This isn't pertaining to the flying thing but in general I wanted to do the same because the environmental rules allow for wonderful dramatic experiences but sadly my players can't be bothered with anything they consider to be 'complicating things'. I wanted to implement travel rules as well and gave them a blank map to chart their way through the world and to make use of survival to traverse the world and experience its different environs but sadly....they just wanted to get the whole thing over with because they couldn't be bothered with this stuff....that was killing the simulation of the difficult, arduous yet adventurous trek aspect that I intended to include, ripe with encounters of tribal cultures within the world and mystical creatures as well.
But, I'm admittedly more of a simulationist when it comes to environment stuff like that.
Yeah, it can be tough. Sometimes it's just a difference in playstyle. Personally, I love hexcrawls and travelling. Always enjoyed exploration and the journey. But I know people that aren't really into that.
I've never understood the mentality that says, "I don't like it, therefore it sucks."
You obviously need to spend more time on the forums.
Personally, I don't actually think a low-level flying race is as unbalancing as people make it out to be.I agree. But even if you think low-level flying is unbalanced, that doesn't mean winged PC races aren't possible.
Agreed here. Personally, I'd go with "you can fly, but can't ascend fast enough for it to be usable in combat until a later level" if I felt it was too unbalanced. Mostly I'm able to trust my players with that kind of extra power though.
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Agreed here. Personally, I'd go with "you can fly, but can't ascend fast enough for it to be usable in combat until a later level" if I felt it was too unbalanced. Mostly I'm able to trust my players with that kind of extra power though.Personally, I don't actually think a low-level flying race is as unbalancing as people make it out to be.I agree. But even if you think low-level flying is unbalanced, that doesn't mean winged PC races aren't possible.
In our games, we've got both a flying race - two actually, one avian and one insectoid - as well as a race with a natural climb speed and enough legs to render trips extremely unlikely and a race with a serpentine shape that makes them outright immune. And haven't really noticed any brokenness or excessive difficulty with dealing with them in combat.
Sure, they beat those strategies that might work on more "standard" characters. You have to tackle them in a different way.
A drider-esque character isn't going to face much threat of being tripped by dogs. But in close quarters they're going to have issues with size, and I speak from experience here, having just put such a character (played by me, not GMed, for once) through the catacombs section of the first chapter of Runelords. Small quarters are not kind to Large creatures using Greatswords (even if said Greatsword is Medium due to the Undersized Weapons trait).
A flying character might be able to avoid a lot of the dangers of tangling with stuff in melee, but it's still got to deal with archers and spellcasters, and at low levels you're a lot less likely to successfully make the Fly check for taking damage in the air, which could cause you to fall, and with well-played opponents could make you a sitting duck. That really goes true for all flying races that don't start with enough racial HD to pump their Fly score up to the point where they make that check on a 1.
A snakey character might not be able to be tripped and might be faster than something with legs, but other ways to deal with a character in combat still work fine.
Is it a bit of a challenge because it makes the GM and players think a bit outside the box? Pay a bit more attention to 3rd-dimensional geographies and tactics? Yeah, perhaps. But I personally consider that a good thing.
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I've always wondered, how does a species with that kind of ingrained attitude perpetuate itself for so long? In fact, how did it persist with such an anti-survival instinct?I find it hard to imagine a world where everyone is a half-fae catboy. Wouldn't you need lots of fae and full catpeople to produce them all?Ever played mass effect? Asari took mating with their own kind to be a taboo and almost exclusively mated with other races, pureblood was an insult and pretty much more offensive than being called a b@$t@rd (then again, I'm basing this on listening to two Asari chatting, one of whom IS a pureblood and was accusing her friend of implying the sentiment even if she didn't say it outright). Essentially in this point, it's like if half-elves (half-Asari) could procreate with elves (Asari) to give birth to pure elves (pureblooded Asari) and they were trying to avoid it, their offspring of an inter-species mating (who would be born within their womb) would always be half-Asari/half-something else.
I think the attitude became ingrained after they started encountering other races and mating with them. Not while they were alone on Thessia.
After all, while on Thessia, they were all purebloods. Then came the Citadel, then Salarians, then Turians etc...
I agree, sadly I guess I'm basing my views on players of mine who hate having their benefits countered (so long as they have a benefit, they expect to be able to make full use of it without it being countered at all :/).
No offense, but your players sound kinda spoiled to me. Why wouldn't a very smart creature with access to scrying counter them however it could? I know I would, if I knew there was someone dangerous gunning for me.
