Talk me down: Exotic Race Antipathy


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Arssanguinus wrote:
In that case, if they are so similar why can't the player just play a gnome, instead of everything else having to change?

Elves make better wizards than gnomes do.


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knightnday wrote:

I can see where it might make a difference, depending on what the overall scenario is. Perhaps the lack of elves as playable characters is because they are being set up to replace drow, and the reason they left the world ties into all this. Perhaps their settlements throughout the other planets ties into all this as well.

That would be a good enough reason for it to happen, and some small amount of information could be related to the players about why they aren't allowed and why you couldn't just swap them. I mean, you COULD swap them, but major plot points might change.

You could in that case switch drow with svirfneblin (making them evil instead of neutral).

Arssanguinus wrote:
In that case, if they are so similar why can't the player just play a gnome, instead of everything else having to change?

And that is what is known as moving the goalposts. First you say that you can't just switch the two races. When it is proven that, yeah, you probably can with little difficulty. Then you change it to, well why can't the player switch races. They can, but the issue we are currently discuss isn't whether the player could switch races, but if the GM is even ABLE to. You claimed you HAD to have a certain race in a certain set up. I think we have debunked that claim.


pres man wrote:
knightnday wrote:

I can see where it might make a difference, depending on what the overall scenario is. Perhaps the lack of elves as playable characters is because they are being set up to replace drow, and the reason they left the world ties into all this. Perhaps their settlements throughout the other planets ties into all this as well.

That would be a good enough reason for it to happen, and some small amount of information could be related to the players about why they aren't allowed and why you couldn't just swap them. I mean, you COULD swap them, but major plot points might change.

You could in that case switch drow with svirfneblin (making them evil instead of neutral).

Of course! The world can be a highly mutable place, and exchanges can be made where appropriate to make an interesting game.

Kirth's chart earlier pretty much explained how it should go, assuming folks can talk to each other and not push the point either way.


And yes, apart from halflings most of the non human races tend to be limited in their number of cultures because they are rather RARE in most of the worlds.(doesn't mean payers can't play the ones that exist. Just that they are examples of a rare breed.)

Actually, I was just continuing a hypothetical. The gnomes and elves thing was just batting the ball of yarn someone threw into the air.

Current world being run has humans, elves, dwarves and halflings, no gnomes. dwarves are absurdly rare - or at least absurdly insular - at this time(history behind that.). Humanoids, however, (orcs etcetera) work entirely different and are corrupted versions of the base races. Dwarves and halflings are actually closely related - arguably the same species in a way. Likewise, elves and humans are actually related. Halflings are very numerous and tend to blend in and adopt the local culture for the most part although there are exceptions. The dwarves have a bit of an old school Judaic bent to them very spiritual. Or at least the rare few who appear in the "upper world" do. The elves have generally retreated off the mainland. In that one, gnomes aren't in because I haven't thought of a way to fit them yet, if someone provides a good one then its cool. Then they could be added. There tend not to be many of the truly fantastically large nasty monsters. Dragons and the like. A reason behind that as well. They aren't going to run into much in the way of outsiders. If any. A reason behind that tied into the other reasons. So, for example Tieflings or Aasimar would be exceedingly unlikely.

I have, however had ones where I basically just did not include the elvish race. I don't want the super long lived ancient major race to exist. The oldest things were the dwarves. Don't want any major race with people old enough to remember what happened past a certain age. Elves were out because that slot needed to be avoided.


pres man wrote:
knightnday wrote:

I can see where it might make a difference, depending on what the overall scenario is. Perhaps the lack of elves as playable characters is because they are being set up to replace drow, and the reason they left the world ties into all this. Perhaps their settlements throughout the other planets ties into all this as well.

That would be a good enough reason for it to happen, and some small amount of information could be related to the players about why they aren't allowed and why you couldn't just swap them. I mean, you COULD swap them, but major plot points might change.

You could in that case switch drow with svirfneblin (making them evil instead of neutral).

