soldier armies of their children and the good ones not uncommonly mating with members of other species for life, possibly even to the point where there's a gold dragon living in a town as a human man, and no one knows until the 869th Abyssal battalian comes to town to rape and pillage and Joe the barber hulks out and starts breathing fire.

This isn't even an exaggeration. Dragonborn women have breasts and nurse their young. Because 4e didn't bother to talk about how Dragonborn might reproduce and grow to adulthood without being placental mammals, they ended up being placental mammals by default. Under the scales they apparently have the same ovaries and uterus as a human woman, because no one could spare the space to do them up any different and that's what comes standard.

and again, some people want their scalies quasi-mammalian. I don't know about 4e dragonborn, but in 3rd they were originally people who basically decided to get a scaly make over, so it makes sense that some/most could have breasts and a human-ish reproductive system.
But then again, part of the reason some people want their scalies to have tits is because that's how they distinguish females, so to them, no tits=male (not that it's right, it seems kind of a low 4chan mentality to me...) but then some people just like tits, and want them on everything including "female" mimics. And when it gets to that point you just gloss over the whole "boob issue" and let them imagine whatever they want, so long as they don't talk about it, or you don't play with that person.

But I suppose it could be considered one of those conversations people have to have before starting a game. But I suppose it also depends on how much nookie the characters will be getting up to...

This becomes rather gross on many levels when you contemplate it a bit. For example: Elves almost certainly eat their own shit. They are often portrayed as vegetarians who eat raw food. But they default to the same simple digestive tract of humans, which means that as lifestyle they would have to live like mole rats and eat all their food twice.

I'm glad I never portrayed my elves as hippy raw foodists then...

We do our sanity no favors by giving races simple and dramatic differences from humans and allowing human traits to fill in everything unspecified.

-Username17

or we can continue to gloss over things and not have to think about Elf salad having Elf Pellets as a topping.

furries are going to tell you at length about how they filled that white space with giant penises on Gnoll women in their own games.

It's true. And since gnolls are based on hyenas, there's really only two problems when it's put that way...

[RandomCasualty2]

For me, it's about meaningful choices. The things you take for your character should generally mean something, in both a mechanical and a role playing sense.

The Star Trek analogy is a good one, and goes to show how common races are better than random races from nowhere. Common races being those that have a place in the world as opposed to ones that came from some random area that nobody cares about.

In Star Trek, picking a Vulcan, Klingon or a Romulan makes people react different to you. Data being an android gets people reacting differently to him. And that's good. That's seriously what you want an RPG to be like, so your character gets a different play experience if you're an android scientist versus a human or Romulan scientist.

The lesser races that get encountered once are basically NPC races. You generally don't want a PC to be one of these races, because they're just not very interesting to the general storyline.

Now this doesn't mean you're always stuck with the same races. Depending on the game world and campaign focus you can add more main focus races. In Deep Space 9 for instance, Bajorans, Cardassians and the Dominion races became part of the main focus. Indeed even the lesser races like the Trill and Farengi got their own story arcs in DS9. And that's really what a good campaign needs to do.

If you don't plan on ever focusing on the role of minotaurs in your game world, then honestly, you shouldn't let PCs play them. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to be hunted fugitives, but it does mean that they need some kind of history and association.

Eberron actually does this pretty well with its new races. Warforged and Shifters have a decent racial identity. They've had their feuds with people, they're a part of the history of the land, and generally feel good. A random PC playing as a goliath in a world that has no goliaths just doesn't capture that. The character has no idea what he's doing there and never quite feels like he fits in. And in truth, he really doesn't. The DM honestly doesn't want to bother including goliaths or Raptorians in his world and while he may let you play that character, it's really not doing the campaign any good. And at that point, why not just be a human and make some effort to attach your character to the world?

[CatharzGodfoot]

RC, in DS9 you're allowed to play the only Shapeshifter in the alpha quadrant (until, of course, this otherwise NPC race decides to stage an invasion). Similarly, the only reason that Trill get a treatment is that one of the PCs happens to be Trill.

The party is primarily human and elf, but there there are also the following 'monster' PCs: a hobgoblin, a doppelganger, a kalashar, and a goblin.

[DragonChild]

As someone who's working on a sci-fi setting with different races, this is really fascinating to me. Frank, do you think we could get an explanation on different types of biological nutrients, where they can come from (both in D&D-land and in modern/advanced worlds)? I've been researching this stuff lately, and all I can find are crude essays about dextro-proteins, which while usable, are kinda boring. Hell, I'd love any kind of essay focused on biology of fantasy and alien species that focuses on actual science and practicality rather than hand-wavy nonsense.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There is no way to reliably infer that from the fact that they come from the Schwarzwald.