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So, nothing against you, but I'm super picky about anime cliches and am probably much more judgmental than I really ought to be when presented with a character that fits into anime stereotypes. But that's a matter of taste and experience for me, nothing against you.the 3 examples i mentioned, though animesque, could work in non-anime media too. it's not like they weren't that mainstream a concept.Honestly, I'd disallow the second one because having run a player that did the exact same thing (down to the race, is this from some anime I don't know about?), it was very disruptive to the players and groan worthy at how one dimensional the character was. I had to politely tell the player that the bearded devil that was murdering her friends doesn't care how "moe" he was. He is still dragging them to hell.
i wouldn't play the angelkin at your table if you didn't want her. at least without tweaking her personality.
i would play the sickly half-nymph noblewoman whom used her innocent charm to control sentient minds like puppets, controlling through sweetness, at least once. she helps the party by buffing them, and by using battlefield control
or the heavily multiclassed unarmed combatant whom thought like a T-Rex, despite her decent intelligence and wanted to become the best monster. she didn't want to be the 'perfect monster' she wanted to be 'the best monster'. the Terrasque was her 'view' of the 'best monster' and the ideal she wished to 'surpass'. her goal, was to become the 'best but not perfect monster' because she wanted a power greater than the terrasque, but sought to continue her progression further to maintain her supremacy, Rovagug was her god of choice.
Never said I hated anime. I dislike most though because they seem to always fall into the same annoying tropes and cliches that at this point are either hackneyed or kind of creepy. I find it rare to see an anime that deviates from the current trend or tries something more than just being a slice-of-life, self-insert anime. But that's a rant for a different thread.
Which is why I always hesitate before I allow certain tropes. Like the last time I allowed an anime trope, it was the "13 year old girl but really 500 years old" type of character. It got very creepy very quickly.
13 year old girl but really 500 years old? i don't have a problem with that. i wouldn't force the character into sexualized relationships or anything, but i would have her complain in character when the local blacksmith won't sell her a sword in the form of roleplay pouting. or roleplay her asking the local guards to buy her an alcoholic drink if she pays them back later. i went worse, 12ish year old girl that was really 1,750 years old.
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That's good for you I suppose. But some of us want something more fantastical in our fantasy than a bunch of humans with slightly-altered physiques.Personally, I find the core races more then sufficient.Never understood the point of moar racez nowz. I think that a few races, but well fleshed out would be much more beneficial in the long run.It's not about raw numbers of choices. The thing is, Pathfinder's selection of races in the CRB is very narrow and limited. Compare Pathfinder's seven options (dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling, and human) to D&D 4e's eight options (dragonborn, dwarf, eladrin, elf, human, half-elf, halfling, and tiefling). Just one more option, but much broader variety in the options. Or consider Fantasy Craft's twelve options: drake, dwarf, elf, giant, goblin, human, ogre, orc, halfling, ent, lizardfolk, and golem.* That selection allows much more characters than Pathfinder's seven options. If Pathfinder had a better selection of races in the CRB, I think we'd see less people wanting to play non-core races.
* I changed a few names for clarity. Ent, for example, is more clear than rootwalker, the actual name for the race.
Damn straight Orthos.
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Agreed here. Personally, I'd go with "you can fly, but can't ascend fast enough for it to be usable in combat until a later level" if I felt it was too unbalanced. Mostly I'm able to trust my players with that kind of extra power though.Personally, I don't actually think a low-level flying race is as unbalancing as people make it out to be.I agree. But even if you think low-level flying is unbalanced, that doesn't mean winged PC races aren't possible.In our games, we've got both a flying race - two actually, one avian and one insectoid - as well as a race with a natural climb speed and enough legs to render trips extremely unlikely and a race with a serpentine shape that makes them outright immune. And haven't really noticed any brokenness or excessive difficulty with dealing with them in combat.
Sure, they beat those strategies that might work on more "standard" characters. You have to tackle them in a different way.
A drider-esque character isn't going to face much threat of being tripped by dogs. But in close quarters they're going to have issues with size, and I speak from experience here, having just put such a character (played by me, not GMed, for once) through the catacombs section of the first chapter of Runelords. Small quarters are not kind to Large creatures using Greatswords (even if said Greatsword is Medium due to the Undersized Weapons trait).
A flying character might be able to avoid a lot of the dangers of tangling with stuff in melee, but it's still got to deal with archers and spellcasters, and at low levels you're a lot less likely to successfully make the Fly check for taking damage in the air, which could cause you to fall, and with well-played opponents could make you a sitting duck. That really goes true for all flying races that don't start with enough racial HD to pump their Fly score up to the point where they make that check on a 1.
A snakey character might not be...
I remember there was a mutants apoc game a friend was interested in. It had some interesting rules and half snake was a possibility. Given the amount of ruins and holes there would be, I really did want to play a snake woman. It could have led to tactical decisions being completely different, and while my high jump wouldn't be great, a snake with arms could get into places even normal snakes could not.