Arssanguinus wrote:
In that case, if they are so similar why can't the player just play a gnome, instead of everything else having to change?
And that is what is known as moving the goalposts. First you say that you can't just switch the two races. When it is proven that, yeah, you probably can with little difficulty. Then you change it to, well why can't the player switch races. They can, but the issue we are currently discuss isn't whether the player could switch races, but if the GM is even ABLE to. You claimed you HAD to have a certain race in a certain set up. I think we have debunked that claim.

No... You haven't even come close, really ...


mplindustries wrote:

Try an experiment:

Remove all racial abilities in the game. Every race, no matter what, just gets a bonus feat and skill point, or whatever you decide. The point is to make every race mechanically identical. Then, allow any race whatsoever. Watch what happens.

I wager you're going to get three major groups of PCs:
1) People indulging fetishes and personal fantasies with their characters (furries or Mary Sue Tieflings, for example)
2) People totally into playing a particular racial stereotype (the boastful, drunk, Scottish/Viking combo Dwarf, for example)
3) Humans

The point is, the vast, vast majority of people are choosing weird races for their mechanics. I have literally never seen a Human in AD&D, for example, because they got absolutely nothing racially except a higher max level cap which everyone ignored anyway.

I don't do this even in the slightest. My first concern when I pick a race is what I want to roleplay.


Immortal Greed wrote:
Ashiel wrote:

I once played a female elf looking for her half-elven daughter. Her human lover left her tribe of nomadic elves and took their young daughter with her. Her entire motivation for adventure was finding her daughter (and funneling the wealth she acquired into hiring various investigators and contacts and bribing authorities to help find her missing child).

When she finally tracked them down, her daughter was relatively a bit older, but her lover had aged poorly. She was half bent on killing him for kidnapping their child and leaving. She couldn't bring herself to do it though. Turns out he took her to meet his family, and to live among the humans for a while. But why? Because he knew that she would outlive him in a very real way, and that he couldn't have convinced the PC to take a hiatus from her clan's nomadic lifestyle for a time to travel outside of their desert homeland.

Said character was a PF-Beta Fighter played during the playtests (should have been a Ranger, really, because Fighter wasn't helping anything for the concept). The only thing that was really memorable about the character (even being the one playing her) was just the subplot.

A subplot that I would have had to jump through some hoops to have done with humans. Let's face it, "My daughter is going to be ninty-years old before she's around the age to leave her clan with her blessings, so deuces" is not really something that works so well with humans. The two-different worlds aspect was easier to set up with the difference races as well. The having pity and feeling sadness seeing your former lover withering away overshadowing all the anger you've felt for an apparent betrayal? Yeah, still probably better with the elves / humans thing.

In before "Tolkien did it first"! (^.^)"

Cool, sounded a bit like a reverse Braid at first. No, I must get away from my wife! Lol.

It seems you really expanded on the ideas of why half elves are looked down upon and pitied in the Elven fluff.

Thank you. It was just something of an idea that came to me when I was rolling up a character to try out the PF-Beta fighter (still to this day everything involved would have been better if I rolled a Ranger instead). Some ideas built off of others, which began from a stylistic perspective and then broadened and the meat added.

1. I decided to play an elf (I usually play humans). Specifically an elf of a small nomadic culture of elves who live in a desert and move around based on astrological movements. Basically pitched the idea to the GM and he thought it sounded swell.

2. Decided she would wield their cultural weapons the "dust blade" which was just a reflavored pair of kusari-gama from the 3.5 DMG (light exotic, 1d6 slashing, trip, disarm, melee+reach; like a small spiked chain). We refluffed it as a pair of balanced short-swords on some chains which were swung around in a pattern based on a dust-devil (GM allowed me to swap the usual weapon familiarity for those).

3. Started coming up with some ideas for adventuring. Thought about it a bit and started thinking about my character and her motivations. After a bit I decided that I liked the idea of a human explorer having become romantic with her while studying her people and their lifestyle, and love blossomed leading to the blooming of a half-elf. But before the child would be considered of age to leave their clan, the human would have long since died of old age. So he took her in secret as a very young child and ferreted her away in the night. Enraged, and feeling betrayed, her adventuring spurred from her seeking her daughter and her former lover.

