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Sorry for starting up a new thread when I'm not really finished with replying to the Ygg thread yet, but I had this thing brought up in a recent e-mail discussion, and I felt it was sufficiently important that I ought to mail about it here on the forum straight away.

The matter pertains to fantasy rpgs in general. Ygg has the same "problem" as most other fantasy rpgs I've seen out there, so this might be interesting for Lance and others who are working on fantasy rpgs too.

Anyway, over to the actual subject of my posting:

In virtually all fantasy RPGs you sense people have wanted to "put in a new cool race/monster" to get "more varied play".

Can anyone say that they've never (at some time or another) ever looked through the monster section in some fantasy rpg thinking: "oh, they already met that and that monster, what new thing should I let them face off against today?"

It's not necessarily always like that, but the very fact that one has had that thought (in my case definately more than once) hints at some problem.

Symptoms in RPGs are an abundance of different player races and/or monsters. Why do we need them?

It's not like you sit reading Tolkien thinking: "Orcs and more orcs, oh sure they are seeing ents and occasional trolls, but when are they're gonna give me some serious variation? They are fighting the same guys all over again!"

Maybe even that short example has a little hint in it "fighting the same guys" seem to imply that every orc is the same. Traditionally with AD&D that is usually the case. You want a bigger meaner goblin? Well then you probably won't make a big mean goblin, but select a hobgoblin or something which is supposed to be a little bigger meaner version of a goblin.

But compare that to the list of types of Skaven fighters in Advanced Heroquest:

Clan Eshin Assassin, Clan Pestilens Plague Monk, Clan Pestilens Plague Censer Bearer, Clan Mors Warlord, Clan Skryre Warpweaver, Clan Skryre White Skaven Sorcerer, Skaven Champion, Skaven Sentry, Skaven Warlord, Praznagar Prince Of Agony, Skaven Nightrunner, Skaven Gutter Runner, Poisoned Wind Globadier, Warpfire Thrower Team, Jezzail Team.

Now, the main reason for having so many types in AHQ is probably that it sells more miniatures :) But that aside, doesn't it automatically make the Skaven more interesting?

Instead of meeting "a Skaven", you meet a specific type of skaven which then might be different from other types of skaven.

(You could argue that D&D was a little on this track too when they introduced their (arbitrarily made up) different-coloured dragons)

Anyway, different professions might be ok for intelligent creatures, but even non-intelligent should be varied within a sub-species, and preferably there shouldn't be any problem making up new variations on the fly.

One of the best examples where it was easy to make up new "monsters" was an old Swedish game called "Mutant" set in a post-apocalyptic setting where mutated humans and intelligent humanoid animal mutants were rediscovering the world after a great nuclear war.

In that game, a monster could easily be introduced by a formula like this:
1. Select a type of plant/animal
2. Cross it with characteristics and/or appearance of other plants/animals
3. Add mutated abilities freely

Now consider the same for an open-ended fantasy world:
1. Select any shape you want
2. Give it any abilities you want

In the latter there is no real framework to use.

If you remember Ygg setting I was playing at introducing a race "Ogres" which I intended to use as an "intelligent monster"-template for creating supernatural fiends.

But this is only trying to cure the symptoms. There is something inherited from the very early days of fantasy RPGs which has created this traditional problem.

I mean, consider the SF genre. It's not like the GM needs flip through the "monster manual" before every session thinking: "oh, what new alien race should I let the players fight tonight?"

Considering the amount of fantasy which hardly has any non-human races and/or variation in monsters it doesn't seem like it's a problem specific to the setting, but more a traditional problem of the rpgs in their way of dealing with fantasy world.

Talislanta aside, but when I see fantasy RPGs with a lot of player races I immediately feel the need to ask: "Why are there so many player races?" And the same with monsters: "Do I really need 100+ monsters?"

Another funny thing is that I remember having problems coming up with monsters for the players to fight in AD&D despite having two of the (three?) monstrous companions.

So it's a problem embedded deep in the very layout of fantasy rpgs. Can you help me unravel the problem?

P.S. Maybe this is better suited for posting in the RPG Theory forum? I guess you admins can move it if you feel it's in the wrong place.

The problem is when creatures are defined with rules that are different from the rest of the rules for a game, the idea being to make them easy to handle. This also invariably makes the creatures generic. Which means that for variance you need to use different creatures. Simply allow the GM to make up creatures by the same set of rules that are used for character generation, and this problem goes away, poof.

