Race/Species in Fantasy RPGs: Is It Necessary?

[LandonSuffered]

This is another topic of discussion I've been aching to have, and I did not find any older threads on the Forge...if anyone has one, please post a link.

Race or species seems to be an important component of many fantasy RPGs (and by fantasy I include "space fantasy" like Star Wars), sometimes seeming inherentin the design of a High Concept setting (e.g. Tolkien's elves in Middle-Earth RPGs).  But are they really a necessary?

I submit the following for discussion:

a)   All fantasy races are anthropomorphized; there are no truly alien races, per se.  All "races" are scaled to humans and have human personalities, sometimes emphasized in one fashion or another.  No species personality can be truly designed except in terms of human personality.

Example:  Aside from size, hairiness, and communication ability, Chewbacca is not a whole lot different from my wife.  Both have an acute sense of smell, a fierce temper, and tend to think with their bellies when hungry; likewise, both are extremely loyal and protective.

b)   Aside from color considerations, all fantasy races are created in terms of human ability: sometimes greater, sometimes lesser.  This is no different from creating a below average or above average human character and adding special advantages/merits and disadvantages/flaws.

Example:  Dwarves are short (compared to humans), strong (compared to humans), tough (compared to humans).  They have an advantage of having good vision in the dark and an exceptional lifespan and disadvantages associated with their size, low birth rate, sink like stones because of their dense bones.

c)   Race/species are unnecessary system components and serve function mainly as filler based on setting of the fantasy world.

Example: Melniboneans (hell, Drow) are cruel, eccentric, sensual folk that once ruled the Young Kingdoms, similar to the Romans at their (socially) most decadent period.  Any character created in this game world can be imbued with these characteristics, and if the character happens to have some sorcerer ability and a good supply of wealth, the player is free to say "hey, this guy's a Melnibonean."  Special rules for character generation are unnecessary, including bonuses to attributes or special extra languages.

Especially with regard to any kind of space opera fantasy (e.g. Star Wars or Flash Gordon), special races or devoting much time to them outside of setting description seems a waste of space.  You want to play a furry cat-like humanoid? Ok...make sure he has a high agility. Oh, he wants to have climbing claws and night vision?  Take those as advantages and trade something else down.  Describe his back-story and culture just like any other character and go from there.

The only place where special races and rules regarding them might be considered important and truly integral to a game design is in games created to specifically explore what it means to be a particular race. 

Good example:  Ork World
Bad example:  Vampire the Masquerade (where you're still exploring what it means to be vampire in terms of once being a human)

Other than games of this type, I propose that "race" or "species" as a component of system (as opposed to color) is pretty much unnecessary and possibly redundant/obsolete.

[ewilen]

You might have a look at this recent thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=15966.0

But basically, I agree. I think that most "fantasy races" in RPGs and fiction are just copying Tolkien, with little reference to earlier fantasy (fiction and myth). They should be ditched or reimagined in terms of the original sources.

As they get farther from the Tolkien races, fantasy races become exotic "others", standing in for national and ethnic divisions on Earth. In which case, they can be powerful exploratory elements (via exaggeration of difference in degrees or ways not possible with humans) and they can bring into focus the ethnocentric concept that "others" are "not human"--without directly invoking real-world prejudice, either because the latter is difficult for the players to relate to (if it were only so) or because it's too close to home.

But the treatment of "races" in Star Wars and Star Trek became increasingly silly over the years, I'm afraid. Star Wars went from mysterious, scary but sometimes sympathetic Others (Jawas, the Cantina clientele, Chewbacca), giving the sense of a cosmopolitan empire, to silly clowns, teddybears, and boogiemen. Star Trek went from challenging moral differences (Vulcans, Romulans, and Klingons) to various configurations of forehead bumps.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Landon, I am a little unclear on your usage of the terms race and species here. Can you clarify?

It might be useful to you to think, instead of why these things are not useful, about how they can be useful. I believe, personally, that the technique of parceling out mechanical abilities and setting colour in this and related ways (D&D's classes do the same thing) is pretty useful, since it gives the players meaningful structure to build on and links the two elements in an obvious way.

[LandonSuffered]

Shreyas: I added species to emphasize I was talking about traditional RPG race (like dwarves, elves, wookies, yazirians, humans), rather than racial ethnicities (caucasian, east asian, etc.).  I know most people talking about "race" with regard to RPGs immediately consider the former, but I was trying to avoid any confusion.  Sorry for the confusion!