4. The plot for this character became by far the most interesting thing about her. It was not long before I was grossly bored with the two-weapon wielding fighter that I had. She dealt lots of damage but precious little else, even with me tweaking her skill points as hard as I could. Even most of the conceptual stuff the Fighter class only hindered in hindsight (I'd like to rebuild her as a Ranger which would be right on so many levels). I'd have dropped her and rolled something else if not for just being interested in the human/elf/child dynamic (it's also the first time I've ever played a parent-adventurer).

But I suppose the big picture is...this doesn't work as a human. Sometimes races are just different, and those differences are what cause a chemical reaction in our stories.


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claymade wrote:
The guy, mentioned upthread, who has invested a lot of time into building/painting his beloved goblin mini-figure, and is really, really geeked to play with it and doesn't want to have to put it into mothballs for however many months (or years) the current campaign runs for before he finally gets a chance to actually use it... that doesn't have anything to do with his trust in how good a story you'll tell.

I wouldn't ever refuse to play just because I might not be able to use a miniature (looks longingly at wall covered in miniatures, 1/2 never used) but I do get inspired by miniatures sometimes.

Spoiler:
One local con I went to had a game with pre-gen characters. I grabbed an elf ranger. We then got to use a miniature and I saw this guy. I had this sudden inspiration. My guy would be an abandoned elf raised by dwarves. At some point he had hair from his head magically/surgically removed and placed on his face so that he would have a beard like all the rest of his adopted family. I even convinced the GM to change the pre-Gen's languages so he spoke dwarven. Fun times.

Ashiel wrote:
We refluffed it as a pair of balanced short-swords on some chains which were swung around in a pattern based on a dust-devil (GM allowed me to swap the usual weapon familiarity for those).

I think the name you are looking for is ...

Spoiler:


Arssanguinus wrote:
And yes, apart from halflings most of the non human races tend to be limited in their number of cultures because they are rather RARE in most of the worlds.(doesn't mean payers can't play the ones that exist. Just that they are examples of a rare breed.)

I'm also not a fan of having humans being absurdly populous and everywhere while other races are rare and only live in a few places. It contributes to non-human races being walking stereotypes and it seems rare for settings to address why only one race would spread globally.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
And yes, apart from halflings most of the non human races tend to be limited in their number of cultures because they are rather RARE in most of the worlds.(doesn't mean payers can't play the ones that exist. Just that they are examples of a rare breed.)
I'm also not a fan of having humans being absurdly populous and everywhere while other races are rare and only live in a few places. It contributes to non-human races being walking stereotypes and it seems rare for settings to address why only one race would spread globally.

Well, for one, dwarves and elves are said in most places to have low birth rates, which usually contributes to slow growth. Low birth rates would also fit quite well with long lifespans.

The second is if someone want to play a dwarf to be unusual I want it to BE unusual.

"Mom! Come see! There's a dwarf in the tavern! "

Not "marge, there's another gathering of local stonemason dwarves chapter 211, could you bring out the dark ale?"

Halflings, however, breed and spread quite well themselves.

Admittedly though, none of the players really know HOW many dwarves there really are or elves. As certain historical events have led to the dwarves closing themselves into their massive underground cities(and a few above ground mountain "trading" cities.) and the elves to mostly retreat off the mainland to a rather large island which they tend to defend rather vigorously from outsiders.

(History deals with an ancient massive continent spanning Empire ... Or rather the remnants of it, as what were once the central lands and capital provinces are, and have been for as long as anyone alive can remember, something like a cross between the australian outback and the Sahara desert, with roving bands of "humanoids" occupying the center. That central region is also ringed by mountains and rather rocky badlands. The main modern nations are the old provinces in the sticks from the old empire so to speak around the outer rim of the continent.(incidentally providing me with an excuse for common).