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Damn straight Orthos.That's good for you I suppose. But some of us want something more fantastical in our fantasy than a bunch of humans with slightly-altered physiques.Personally, I find the core races more then sufficient.Never understood the point of moar racez nowz. I think that a few races, but well fleshed out would be much more beneficial in the long run.It's not about raw numbers of choices. The thing is, Pathfinder's selection of races in the CRB is very narrow and limited. Compare Pathfinder's seven options (dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling, and human) to D&D 4e's eight options (dragonborn, dwarf, eladrin, elf, human, half-elf, halfling, and tiefling). Just one more option, but much broader variety in the options. Or consider Fantasy Craft's twelve options: drake, dwarf, elf, giant, goblin, human, ogre, orc, halfling, ent, lizardfolk, and golem.* That selection allows much more characters than Pathfinder's seven options. If Pathfinder had a better selection of races in the CRB, I think we'd see less people wanting to play non-core races.
* I changed a few names for clarity. Ent, for example, is more clear than rootwalker, the actual name for the race.
i want more than just humans with altered physiques and lengthened life spans. i mean, that is a starting point. but i want more options, even if they merely have a different form of psychology and ecology from the conventional human standard. i want to see more than merely unique appearances, or altered physiques and lengthened lifespans, i want to see unique personalities, unique cultures, not just human steriotype with a name attached.
So, nothing against you, but I'm super picky about anime cliches and am probably much more judgmental than I really ought to be when presented with a character that fits into anime stereotypes. But that's a matter of taste and experience for me, nothing against you.the 3 examples i mentioned, though animesque, could work in non-anime media too. it's not like they weren't that mainstream a concept.Honestly, I'd disallow the second one because having run a player that did the exact same thing (down to the race, is this from some anime I don't know about?), it was very disruptive to the players and groan worthy at how one dimensional the character was. I had to politely tell the player that the bearded devil that was murdering her friends doesn't care how "moe" he was. He is still dragging them to hell.
i wouldn't play the angelkin at your table if you didn't want her. at least without tweaking her personality.
i would play the sickly half-nymph noblewoman whom used her innocent charm to control sentient minds like puppets, controlling through sweetness, at least once. she helps the party by buffing them, and by using battlefield control
or the heavily multiclassed unarmed combatant whom thought like a T-Rex, despite her decent intelligence and wanted to become the best monster. she didn't want to be the 'perfect monster' she wanted to be 'the best monster'. the Terrasque was her 'view' of the 'best monster' and the ideal she wished to 'surpass'. her goal, was to become the 'best but not perfect monster' because she wanted a power greater than the terrasque, but sought to continue her progression further to maintain her supremacy, Rovagug was her god of choice.
...Never said I hated anime. I dislike most though because they seem to always fall into the same annoying tropes and cliches that at this point are either hackneyed or kind of creepy. I find it rare to see an anime
That takes me back. In 2nd ed, wasn't there the grey elves or something? Tiny, frail platinum haired elves (so anime it hurts before anime was a thing in the west), shut-ins and librarian stereotypes that get to something like 3000 years old?
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That takes me back. In 2nd ed, wasn't there the grey elves or something? Tiny, frail platinum haired elves (so anime it hurts before anime was a thing in the west), shut-ins and librarian stereotypes that get to something like 3000 years old?
like my Half-Nymph whom couldn't reach puberty till her 3,000th birthday? Grey Elves were where i got the idea, she had black hair and blue eyes, and she was more social in the friendly and amiable kind of way.
if she couldn't win your amity through kindness, her 'bodyguards' would befriend you 'nanoha style'. a lot of her past enemies became future allies and she became an empress. she was an empress long before she could produce an heir. and resolved everything through diplomacy and kindness.
i want more than just humans with altered physiques and lengthened life spans. i mean, that is a starting point. but i want more options, even if they merely have a different form of psychology and ecology from the conventional human standard. i want to see more than merely unique appearances, or altered physiques and lengthened lifespans, i want to see unique personalities, unique cultures, not just human steriotype with a name attached.Damn straight Orthos.That's good for you I suppose. But some of us want something more fantastical in our fantasy than a bunch of humans with slightly-altered physiques.Personally, I find the core races more then sufficient.Never understood the point of moar racez nowz. I think that a few races, but well fleshed out would be much more beneficial in the long run.It's not about raw numbers of choices. The thing is, Pathfinder's selection of races in the CRB is very narrow and limited. Compare Pathfinder's seven options (dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling, and human) to D&D 4e's eight options (dragonborn, dwarf, eladrin, elf, human, half-elf, halfling, and tiefling). Just one more option, but much broader variety in the options. Or consider Fantasy Craft's twelve options: drake, dwarf, elf, giant, goblin, human, ogre, orc, halfling, ent, lizardfolk, and golem.* That selection allows much more characters than Pathfinder's seven options. If Pathfinder had a better selection of races in the CRB, I think we'd see less people wanting to play non-core races.
* I changed a few names for clarity. Ent, for example, is more clear than rootwalker, the actual name for the race.
