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Post by Falconer on Apr 18, 2008 14:08:33 GMT -6
Just a musing on the different (for lack of a better term) Core Races that exist in different literary worlds. Although there is a wide variety in many of these worlds, there are also some more common staples—typically about five races.
Middle-earth: Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Hobbit, Man
Narnia: Dwarf, Faun, Human, Marshwiggle, Talking Beast
Star Trek: Andorian, Human, Klingon, Romulan, Vulcan
Star Wars: Ewok, Human, Mon Calamari, Sand People, Wookie
...That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Has anyone used a non-Middle-earth setup in their games?
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busman
Level 6 Magician
Playing OD&D, once again. Since 2008!
Posts: 448
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Post by busman on Apr 18, 2008 14:48:10 GMT -6
Just a musing on the different (for lack of a better term) Core Races that exist in different literary worlds. Although there is a wide variety in many of these worlds, there are also some more common staples—typically about five races. Middle-earth: Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Hobbit, Man Narnia: Dwarf, Faun, Human, Marshwiggle, Talking Beast Star Trek: Andorian, Human, Klingon, Romulan, Vulcan Star Wars: Ewok, Human, Mon Calamari, Sand People, Wookie ...That’s all I can think of at the moment. Has anyone used a non-Middle-earth setup in their games? Interesting. I'd call Orcs a Core race to Middle Earth, as well. I've done an experiment with using non-ME worlds, and it went terribly. People were looking for context all the time, trying to relate, to what race was what. Players even started saying, oh, that's an Orc, etc. It was pretty frustrating overall. That's not to say it couldn't work, it certainly could.
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Post by lordtwang on Apr 21, 2008 11:43:16 GMT -6
I make up new races for every fantasy game I run, regardless of system. Those old standards bore me. Fortunately, my players find them pretty boring too.
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Post by kesher on Apr 24, 2008 14:39:24 GMT -6
I had a player who liked to play outre characters. Once I let him make a polymorphed exiled runt beholder (yes, you read that correctly.) That game never really got off the ground, but another time he played an android passing as a magic-user. At one point the party was being attacked by a horde of kobolds and he was struck by a spear for an almost killing blow. Of course, not being able to feel pain or fatigue, the rest of the chars watched in amazement as he fled away at full speed into the dark woods, leaving behind a trail of some strange green ichor...
Oddities like that aside, in my current campaign world I'm using the main three ODD races but twisting each one a bit, as detailed in my Fight On! column.
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Post by calithena on Apr 24, 2008 17:14:02 GMT -6
I pause simply to note that in Encounter Critical you could play a half-dwarf, half-Wookie, at least with a lenient DM. Jury's out on whether they'd be Worfs or Dukies, though.
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Post by calithena on Apr 24, 2008 17:14:26 GMT -6
Talk about women with beards! Cha-ching!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2008 13:34:50 GMT -6
I think that 5 isn't a bad number -- enough to allow some variety and not so many as to be confusing.
Lots of DnD games center around 4's instead of 5's. Four classes (fighter, mage, cleric, thief) and four races (human, elf, dwarf, hobbit) and so on.
If you have 20 races, people never get to try 'em all!
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Post by Zulgyan on Apr 27, 2008 20:08:06 GMT -6
My last games have been using:
Men Barbarian Amazon Horse Nomad
They are just "men", but I'm trying to make them mechanically different.
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Post by Zulgyan on Apr 27, 2008 20:40:28 GMT -6
Some ideas (not necessarily original):
Barbarian: 1 extra pip per dice of accumulative hits, +1 surprise others (unarmored). Amazons: +1 initiative, -1 opponents to hit roll. Horse Nomads: +3 horse's movement, +1 to hit and damage when fighting from horse back.
The problem is... what should "standard" men have?
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Post by coffee on Apr 27, 2008 22:18:22 GMT -6
Some ideas (not necessarily original): Barbarian: 1 extra pip per dice of accumulative hits, +1 surprise others (unarmored). Amazons: +1 initiative, -1 opponents to hit roll. Horse Nomads: +3 horse's movement, +1 to hit and damage when fighting from horse back. The problem is... what should "standard" men have? I'm not sure that you'd have a 'normal' man in a world like this. I mean, you could, but with the bonuses given to other types above, who would play one? The trick with these things is to give both bonuses and penalties. Dwarves get good bonuses, but they can only go up to 6th level. That's a heck of a penalty to face; keeps more people from playing dwarves (and, really, if a guy wants to play a dwarf, he will, regardless). So if each of the above types of character had a drawback to them, then it would be easier to define a 'normal' man. Anyway, just my opinion.
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Post by Zulgyan on Apr 27, 2008 22:31:43 GMT -6
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Post by kormydigar on May 1, 2008 8:42:01 GMT -6
Some ideas (not necessarily original): Barbarian: 1 extra pip per dice of accumulative hits, +1 surprise others (unarmored). Amazons: +1 initiative, -1 opponents to hit roll. Horse Nomads: +3 horse's movement, +1 to hit and damage when fighting from horse back. The problem is... what should "standard" men have? Hello. New guy here. What I am considering for "normal" men in an OD&D game I am planning is to give them a flat 5% bonus to earned XP regardless of prime requisite and a couple languages based on the human's ability to easily adapt and get along with other races. I am using this as a balancing tool to remove level limits for the other races. I like the idea of different racial qualities for groups of humans too. As background: I have never played OD&D as originally presented. I began playing in 1980 with the Holmes rules and got the Moldvay red box set as the first set I actually owned. I have played every edition since (abandoning 2nd Ed. after one campaign for GURPS) tried 3.0 and 3.5 and found all the options fun but too cumbersome to run/ prepare for games with limited free time these days. I am looking at the one edition never tried for a chance at running something with the desired simplicity.
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