The reason the elves and dwarves aren't mo openly out and about among the humans has something to do with whatever caused this - although they aren't talking and admittedly not all of them likely even know themselves anymore.

The elves and dwarves traveling around in the human lands tend to be rare(and PCs) or the occasional merchant or trader looking for something they can't get back home.
.


Hate to do this, but why couldn't people play smurfs?


Although now I am picturing a world where halflings are the dominant racial group ...


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Sissyl wrote:
Hate to do this, but why couldn't people play smurfs?

Mechanical balance issues.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
And yes, apart from halflings most of the non human races tend to be limited in their number of cultures because they are rather RARE in most of the worlds.(doesn't mean payers can't play the ones that exist. Just that they are examples of a rare breed.)
I'm also not a fan of having humans being absurdly populous and everywhere while other races are rare and only live in a few places. It contributes to non-human races being walking stereotypes and it seems rare for settings to address why only one race would spread globally.

Humans are the dominant race in the setting I have been working on, but on other worlds Dwarves or "Elves" are the dominant race, with anything else rare. I think that tends to get around things. There might only be a few isolated havens for different creatures on this world, but somewhere out there are entire worlds full of different cultures of x races.


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Straight up c'mon tell me, are you really gonna smurf me forever?

Edited for Smurfapproval


Oh, I will smurf you forever. As Papa Smurf says!


Smurf yeah!


the Alternate Races aren't an issue if you focus exclusively on the mechanical aspects

but fluff shouldn't be used to balance unbalanced mechanics

many roleplay flaws, such as prejudice, alignment restrictions, class limitations, and the like do nothing to balance an unbalanced race.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Best non-humancentric story I've seen.


Smurf - strictions be darned!


The best non-humancentric story told through music!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGBhQbmPwH8&list=PLF230C93EF3BB5AE7


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
Best non-humancentric story I've seen.

I was half expecting this.

Shadow Lodge

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What kind of fool do you take me for?


Smurf. Also, bacon.


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karlbadmannersV2 wrote:
Smurf - strictions be darned!

Too powerful. They'll have to be smerfed.

On a serious note (and I realize it will be hard to take what I'm saying seriously when I'm wearing a smurfold avatar), I kind of think a big source of the original disagreement is that each side felt they were the underdog due to who they personally had gamed with.

The OP, like me, is stuck with players who are determined to play all sorts of weird races that, in my opinion, cheapen the weirdness altogether. It's especially problematic when the characters exist just to be of that race--Kitsune? Forget my half-elf, I've got a foxperson to play!

Meanwhile, the other side feels oppressed by the snobs who believe that the only way to 'properly' game is to use the traditional archetypes. They aren't allowed to play the characters they enjoy because their GMs/fellow players think only the classic races can be taken seriously.

I'm obviously on the side of the OP, but I had a big monstrous races phase a while ago (guess what race was my favorite? Phanatons. What did you think it would be?) and that kind of contributes to my bias now. I hate to see good, solid races overlooked because of the new shiny catgirls that are available, but I also don't want to stifle the fun of my players.

It's a dilemma.

TL;DR: Wafflewafflewaffle!


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Before the thread was over run with short blue evil beings which I refuse to name, several of you were arguing over what could / couldn't be "easily done" in a setting. The problem is you are arguing about 2 different types of setting / campaign. The "easily" side is talking about a cooperative setting under construction and with room for change. The "not easy" side is arguing about a campaign world that has been established for years with history, cultures, races, player expectations etc. already present. Sure it's easy if the campaign is under construction / new and has room for change and no players with existing expectations for the setting. Not so easy for a setting with long roots, established players etc. already in place. You can go on arguing apples vs. oranges of course...


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
Best non-humancentric story I've seen.

Is this a joke? I mean, that movie (which I just recently saw for the first time, holy crap, Don Bluth is a genius) is pretty much as human-centric as a movie can get while still using other races. The three MCs are human, the arc is about the human race as a whole, and the final victories are achieved by humans. It's another great example of the normalcy balancing out the weirdness--the main reason I can't stand all-weird groups.