Also, simply reduce the number of times that players encounter "monsters". So that it's a special event with it's own special circumstances, instead of being ho-hum. This means that repeated use will not seem the same. The less you use, the longer the supply lasts.

This is all really obvious, and only D&D like games have this problem. Try playing, I dunno, Fantasy Hero, for example, or any of the zillion other fantasy games out there that got past this problem in '85, and you'll see what I mean.

Heck, even Rolemaster products figured out the rarity idea.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesThe problem is when creatures are defined with rules that are different from the rest of the rules for a game, the idea being to make them easy to handle. This also invariably makes the creatures generic. Which means that for variance you need to use different creatures. Simply allow the GM to make up creatures by the same set of rules that are used for character generation, and this problem goes away, poof.

I'm not sure that this is what I'm talking about. I'm think about "why do we need variation at all?".

QuoteAlso, simply reduce the number of times that players encounter "monsters". So that it's a special event with it's own special circumstances, instead of being ho-hum.

I'm not sure you see what I'm thinking about here. Although I agree that an aboundance of monster fights make for a "ho-hum" feeling, I feel that this is not the essence of the problem.

What you are suggestion seems like a cure for the symptom just like it would be to add more different monsters. In both cases it relies on monsters enocountered on being "new".

"New" because monsters in general are rare, or "new" because there are so many monsters seem to be two ways of seeking the same kind of solution to the problem, and not really addressing the problem itself which is more along the lines of:

"Why does a monster have to be 'new'?"

Why do we need this kind of variation at all? Is it because fantasy is more about exploring new things than other types of settings or what? Why can't the next bad guy be an orc too? And the next, and the next and the next? What why does it has to be same old same old? Is it only because the monsters actually lack personal touches and are all the same monster or what?

So here's a design "what if."  What if the game was a fantasy setting, but somehow the players and/or characters created the races through adventuring?

Maybe the world is full of some kind of energy that feeds on the imaginations of all that live upon it and when enough people believe something said something comes into being.  It would be like saying way back when people started thinking about vampires, when the legend took off enough--a threshold was met--vampires came into being.  (ooh, I like this idea...  maybe I should look into this a bit more - game in the making?)

Then again, you could say to the players - its fantasy, and the players create the races by deciding on the race they want to play.

Maybe characters "remember a legend about..." and said something exists in the world...

Well, those are some random ideas on the subject...

-Shane

PS: Some books that kind of (tangentially) touch upon this are Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Charles de Lint's Newford stories ( see Forests of the Heart) -> beasties and gods coming from the "Olds World" to the New due to the belief of immigrants.

One of the problems with races in typical fantasy games is that although the system likely has mechanics to model the tactical advantages and disadvantages that differentiate the races, and probably some descriptive text about their demeanors and cultures, characters of different races operate in the same context and under the same reward mechanics as the humans. And so for all their purported differences, they fail to emerge in play as substantively distinct from human characters.

A solution is to embed the races in conflicts that are specific to them. The trollbabes in Ron's unreleased game Trollbabe! are squarely in the middle of a conflict between trolls and humans that creates a context of protagonizing uncertainty around their decisionmaking and their loyalties.

Another solution would be to have different setting-based reward mechanics for different races. Rather than throwing in a race of centaurs (because they're kewl), with a traditional set of stat modifiers, have them be ecoterrorists and reward them with rank and desirable mates for driving human settlements off from the plains, fleeing into the hills. Reward your lizardmen with spiritual insight when they have near death experiences.

You'll need to put the notion of a sustainable mixed-race adventuring party to rest though.

Paul

I don't think the question is quite framed properly in order to address it.  Is the question,"What is the point of so many races in fantasy?"(What value is there in different races?) or is it "What can be done with races in fantasy to make them worthwhile?"  

If the question is #1, I can say two things contribute to it.  First giving players kewl monsters to kill or play as(whoo-hoo, new powers!).  Second is fantasy often tries to act as a metaphor for real world conflicts, and the combination of society/culture/ethnicity often falls into the new "races".  Why do elves and dwarves dislike each other?  Why are mutants hated in X-men?  What were the Morlocks out of the Time Machine(think economic class)?

