Animal People in Cities

[Prak]

So, the important parts as I see them-

• contemporary, urban setting
• Anthropomorphic animals are either the whole of the setting population, or a significant enough, even if internally mixed, portion of the population to have businesses that are solely operated and patronized by anthropomorphic animals
• The Anthropomorphic characters act like the animals they are based on (which is minor fluff shit, so, kinda lowest priority)
• There is intrigue which leads to physical conflict (ie, the conflict of the setting isn't played out in psychic powers and shit like in VtM, people grumble at each other and socially jockey, but there's a point where the claws come out and people bleed). Like, the game which is inspired by Zootopia and Lone Digger's music video has a serviceable politicking system, but it isn't at the expense of the combat system. And that combat system should allow for lethal unarmed combat that isn't a slog.

After Sundown, or a hack of it, would be a good system for this, so that's a good portion of why I've been poking at an AS hack for "Animal People in Cities," along with the fact that's an easier system to work with than to sort out the Bio-E thing from Rifts and hack it into a better system, tho that is something I'd like to incorporate, because there are definitely different levels of animal person across the various things I've cited as source material for a game like this.

Edit: it occurs to me that between the general style of Caravan Palace's music, and the music videos for some of their songs in particular, I'm also envisioning this hypothetical game as being more about playing characters in a seedy underworld

[Point]

sticking a monkey tail on an otherwise human character does not an animal person make

I was going to say something snarky about humans being technically animals already, but that got me thinking. Couldn't you just take a system you like that has humans or humanoids and tweak/rename them?

Orcs are mostly pig monsters (sometimes), dwarves could be moles, elves could be, say, cats, and so on. You could do that for class/profession instead.

On one hand, you'd not end up creating much of a new system, but on the other you'd not have to create much of a new system.

Toon did that. Its sample fantasy parody just used dogs, cats, mice, and so on as the major races, gave them some completely non-balanced checked stat buffs (which is fine, since this is Toon) and declared Parody Complete.

Since the differences between humanoids is mostly asthetic, racial differences for any particular theme are trivial.

In PF, Skinwalkers are a thing. In 3x, if you allow for LA, there are even more hybrids available. And there are Darfellan, a race you all missed above.

People-are-animals isn't a genre in fantasy. It's a motif, and a thin one at that. It means nothing in and of itself, outside of negating a human-only milieu. Within the confines of fantasy: it precludes nothing, it demands nothing, it prohibits nothing, so it's nigh-impossible to give useful suggestions about it. It's like saying "I want my fantasy to have swords." The OP will need to provide some detail.

[Prak]

I've provided plenty of detail, at least for people to offer some input that's actually meaningful.

So, how about you read that, and if that's not enough, maybe familiarize yourself with the culture of the board so that terms like source material and the understanding that d20 is shit for contemporary adventure heists are familiar to you, and then come back when you're up to speed and have something more interesting to say then "just call elves cat people lawlz"

[deaddmwalking]

I don't think Point was off-base.

You said you're looking for a system. You've talked about using several including After Sundown and D&D. If you find a system that you like, you can probably easily hack it for animal-people.

Like, if you think Shadowrun is the right system for a seedy-underworld you just use that system. And you create a race that includes 'cybernetics' for the animal you want, and you don't charge them for it, but if you're using the priority system than they need to use a higher priority for race (like with Troll). So you choose 'Fox person' and you get the perception augments and some increased mental stats and you don't lose any humanity and you're done.

The potential problem with that is that animal-people are all going to end up feeling very similar. Because the truth is that animals and people aren't very different to begin with; there's only so many times you can make something more perceptive or slightly stronger or slightly faster or slightly tougher (or a combination of all of them) before you have to duplicate.

In most games, there are already multiple races with slight variations. Whatever system you use you replace those existing races with animal-people - and in fact, adding a monkey tail DOES a monkey-person make. If Shadowrun doesn't have elves, but it does have cat people, like, what else are you expecting to be different?

[Point]

The potential problem with that is that animal-people are all going to end up feeling very similar. Because the truth is that animals and people aren't very different to begin with; there's only so many times you can make something more perceptive or slightly stronger or slightly faster or slightly tougher (or a combination of all of them) before you have to duplicate.

Indeed, that’s the issue. Animals aren’t too different from humans, and neither are orcs, elves, or dwarves. If you want serious differences in sapients you start to hit hard-SF tropes. Pierson’s Puppeteers satisfy the “difference” criteria, but they don’t flow naturally into a traditional fantasy milieu. The Kzin from the same author are literal cat-people, but if you’re comfortable with one gender being non-sapient you’ve a stronger stomach than I.

I've provided plenty of detail, at least for people to offer some input that's actually meaningful.

So, how about you read that, and if that's not enough, maybe familiarize yourself with the culture of the board

Let me stop you right there.

I've lurked here, and very rarely posted (with one-off accounts since I can’t be arsed to remember my login), for approximately 10 years. Most of the time I'm busy and don't care to comment, especially since by the time I can chime in, the error I'd address or substance I'd add was already covered since I don't often operate at Internet-speed.

Hell, I don’t like most forums because a civil and civilized commentary can be met with unfounded vitriol.

You can even see that above. I didn’t suggest that —

"just call elves cat people lawlz"

— I was commenting on the fact that someone else made that comment and saying that it had already been done. I didn’t even say that it had been done well — indeed, I implied that it was a thoroughgoingly uninteresting take and further implied that the uninteresting result was because the underlying substance (Tolkien humanoids and animalistic humanoids) didn’t have a lot of depth within their default cliches. You literally misread my comment in order to protect your e-peen.

So here’s the thing. My comment was correct, you got butthurt as a result, and instead of appreciating the fact that I literally helped you out — some of my suggestions were novel for the thread — you wallowed in your insecurity, hoping to rely on some sort of forum-based-seniorty to cover for your shortcomings.

Let me continue to help. Maybe your problem has less to do with your obvious lack of articulation and more to do with the fact that you’re a whiny little bitch?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think if you aren't satisfied with a Bojack-style humans-with-an-animal-facade thing, you have to lean into all the stuff I said Bojack didn't have and get science-fictional with it. For instance, a lot of animals are crepuscular and have their awake-time in the dawn/dusk twilight hours each day – so, among other things, there have to be crepuscular-compatible work shifts offered by many businesses. The city truly never sleeps, and there are (for example) big concerts scheduled around-the-clock for the night-equivalent-life of animals of all activity cycles.

A lot of animals have a startle reflex that is going to give them serious exhaustion and anxiety in a conventional city setting. I think there'd be areas zoned for their comfort, where loud noises and fast movements are severely restricted. Probably also corner soundproof booths they can duck into to calm down.

And so on.

But you'd have to put in a lot of work. Not just in the SF elements, but also the game elements, deciding what gets mechanical representation and what doesn't, and how much things cost relative to each other.