You can also shorten the lifespan too, for say insect races. Some short-lived "monster" races that live at a pace humans have trouble keeping up with, following some hard-wired impulses (building giant nests, releasing young to create new nests) but also (some of them?) being quite sentient. Ant people, bee creatures. How do the surrounding groups deal with these fast growing insectoids with crazy quick cycles.
That takes me back. In 2nd ed, wasn't there the grey elves or something? Tiny, frail platinum haired elves (so anime it hurts before anime was a thing in the west), shut-ins and librarian stereotypes that get to something like 3000 years old?
like my Half-Nymph whom couldn't reach puberty till her 3,000th birthday? Grey Elves were where i got the idea, she had black hair and blue eyes, and she was more social in the friendly and amiable kind of way.
if she couldn't win your amity through kindness, her 'bodyguards' would befriend you 'nanoha style'. a lot of her past enemies became future allies and she became an empress. she was an empress long before she could produce an heir. and resolved everything through diplomacy and kindness.
Organised Nymphs would be a major threat. So she made a middle kingdom sort of arrangement? Ruling as head courtier?
Now that gives me an idea for a variant gempei war setting, lol. Martial alliance of the Minamoto vs the half-nymph Taira. Sex and swords.
I've played with the idea of harpies as a mix between a bat swarm and a civilisation a few times. Not sure their reproduction would be so fast, since it relies on kidnapping, but they are certainly an alien threat to players running factions or groups, but they are sentient (and they are also crazy).
That takes me back. In 2nd ed, wasn't there the grey elves or something? Tiny, frail platinum haired elves (so anime it hurts before anime was a thing in the west), shut-ins and librarian stereotypes that get to something like 3000 years old?
like my Half-Nymph whom couldn't reach puberty till her 3,000th birthday? Grey Elves were where i got the idea, she had black hair and blue eyes, and she was more social in the friendly and amiable kind of way.
if she couldn't win your amity through kindness, her 'bodyguards' would befriend you 'nanoha style'. a lot of her past enemies became future allies and she became an empress. she was an empress long before she could produce an heir. and resolved everything through diplomacy and kindness.
Organised Nymphs would be a major threat. So she made a middle kingdom sort of arrangement? Ruling as head courtier?
Now that gives me an idea for a variant gempei war setting, lol. Martial alliance of the Minamoto vs the half-nymph Taira. Sex and swords.
she made that kind of peaceful arrangement, Ruling as an 'Empress'. she had an empire she won through generosity, she was Empress 'Ilina Aniri'. but yeah. she tried to be peaceful, doesn't mean she didn't have a loyal military force willing to die for her. she kept the people well fed and well treated, but yeah, a possible campaign where the remnants of other countries band because they don't like her generosity ruining the existence of the noble caste. they didn't like the availability of resources, education and rights being so open could happen. she was too underdeveloped to be a courtier, so she didn't use the sexuality angle, she used the peace loving everybody's friend angle.
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Well yes, her enlightened rule would most certainly be a threat to neighbors. Especially if peasants start fleeing to her land or lords start converting and taking their holdings with them.
Nothing makes enemies like success and upsetting the apple cart.
Well yes, her enlightened rule would most certainly be a threat to neighbors. Especially if peasants start fleeing to her land or lords start converting and taking their holdings with them.
Nothing makes enemies like success and upsetting the apple cart.
Ilina was too underdeveloped for the courtier angle. but she was an empress. so instead of sexuality, she used enlightened rule to be friendly to everyone, even her 'enemies'.
abundance of resources, and well, playing the role of everybody's "helpful little sister" in that she mostly used her soldiers to solve issues that interfered with the enlightened peace in the least bloody way possible, or to gather and maintain the supply of resources.
she had some laws, mostly against oppressing and abusing employees, laws for expanding available jobs, and laws for affordable magic, medical treatment and education.
but she based her taxes on the prior year's income average. individually and had the flaw of too much generosity and too much success, plus, she couldn't bear an heir just yet.
she did create a bunch of daughters with the help of alchemy, and those were to be her heirs, but she could never bear them naturally. she respected the alchemy born as if they were natural and she sought to raise them to become a council with her kind ideals.
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i want more than just humans with altered physiques and lengthened life spans. i mean, that is a starting point. but i want more options, even if they merely have a different form of psychology and ecology from the conventional human standard. i want to see more than merely unique appearances, or altered physiques and lengthened lifespans, i want to see unique personalities, unique cultures, not just human steriotype with a name attached.
I know what you mean.
"They're humans with pointy ears that live in trees""They're shorter humans that live underground"
So many races are just "humans but they do this bit like that instead" - with the same concept of money, shops, religion, etc.
I like to see races like the Minbari from Babylon 5 with their caste system, or races that don't just build a human-like city with a blacksmith's shop and an inn (except theirs have weird walls and roofs) but instead have entirely different ways of doing things (maybe they live in crystalline structures permeated by an energy that everyone contributes to by meditating an hour every morning, and which grows items as needed, removing the need for shops or currency).