Often you find that everyone "knows" what the culture of certain races are, but humans are usually poorly developed.  Instead of getting into the complexities of what fuels a cultural viewpoint, it's easy enough to say,"Orcs are orcs 'cause of their God"...which makes it wonderfully easy to slaughter them.  Let's replace the word "orcs" with the word "heathens","infidels", or a racial epithet of your choice...

If the question is #2, it could prove very interesting to see what happens with truly different races and mindstates(see SF for examples), or attempts at living near different species who have vastly different needs and lifestyles than each other.  

Typically 3 things have united humans in history; sex, trade, and conquest.  If species cannot interbreed, the first is out of order.  If they cannot communicate, the second is nullified, and, if they cannot interact(say, the spirit world to the living), then the third is also nixed.  Even those three are often greater sources of conflict than unification :)

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for PF, but perhaps if you clarified the question down to a few sentences, it could be better addressed.

Chris

I ditched "race" as an RPG concept many years ago, and I really do not think it is necessary at all.  Again, I think this is a convention of Tolkienist origin, in that it exhibits the archetypal mixed party.

I see nothing to be gained by the use of "race" as a concept - games like L5R and seventh sea use political afficiliations among humans to deliver the kewl powers and identity differentiation.  Blue planet offers some human mods and dolphin PC's, but I see no indication this has been properly thought through (dolphins as PC's, that is).

The races idea is addressed to excellent effect in Ron Edward's Sorceror and Sword.  What follows is my own commentary, I recomend Ron's though.

Anyway, the simple answer is that the multiple races idea comes from DnD, which in turn took it from Tolkien.  If you read Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser or Conan the protagonists and foes are generally all human.  To the extent other races exist they are few and far between.

In Tolkien other races feature heavily in the story.  DnD borrowed that idea and changed it, then lots of other games copied DnD.

None of this is necessary.  In my current game, a sort of Scottish post-apocalypse fantasy, there are three races, including humans.

The good folk, essentially elves with powerful glamours and an amoral approach.  The party has encountered them but fighting them would be suicidal, the good folk can create glamours which men cannot but perceive as real.  They see men's thoughts as easily as we see our hands in front of us.  They have the gift of foresight and know the future in detail.  Fighting them is almost impossible.  They are highly magical and strange.  In a sense, they are more of a background feature than anything else.

The other race are troglodytes, cave dwelling folk who avoid humans.  The party has not yet met any.  Why?  Because they avoid humans.

So, the good folk are too powerful to be foes or protagonists, the troglodytes too reclusive.  What am I left with?

Humans.

Every foe in the game is human.  Different political factions war and the characters pick sides and profit from the confusion.  They side with humans, against humans, fight and profit from humans.  They are all human themselves.

And the game is better for it.  Other races are rare and strange, as they should be.  You do not randomly encounter one of the good folk or a troglodyte, the very idea is ludicrous.  If you meet them, it is because they want to be met.  Dealing with humans as allies and foes means that it is more difficult to stereotype how they think, they think as we do for they are like us.  All of this makes for a better game IMO.

What would be added by orcs, dwarves, warrior races and bad-guy races?  Nothing.  I would lose the political complexity, the idea that your opponent may fundamentally not be that different from you.  Instead I would have a collection of cliches which could be killed without guilt because we all know they're not real anyway.

Dump 'em all.  No monsters, no other races.  Look to the fiction.  Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser encounter the Ghouls, but not a lot else.  Conan discovers elder things but no real species in the DnD sense.  It's not necessary and it is cliched.  Humans provide all you need.[/url]

You all come with interesting comments, but not quite what I was aiming at, so I try to reformulate the question at Chris's suggestion.


Question: Why does most fantasy RPG incorporate so many races/monsters while still in the end failing to give the feeling of surprise and discovery as one encounters other monsters/races?


My feeling is that... well let's say a game has 100 monsters... 100 monsters last on the average x adventures. 200 monsters 2x adventures, 300 monster 3x adventures. After a while the new monsters/races become ludicrous.

One obvious thing is that the monsters/races aren't fleshed out properly. With the massive amount of monsters, most games don't bother to give anything but the superficial facts of them. This too ties in with the "lack of wonder" I have a problem with in many fantasy games.

Also, I feel that having a whole new race of monsters seems like bringing out the bazooka to kill an ant.

GM: I want something different than the usual bad guys.
Solution: Find a new race of monsters to use.

