Topic: Races

[Marc R]

Do you play with loads of races, just one race, just the "core fantasy" races?

If you play with lots of races, do you make them all available to PCs, or are many of them NPC only (or essentially treated as monsters/encounters)?

Are you comfortable with players taking extreme races, like centaurs, giants or tiny fairies?

What about races with a lot of innate powers or abilities?

Do all these races casually mix, or do you usually play up tensions between them?

Finally, do you vary this from game to game, or do you keep one race set up in all your games?

Explain in as much or as little detail as you want, and keep in mind each GM is talking about their game(s), so they can't really be wrong, so no need to tell them so.

[Shottglazz]

Current (new) campaign has humans (different types depending on nationality) - a mix of common men, bear tribes, etc; elves (wood & high); halflings (generic); Dwarf; Half-Dwarf; Half-Orc; Half-Elf (generic).

I've altered the stats on most of the races to reflect the cultural differences for each nation, especially the humans. Example: one race is modelled after North American Natives - big bonus to many outdoor skills, riding, stat bonus altered to reflect, etc. Another nation is based around an old chivalric order and so favours heavy armours and disdains bows - so they get big bonuses to don/doff armours, maneuver in armours, etc and penalties to bows, ships, etc.

In most RM campaigns, we run with common man, high man, bear tribe, dark tribes (renamed Southerners), half-elves (4 types), halflings (3 types), dwarves, half-orcs and elves (3 types).

We don't normally use races like centaurs, pixies, giants, etc for PC's. Haven't had any complaints or requests for non-standard races...

[Ecthelion]

I think this depends on the game world. We usually use Middle Earth as a setting, where I think it's best to stay restricted to "core" fantasy races of human, elf, dwarf, halfing and perhaps (half-)orcs.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I have 3 races that are planet-wide. Beyond that, sentient species are limited by ecological niches. For example, centaurs make sense in an environment like the central plains of N. America or the steppes of Ukraine. On the flanks of the Himalayas, or in the Amazon basin? Not so much.

The other good thing for a GM to remember about what races he allows are movement limitations. For example if you have one person in your party who can fly and the rest are limited to ground movement (except through expending magical power), you can take it as given that the guy who can fly is going to have more encounters, probably get more XP, and will certainly have more fun, than everyone else in the party combined.

Multiple movement modes in a party is generally a bad idea unless you can find a way to challenge all of them equally.

[yammahoper]

I've used them all over the years, even played a War Troll once myself (a runemage). 

In the end, I've come to favor humans, or at least human sized humaniods.

[Witchking20k]

We tend to stick to D&Deaque races because I am breaking in a bunch of young players who are more or less only familliar with video games.

[Marc R]

To offer my answer, generally allow anything, but balance usually with in game factors that are usually non mechanical, like the ogre doesn't eat any character generation penalties, but gets treated like a monster most places, has problems with getting gear, has problems with small doors, low ceilings, weak floors, etc.

"Generally anything" usually scales to the level of the other PCs. . .like if you want to play a Storm Giant, likely not happening unless the party is very high level. (Though, really, just likely not to happen anyway since the players know they'll spend a lot of time outside waiting while everyone role plays inside since they don't fit, which gets old pretty quick).

[Cory Magel]

Varies greatly from campaign to campaign.  We've restricted characters to all human in one campaign and went so far as to have a half demon character in another.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

If this was instead a leading question as in "If a new combined core rule book were to be produced what races should it cover?"

Then I would have to say just standard Human with perhaps options for culture and setting, all the rest can be added in specific setting books and use the same culture/setting options.

I'm currently spoiled for choice with RM and wouldn't be able to say exactly which would be my most used race in my games. Generally, Humans since I tend towards historical or modern with some fantasy/sci-fi elements. I'll allow all the ones in the RMSS book for standard fantasy, but would have an open mind about what else I would allow. Generally I'd fall back upon the Tolkienesque staple diet of Humans, Elves and Dwarves... though I'm rather partial of the inclusion of Gnomes...that's what AD&D does to you.

