Race/Species in Fantasy RPGs: Is It Necessary?

[Green]

My original question in this thread had to do with game design, and if it was necessary to include specific rules for alien races (whether terrestrial fantasy or extra-).  My conclusion was, no...unless a major purpose of the game is to explore what it means to be a particular alien species.

I think some of the examples people have been recently posted (Green's elves, Contracycle's kafers, M.J. Young's Bah Ke'gehn and Newcomers) serve as examples of ideas that could be riffed into a whole game in and of themselves.  But when creating system rules for a particular life form (whether the rules are based on strange biology, extreme psychology, or the one leading to the other) it's best used in making a game specifically of that race.

Conversely in any game that actually involves exploration of a particular race as part of its premise (OrkWorld, Mechanoids, Alien Nation), then there should be some heavy system rules to back-up the exploration...and these rules should have nothing to do with game "balance" when it comes to setting the alien next to the human (if humans are included at all).

Are you basically saying that unless the relationships between two or more alien species is a large part of the setting, it is superfluous to include alien races or to use rules to represent them?  If that's your point, I agree with where you're coming from.  However, even in settings where you have multiple alien races, what is the best way to present them to facilitate their portrayal?  I realize this could be a question for another thread or for PMs, but I just want to throw it out there for those who'd like to take it in that direction.

[LandonSuffered]

Green said:

...in settings where you have multiple alien races, what is the best way to present them to facilitate their portrayal?

Depends on the type of game youre trying to design, what it is your game is about.

As an example, take a look at Chaosium's ElfQuest.  Based on the standard Chaosium game design, the game attempts to be as true to Wendy Pini's classic comic series by examining elves from her point of view: looking at their history, their customs, their names, and body types, plus adding rules based on their biological functions (for example "soul names," "sending," and "recognition" with regard to procreation).  For folks who enjoy the comics, ElfQuest is an excellent sim-facilitated game design, focused heavily on "what it means to be an elf on the World of Two Moons." I've played in an ElfQuest campaign, and run a campaign with a completely different group, and both times had a blast...but that's the kind of game world we wanted to explore.  As an example of multiple possible "alien races" (elf, troll, and human), I found it to be refreshingly un-balanced and well-done.

I would also argue that Sorcerer is a game that explores a particular alien race: demons.  Although Sorcerer is not an exploration of what demons are, each Sorcerer game has to answer questions about what a demon is when designing the theme of a particular scenaro.  This is a completely different approach in game design from an ElfQuest or OrkWorld-type game.  Yes, the whats and whys of the alien are necessary for the specific setting. Yes, special rules apply to the alien race. No, the game does not explore what it is to be a demon (usually); it explores premise and theme in a world where demons exist and interact with humans/player characters.

In both these examples, a non-human race is very much a necessary component of the game...it is not a class or add-on, and is more than simple color.  But that is because of the design of the game and what the game designers wanted to do. Both are effective in meeting the goal of game play, but both approach the subject differently based on design goals.

[M. J. Young]

I think inherent in Green's last post is another question. What if the game is at least in part about very different peoples interacting? Granted that this is a popular science fiction/fantasy metaphor for human races, or cultures, or nations, and could as easily be portrayed as such, it is inherent to the genres that such clashes are built on the fact that these are different life forms. Thus if you are doing a Star Trek world, you need Vulcans and Klingons at the very least, possibly Romulans, Cardassians, Bajorans, and a host of others, so that the players can pick these different kinds of people to bring together. If you're not doing Star Trek, but you're doing something like it, you probably do need the assortment of races to make that kind of statement about the interaction of differing cultures within the genre.

I understand that it can be and has been badly done; but I think to say it should not be done unless you're focusing on exploring what one particular creature is like is not a valid position. It is a perfectly valid use of species in these genres to serve as a metaphor for human interaction, and excluding it precisely because it is a metaphor is missing the point.

--M. J. Young