Ewilen: thank you very much for the link...I wish I'd reviewed this (and the links within the link) before posting.

However, reviewing it now, I see a lot of the stuff my post is aimed at addressing:

Reasons for race #1 (Jack Aidley)

1)   Provide extra choice in character creation
2)   An additional personality mechanic
3)   To increase the feeling of fantasy

Reasons for race #2 (simon_hibbs)

1)   Hardwired differences in psychology (c.f. #2 above)
2)   To explore environments not conducive to humans ("Flash Gordon" factor)
3)   As a shorthand for culture
4)   Because you're duplicating/evoking a setting (c.f. High Concept)

Reasons for race #3 (Ron Edwards c.f. the class issue)

1)   As one of the 4 roles in RPGs, race helps ground character in an Exploratory context

Reason for race #4 (Doctor Xero)

1)   Helps with socially contracted suspension of belief based on definition of race as role

Reason for race #4 (from Species/Race/Culture)

1)   To give different bonuses and sell splat books
2)   To address different themes
3)   To act as a metaphor for real race/ethnicity

Oh...and here's RyuMaou asking something pretty close to my same question:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=9996.15

And here's Ron again (same post):

We've beaten that one into the ground pretty thoroughly in the past...

Great.  Okay, so forgo the "discussion" part of my original post.  I guess some folks find it useful to use race in the design of a game. My question (as relates to RPG Theory design) is this:

Is it necessary to have "race" as class in a fantasy game...that is, is it necessary to give that kind of direction and definition to players (including GMs), rather than just having:
(characters that are scaleable to human norm) + color

I'm not saying take the non-human out of fantasy games (I agree with prior posts that different intelligent races is part of what makes fantasy fantastic.  But if I make a game that says "here there be elves and dwarves" and do not give rules specific to creating them/playing them (other than setting description), can players still function?

Again think in terms of space opera...hundred of intelligent, possible-PC races but no "list of races" to pick from.

[SlurpeeMoney]

Space Opera can be done without multiple races, as was proven quite nicely with Firefly (go buy DVDs; great series; Joss Whedon is just another name for God). Nothing but humans ever show up in Firefly, but it manages to maintain the Space Opera feel through culture and, god forbid, personality.

I think the same thing could be done in fantasy role-playing. If you need an extra "class," why not use cultural backgrounds? It was done rather effectively in the Wheel of Time by Wizards of the Coast. Even the ogier, a different species, was lumped in with the backgrounds, as they were the only playable non-humans.

Do you need to have species act like a character class? No, not really. It's the current norm, but that could be from lack of imagination as much as percieved neccessity. Race could act just like Advantage/Disadvantage traits (Witchcraft's Baast characters), or be an entirely unattended trait (the fact that your character is a dwarf provides no system bonuses at all, simply color).

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Races aren't necessary... but neither are classes, or levels, or stats, or spells, or feats, or equipment tables, or any of that other stuff.  You can make a fine game lacking some or all of those things.  However, conventions like races, spells, feats, skills, and so on are excellent tools to build a fantasy RPG. 

It's good to question long held traditions in game design.  But asking if some trope is necessary to *any* game isn't going to get you anywhere.  The answer is always no.  The real question is whether or not they are necessary to *your* game.  If they are, then you'd better use them and innovate with them.  If they aren't, then they'd better not show up or people will notice how "tacked-on" they feel. 

There are a lot of motifs in fantasy game design.  None of them are necessary on their own.  All of them are useful in their own way.  You have to make a decision which ones work for you and why  they are useful to you.  Always answer why.  Because if you don't, the players will ask once they use it for the first time, and IMHO that's not a good thing.

Peace,

-Troy

[simon_hibbs]

a)   All fantasy races are anthropomorphized; there are no truly alien races, per se.  All "races" are scaled to humans and have human personalities, sometimes emphasized in one fashion or another.  No species personality can be truly designed except in terms of human personality....

b)   Aside from color considerations, all fantasy races are created in terms of human ability: sometimes greater, sometimes lesser.....

These are pretty egregious generalisations, and in fact the last one is meaningless. If we are to rate characters according to Strength for example, then yes some non-humans may have greater or lesser strength than average humans, or even beyond the human range. You could equaly say that some races will have strengths greater or lesser than Donkeys, or Rabbits. That's just the nature of linear scales - for any given point, or range on the scale, other points or ranges will be higher, or lower or the same.