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

For me it's different depending on settings:

(a) is very specific RM campaign developed years ago
(b) is a potential RM campaign setting still rolling around in my head
(c) is a non-RM old campaign that needs ressurrecting to some system or other and RM is possible
(d) a relatively recent non-RM campaign

1.  Do you play with loads of races, just one race, just the "core fantasy" races?
(a) humans with a few other possible unique races (i.e. not straight fantasy races) which could in theory be PCs but haven't been in practice as they're generally too rare.
(b) pretty much core with a few outliers as PCs but a wide variety of sentients
(c) lots of races
(d) a few

2.  If you play with lots of races, do you make them all available to PCs, or are many of them NPC only (or essentially treated as monsters/encounters)?
(a) there are a few the PCs haven't enountered which would be difficult to play and a couple that I'd be wary before allowing it
(b) many will be NPC only
(c) many available to PCs - more in the old days when I could take wierd better
(d) only humans (in theory a PC could come from another race but there'd be a huge backstory and consequences)

3.  Are you comfortable with players taking extreme races, like centaurs, giants or tiny fairies?
(a) n/a
(b) I'd be willing to entertain it for the right player
(c) Done it - dragon, hawkman, weres - less comfortable then than I would be now
(d) No - wouldn't fit the setting concerned

4.  What about races with a lot of innate powers or abilities?
(a) See 2(a) - there's basically one 'fallen' race (six fingered elf like) called the Hyia that are rare, longlived and often act as magical advisers etc as they can cast universal magic (i.e. arcane) as against the individual realms of human casters.  It is believed that they taught the first human spellcasters hundreds of years ago when humans arrived.

(b) See 3(b)
(c) See 3(c)
(d) See 3(d)

5.  Do all these races casually mix, or do you usually play up tensions between them?
(a) With one exception they are generally geographically isolated so the tension is usually human vs other
(b) Some mix OK but most don't because of different social and economic imperatives
(c) The basic ones mix (human. high and wood elf, dwarf, gnome, ayrch, high ayrch [the latter two being reasonably personable (and recently on the right side as far as humans are concerned).  These are known as the 'free peoples' [explaining why there were orcs in the party to new players who had only played D&D was entertaining]
(d) Virtually no mixing as far as I know - the PCs have only really come across aelfar in terms of a race that is prepared to stand and talk - beastmen don't count; giants are a likely next stop but they are far away in the northern ice.

6.  Finally, do you vary this from game to game, or do you keep one race set up in all your games?
 - see above

Regards

Edward

[pastaav]

If you should apply to large part of the user base then I think you need to stick to the core races. For everyone that think characters with wings is awesome you will find another who hate the idea totally. It very much depend on the campaign/setting what fits.

Actually I also think the question is bit badly phrased. The essential bit is really handling cultures (defined generic ones vs build your own cultures), the race is just one mechanical detail of the culture. Say for instance...what about if you had a random culture generator that let you adjust parameters like degree of combat orientation and then let you roll dice to determine the specifics. A build your own world toolkit that also generated the mechanical aspects of cultures and races?

[Marc R]

It's assuming I'm being sly and fishing. . .I actually was just considering all this talk of races in the other recent threads, and based on the replies in here see that what I expected to be the answer is actually true. . .that people generally play with few races. . . .I suspect if we did an analysis of players we'd get a result where most of the people cluster at "Few Races". . .within that group, most would cluster around "Standard Race group". . .with a weaker bias within that group of "Just humans".

Reversing that logic, only a smallish percentage of characters in play are not of the standard races, and only a very tiny percentage are truly unusual very non human or innate powered races.

That's been my experience in play, I was just wondering if it was generally true.

[rdanhenry]

Currently offering humans, halflings/hobbits, elves, dwarves, orcs, and snakemen (s'sth...whatever basically, but mostly called snakemen to get around the spelling issues) as PC races. Others are around, and the continent includes one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities. If the PCs went there, they could encounter a lot more species. Giants and a minotaur have been at least seen.

[Wōdwulf Seaxaning]

I'm working on a new setting as I wanted to incorporate some different D&D races . I'm going to incorporate  tweeked versions of the Dragonborn , Tieflings , Half-Orcs & change Half-lings into a Feytouched race called Hob-Goblins (no more bestial H-Gs in my setting ). As I'll probally meet gamers who have played D&D 3.5 or 4E , I figured I should add races they are familiar with. I'm also having Elves , Half-Elves ,Dwarves & Half-Dwarves.