...

Smurf!


That's a pretty... advanced smurf avatar, KC.

Also, smurf. Because reasons.


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Vivianne Laflamme wrote:


Arssanguinus, elves and gnomes both aren't real. They're races we made up to play games with in an imaginary world with lots of dice rolling.

They may be made up, yet they also do have meaning in D&D/PF. An elf isn't a gnome and use of one or the other implies certain things, particularly if the DM isn't interested in reinventing too many wheels.

Expecting the DM to switch things like that around is no more reasonable than the DM asking the player to pick a different race to play.


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Umbriere Moonwhisper wrote:

the Alternate Races aren't an issue if you focus exclusively on the mechanical aspects

but fluff shouldn't be used to balance unbalanced mechanics

many roleplay flaws, such as prejudice, alignment restrictions, class limitations, and the like do nothing to balance an unbalanced race.

For the most part, I would not consider mechanics exclusively. Rather, I expect the mechanics to be game mechanical representations of what the race is good/poor at and extended from their physiology, environment, and culture.


Sissyl wrote:
That's a pretty... advanced smurf avatar, KC.

I agree, making a smurf look more like a kobold was the only way to advance the race further.

It is my badge of pride...and of mild embarrassment. But mostly pride. That smurfold looks awesome.


Lucky it's a smurfold. Could have been a koburf.


Bill Dunn wrote:
Vivianne Laflamme wrote:


Arssanguinus, elves and gnomes both aren't real. They're races we made up to play games with in an imaginary world with lots of dice rolling.

They may be made up, yet they also do have meaning in D&D/PF. An elf isn't a gnome and use of one or the other implies certain things, particularly if the DM isn't interested in reinventing too many wheels.

Expecting the DM to switch things like that around is no more reasonable than the DM asking the player to pick a different race to play.

Nor any less.


pres man wrote:
Bill Dunn wrote:
Vivianne Laflamme wrote:


Arssanguinus, elves and gnomes both aren't real. They're races we made up to play games with in an imaginary world with lots of dice rolling.

They may be made up, yet they also do have meaning in D&D/PF. An elf isn't a gnome and use of one or the other implies certain things, particularly if the DM isn't interested in reinventing too many wheels.

Expecting the DM to switch things like that around is no more reasonable than the DM asking the player to pick a different race to play.

Nor any less.

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?


Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.


Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.


Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.


Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.

Not even close.


Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.
Not even close.

Making major changes to a prexisting world with history IS analogous to making it to a character unless its done in play.


Arssanguinus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.
Not even close.
Making major changes to a prexisting world with history IS analogous to making it to a character unless its done in play.

In a world without elves, a preexisting elf character doesn't exist. You can't have a preexisting character that could never have existed.

A preexisting world, on the other hand, can be there long before the character was ever imagined.


Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.
Not even close.
Making major changes to a prexisting world with history IS analogous to making it to a character unless its done in play.

In a world without elves, a preexisting elf character doesn't exist. You can't have a preexisting character that could never have existed.

A preexisting world, on the other hand, can be there long before the character was ever imagined.

You are bringing in a character that you have played elsewhere. People DO do this you know.


Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.
Not even close.
Making major changes to a prexisting world with history IS analogous to making it to a character unless its done in play.

In a world without elves, a preexisting elf character doesn't exist. You can't have a preexisting character that could never have existed.

A preexisting world, on the other hand, can be there long before the character was ever imagined.

You are bringing in a character that you have played elsewhere. People DO do this you know.

Elsewhere? Another universe? Trying to pull something in from another universe into one where it doesn't work is not analogous to creating a campaign world.

One may as well propose bringing a Tyranid genestealer from the 40k universe and then claim the DM is unreasonable because he won't change "genestealers" to "elves".


Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:

It would be like you brining your prexisting tenth level character into a game and me saying "you can play him,just change his race."

I know your character has always been an elf but just make hi a gnome,instead. It won't change a thing about him. He'll be exactly the same. No difference. Why not?