Unless the deity and/or culture says that cutting trees and gouging the earth is heavily frowned on--and almost every elf-writeup worth its salt has some bullshit about elves revering teh natures and living among the trees all of their lives and poo-pooing technology and all that jazz. Then it becomes pretty easy to guess.

But the price you pay for giving every player that much white space is that once they've filled it up, it won't look a damn thing like anyone else's filled white space - so shared worlding becomes a cruel hoax at best.

Unless I'm playing something like LFR or LG, why should I care that over in Billy Bob's setting down the street dwarven females grow beards and dwarves eat rocks for sustenance while in my setting dwarven females lay eggs while other dwarves get all of their nutrition from ethanol?

[mean_liar]

They could just whistle up the metal from the mountain or ground, and it gives it willingly. It doesn't have to be strip-mining.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Unless the deity and/or culture says that cutting trees and gouging the earth is heavily frowned on--and almost every elf-writeup worth its salt has some bullshit about elves revering teh natures and living among the trees all of their lives and poo-pooing technology and all that jazz. Then it becomes pretty easy to guess.

That reminds me: How do elves forge mythril? Out of moonbeams and fairy dust? Do they refine it from the fallen leaves of the mythril tree every autumn?

[Jilocasin]

Do they refine it from the fallen leaves of the mythril tree every autumn?

Hmmmmmmmm.

[K]

But some people don't. And I understand that.
Personally, I like the idea of Dragons being omnifertile, with the evil ones breeding super soldier armies of their children and the good ones not uncommonly mating with members of other species for life, possibly even to the point where there's a gold dragon living in a town as a human man, and no one knows until the 869th Abyssal battalian comes to town to rape and pillage and Joe the barber hulks out and starts breathing fire.

I prefer all super-soldier armies be produced with dark magic. It keeps me from ever having to think about dragon cock.

[Lokathor]

As someone who's working on a sci-fi setting with different races, this is really fascinating to me. Frank, do you think we could get an explanation on different types of biological nutrients, where they can come from (both in D&D-land and in modern/advanced worlds)? I've been researching this stuff lately, and all I can find are crude essays about dextro-proteins, which while usable, are kinda boring. Hell, I'd love any kind of essay focused on biology of fantasy and alien species that focuses on actual science and practicality rather than hand-wavy nonsense.

I second this motion quite a bit. Particularly:
``People who mostly eat mushrooms and cave plants (like Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress, if you've ever played that)
``People who mostly eat meats and roots because they live in a cold place where most larger plants just have pine needles.
``People who mostly eat leaves and fruits, because they live in forests or hills or whatever.

And maybe something about eating pine needles or dirt or other things that humans can't but maybe a fantasy race can.

[Cielingcat]

I prefer all super-soldier armies be produced with dark magic. It keeps me from ever having to think about dragon cock.

I'm perfectly fine with biological super soldiers, as long as they're grown in vats or something like that. Beyond the disturbing dragon cock images, breeding an army of super soldiers by raping random women is A) really disturbing with no "cool!" effects like undead or vat grown monstrosities and B) not efficient at all.

No matter how fertile you are, breeding an army with your own seed is just stupid. You can't just go around raping people, because that doesn't actually give you an army-you'd have to kidnap and support them throughout the pregnancy, and then you have to raise the children and train them into being an army.

If you want to think about dragon rape, the product of that should end up being a major NPC, not a nameless mook. Baldur's Gate had Bhaal creating an army of mortal progeny to ensure his resurrection, but this "army" was seriously like a couple dozen people. Also, one of them was a dragon, who then had a kid of his own. How two generations of dragon ended up growing to adulthood inside like a single generation, I have no idea.

[Username17]

For me, it's about meaningful choices. The things you take for your character should generally mean something, in both a mechanical and a role playing sense.

I can agree with that.

The Star Trek analogy is a good one, and goes to show how common races are better than random races from nowhere. Common races being those that have a place in the world as opposed to ones that came from some random area that nobody cares about.

Th thing is: any race can become common just by some player getting screen time. Ensign Ro is a member of the Bajorans. Before she gets some screen time, no one has heard of them and no one cares. They are just a race with a Wisdom bonus and some nose wrinkles in the long list of races with nose wrinkles and stat mods. But eight episodes with Ro Laren later, Bajorans are now a major race in the plot, and all the players have immediate reactions to seeing new Bajorans.

