Abraham spalding wrote:
LilithsThrall wrote:
Andreas Skye wrote:
That said, I find that games that underscore cultural and geographical factors (which can translate into traits and feats), as opposed to hardwired race features and bonuses according to race are friendlier to a modern understanding of culture and ethnicity. Games are for fun, but fantasy (games and fiction) does also reflect quite a bit about the miseries and virtues of our civlization at large.
I'm not aware that anyone was talking about hard wired race features. Race features don't have to derive from biology. They can derive from life experiences (isn't that, after all, why the different classes gain bonuses to stats as they gain in level)? Humans have no obvious biological race trait (no nightvision or anything like that). What they gain is a bonus to a stat and extra skill points (all of which can be explained by life experiences, not biology).
Which is exactly why he suggested using the regional and racial traits, instead of building completely new subraces to "fill in" these gaps. It was the first part of his post.
Yep, that's what I meant. What I mean by hard-wired is something like "all Skald characters get +2 to Con", as in the favorite RW retarded cliché "all members of race X are good at sport Y". It does not even have to be based on biology only. Ultra-deterministic theories can also spring from ambiance factors, "immoral cultures", "historical retardation" and other niceties of that kind.
If these factors are just chosen at lvl 1, we're doing a bit of disfavor to diversity within a species.
Mind it, I definitely distinguish between races and species. Human, Elf, Dwarf etc are species and hardwired factors are OK, as a species' makeup can be strongly (though not exclusively) biological and deterministic (if your species sees only black and white, or has a given hearing frequency range, you're stuck with it). Think the variation between neanderthals and homo sapiens sapiens. This can be sharper with fantasy, where biology is not just natural, but can include magical and planar factors.
Race, be it human or elven, feels quite different to me. Culture and life experiences play a huge role, whereas human (eg) biology is one and only (some genetic factors, like some ethnicities' proclivity to lactose intolerance, or specialized propensity to some diseases are really minor when compared to human uniformity).
On a character creation level, more flexible tools than a starting (lvl 1) racial/cultural template have advantages. Imagine a Skald character. He wants to play a Fighter and for a few levels he stays as a village thane's guard or champion. He could take traits, regional feats and maybe one substitution level to reflect the cultural benefits of "being native" to his ethnic background. Then he goes south and signs up in a gladiator arena in Katapesh for a bit of time to pay a debt. Character progression would change via traits, feats and substitution level (if used) to portray his radical change of culture. He would still be a fighter, and his early Northern upbringing would play a difference from native Katapeshi, but:
1) no hardwiring, the character is a human. besides not all Skald would be identical, traits and such can be as rich as you design them. Versus one single race template you have dozens of combinations with one page of traits.
2) huge economy: racial options now would not be a set of "starting templates" (one for each subrace the GM can imagine and allow), but useful material for characters who get exposed and incorporate a given culture.
3) creating "mixed background characters", like a Forlorn Elf or a child of Qadiran immigrants who becomes the apprentice of an Andoran wizard would be easy, painless and varied.