Another problem is that human languages were developed to communicate concepts, ranges and potentials in human-relative terms. Therefore any game written in a human language will face these in-built assumptions. This isn't necesserily a bad thing, as human abilities and attributes are presumably more familiar to the average RPG audience on earth that the abilities of any alien species you may care to mention. It makes sense to communicate alien abilities in human terms to a human audience.

Finaly not all RPGs, or fictional settings in general, fall into the rubber-suited alien stereotype. To repeat myself, as I've said the on The Forge before, Glorantha is a excelent example of a world with notably alien non-human races, with deep psychological, metaphysical and physical differences from humans. This is a game world that first saw publication in an RPG in the 1970s.

c)   Race/species are unnecessary system components and serve function mainly as filler based on setting of the fantasy world.

With regard to Melniboneans, you are somewhat missing the point. The protagonist - Elric of Melnibone - is of course an incarnation of the Eeternal Champion, who in other novels manifests as a human or a member of various other races. One of Moorcocks themes is the interchangeability of race and culture.

In the case of Tolkien, which you don't explicitly mention, the different races served the purpose of a mythological cycle. They represent archtypes familiar to us from North European mythology, which are vital to the narative. Would the unatainability of Luthien to Beren have been as poignant had she been a mortal human? Would her sacrifice - surrendering immortality and the grace of the Eldar to be with her lover - have been as poignant? Perhaps, but these are the narative devices he chose to use, and I think it's churlish to dismiss them as being mere window dressing.

The only place where special races and rules regarding them might be considered important and truly integral to a game design is in games created to specifically explore what it means to be a particular race. 

Good example:  Ork World
Bad example:  Vampire the Masquerade (where you're still exploring what it means to be vampire in terms of once being a human)

The whole Vampire theme is the surrender of one's humanity as the pursuit of power. How much would you give up to be Immortal? How low would you stoop, and what are the consequences? Are themes like that realy so utterly unworthy of pursuit? Perhaps VM doesn't always satisfy such a creative agenda, but it's still there is you choose to do so.


Simon Hibbs

[LandonSuffered]

Thank you folks for your responses.

Troy: you answered my original post very well, as did the thread(s) supplied by ewilen.

Simon:  My original post was not asking if races were necessary to fantasy fiction or to fantasy RPGs, but whether or not system rules are necessary for them.

I agree that I am making a generalization using linear scaling; the reason to use a human scale (instead of a donkey or rabbit one) is best summed up in your point that "it makes sense to communicate alien abilities in human terms to a human audience."  I could not agree more...in fact, I think that's the only way to communicate alien abilities.

Anyway, my main reason for this discussion thread I guess comes from a gripe that whenever a new fantasy game comes out, it usually includes a bunch of different "races," all scaled on a baseline norm that is "human." This scaling is done in personality as well as abilities, plus add some extra advantages and disadvantages.  I read a review praising D20 Star Wars the other day that talked about how well they included "all these cool alien races."  I was just pondering: is the inclusion of special races with several abilities and special racial adjustments, etc. necessary for a fantasy RPG?

I was thinking in terms of my own game design...why should I come out with a section on elves or wookies or whatever...can't I just say yes you can be a non-human...you make him the same way as a human, then add gills and a tail...or whatever.

How often has someone thrown away a randomly genreated character because it had 1 or 2 ability scores that were "un-playable?"  Why not simply say, this character is a non-human race with a willowy stature (low strength), terribly hideous with a mouth full of molars (low charisma), etc.

But it appears that there is an expectation to throw in some fantasy races (with stats, rules) when creating a fantasy game, and my question was do players need it?  I guess as an indie game designer, I should have asked "do I need it?"  And at this point I think both those questions have been answered to my satisfaction.

Thanks again, folks!

[zircher]

A friend of mine turned me on to this thread, excellent discussion.

Now that the problem has been identified, how would you all go about fixing it?  I'm particularly interested in aliens that can be PCs.  I really really do not want humans in a rubber suit.  So, what steps can I take within a game system to help players actually role play them?

The first thought is to basically write up an essay that describes not just the alien biology, but cultural high points that color the way they think about themselves and the other races that they have encounters.