In Star Trek, picking a Vulcan, Klingon or a Romulan makes people react different to you. Data being an android gets people reacting differently to him. And that's good. That's seriously what you want an RPG to be like, so your character gets a different play experience if you're an android scientist versus a human or Romulan scientist.

Don't you see how you just picked he perfect counter example? Data is a Sungian Android. In the entire history of the galaxy, there have been like ten of those things. Data is a major character and because of that, Sungian Androids are important. The vast majority of people who meet him for the first time have no idea what he is, and he gives the "Hello, my species is..." speech several dozen times over the course of the show. He is a minor forehead race you've never heard of. There is basically no background or culture on Sungian Androids before Data's player starts making it up, and the only other Sungian Androids we ever meet are close relatives of the player character.

The lesser races that get encountered once are basically NPC races. You generally don't want a PC to be one of these races, because they're just not very interesting to the general storyline.

Again, you couldn't be more wrong: the Trill are literally and specifically a one-shot race you've never heard of unless you were in that one adventure of TNG where they encounter a grand total of two of them. However, once DS9 starts, we put a Trill in command of one of th Players, and then she starts making up Trill culture and mating habits and stuff. And a lot of it is totally discontinuous with the original adventure with Trill as one-shot NPCs, but we're cool with it because Dax's player is pretty awesome at telling her brain bug stories.

Odo goes even farther. His player opted to be not only a unique species, but also to have amnesia so he didn't need to write a cultural backstory. And then eventually the DM got sick of it and retconned in an evil empire of shapeshifters that he was nominally from. But since his character was fun, that was totally OK.

Now this doesn't mean you're always stuck with the same races. Depending on the game world and campaign focus you can add more main focus races. In Deep Space 9 for instance, Bajorans, Cardassians and the Dominion races became part of the main focus. Indeed even the lesser races like the Trill and Farengi got their own story arcs in DS9. And that's really what a good campaign needs to do.

Now you're getting it. In a world of forehead alien races, you can pick up and run with any of the races at any time. Simply by making a member of the race into a major character you're making the race important.

In 4e D&D land, there is no reason that Elves and Eladrin have to be major races. They only become major races if people play them or they are used for important NPCs. If one of the PCs is a Gnome Orbizard, Gnomes will become important. If one of the PCs is a Goliath Hammer Brother, Goliaths will become unimportant.

If you don't plan on ever focusing on the role of minotaurs in your game world, then honestly, you shouldn't let PCs play them. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to be hunted fugitives, but it does mean that they need some kind of history and association.

Exactly wrong. If one of the players rolls Minotaur, then the Minotaurs will get focused on. And a lot of the Minotaur culture will be player generated. Maybe the player moos a lot. Or maybe he acts really brash, or contemplative, or kind, or cruel. Whatever it is that the player does, wherever they go with that character, that is the Minotaur that players will remember.

-Username17

[A Man In Black]

``People who mostly eat mushrooms and cave plants (like Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress, if you've ever played that)

I thought dorfs mostly ate roast cat.

[Lokathor]

I usually stick to underground farming, kitten butchering, and whatever it is that the caravans bring in (mostly fish and turtle, which i request, and some other meats).

I've never built a kitchen because I've never needed the extra food production.

[Prak]

No no, it's rats, and their baked goods are to die from... er... for...

[Koumei]

I thought dorfs mostly ate roast cat.

Don't be silly, they eat rats. With sauce*.

*Citation: the Discworld

[Prak]

yep, and for a truely authentic rat pie, the little noses have to stick out of the edge.

[A Man In Black]

Don't be silly, they eat rats. With sauce*.

*Citation: the Discworld

Those are dwarfs. I was talking about Dwarf Fortress dorfs.

[God_of_Awesome]

I do have some cool detail worked out; like how orcs are herbivores, speak back to back and stereotype their people based on tusk position, how their are three types of elves and three types of dwarves and each was pair with another as allies until all but one pair ended in betrayal, each type of elf has a mafia, furries were created by the Emperor as soldiers and societies on demand when he conquered the shit out of everything 1000 years ago, each mafia elf hires out a specific furry breed for thuggery, dwarves invented warforged, halflings invented common, gnomes are Fantasy Jews and I just realized that oh god I'm so ashamed, kobolds are fantasy Koreans what the hell is wrong with me, humans are ohmygodtheyrewhitepeoplewhy.

[Koumei]

Those are dwarfs. I was talking about Dwarf Fortress dorfs.

Ah. When I played it, I replaced them with goblins.