Core Races

[fectin]

A while back, in another thread, I suggested that there should be a cheap core rulebook with enough essentials to be a complete game, but not much more. I've kept thinking about that since and started playing with an outline of what core rules for the tomes would look like (someone who reads TGD is outlining a fantasy heartbreaker? Shocking!).
So, from that premise, what are the 4-5 races which are most basic? So far, the criteria I came up with are:
- Simple. No crazy abilities that require pages of explanation (e.g. no illumian). That also makes me hesitant to include non-medium characters (because it means including rules for small character equipment, combat, carrying capacity, etc.).
- Distinct. Races should be more than just palette swaps. Ideally, I'd find a set of two opposites, but that's low priority.
- Balanced.
- Unencumbered. Either under OGL, or by Frank/Kay, or by someone else who explicitly disclaims ownership, or Creative Commons, or whatever. I don't want to take ownership; I care deeply about freely using, distributing, transforming, etc.

And the races I've come up with are Human, Elf, Orc, Tiefling.

Thoughts?

[CatharzGodfoot]

And the races I've come up with are Human, Elf, Orc, Tiefling.

Thoughts?

Those are just names. I assume that you aren't just going to use the SRD versions, because they're unbalanced palette swaps (human, pointy-eared human that sees well in the dark, green human that sees well in the dark, horned human that sees well in the dark).

[Novembermike]

I'm not sure why you need extra races if you're trying to make a minimal playable game.

[tzor]

If I were to suggest a core four, I would suggest Human, Dwarf, Orc and Elf. (It's sort of compatable to Human/Frengi/Klingon/Vlucan.) Dwarves are good for dungeons, Elves are good for outdoors and Orcs are primordal barbarians at the gate. Humans, of course should be the cornerstone of any basic system; they give the new player a sence of familiarity in a very unfamiliar world.

[fectin]

I'm not sure why you need extra races if you're trying to make a minimal playable game.

Fair point; I was unclear.
I see a setup similar to the three 3E core rulebooks, plus a cheaper book that includes only a minimal subset of the other three books. I'm trying to figure out what that subset looks like.
Ideally, I'll turn out a result where you could tell people you were playing a tome game of 3.5, hand this to them, and have provided sufficient info to play the game.
Specifically, that means I want to put more than one race in so that picking race is an ingrained part of character creation.

Separately, I don't want to rewrite anything as well defined in the SRD as elves & dwarves; doing that breaks compatability with everything else.

Elf, Orc, Human, Dwarf does Have a certain appeal. I wanted to stick something with a mental stat bonus in there though, and having two "nice" and two "naughty" races seemed good too.

So, put it differently: if it were you, which races would you choose?

[Gx1080]

Elf, Orc, Human, Dwarf seems like the bare, bare minimal.

[Quantumboost]

Human, Robot, Elf/Dryad, Orc Hobgoblin, Dvergr (dwarves, but with the necromancy and the coal-skin).

Edit: Races that would show up in the first expansion would definitely include the planetouched, though.

[Wrathzog]

Humans, Elves, and Dwarves are definitely going to be part of this. For a Generic Fantasy setting, there's just no avoiding them. It's what people expect and they get confused when they don't get it.

Picking a sub-human race is a good idea. I would support Orcs as long as you could do more with them than Just super barbarians.

For a fifth race, Gnomes or maybe Kobolds. Definitely a small race, but not Halflings.

[CCarter]

Fooling around with my own fantasy heartbreaker which keeps exploding, I decided I liked "Beastmen" as a race. Basically it has one racial description with some readjustable features that lets it work to do lizardmen, minotaurs, catfolk, birdmen, etc. So you pick which stat to boost and get choose a couple of powers appropriate to the concept (Probably only works for me since it plugs into a separate powers list).
I figure with a limited number of races, you want each description to be as flexible as possible.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I figure with a limited number of races, you want each description to be as flexible as possible.

That's good if you want a million playable races, but bad if your purpose in limiting the number of races is to create meaningful distinctions and avoid overwhelming players.

[MGuy]

People love their furries. So much so they are one of the standard 7 races in my own ruleset.

[Username17]

Deep Ones, Robots, Italians, and Dracotaurs.

-Username17

[Prak]

Deep Ones, Robots, Italians, and Dracotaurs.

-Username17

Do Italians get a stomp attack and a growth effect dependent upon ingesting mushrooms?