To put that into a frame work, I'm working on a RPG source book(s) using the Fuzion system.  The universe setting is Fire on the Suns, a fairly generic but large wargaming setting created by Greg Ellis.  It's high on space opera scale with lots of biological sterotypes.
--
TAZ

[Jack Aidley]

Powerful, game-influencing, personality mechanics. I think. Ones that are dialed differently for other races. The problem then is making them fun.

I see several avenues for this line of thinking:

1. Direct behavioural mechanics: the guy insults me, I roll to see if I get angry. I am belittled, I roll to see if I keep a grudge. The hot hunk walks by I roll to see if I get a crush on him. Perhaps even bizarelly alien choices: I see the bush, I roll to see if I am compelled to talk to it. Trouble here is a real and present risk of overwhelming de-protaginisation. A gentler option is if I can choose to roll to see how I act (similar to Pendragon, I guess).

2. Reward mechnics. I rewarded with xp if I play my elf as aloof, or gain extra dice on a conflict if I am doing something 'elfy'.

3. Punishment mechanics. I am docked xp, or gather some kind of penalty point if I act in a way that is 'un-elfy'.

Of the three, I see 1 as holding the most potential, but also a very high risk of going badly wrong. I've never seen a punishment mechanic being fun so I doubt the potential of 3, while 2 strikes me as the easiest to implement in an effective manner.

[Rob Carriere]

How about: change the character-sheet bedrock.

So, if a human has, say, Int, Wis, Cha, then a Foo might have Need, Desire, Guile, or maybe Knowledge, Fear, Reputation, or...

This could get the rules complex rather quickly, but then, if you want to deal with aliens in any depth, you definitely only want a handful of species (except possibly as background color--but those are mechanically irrelevant.)

All this is of course inspired by Sorceror's demons. In that game, the GM will play the demons as demonic, because it is either that or toss the charactersheet. Nevertheless, within the boundaries of that charactersheet, the demon-player is as free as the human-player is within the boundaries of his charactersheet.

SR
--

[Justin Marx]

Better yet:
How many games exist where Humans are not there at all? When I was a wee youngster I started writing what would be called a Heartbreaker with no humans, until my friends said they wouldn't play fantasy if they couldn't play humans.

I like Rob's solution, very very interesting. Tricky in a unified mechanic, of course, but an interesting concept nonetheless. To show true imagination in understanding the personality of an alien race (I am avoiding fantasy for the meantime) is tricky - Olaf Stapledon's sci-fi book 'Star Maker' has some fairly bland races in it, but when he starts philosophising from their perspective is where it becomes utterly unique. Most people stick with using humans as the cosmic average (or worse yet, the most disgusting stereotype - the gregarious species) because they are not prepared to imagine the personality, philosophy and the ontology that an alien would percieve the universe through. Writing cultures is easy, and in my view preferable for those who want to play specialised humans (martial societies, spiritual societies). In gameplay, all the colour of the Klingons usually ends up becoming an aggressive meathead warrior with funky facial bumps and an idiotically inflated sense of samurai honour. Those who actually think about what an alien would want, or what the cultural imperatives of an individual would be, play them brilliantly and interestingly. But most people play Wookies because they have a strength and intimidation bonus, not because they like having fur and a funky deaf-mute's voice.

To develop the ontology of an alien is admittedly more difficult, as we have no experience with aliens to base anything on. Hence why we always revert to human stereotypes. Perhaps someone should think about (this made seem utterly stupid and inane, and it is, but I think it still has some merit) what goes through the head of a monkey, or a dolphin (if they are indeed higher cerebral animals) and construct a system that represents a dolphin's existence (adventuring or not.... killing penguins, I don't know) as an example. Presumably aliens would think nothing like humans. Of course we will always interpret animal (or alien) responses in human terms (a dog's loyalty, the pride of a lion), and to a certain extent this is not a bad thing, because players would have trouble getting inside the head of a creature that cannot be psychologically imagined in human terms. A nice compromise helps.

How does one play a sentient star? Or sentient nebulaic energy cloud? Stick with bipeds with funky nose bumps, it is easier for gameplay. Racial class neccesarially enforces cultural stereotypes, which does help enhance colour in particular settings.

Did someone say Firefly? Give that man a beer. A good example of why races are not needed in sci-fi as was said. And historical cultures gives ample canvas for any fantasy GM to play with without resorting to Elves and Dwarves.

[Shreyas Sampat]

A friend of mine turned me on to this thread, excellent discussion.