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You come across a settlement that has lighting and electricity, powered by ki.
I could imagine such a community would really pump out the monks, but want to keep them as close as possible as a form of energy. Perhaps they encourage adventuring to strengthen the ki, but you cannot be away for too long. Got to power the hive.
Because a nymph isnt a human with a hat...please. Everything humanoid is a human with a hat.
Hama, you are trying too hard to deny what people have been doing in-game and the characters that they have been playing for years.
Next you might get bitter and deny no one has even played a non-human in a really non-human fashion. What is that going to achieve though?
Spider civs living in twisted crawl spaces above other races, predatory harpy hive minds, truly benevolent beautiful nymph empires of diplomacy, the examples of moving away from humans and fantasy normalcy are many.
Please accept you were wrong in claiming that it can't be done and hasn't been done.
Because a nymph isnt a human with a hat...please. Everything humanoid is a human with a hat.
everything humanoid is a human with a hat. but i didn't completely follow the nymph courtesan steriotype, but i did, make her an enlightened Empress whom simply wanted to be loved and respected by everyone.
i merely put a different hat on the nymph. doesn't change the fact everything is a human with a hat, it's just, a different hat can be a nice change here and there.
Naaa, demihumans can be pretty far from humans. Don't give in here, you know it doesn't have to go so reductive.
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Naaa, demihumans can be pretty far from humans. Don't give in here, you know it doesn't have to go so reductive.
depends on the demihuman and how you approach them. the truly benevolent nymph empress with the diplomacy, wasn't even a druid, she was a bard, whom dabbled a bit in alchemy so she could produce her heirs and overcome her inherent inability to continue her bloodline. she produced 9 daughters in beakers.
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Because a nymph isnt a human with a hat...please. Everything humanoid is a human with a hat.Hama, you are trying too hard to deny what people have been doing in-game and the characters that they have been playing for years.
Next you might get bitter and deny no one has even played a non-human in a really non-human fashion. What is that going to achieve though?
Spider civs living in twisted crawl spaces above other races, predatory harpy hive minds, truly benevolent beautiful nymph empires of diplomacy, the examples of moving away from humans and fantasy normalcy are many.
Please accept you were wrong in claiming that it can't be done and hasn't been done.
First of all, why would I get bitter over people playing their characters the way they want to play them?
I am not wrong. But please, keep telling me how I am. That's going to convince me for certain.
Also, I am not denying anything. For all my years of gaming, I have never seen a convincing roleplay of a demihuman or a humanoid that wasn't just a human in a mask.
And that is OK. Because you have to have a frame of reference. And I would rather have an elf who is a real person, has likes, dislikes, hates someone, gets drunk, loves his kids, hates his job etc, then a distant, inscrutable dude who you can't possibly understand.
Give me a real person any day.
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Maybe it is not that there haven't been effective roleplaying of non-human races as non-human. Perhaps it is just one's own perception that translates what they see into human terms in order for one to understand what they are seeing.
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i want more than just humans with altered physiques and lengthened life spans. i mean, that is a starting point. but i want more options, even if they merely have a different form of psychology and ecology from the conventional human standard. i want to see more than merely unique appearances, or altered physiques and lengthened lifespans, i want to see unique personalities, unique cultures, not just human steriotype with a name attached.I know what you mean.
"They're humans with pointy ears that live in trees"
"They're shorter humans that live underground"So many races are just "humans but they do this bit like that instead" - with the same concept of money, shops, religion, etc.
I like to see races like the Minbari from Babylon 5 with their caste system, or races that don't just build a human-like city with a blacksmith's shop and an inn (except theirs have weird walls and roofs) but instead have entirely different ways of doing things (maybe they live in crystalline structures permeated by an energy that everyone contributes to by meditating an hour every morning, and which grows items as needed, removing the need for shops or currency).
I think for the most part it is a matter of giving fans a base to work from before you bring in the really exotic. We've been given something familiar (elves, dwarves, humans and so on) in the core books and then have layers of more and more exotic laid in later with the ARG and other sources.
I imagine that this is to make it easier for people to buy into the game and learn the rules up front without having to work out that the exotic half-squid people have a bunch of strange things about them and their entire culture is based off trading pheromones and spit. One less thing to learn and all that.
Now I can say that you can have the 'boring' normal races that can still surprise you -- for example, what Paizo did with gnomes and bleaching.
But up until now, in all these threads, I've not seen many people discussing that they want different cultures and towns and the like, just that they don't like the boring old stupid core races because Tolkien and an old GM made them feel bad about liking puppy races or something. One can like other races without being derogatory about classical, and vice versa.
I just often wonder in these discussions if people would still be so interested in playing some of these "interesting" races and crossbreeds if it gave you nothing in terms of bonuses and perks. I know on an on line Shadowrun game I played in, the metavariant races gave no better modifiers than the base race. Suddenly, the interest went into the gutter.
