Remco Sommeling wrote:
Oddball or not I like to keep some kind of mechanic in place to stick to the current racial preferences, for me personally it adds flavor to the races as a whole, from my perspective as a DM the occasional 'oddball' character is fun, but a whole party of oddballs conflicts with my sense of 'realism'.
Maybe there should be more than one possible option you can pick from, reflecting your groups style of play, just like there isn't a set rule for 'rolling scores'.
personally I like to give my players some slight encouragement towards their races traditional preferences, but I realize some groups have fun with parties consisting almost exclusively of oddball characters.
Others have mentioned it already, but such things are subjective, are they not? Especially with home-brew campaign settings. I ponder a "nature versus nurture" concept when it comes to fantasy worlds. What part makes them favor a class over another? Genetics, environment, or societal upbringing (in isolation, hence the proclivity to choose a career path).
If there is a "favored class" system, I think it should be more of a sidebar than slapped in with a race. Here's where the character's "people" come from, and how they typically behave. As such, they'll enforce certain skills and abilities, consciously or not, that bleed through to the character no matter what path they choose in life... provided they were a part of that society growing up.
Maybe, instead of a specific favored class (or two), perhaps a favored group of classes based on the level of civilization the races achieved in isolation. Maybe based on Physical, Divine, and Arcane lines. An orcish-blooded person might have come from a "Tribal" background, and would then be inclined to have "Barbarian, Druid, Sorcerer" favored classes, based on the lack of formal education, no writing system per se, and no fully established religious philosophy dedicated to concepts outside the natural world. An "Urbanized" race, one that has banded together since the dawn of time, and has since formed a network of cities and agricultural propensities, would have Fighter, Cleric, Wizard as favored classes, due to having long traditions of military academies, organized religions, and universities with dedicated arcane research traditions. Or maybe an in-between, one that has integrated into the natural world, but still strives to innovate, while not disrupting the flow of the world, maybe an "Steward" society, would have Ranger, Druid, Bard as favored classes. These are just my first thoughts on the matter.
Then I think the mere fact that the players are adventurers, and not your typical drudge in society to begin with, kind of allows for people to break from norms. Whether they were exiled form their people, or grew up on the mean streets, regardless of their racial background, would make the character favor a certain profession over another. What mechanic, however, do we use?
It can be a headache when you want players to be different, and for identity reasons, people want to be different from the norm. The guy sagas are chanted for centuries about. I know as a game-master it can be difficult balancing social continuities with player desires to be unique. I'm not sure a mechanic should be the way if you, as a GM, want your players to come from the backgrounds proscribed in your campaign setting. And players should realize that pushing the envelope too far would, realistically, result in something bad for the character if they do, in fact, go ahead with the idea for the half-illithid troll wererat character. You are that, but the people [likely justifiably so] FEAR such a thing, and that waving your arms and going, "I'm a good guy! I'm a good guy! Honest!" may result in the character's death at the hands of an angry mob of "normal" people.
Just throwing idea-seeds out there, and looking for inspiration. Thanks for your patience and discussion. :)