Now that the problem has been identified, how would you all go about fixing it?  I'm particularly interested in aliens that can be PCs.  I really really do not want humans in a rubber suit.  So, what steps can I take within a game system to help players actually role play them?

One intriguing solution I have seen appears in the game Ethos (search for threads started by 'Garbanzo'). Namely, there are several tactical actions one can take during each stage of conflict resolution, e.g. Aim, Attack, Attack Twice, Feint, etc. The various different species in the game are differentiated by modulating the efficacy of these tactics; one species, considered distinctive for its contemplative demeanour and sharp perceptions, might have a special bonus when using Aim, while a social insect might be unusually good at Assist.

As a result, in a situation where (for instance) a Vulcan would stop and Aim for a turn or two, a Klingon will Attack Extra Hard or something, and each will end up wondering why the other is doing what he did; by their understanding of the world, each took the optimal choice, and they don't have the perspective to realise that it's not universally optimal.

Hm, perspective! It occurs to me that thinkijng explicitly about what one "race" knows about others, and mechanically reinforcing this, could bring a lot of strength to the concept.

[LandonSuffered]

Zircher said:

I really really do not want humans in a rubber suit.  So, what steps can I take within a game system to help players actually role play them?

The first thought is to basically write up an essay that describes not just the alien biology, but cultural high points that color the way they think about themselves and the other races that they have encounters.

This isn't a bad suggestion, although it could be a tedious one if you plan on playing in a galaxy far-far-away that is teeming with intelligent alien life forms.

I'm not sure I'd use different combat tactics to define alien personality; I'd also hesitate to use any kind of personality system mechanic unless it was tied directly to the premise of the game (a la TROS). The idea of renaming human characteristics with other human characteristics doesn't really do much to take the human out of the rubber-suit...and for that matter neither would re-naming human characteristics with alien-sounding names (calling Conscience something like "Krvesh" for example is simply putting a rubber suit on a human personality trait).

My original idea of simply scaling aliens on humans still stands...I don't think you can do otherwise in a game unless the game is an exploration of a particular non-human race (again I point to Ork World as an example).  However, you might require that any player creating a non-human character needs to write up the essay on the race he wants to play, including abilities/personality in relation to humans, just as you suggested above.  As a GM, you are allowed to do this yourself with any new NPC cultures the characters encounter, and together with your players you could eventually create a whole catalogue of life forms.

Justin wrote:

Did someone say Firefly? Give that man a beer.

And you get a beer as well...for using ontology in a sentence!  Regarding your Heartbreaker story,  I was kicking around an idea for a non-human game with a working tilte called BUGGER-OFF! (as in bug-eyed aliens) where each player creates an alien race as "character" (the player acts as both a representative of and the the race as a whole), and work together or against each other to drive off the Earth Man (the title of the GM in the game) who has offered the characters' planets the choice of joining the Galactic Federation or being destroyed.  Along the lines of Shreyas's last sentence, each character race would have certain advantages that are known, and certain advantages that are "rumored," and part of the game is discerning which is which.

I have also read fiction in the past where humans were portrayed as less-than-equals to non-humans and treated with equal parts contempt and amusement, and that might make for an interesting game as well (where playing a human is nothing but a disadvantage, system-wise).

[anthony kilburn]

This may be considered off-topic.... but I offer it anyhow:

Why would aliens have drastically different ways of thinking than humans?

The way I look at it, all human action is based on survival instincts: eating, defending, and procreating.  Love and friendship is merely a complex way of involving other beings in your protective circle.  Sex is an instinctive desire to find "sufficient" genetic material to pair with, and physical attraction only a visual method of gauging the healthiness of the potential mate, while mental attractiveness assures the mate's ability to protect and nurture offspring.  Selfishness is about hoarding food because of the fear of its absense.  Most "peculiar" behavior in animals can be explained by studying them in their environments.  Only the physical hardware a lifeform is equipped with will actually alter how it interacts with the surrounding world.  And given that life exists to sustain itself, procreate, and then die, the only three important factors in the "thinking" of any lifeform would be food, sex, and health.

Granted, I've never seen a nitrogen-based lifeform, but I really don't see how any physically-existing alien being could deviate much from this model.  Birth, survival, and death are ever-present when elements can combine and separate from whatever stimuli apply.

Remember: Intelligence is merely an evolved survival adaptation.