Marcus Galden's page

I am experiencing the same problem.

Marcus Galden wrote:

No, not really. As has been said, roleplay is what brings the character to life, and that can be done with any race/class.

I don't disagree with that at all. It has been my experience though, that exotic race and class selection replace good role-play at least as often as they enhance it. Usually Dwarves are played as Humans with beards, Elves as Humans with pointy ears, Tengu as Humans with feathers, Catfolk as Humans with claws and so on. The 'originality' of the concept is determined by the specific permutation of attribute bonuses and racial traits rather than how the character is actually played. With fewer options available, I imagine more effort would actually be put into how the characters are played in order to find your voice and stand out.

Like I said, I'm not out to change anyone's mind. Just making a few comments and looking to others for comments of their own. I fell in love with Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones type fantasy and intrigue where the magical was magical, the alien was alien and the 'Cantina Effect' seemed silly even in Star Wars. I'm sure many others feel very differently and that's fine - I've just never walked out of a great movie or put down a great book and thought 'that sure would have been a lot better without all of those Humans in it'. We've the capacity to be anything we want without changing our skins - I hate that becoming so accustomed to skin-changing it has replaced that potential, like our clothes defining who we are rather than our actions.

I can understand where you're coming from, as a unique race/class combo can be a crutch for poor roleplay, but I'd argue that the sort of player who relys on that as a crutch would be just as poor a roleplayer with a standard race/class combo, and make that just as much a crutch, simply in the opposite direction (stereotypical instead of outlandish)

As for LotR, I can understand the appeal. I love it too, and I have no problem if everyone wants to play that. But if someone wants to be a bit different, I think they should be able to. After all, while we think of LotR as "core", when it was first written it really wasn't.

I mean, prior to LotR/The Hobbit, non humans were encounters, not main characters. And for some specifics about core at the time of LotR's writting.

The Hobbits: Hobbits were Prof. Tolkien's own invention, and certainly wouldn't be considered core for a fantasy story prior to his work

Gimli: While Dwarves existed in Norse myth, they were unpleasant, nasty, petty creatures. Gimli might own some of his traits to his mythological fore-bearers, his nobility and gruff good-heartedness is again from the Professor. And besides, Norse myth wasn't exactly "mainstream" at the time. Definetly not core

Legolas: Again Elves existed in Norse and Celtic myth, as semi-divine creatures and fey sprites respectively. The doom-laden elder race with one foot in this world and one in the next are Tolkien's own. Not core.

Gandalf: Demigod in disguise, not core at all.

Aragon: Human. But a better human than other humans. Basically an Azlanti. Not core.

Boramir: Regular human. Core.

Again, I think you can have plenty of fun with a LotR style game, and there's nothing wrong with wanting/playing one. But I don't think that you can really use the story that changed what was "standard" for fantasy as an argument for restricting options in a fantasy game.

No, not really. As has been said, roleplay is what brings the character to life, and that can be done with any race/class. For the most part, anyway, more on that in a minute.

Realizing the character I want to play mechanically, on the other hand, does require the options outside of the ones presented. Unless you are including a massive rewrite of the rules, vanilla fighter, cleric, wizard and rouge means that I cannot make an effective unarmed warrior, gish or natural attacker. And that last one comes back to the "most of the time" thing I mentioned: If I want to play someone who is a mostly feral warrior who doesn't use manufactured weapons, but has learned to channel natural power, well, that's an instance where rollplay does intersect with roleplay, and isn't possible with the limited options presented.

Now, that's not to say that I couldn't have fun with a core race and class, I've had plenty of fun over the years with elven fighters and dwarf wizards.

I think an important thing to remember is that more options do not invalidate prior options, they just allow for more styles of play, because everyone should be able to play the type of character they enjoy.

Ravenloft. One of the best settings (aside from Planescape) to ever appear in D&D. There's even an updated 3.5 version, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft which serves as a worthy successor, and should be fairly painless to convert.

And if you have Mythic Adventures Strahd is just begging for they Mythic Vampire template.