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.

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.

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.

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…

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).

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

LandonSuffered wrote:
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.....

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

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)

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!

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.
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TAZ

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.

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
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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.

zircher wrote:
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?

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.

Did someone say Firefly? Give that man a beer.

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.

killacozzy wrote:
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.

What about those of us who like the idea that alien races are supposed to be variations of humanity.  Not just humans in funny suits, but human beings explored from a different lens: adding, removing, or altering traits that we tend to identify as human.  Things like mortality, empathy, reason, instinct, and sensory perception (with a strong preference for vision).  In other words, alien races can bring into focus a lot of the things we take for granted about our humanity, thus allowing us to see what we would be like were we different in particular ways.  Unfortunately, alien races (or rather, anything beyond the assumed WASP background of roleplayers) rely on cariacature to make them understandable, thus stripping away a character's identity rather than enriching it.

For instance, let's consider anthropomorphic animal races.  Imagine what would happen if dogs were endowed with human-like intelligence.  Let's not talk about the plausibility of such a thing, or make assumptions about any other traits they possess aside from human-like mnemonic, reasoning, and creative abilities.  Given their instincts and their ways of perceiving the world, how would they express their "humanity"?  What kinds of societies would they have?  What would their language be like?  Their arts?  And so on and so forth.  Even then, there are thematic elements that function within both cultures and individuals.  Is loyalty a virtue or a habit?  To what extent is the well-being of the individual the well-being of the whole?  How does a different sensory orientation influence our understanding of what is beautiful?  From whence does the conflict between reason and instinct derive?  Etc.

Green wrote: For instance, let's consider anthropomorphic animal races.  Imagine what would happen if dogs were endowed with human-like intelligence.  Let's not talk about the plausibility of such a thing, or make assumptions about any other traits they possess aside from human-like mnemonic, reasoning, and creative abilities.  Given their instincts and their ways of perceiving the world, how would they express their "humanity"?  What kinds of societies would they have?  What would their language be like?  Their arts?  And so on and so forth.  Even then, there are thematic elements that function within both cultures and individuals.  Is loyalty a virtue or a habit?  To what extent is the well-being of the individual the well-being of the whole?  How does a different sensory orientation influence our understanding of what is beautiful?  From whence does the conflict between reason and instinct derive?  Etc.

Justin wrote:
I think some of the points said on this thread were along the lines of: why do we need to make a new race to explore these themes at all? I think the answer comes down to adding colour as well as asking exploratory questions. And different strokes and all that when it comes to player preference of which is more important.....

simon_hibbs wrote: Facilitattion of exploration is the point. (snip) It's hard to imagine how such a psychology could be explored conveniently in an all-human game without resorting to the excuse mental illnesses or brain damage and the problem here is that you're not dealign with an evolved, and therefore stable persona.

Justin wrote:
That's exactly what I was saying, perhaps I mis-interpreted the other point of view. I felt that people were suggesting to make up alternate races who were indistinct from humans except for one or two characteristics/caracatures (for example, the mainstream treatment of Elves, Dwarves, Klingons etc.... although I stress the word 'mainstream', as many people have explored these concepts in the above fashion before). And that's an excellent point regarding desiring to play variations on humans from the point of view to explore those facets of human thought and action by emphasising or negating them. Point made.

contracycle wrote:
Actually I think that adding of colour can be counter-productive.  Becuase raising some issue about how we humans think, by the necessity of us all being humans, but then allowing it to be excepted from anthropology into biology and the dumb "well they do it cos they is dwarves" thing obviates this goal.

...I think this attempt at inducing variation is precisely the point at which we are in fact talking about culture, and that therefore as soon as it relegated to biology that comparitive analysis is lost.

Well I'm not saying its totally impossible, but I am saying I think its counterproductive where a social difference is being represented as a biological one.

I've often mentioned the Kafer of 2300AD as my fave alien species because they really were alien.  They differr from us in that their flight-flight adrenaline analog did not increase physical performance but mental clarity.  So they are dumb until they in danger, and then they get very smart very quickly.  So, all Kafer computers have to be buried in heavy armour to prevent their frustrated users smacking them with a solid object to "make them smarter".

There's a proposed biological difference, and the game can examine what this means, how it would work out.  But if by contrast you establish a hive-mind-like species as a metaphor for social order, and then try to play the game to investigate that supposition, I suggest you will not be able to because like the Kafer scenario you setup precludes any examination of cultural factors: because you have already said, they are born this way.  So issues of culture have been made irrelevant.  "They do it cos they is dwarves" is the in-game reality and there is no need to question the topic further.

contracycle wrote: Well I'm not saying its totally impossible, but I am saying I think its counterproductive where a social difference is being represented as a biological one.

I think this debate is devolving somewat into two camps:

The ' fantasy/SF races are unnecessery because in Game X and Setting Y they're pointless' camp.

The 'fantasy/SF races can be valid because in Game P and Setting Q they're done realy well' camp.

Of course neither arguments on it's own is very helpful, though I'd note that in practice the contributors here have had more to say than the minimalist versions of the arguments given above.

In the case of Star Trek I would like to offer in it's defence that it's never pretended to be very realistic in it's depiction of aliens. Their rubber-suited-humans nature is usualy an intentional attempt to make sure that it's easy for the audience to pick up on the moral message of the show, and see that the message is relevent to us. The show could be completely re-written as the story of a 17th century ship exploring islands in the South Pacific, and the essential story structures would map very easily. In fact Star Trek was concieved as a science fiction verison of the adventures of Horatio Hornblower and Guliver.

I do agree that Elves/dwarves/etc are often portrayed in their comm D&D-ist incarnation in a shallow and simplistic maner, but that doesn't mean that the concept of an ancient imortal race of the Fey, and the concept of a troglodytic race of impulsive Makers are inherently pointless. They have existed in north european myth since well before recorded history, and have been used inteligently and to good effect in many a tale.

Simon Hibbs

killacozzy wrote: 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.....

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.

Simon_hibbs said:

I think this debate is devolving somewat into two camps:

The ' fantasy/SF races are unnecessery because in Game X and Setting Y they're pointless' camp.

The 'fantasy/SF races can be valid because in Game P and Setting Q they're done realy well' camp.

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.

It seems to me that the original question is a concern about race-as-splat versus race-constructed-through-stats.  The original poster doesn't seem to have a problem with non-human characters, but rather with having a pre-determined wad of bennies as a mechanical widget added on to the PC.  Am I right?  If so, it seems like the real question is why do anything as splats (character class, clan, race, lodge, whatever) versus pure constructed character (Champions, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc.).

I'm not an expert at this but it seems like splats serve as the game designer's way of more firmly underlining the setting, working it into the mechanics in a way that makes setting much more integrated.  There are other ways to do this of course (make rules that underscore setting).

I can't seem to edit my last post, so I'll just add:  Splats are also fun.  It can be fun to take 2 (or 4, or 6) parts, stick them together, and see what you get.

LandonSuffered wrote:
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).

Green said:

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

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