Usually the first races/monsters are the best, because they are fleshed out enough to make a few different takes on the same theme, but it goes downhill from there.


So,

Question #2: What deficiency is it that fantasy RPGs try to cover up by having lots of races/monsters? There's obviously the problem with variation, but aside from the fact that the races are poorly fleshed out, is there something in the traditional fantasy adventures which prevents the adventures themselves from providing enough variation?

What do you see as a traditional fantasy adventure?

If what you mean is essentially racially motivated murder and pillage, a la traditional DnD, then many races is useful to prevent characters feeling sorry for their victims.

Many races aids objectification.  When you storm the dungeon which the kobolds have made their home and are raising their children in, butcher the adults and leave the children to starve having robbed them of their few meagre possessions, you don't want to start thinking of them as people.

If they're people, what you're doing isn't all that heroic.

So, an overly fleshed out fantasy race actually mitigates against this style of play.  Once they have customs, internal conflicts, beliefs, motivations, it becomes harder to kick their doors down and slaughter them.

Traditional fantasy isn't about discovery.  It's about growing rich and powerful through mass killing.  The source fiction contains no traditional fantasy adventures.

Why create more stuff like that?  DnD and Palladium already have this covered?  Why do more traditional fantasy adventure gaming?  It's hardly an underserved field.

Anyway, that is my answer.  Lots of races provide a variety of things to kill and rob.  Changing scenery to an essentially sterile game paradigm.  Fleshing them out would be counterproductive.  If you want something more interesting, abandon the traditional adventures.

It's noticeable that Runequest managed to have the first really fleshed out alien race with Trollpak and that Runequest attempted (not wholly successfully) to have motivations for characters beyond looting and killing.  There is no point to interesting races for traditional fantasy gaming.

why so many?  variety.  in my fantasy campaigns, the characters are surrounded by a living, breathing world of wildly different races and species.

d&d took its cue from numerous sources.  tolkien was one.  not the only one, however.  consider myth.  read the monster manual, and keep an eye out for giants, pegasi, chimerae, gorgons, minotaurs, and the like.  consider norse mythology, greek and roman mythology, eastern legends, and the judeo-christian mythos.

as far as your game is concerned, consider the following: if your game took place in a world consisting of nothing but humans, would your players get bored with humans after fighting them day after day?  i'd suggest that it depends on the level of interaction, and the relative realism of the non-player characters.  if the only humans they encounter are violent, unthinking enemies, then yes -- this gets boring quickly.

in my fantasy campaigns, i try to embed the players in a world with a genuine ecology, one in which monsters don't just snort about in caves, looking for food.  orcs are as varied as humans.  some are tribal, and some use more advanced tools.  those with catapults and steel weapons tend to enslave and exploit their more primitive brethren -- just like humans.  orcish priests are proselytes, martyrs, zealots, politicians, and simple men of faith -- just like humans.

don't worry about what d&d did with dragons -- just look at the great cats of our world.  lynx, tiger, lion, puma, leopard -- consider the variety, the shapes and colors, the habits and modus operandi.  let examples from this world serve as a template, and your beasts will seem at once familiar and alien.  this is what works for me.

Question #2: What deficiency is it that fantasy RPGs try to cover up by having lots of races/monsters? There's obviously the problem with variation, but aside from the fact that the races are poorly fleshed out, is there something in the traditional fantasy adventures which prevents the adventures themselves from providing enough variation?

the problem, as i see it, is that the rpgs have failed to take into account what myth-tellers of ancient days knew: if your fantasy world isn't real, if its inhabitants don't behave like the creatures of this world, with honest and true motive and behavior, then the fantasy becomes sterile, and the only thing you can do is pile on more mysterious and amazing monsters that get less and less interesting as the shine wears off.  like a few people have already said, you can play a good fantasy game with three monsters -- just give them good motives and real aspirations.  let them have goals and hopes, too, if they're sentient.  that will change everything.

[.deadguy.]

Quote from: deadguyd&d took its cue from numerous sources.  tolkien was one.  not the only one, however.  consider myth.  read the monster manual, and keep an eye out for giants, pegasi, chimerae, gorgons, minotaurs, and the like.  consider norse mythology, greek and roman mythology, eastern legends, and the judeo-christian mythos.[.deadguy.]

Most of these were not races though.  There was precisely one Minotaur, he was unique.  Four Gorgons and that was it.  Chimerae, not sure but I don't think they were really a race either.