I don't really see what preexisting characters have to do with rolling up characters for a game world with restrictions. Neither the OP nor the thread have been about changing characters that already exist.

Its a preexisting world. Demanding the preexisting world make a major change is analogous to demanding a preexisting character make a major change.

This is false.
Not even close.
Making major changes to a prexisting world with history IS analogous to making it to a character unless its done in play.

In a world without elves, a preexisting elf character doesn't exist. You can't have a preexisting character that could never have existed.

A preexisting world, on the other hand, can be there long before the character was ever imagined.

You are bringing in a character that you have played elsewhere. People DO do this you know.

Elsewhere? Another universe? Trying to pull something in from another universe into one where it doesn't work is not analogous to creating a campaign world.

One may as well propose bringing a Tyranid genestealer from the 40k universe and then claim the DM is unreasonable because he won't change "genestealers" to "elves".

The length people will go to to insist players must always win is ridiculous ...


Arssanguinus wrote:
Democratus wrote:

Elsewhere? Another universe? Trying to pull something in from another universe into one where it doesn't work is not analogous to creating a campaign world.

One may as well propose bringing a Tyranid genestealer from the 40k universe and then claim the DM is unreasonable because he won't change "genestealers" to "elves".

The length people will go to to insist players must always win is ridiculous ...

Looking at what I typed. Never mentioned players winning.


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Arssanguinus wrote:
The length people will go to to insist players must always win is ridiculous ...

The fact that people think the game is about the DM vs. the player, where only one can "win," is what completely blows my mind. Freudian slip?


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Freudian smurf!

Liberty's Edge

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I have had an issue with this recently. I thing extra ordinary races should be handled with care. To me, at this point in my gaming "career", the game is about the story and extra ordinary races can take from the story.

If you are exclusively playing something like PFS then its no big deal a bunch of native outsiders walk into a bar and nobody flinches because you have a fixed amount of time to do the scenario and no time to role play so who cares...and the scenario has a hook for you to follow. Don't get me wrong, I love PFS, but it recently a lodge meeting more resembles an intergalactic mixer than a "Fellowship" reunion.

In AP's and home games I am becoming that GM-jerk who is limiting races because although I appreciate the role playing a unique race might have with a story that characters race should not become the story for everyone. If the whole party are Drizzit then the story you wanted to tell is a bit different but hey, everyone is included and that is something cool. But the individual with the gnoll makes every other character deal with that PC's drama whether they want to or not. As a GM I guess I could ignore it, but then the integrity of the world you are running is "cheapened" to quote a previous post because the extra ordinary has become the mundane and the fantastic is not so much anymore and then where is the in-game thrill.

Playing a weird race is like the role playing "Easy Button" - you have build in story right out of the box no creativity required but it comes with a price every other PC has to pay for and it shifts the "gravity" of the game. I think that unless the RP reason for the extra ordinary race is very compelling, it is a disservice to the player to allow it - when you take away the "Easy Button" you force the player to RP with "less" which will bring so much more to the table and the player.

My crotchety thoughts - but then I just started running Dragon's Demand and had a table of four where three quarters of the players were native outsiders with no story connection.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
The length people will go to to insist players must always win is ridiculous ...
The fact that people think the game is about the DM vs. the player, where only one can "win," is what completely blows my mind. Freudian slip?

If the issue is the existence or non existence of something yes someone DOES have to "win", because it DOES either exist or not.

Edit;

Unless you are inventing schodingers elves l..


Arssanguinus wrote:
If the issue is the existence or non existence of something yes someone DOES have to "win", because it DOES either exist or not.

The players are real people. They exist in the real world.

The setting is imaginary. It exists only in your mind.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Arssanguinus wrote:
If the issue is the existence or non existence of something yes someone DOES have to "win", because it DOES either exist or not.

The players are real people. They exist in the real world.

The setting is imaginary. It exists only in your mind.

Well, then so does the pc, and he doesn't need that elf?

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