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Now I can say that you can have the 'boring' normal races that can still surprise you -- for example, what Paizo did with gnomes and bleaching.
Admittedly I am very happy with the Paizo take on Gnomes. Took them from a race I never gave a second glance to easily my favorite of the core races.
I just often wonder in these discussions if people would still be so interested in playing some of these "interesting" races and crossbreeds if it gave you nothing in terms of bonuses and perks. I know on an on line Shadowrun game I played in, the metavariant races gave no better modifiers than the base race. Suddenly, the interest went into the gutter.
Oh good, that's just what this thread needed. "If you like playing something besides a human or a dwarf, you're a minmaxing rollplayer who only cares about having the most DPRs."
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I just often wonder in these discussions if people would still be so interested in playing some of these "interesting" races and crossbreeds if it gave you nothing in terms of bonuses and perks. I know on an on line Shadowrun game I played in, the metavariant races gave no better modifiers than the base race. Suddenly, the interest went into the gutter.Oh good, that's just what this thread needed. "If you like playing something besides a human or a dwarf, you're a minmaxing rollplayer who only cares about having the most DPRs."
That is exactly what I said. You have, as in so many threads, crystallized my thought process and presented it to everyone. [/sarcasm]
Again, as I said in my own words even, I have seen little in all these threads until just now bemoaning that the mean old GMs won't let you play a [insert race here] because they are so upset about all that great culture, all that rich history, all the wonderful nuances that come from playing [insert race here].
In fact, I am positive that the idea was presented before me regarding removing racial bonuses to reduce picking races for such bonuses. Several times in fact.
My opinion -- so you don't have to try and create one for me -- is that I don't care what you play or don't play, as long as it fits into the restrictions or lack thereof of the campaign. I do ask, as a player or GM, that you are at least honest with yourself if not me and the others on why you are doing it.
If you are looking to play a nymph (to use a race we've just mentioned) for their incredible culture and society, great. If you are doing it for mad bonuses to Charisma and social skills and spell like abilities, great.
If the GM says that no one gets any bonuses or powers and every race is equal and that removes your desire to play that race, however, then you may have been less than honest with everyone about your intentions, with is less than great.
double post, sorry
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Everything humanoid is a human with a hat.Hama, you are trying too hard to deny what people have been doing in-game and the characters that they have been playing for years.I am not wrong. But please, keep telling me how I am. That's going to convince me for certain.
Also, I am not denying anything. For all my years of gaming, I have never seen a convincing roleplay of a demihuman or a humanoid that wasn't just a human in a mask.
And that is OK. Because you have to have a frame of reference. And I would rather have an elf who is a real person, has likes, dislikes, hates someone, gets drunk, loves his kids, hates his job etc, then a distant, inscrutable dude who you can't possibly understand.
Give me a real person any day.
I am sorry you aren't able to play with Meryl Streep and (Undead) Sir Lawrence Olivier at your table. :p
Maybe the rest of us mere humans at our tables won't get award nominations for our roleplaying performances. But from what you've posted here again and again, you are coming off (and I don't/can't know your intent) as dismissing everyone that doesn't play one of the Core 6. I've seen (and played) plenty of non-core PCs who were doing it to attempt to play something new and different from a character/personality standpoint, not out of some wish to be uber/munchkin-y/specialized nor as a blantant expy of some existing pop culture character. I've seen those too, but they've been in the minority.
By now, I think we get that you aren't a fan of non-core PC races. And really, if that works for you and your table(s), then good for you... really. But that doesn't mean the rest of us are playing badwrongfun or not playing "alien" enough or all sekret Keebler munchkin gnomes-at-heart.
I just often wonder in these discussions if people would still be so interested in playing some of these "interesting" races and crossbreeds if it gave you nothing in terms of bonuses and perks. I know on an on line Shadowrun game I played in, the metavariant races gave no better modifiers than the base race. Suddenly, the interest went into the gutter.Oh good, that's just what this thread needed. "If you like playing something besides a human or a dwarf, you're a minmaxing rollplayer who only cares about having the most DPRs."That is exactly what I said. You have, as in so many threads, crystallized my thought process and presented it to everyone. [/sarcasm]
Again, as I said in my own words even, I have seen little in all these threads until just now bemoaning that the mean old GMs won't let you play a [insert race here] because they are so upset about all that great culture, all that rich history, all the wonderful nuances that come from playing [insert race here].
In fact, I am positive that the idea was presented before me regarding removing racial bonuses to reduce picking races for such bonuses. Several times in fact.
My opinion -- so you don't have to try and create one for me -- is that I don't care what you play or don't play, as long as it fits into the restrictions or lack thereof of the campaign. I do ask, as a player or GM, that you are at least honest with yourself if not me and the others on why you are doing it.