Greek mythology has the satyrs and centaurs, although only the centaurs are really a race in the traditional sense.  Satyrs are closer to being nature spirits.  The Norse have the alfheim and Svartlheim (spelling?) but again these are not races in the DnD sense (although Giants do seem to be).

Actual non-human races in mythology are pretty rare.  Spiritual entities, one-off creations of the gods, these abound.  DnD-esque races though generally you don't find.

Minotaurs are a pet hate of mine, they were not a race.  It was one guy.

Quote from: deadguythe problem, as i see it, is that the rpgs have failed to take into account what myth-tellers of ancient days knew: if your fantasy world isn't real, if its inhabitants don't behave like the creatures of this world, with honest and true motive and behavior, then the fantasy becomes sterile, and the only thing you can do is pile on more mysterious and amazing monsters that get less and less interesting as the shine wears off.  like a few people have already said, you can play a good fantasy game with three monsters -- just give them good motives and real aspirations.  let them have goals and hopes, too, if they're sentient.  that will change everything.
[.deadguy.]

I should add here, absolutely.  The key is intelligent application.  I would argue however that it is easier to do two or three races well than thirty or more.  Space requirements if nothing else mitigate against numerous well thought out and detailed races.

In a sense it all comes down to simple laziness and short attention spans. Why create 2 fully fleshed out and well developed races when you can slap 50 together? Plus you can then blip from one race to another to another like different Skittles flavors.

Another large part of it, as was previously mentioned, is that in detailing a race and making them as complex as humanity then players may start to feel empathy for them and not want to slaughter them wholesale. If you are forced to live amongst Orcs and see how they care for and raise their children then you might be reluctant to trample them under the hooves of your warhorse.

D&D is the model which many Fantasy RPGs chose to emulate and of course D&D was translated from a "kill them all" wargame to start so the end result is many Fantasy RPGs are just complex wargames. And Games Workshop's sales figures and product lines are good evidence that wargamers like variety in their armies. (Side note: All shall fall before the power of the Skaven!)

Hi Christoffer (Pale Fire),

I think you've raised a good question, and as Max pointed out, I've addressed it already in publication. However, he didn't mention one of my off-the-cuff sentences that at least points at the larger "why" - I suggest that fantasy-RPG design, and the modern fantasy fiction that's largely based on it, are using "fantasy races" to address issues of human ethnicity and culture that are too close to home to raise directly.

I want to distinguish between true High Fantasy (MacDonald, Lewis, Eddison, Tolkien, Cabell) and the modern D&D and post-D&D games and fiction that have essentially swiped some of its elements. In the actual pre-gaming literature, nonhumans showed up in these works mainly as "otherworldly" elements - either they belonged to the fantastical world that existed just beside the "real" one, or they were leftovers from the slowly-vanishing fantastical world that is being replaced by our "real" one.

In other words, these beings were not species in the sense of badgers, oak trees, and humans. They were magical, and specifically not "available" as protagonists, especially the more elfy they were. A character like Legolas in The Lord of the Rings is half-and-half, and if anyone would actually read this character with care, they would see that he makes a very painful choice about that in the final sections of the story. Hobbits are also half-and-half, and we see Frodo go in one direction, and Sam go in the other.

All of the source literature, of this type, is like this. Again, the nonhumans are not species. They are magical elements of a magical world, which is vanishing.

After D&D and its despicable impact on fantasy fiction, everything changed. Elves and dwarves became species, with longevity and biology and so forth. Either their concrete elements made - plainly - no sense at all, or they became ever more convoluted. As the gaming-influenced fantasy fiction proliferated in the 1980s, basically, these races became the same as aliens in Star Trek - means to address topical issues without being too, too obvious about it. Arguably, elves as constructed by this subset of gaming/fiction are much like one's cool, artsy gay friend. Arguably, dwarves (ditto) are much like one's grumpy but reliable uncle. Arguably, the faux-Gandalf so common to this kind of writing is the long-lost father, returned for guidance.

Well, there's lots more to say about all this, but that's probably enough to raise cries of disbelief, so let's see what happens.

Best,
Ron

P.S. I moved this thread to RPG Theory for what I hope are obvious reasons. I really wish people would understand that "Indie Game Design" is specifically for games undergoing design and not a chit-chat room regarding elements of design. That would be theory, which is what this forum is about.