Hung Over Review: Magic of Incarnum

[Prak]

So I guess if the races are interesting, people will actually pick race first. But if you're limited to elf/dorf/shortie1/shortie2 no one gives a shit and will pick which ever one doesn't suck for the class/role they have in mind?

[Aryxbez]

So I guess if the races are interesting, people will actually pick race first. But if you're limited to elf/dorf/shortie1/shortie2 no one gives a shit and will pick which ever one doesn't suck for the class/role they have in mind?

Sounds about right to me, if people are unfamiliar with the game as well, they'll pick Race out of flavor first (I have this habit as well). It's when ye tie Races to certain types of characters, that it forces people to be little less imaginative, and play whatever X race. I'd imagine most people play Orcs in Shadowrun simply because of how much they're the "Master race" of Shadowrun, giving versatility to large swathes of characters. While an Orc in D&D slams you into literal "Dumb Melee Fighter" archetype.

[Username17]

So I guess if the races are interesting, people will actually pick race first. But if you're limited to elf/dorf/shortie1/shortie2 no one gives a shit and will pick which ever one doesn't suck for the class/role they have in mind?

People choose what they are going to do first and foremost. If the race is so pigeonholed that it defines what you're going to do, people will pick a race before moving on to other things. If races are variable enough that they don't define what you're going to do, then they will choose classes first.

So people will choose a race like "Lamia" before picking their class, because that is a race that defines you as a caster warrior tauroid seductress. That's pretty damn specific. But they won't choose a race like Drow or Orc or Kobold before their class, because those races could be taken in a lot of different directions.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

So I guess if the races are interesting, people will actually pick race first. But if you're limited to elf/dorf/shortie1/shortie2 no one gives a shit and will pick which ever one doesn't suck for the class/role they have in mind?

Race is important for some players. No matter how good a dwarf, gnome or halfling is, stat-wise, I'll not play one. Same goes for many "interesting" races - simply not my cup of tea.

[deaddmwalking]

So people will choose a race like "Lamia" before picking their class, because that is a race that defines you as a caster warrior tauroid seductress. That's pretty damn specific. But they won't choose a race like Drow or Orc or Kobold before their class, because those races could be taken in a lot of different directions.

I will note that people do sometimes pick a race first, but it doesn't really matter if that race can be taken in a lot of directions. If you pick 'drow' before picking 'Rogue' or 'Wizard', that choice is easily changed without impacting your character in a major way... While some people will choose a race first, since it has such a minor impact on the character there's no reason not to pretend that they made that decision only after choices that matter are made.

It's the same thing with 'signature weapon'. Some people decide to be a 'haldberd wielder' before they make any other decision. But after you make all your other decisions you can pretty much go back and replace 'halberd' with 'spiked chain' and the other aspects of your character don't need to change.

Some choices are so 'isolated' from other decisions that they don't really factor into the 'order of operations'. Other decisions drive so many things that you can't easily modify that decision without starting over.

But outside of 'straight rolling', you could argue that stats should be determined after deciding class as well - but that's historically the 'first step' of character creation. Race I think follows because of OD&D style limited class selection based on Race.

[NineInchNall]

But outside of 'straight rolling', you could argue that stats should be determined after deciding class as well - but that's historically the 'first step' of character creation. Race I think follows because of OD&D style limited class selection based on Race.

Yeah, the closest I've ever come to choosing race first is race-specific classes or feats, like Shadowcraft Mage, which means that choosing class is de facto simultaneously choosing race. So race and class end up tied for first.

[JonSetanta]

Put the basic races on a d20 chart with anything going over the number as a "reroll".

Roll for race, just like how genetics are random in real life. You don't get to pick your heritage.

Hell, roll for sex, sexual orientation, eye color, everything. Did this with my first 3e character and it had some interesting results.

[Koumei]

I once randomly rolled my character for an Aberrant game (I think that's what it was. White Wolf superhero powers). We all decided to sit down and make random tables for attribute priority & distribution, skill distribution, power types, backgrounds, age, sex, nationality, shoe size and all that.

This was after one friend made the random-table for creating a werewolf (what with that having more "choose from X" things in the Breed, Auspice and that, rather than "pool of points, spend here").

[TheFlatline]

Put the basic races on a d20 chart with anything going over the number as a "reroll".

Roll for race, just like how genetics are random in real life. You don't get to pick your heritage.

Hell, roll for sex, sexual orientation, eye color, everything. Did this with my first 3e character and it had some interesting results.