If you are looking to play a nymph (to use a race we've just mentioned) for their incredible culture and society, great. If you are doing it for mad bonuses to Charisma and social skills and spell like abilities, great.
If the GM says that no one gets any bonuses or powers and every race is equal and that removes your desire to play that race, however, then you may have been less than honest with everyone about your intentions, with is less than great.
as long as the races are compensated a flexible pair of +2s that can be assigned to ANY 2 stats they please, regardless of race. i'd be fine with it, as cool as a Halfling or Pixie Fighter Sounds, that Strength Penalty interferes with the concept and is quite crippling
so most people will turn that pixie into a rogue, sorcerer, or finesse build. but i want to be able to play a pixie fighter without my DPR going down the drain, even if i forfeit most of the pixie's other bonuses,
at the same time, an orc tiger shaman sounds pretty sweet, but that wisdom penalty hurts like hell, if we abolished racial modifiers and gave everybody 2 +2s to distribute as they wished, i could build an effective orc tiger shaman rather than being forced to reroll a dwarf. by at least abolishing the penalty to intelligence and wisdom.
maybe i want an elven huntress whom is crude and extremely blunt with her straitforward words, but is stronger, and hardier than a normal elf, a charisma penalty fits better than a constitution penalty and a strength bonus works better than an intelligence bonus, now, i can have a night elf. just slap on some darkvision and stealth boons, and she should be fine.
abolish racial modifiers and let players choose how they distribute both their 2+2s, and their -2 if applicable.
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Anyway, asinine comments speculating on why people don't like playing humans aside, let's look at some more selections of "core" races in things besides Pathfinder. This time: video games. In The Elder Scroll games, you have your choice between four varieties of humans, three varieties of elves, orcs, lizardfolk, and catfolk. That's ten options (or five, if we count human and elf as each one category). That's not much more than Pathfinder's seven options. Concerning broadness of options, I think TES wins easily here. Pathfinder's dwarves and two flavors of hobbits just don't bring enough.
Next up: World of Warcraft. If we look at the original selection of races before the expansions, we see eight options: dwarves, gnomes, humans, night elves, orcs, tauren, trolls, and undead. Again, comparable in raw number of options to Pathfinder. However, Blizzard provides a broader set of options. Pathfinder doesn't have any PC race options that fill the same niche as tauren, trolls, and especially undead. It's really bad when WoW is offering more options for roleplaying than your game.
There seems to be an assumption that the core races of Pathfinder are more central and important to building a fantasy setting than the races featured in the ARG. This underlies the idea that non-core races are more alien than core races. I don't think this assumption holds. If we look outside Pathfinder, we see a lot of variety in "core" races. Halflings aren't inherently more relatable than tieflings. Half-orcs aren't more central to the setting than orcs. Pathfinder's selection of seven core races isn't any more "core" than anything else's selection.
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Ehhhhhh, I'd hesitate to use WoW as a shining example of race selection, given that many of the races are ethnic caricatures of humans. Like how the trolls are unabashedly, nigh-offensive versions of Jamaicans. Or the pandarans... Last thing I want is Pathfinder to adopt the same concept. Honestly, as far as the setting goes, Golarion does a good job showcasing differences amongst races. Like the different cultures of elves and dwarves. Half-orcs and the little races could use some more love I feel, but overall I like the treatment of the Mordant Spire elves and the Osirion Dwarves and find it better than what WoW brings us.
I'll take quality over quantity any day.
If you are looking to play a nymph (to use a race we've just mentioned) for their incredible culture and society, great. If you are doing it for mad bonuses to Charisma and social skills and spell like abilities, great.
If the GM says that no one gets any bonuses or powers and every race is equal and that removes your desire to play that race, however, then you may have been less than honest with everyone about your intentions, with is less than great.
there are some abilities a race is expected to have, but as i said, i would be fine with removing excessively high racial bonuses or whatever. my nymph didn't even follow the traditional cultural practice of sleeping around.
she also didn't have the massive charisma, she had +2 instead of +22. she had an intelligence bonus of +2 and a strength penalty, she also focused on intelligence as well as charisma, instead of one or the other.
she invested resources to get the desired intelligence and charisma, it wasn't a feature of being a nymph, but a feature of bard levels. she didn't have a 32 charisma off the bat, but she did start with an 18 charisma she spent 10 points on.
i toned it down to slightly below PC levels, i didn't play a full powered nymph. a full powered nymph, would have broke the campaign. her daughters born from alchemy, were similarly tweaked, and a lot of them were nymph blooded planetouched.
Ehhhhhh, I'd hesitate to use WoW as a shining example of race selection, given that many of the races are ethnic caricatures of humans. Like how the trolls are unabashedly, nigh-offensive versions of Jamaicans. Or the pandarans...
That's a good point. There are blatant problems with some of WoW's races.