[RobbyPants]

If I were to suggest a core four, I would suggest Human, Dwarf, Orc and Elf.

If I had to pick four, this is probably the approach I would take. This is mostly out of my own familiarity with D&D.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Deep Ones, Robots, Italians, and Dracotaurs.

Italians would be too difficult for all but the most experienced and creative gamers to roleplay.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Deep Ones, Robots, Italians, and Dracotaurs.

Italians would be too difficult for all but the most experienced and creative gamers to roleplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JhuOicPFZY

[Judging__Eagle]

Deep Ones, Robots, Italians, and Dracotaurs.

-Username17

What sort of Deep Ones, Robots, Italians and Dracotaurs though?

Deep Ones range from Hellboy's Abe Sapien; to He-Man's ally Merman; to D&D's Sahuagins and Final Fantasy's Sahag's

For Robots: What tech level, what appearance between android or golem, what sort of mentality, and other things.

For Italians: any specific time frame, or political, or social or other group? Maybe have multiple iconic ideas overlayed on top of each other? Sicilian Mafia, Venician Merchants, Milanese Tradesmen, Roman Bureaucrats, a Papal Duchy trying to keep a handle on things; and a constant sort of renaissance; while people who want to become citizens have to join the legion for X amount of years. Just some brainstorming.

Dracotaurs: About the size of a "human" creature I'm assuming; maybe make them the "forest/non-city" people.

I could see Robots as the inland dwellers; Dracotaurs as those that dwell in undeveloped areas; Italians as coastal and mountainous; and especially all built up areas; with Deep Ones having the coastal shelves, river markets; and establish the main form of trade between different parts of the land world. Perhaps the use of submarine shipping makes the world's economy go round a bit easier.

[CCarter]

I figure with a limited number of races, you want each description to be as flexible as possible.

That's good if you want a million playable races, but bad if your purpose in limiting the number of races is to create meaningful distinctions and avoid overwhelming players.

Hmm sorry to take so long - I've been thinking this over.
My further 2c is that basically everyone who picks up an RPG is going to have a different vision of what a race should be like. Again flexibility is good because 'meaningful distinctions' a designer puts in are, more often than not, just going to be annoying to people who don't agree with them in general, or who have a specific idea for some character build that doesn't sync with a preset racial feature.
I'm not sure the overwhelming is a problem either: its adding an extra step in character creation (choose race; now choose subrace) rather than giving a pile of options all at once.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I figure with a limited number of races, you want each description to be as flexible as possible.

That's good if you want a million playable races, but bad if your purpose in limiting the number of races is to create meaningful distinctions and avoid overwhelming players.

Hmm sorry to take so long - I've been thinking this over.
My further 2c is that basically everyone who picks up an RPG is going to have a different vision of what a race should be like. Again flexibility is good because 'meaningful distinctions' a designer puts in are, more often than not, just going to be annoying to people who don't agree with them in general, or who have a specific idea for some character build that doesn't sync with a preset racial feature.
I'm not sure the overwhelming is a problem either: its adding an extra step in character creation (choose race; now choose subrace) rather than giving a pile of options all at once.

That philosophy takes you down the rabbit hole of point-buy character creation. Which is totally fine as long as you're OK with everyone being a cosmetically altered human with a couple of abnormal traits. It kills the 'fantasy race = culture' thing at least, which is probably good.

[sabs]

Except some of us like the different Cultures based on Race.

Mountain or Deep Dwarves have a very different Culture than Humans and Hill Dwarves that live basically in human society. People who like playing dwarves, LIKE this.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Except some of us like the different Cultures based on Race.

Mountain or Deep Dwarves have a very different Culture than Humans and Hill Dwarves that live basically in human society. People who like playing dwarves, LIKE this.

Mountain, Deep, and Hill are all cultural divisions within the dwarven race, so you don't have a direct equivalence between culture and race even before you get to Hill dwarves and hill humans being a part of the same greater culture.