Dark Heresy did that.

It made for... interesting results...

We had a 78 year old tech priest and a 15 year old arbiter in our group. And that was the least strange physical discrepancy.

I did dig the web suppliments that rolled you up mementos from your home world and from early in your career. Some of the players seriously ran with that and never let it go even when they were planet-killing monsters of doom. One guy from a feral world wore his wolf-pelt cloak that signaled his passage into manhood to *every* formal event or ceremony, and the psyker had a single screw that he managed to pry from his cell on the black ship that took him to earth. It had a fragment of a hexagram on it to block psyker abilities and the PC was convinced it was the only thing that let him sleep without nightmares at night.

[JonSetanta]

One disaster of random tables was in a joking Shadowrun session when someone barked out "Let's roll for penis size!"

A girl complained that it was stupid but, guess what, everyone did it.

I got 3 inch length and just stared at the die result while most of the group cackled at me.
"Can I have a cyber dick?" were my words.

[Prak]

I did dig the web suppliments that rolled you up mementos from your home world and from early in your career. Some of the players seriously ran with that and never let it go even when they were planet-killing monsters of doom. One guy from a feral world wore his wolf-pelt cloak that signaled his passage into manhood to *every* formal event or ceremony, and the psyker had a single screw that he managed to pry from his cell on the black ship that took him to earth. It had a fragment of a hexagram on it to block psyker abilities and the PC was convinced it was the only thing that let him sleep without nightmares at night.

This is the kind of thing random tables are good for, minor character background stuff with no mechanical relevance but which generate roleplaying hooks. Mongoose Runequest 2 had charts for rolling up your character's family history and something along the lines of "what's an interesting story you can tell?" The only time it had mechanical relevance was when you rolled "stole item from some people." Because of course you want the actual thing.

But that gm has a "Bennie" rule. Every player gets a bennie (benefit). They can ask for anything, and the gm will try to give it to you. Of course there are implied limits, but you seriously could ask "Can I have a king's ransom?" and he would reply "sure," but he would also work to make sure everyone's bennies were roughly balanced, whether in effect, or by giving the gigantic bennies what I call "plot debt." So, basically, if you ask for a gun (fantasy world, no post-iron age tech, but the dwarves have magitek, basically), that's doable, but it's going to bring you trouble. Trouble you can handle, but not necessarily easily, and not necessarily the first time it comes up. In the case of a gun, well, first, it literally requires magic to make gunpowder, and you may not know the magic (and if you do, it brings its own problems), second, the dwarves are incredibly xenophobic, and want their gun back and will kill you after they get it back. But you're an adventurer, the fact that it's dwarves trying to kill you is just flavour.

Cyberpunk 2020 and, I think, Hero Builder's Guide for 3.0, had this kind of stuff too, and I think it's great. Just not when you're randomly determining mechanical aspects of your character.

[Mask_De_H]

Japanese TTRPGs do that a lot too, Prak. Tenra Bansho Zero uses it to build intra-party connections as well as basic background stuff.

[deaddmwalking]

I've done the random generation, and don't really care for it. I don't mind randomly rolling attributes, as long as you can assign as desired, but outside of that, I think full control is best - at least, if your players have ideas.

I sort of assume that if there are n million playable characters in the world, some portion of them are likely to fit the PCs particular criteria. Maybe there are only a few hundred noble families in a particular region, but some portion of those have a son who has run away from home. As long as there is room in the world for the character concept, I'll allow it.

I do think random tables can be an aid in creative character design, but even if I were using them, I wouldn't require adherence. If a PC rolls 'dwarf' on the table but decides he wants to be an elf, cool deal. If a player rolls '3 inch dick' and decides that doesn't suit his character, I don't have a problem with allowing the player to choose. Of course, I wouldn't expect that to come up in play much.

But if someone wants to play a character based on Lyndon B Johnson, I don't mind if they choose to start play with the required equipment.

[FaerieGodfather]

So people will choose a race like "Lamia" before picking their class, because that is a race that defines you as a caster warrior tauroid seductress. That's pretty damn specific. But they won't choose a race like Drow or Orc or Kobold before their class, because those races could be taken in a lot of different directions.

It's my thinking that regardless of how many different directions you can take a given race, they should all be a definitive as the Lamia in terms of why you would want to play one-- it should never be a trivial decision, and the default should always be Human.