Ehhhhhh, I'd hesitate to use WoW as a shining example of race selection, given that many of the races are ethnic caricatures of humans. Like how the trolls are unabashedly, nigh-offensive versions of Jamaicans. Or the pandarans...That's a good point. There are blatant problems with WoW's races.
On the plus side, I really did like the night elves and the Draenei. But I'm a huge sucker for aliens in fantasy.
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On the plus side, I really did like the night elves and the Draenei. But I'm a huge sucker for aliens in fantasy.Ehhhhhh, I'd hesitate to use WoW as a shining example of race selection, given that many of the races are ethnic caricatures of humans. Like how the trolls are unabashedly, nigh-offensive versions of Jamaicans. Or the pandarans...That's a good point. There are blatant problems with WoW's races.
the Dranei, Night Elves, and Blood elves are my 3 favorite races. though my highest is a horde blood elf.
my first was a Night Elf, but back in the day, the Night Elf and Dranei Starting Zones gave me motion sickness in the same way James Cameron's Avatar movie does, so i forced myself to play a blood elf, because i didn't want to upchuck all over my keyboard from motion sickness while simulataneously having a migrane. those 2 zones still do, and i could never complete them, it's all the greens and blues clashing each other in the same way, that forced me to Vomit all over the guy in front of me when i Saw Avatar. so glad it wasn't 3D or it would have been worse.
i'm a hardcore night elf and dranei fangirl, forced to play blood elves on the horde because i couldn't deal with the motion sickness.
If you play a thri kreen like an insect, how is it a human with a hat?
If you add that it can speak but its ideas on social organisation are widely divergent to human notions, how is it a human with a hat?
If you play a thri kreen like an insect, how is it a human with a hat?
If you add that it can speak but its ideas on social organisation are widely divergent to human notions, how is it a human with a hat?
being psionic 4 armed insects with absurdly high jumping bonuses, a colonial mindset, and a focus on the good of the collective, is very different from being a human, but it is merely a human's interpretation of thinking like an insect. still different from a human, but it is a human's interpretation of an insect
we can't go fully into their shoes, but we can guess and interpret and work from there. doesn't mean they are humans with hats or whatever. but a human writer still designed their outlook in a matter that could be interpreted by humans.
Well I grew up in an insect heavy tropical region, so I have a pretty good idea how insects act. I spent long enough watching them as a kid.
http://media-cache-cd0.pinimg.com/236x/c5/3b/92/c53b9271a9cb0d933accd5b044d 81bf1.jpg
Other friends are really into keeping rats or dogs, and they have a lot to say on their mentality.
Well I grew up in an insect heavy tropical region, so I have a pretty good idea how insects act. I spent long enough watching them as a kid.
http://media-cache-cd0.pinimg.com/236x/c5/3b/92/c53b9271a9cb0d933accd5b044d 81bf1.jpg
Other friends are really into keeping rats or dogs, and they have a lot to say on their mentality.
true. there is that. a strong interpretation based on credible evidence is better than an interpretation based on a book. we can see the actions they perform and draw ideas from that. it's not full on ESP. just a really high sense motive.
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I am sorry you aren't able to play with Meryl Streep and (Undead) Sir Lawrence Olivier at your table. :p
Maybe the rest of us mere humans at our tables won't get award nominations for our roleplaying performances. But from what you've posted here again and again, you are coming off (and I don't/can't know your intent) as dismissing everyone that doesn't play one of the Core 6. I've seen (and played) plenty of non-core PCs who were doing it to attempt to play something new and different from a character/personality standpoint, not out of some wish to be uber/munchkin-y/specialized nor as a blantant expy of some existing pop culture character. I've seen those too, but they've been in the minority.
By now, I think we get that you aren't a fan of non-core PC races. And really, if that works for you and your table(s), then good for you... really. But that doesn't mean the rest of us are playing badwrongfun or not playing "alien" enough or all sekret Keebler munchkin gnomes-at-heart.
My players are very good roleplayers, when they put their minds to it. I still very fondly remember a time when they spontaneously started arguing over some moral and ethical decisions. 30 minutes later, they looked at me and asked me if I was all right because I was smiling non-stop.
A person doesn't need to be an educated actor to be able to portray their character properly.Again, I am not dismissing people. If they are having fun and not bothering anyone, good for them.
I just say that a roleplay of a real person (with a hat or not) will always be easier and more nuanced then a roleplay of a creature that spent all their days in a place completely alien and unlike "earth". Ok, it can be interesting, but I've mostly seen it as gimmicky.
Also, I've mostly seen that people take non core races for the mechanical benefits, not roleplaying opportunities.
I mean, one of my favorite characters ever was a Warforged named Hal. And it was insanely difficult to put myself into his mindset. I mean he's not human, he sees the world completely differently. I slipped a lot of times.
Side note - Man I wish someone I knew wanted to run Eberron. I miss playing in that world, and my players don't want me to run in it. Sigh, I love Eberron.