[Username17]

There are basically four models of "races" for RPGs:

• The HERO Model. Martian Manhunter may have his long and arbitrary list of super powers "because he is a Green Martian", but this doesn't actually matter. He is in reality a unique character who took whatever powers the player felt like taking and that's that. If another Martian showed up, they'd buy powers on their own and if there wasn't perfect overlap with Manhunter, you'd either explain that or not. If you were doing science fiction, this would be the Star Wars model.
• The D&D Model. You tell the other players "I'm playing an Elf Wizard" and the act of telling the other players that you are playing an elf is expected to provide information to the other players about your character. As much information in fact as the character class. A good chunk of that is going to be shit like character appearance, but the point is that it's supposed to convey real game-relevant information. If you meet another elf, the fact that they are an elf conveys the same information. If this were science fiction, this would be the Star Trek model.
• The RIFTS Model. Some races define the character completely (RCCs) and other races are minor adjectives about your character that might come up when describing their physical appearance or some shit. So some characters are a "Fire Warlock (mutant badger) and some characters are a "Space Dragon". If this were science fiction, this would be the Lensman model.
• The TOON Model. Scrooge McDuck doesn't have any identifiable "duck" traits at all. In some episodes he can't even swim. The fact that one character is some "race" or another is completely irrelevant and you might forget to even explain that detail on your character sheet.

If you're talking about D&D, you presumably are going to use the D&D model of races. You can make a compelling argument that it is stupid or offensive, but then your argument with the initial post is that their presumed assumptions are wrong. And not that you can actually answer their question.

Of course, the question is unanswerable, hence my own firmly tongue-in-cheek reply. Honestly, if you're throwing down a short list of playable races that are all supposed to mean something, they could be anything. What's actually important with a small selection like that is that players can select any of them and not have the other players shake their head sadly at the choice. With a large race selection, it doesn't matter if Ogres are only playably decent as Heroes or Kobolds are worthless as Paladins. The player has a lot of options already, so each race only has to justify its existence by being playable in at least one build. But with a list of four, every race has to justify its existence with every role (whatever you've defined that as).

So in the four race scenario, let's say you've decided that you have a "frontliner" character role concept. You expect the Berserker class, the Paladin class, and the Hero class to all fill it. If your four races are Human, Goblin, Dwarf, and Elf, every one of those races has to fill in a decent pair of shoes in at least one of those classes. The Goblin doesn't have to be a good Paladin, and the Elf doesn't have to be a good Berserker, but both races have to get at least one of those signed off as accebtably decent. Then you decide to put in a skirmisher role. And that has classes of Ranger, Rogue, and Illusionist. Again, a Dwarf doesn't have to hold its own as a Ranger and a Human doesn't have to hold its own as an Illusionist, but both races need to be able to check off at least one of those on the list. And so on for every other role.

Basically, with just four races to choose from, if the other players say "We need a Healer" and the player says "I want to play a Dwarf", there has to be at least one class/race combination that fits the bill and is good.

The second criteria is deciding what tropes you intend to cover with your racial selections. Which says a whole lot about your assumed setting. But since D&D assumes a kitchen sink fantasy setting, I can't really tell you what choices are right or wrong once you start asking for an assumed setting that is tighter in focus than World of Warcraft or even Lord of the Rings.

-Username17

[fectin]

That's... actually extremely helpful. Thank you.

[fectin]

Here's a thought:
How big a deal is a +2 stat bonus? Could you turn races all the way into flavor (or at least make every combination viable) by having "add a +2 racial bonus to any stat" be a character creation step?

[CCarter]

I'm not clear on the distinction between HERO and Toon: in both cases actual race is meaningless mechanically, except that in the HERO approach the player is pretending it does?

Where would you put a system like FATE, where your race could be just a single aspect providing a vague bonus-or-penalty when appropriate, instead the D&D approach where a bunch of specific stuff gets modified.

It looks to me like a scale from
"Race is meaningless" to "Race is all important", plus the Rifts approach where race is of varying importance.

Here's a thought:
How big a deal is a +2 stat bonus? Could you turn races all the way into flavor (or at least make every combination viable) by having "add a +2 racial bonus to any stat" be a character creation step?

And when everyone is special, then no one will be.

I don't think there's any point having a +2 bonus that can be assigned anywhere. This is just an unnecessarily complex way of having stats range from 3-20 instead of 3-18.

Better ways to keep race/class combinations viable would be to either
-give races different bonuses, but try to make all stats equally important to all classes ?
-give abilities to a race that are more helpful to classes other than those that get a prime stat boost (e.g. dwarf rogues get darkvision which is initially helpful so they can see while sneaking around in dungeons, though there's no Dex boost).