[Prak]

No, the default should never be human, if humans are good at everything, then there's no reason to have non-human sapients in your world. Humans as defaults is literally the worst world creation idea I've ever heard.


And I've read FATAL.

[darkmaster]

That's not necessarily true. Human's can be good at everything while not being as good at some things. For instance a human makes a fair Barbarian, but all things being equal an Orc will make a better Barbarian because Orcs have stats that make for good barbarians, but in exchange an orc is ill suited to being a wizard.

[Prak]

That's fine, but 1) human should not be the default for everything, and 2) because orcs are much better barbarians than humans, that actually kind of makes orcs the default for barbarians, not humans.

And an anecdotal 3) if humans are generically good with no downsides, guess what your players will nearly always fucking play barring the rare person who hates playing humans?

[darkmaster]

The races that are better at being the class they want to play. Or possibly a human because at least it won't hurt you. I mean, yeah, if humans have no weaknesses you'll obviously see more human wizards than orc wizards, and more human barbarians than you'll see halfling barbarians. But you'll still see orc barbarians and halfling wizards.

[Prak]

I've had a headache for the last five hours, so I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but in my experience, people play humans. To get them to play anything else, you either have to give them something ridiculously unbalanced, or appeal to their fetishization of [X]. I could get a friend of mine to try virtually any not-absuredly weak race by making it draconic. Otherwise he plays humans or the occasional dwarf.

[Seerow]

I've had a headache for the last five hours, so I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but in my experience, people play humans. To get them to play anything else, you either have to give them something ridiculously unbalanced, or appeal to their fetishization of [X]. I could get a friend of mine to try virtually any not-absuredly weak race by making it draconic. Otherwise he plays humans or the occasional dwarf.

How do you ever pry that player away from Silverbrow Human?

[Hicks]

I've had a headache for the last five hours, so I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but in my experience, people play humans. To get them to play anything else, you either have to give them something ridiculously unbalanced, or appeal to their fetishization of [X]. I could get a friend of mine to try virtually any not-absuredly weak race by making it draconic. Otherwise he plays humans or the occasional dwarf.

One dwarf cleric, one tiefling psionicist, one warforged fighter, one goblin transmitter, every other character of mine is human. Basically because they are self insert characters because I like me and don't fantasize about being other than human, just having awesome powers. So Agraham is the Evil Lightning Sorcerer me, Xaxus is the neutral cleric of Nerull me, Siegfreid von Isenholm is the Fighter me. Eric "The Red" Pendragon is the bard/jedi me, and Gregory Potts is the old wizard me. Hell, Warren is the druid me, and has my middle name.

Even in 2nd edition I play humans, even though I know half-elves and elves are better every way, because FUCK elves. Seriously, FUCK 'em. The other races are also mechanically better, but are still not as cool as being me.

[Fuchs]

I've had a headache for the last five hours, so I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but in my experience, people play humans. To get them to play anything else, you either have to give them something ridiculously unbalanced, or appeal to their fetishization of [X]. I could get a friend of mine to try virtually any not-absuredly weak race by making it draconic. Otherwise he plays humans or the occasional dwarf.

This. People play humans. People want to play humans, or the classic races - mostly elfs, then dwarfs and halflings. Vampires and weres have some traction too. Only a few want to play more exotic races. Humans as a default is a good thing.

[OgreBattle]

How pointy eared people and short bearded people all be expressions of the same human race, like say, ZELDA where Link, Zelda, Tingle, and Ganondorf are all humans.

Then different playable species are things like "Bug dude", "Lizard man", "Robot"

and centaurs too, deer sized centaur

[Kaelik]

I think there exists some possibly large set of extremely boring people who only want to play humans. But you shouldn't assume that applies to everyone. There exist tons of people who want to play anything but humans in a fantasy rpg because their defining trait is being boring as shit.

[Omegonthesane]

I think there exists some possibly large set of extremely boring people who only want to play humans. But you shouldn't assume that applies to everyone. There exist tons of people who want to play anything but humans in a fantasy rpg because their defining trait is being boring as shit.

I fail to see why it is a bad thing that I can say "biologically, Steve the Crap-Covered Supreme Sorcerer is boring as shit, so I instead spent all his conceptual space on the shit he actually learned how to do, and maybe he's a Derpian Human from Derpia so that he can have conceptual space from the culture of Derpia, which does not have to explain how his race lives differently due to being tentacle monsters made of glowy energy and can instead worry about socioeconomic structures and its interaction with the other human culture, the Herpians of Herpia".