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[chaoticag]

Well, as cool as mongols are, they can hardly count as game mechanics, and it's more a setting detail really.

Regardless, I have to say, simulating every single detail is a terrible pitfall for table top games. But again, you wanna have that one in a million chance come into play, because those stuff happen, both in real life, and in fiction. So I've been debating a mechanic for a while, and it basically comes in two flavors:

1. When you get the game's equivalent of an automatic failure (as in, a 1 on a d20) you can opt to take a chance and roll on a random event table. All outcomes are bad though not deadly, but the player gets a point of some sort in return (Fate point, destiny point, etc). The player can then cash in that point for things such as rerolls, dealing twice damage, rolling on a benefits table, etc.

2. The game's automatic failure provokes the above, instead of the player opting to take the risk. The player can opt to take the random event roll on any failure and get the point.

I haven't field tested those mechanics out in any way, shape or form, but I think it ought to be more satisfying to a narrative than coming up with a contrived system of critical hits.

[Knight of Fools]

I like that idea. I've used "luck points" in the past that regenerated overnight, and players used to make jokes about their luck regenerating, but the game died before I found a way to change the rule.


This thread got me thinking about game rules, and how dice can be used to do what the OP was thinking - A balanced system with consistent mechanics and a happy bell curve.

My knee jerk reaction is a percentile system where rolling lower is better. While it doesn't seem to be particularly bell-curvy, it's more like a representation of a bell curve. It's also fairly easy for new and veteran players to understand. If it makes you feel better on the throwing lots of dice aspect, you can roll two dice for a d100 roll. Heck, you could go the extra mile and do d1000's with d10's. A system with skill levels in the hundreds would certainly turn some heads...

A couple other ideas that I had were using dice to represent attributes and skills themselves, and either combining dice rolls for particular actions or having actions rely on a single skill for its dice pool. Higher skill levels would use higher levels of dice. As much as I like the idea, it seems like it'd be either confusing in practice or clunky on paper, but I've never tried it, nor seen any system that uses something similar.


Also: Never had a Mongol in one of my games. I should try that, some time.

[klingon13524]

Never had a Mongol in one of my games.

For shame.

[Bauglir]

So, I feel like resurrecting this thread, because I have a new question!

So, most RPGs that are intended to have different races also tend to have rules for how to handle them. So if you're playing an Elf, you get something a bit different from a Human. So what are the general thoughts on having these in the first place, and if you're a fan, what do you think are examples of games that have done it right vs games that haven't?

Personally, I enjoy having an extra dimension in which to customize a character, and think that it's possible to build a system that incorporates this in a way that enriches the world. There's also verisimilitude, because it gives you a built-in system for handling really weird concepts. So if your player really wants to play a talking dog, you need to come up with what talking dog racial statistics should look like and just plug them in; there's not exactly anything stopping you from doing this in a game that doesn't have racial traits by default, but it'd be a good deal trickier since you don't have a good reference.

As for games that have done it right... I haven't played too many games other than 3.5 D&D that actually include more races than just humans (or, rather, I haven't played them long enough to read the expansions that include those rules, since our introductory games tend to use normal humans to make the ruleset easier to work with). And D&D has a lot of problems - for instance, the elf, whose racial traits don't support the magically-attuned, nature-loving elves that seem to be iconic of D&D's fluff. Nothing an elf actually has has anything to do with either of those. So you have a race whose "official" culture doesn't gel with its mechanics. On the other hand, you have races like dwarves, whose racial traits are so heavily tied to culture that they get a +4 dodge bonus to AC against giants, allegedly from special training techniques, even if the dwarf in question has never seen a giant. Generally, though, these don't seem to be problems with the concept, just with the execution.

My own preference, then, would be for traits that would allow for the trope cultures to arise from the racial traits, without having to kludge your way into it by saying the culture gives a certain bonus. So, for instance, instead of giving a Dwarf a +2 bonus on whatever mining checks you're using, you could instead say that a Dwarf ignores some or all of stone's hardness. If you're going to have traits arise from culture, make clear in the description that it's something that's been practiced so long that there's been actual genetic selection for it; for instance, I'm considering giving humans resistance to disease as a consequence of their affinity for urban life applying a strong selection for that particular trait, so much so that it's spread to the entire group (even to humans who don't live in cities), though any real geneticist would tell me my proposed timetable of centuries is preposterously fast (it is fantasy, after all, so I feel okay with stretching plausibility sometimes).

Which brings me to another, more specific question: how do you feel about humans? If you're having racial traits exist, humans present a rather tricky niche, because it's extremely important to avoid pigeonholing them into being representative of any single culture, lest you wind up justly accused of ethnocentrism, but it also typically comes across as boring and uninspired to make humans "good at everything" or otherwise generic.

For instance, I'm working on a rough draft right now, and have the following flavor text for an ability that allows sharing of saving throws*:

Humans, more than any other race, tend toward city-building and forming large urban centers. Humans derive comfort from the presence of others. This is not to say that humans cling to anyone they can spend time with, automatically despise solitude, must be extroverts, or are comforted by the presence of anyone, but they tend to have at least one or two other creatures (not necessarily even intelligent ones) from whom they draw a sense of companionship. In times of trouble, they're able to draw on the strength of these bonds to struggle through hardship.

But I'm getting a sort of nagging sense that I've pigeonholed humans into being Western extroverts to some extent, regardless of any disclaimers against it.

*Ah, and now the truth comes out. Yes, asking for ideas on this was 90% of the reason for resurrecting this thread.

[LordBucket]

different races also tend to have rules for how to handle them

So what are the general thoughts on having these in the first place

It's ubiquitous in games, but personally I haven't found it to really add anything beneficial.

Let's say there are elves, dwarves and humans. Elves have +1 dexterity, +1 intelligence, -2 consitution. Dwarves have -2 deterity, +1 strength +1 constitution. Humans have no modifiers.

How does this have any positive affect on the game? It doesn't. Remove it from the game and nothing is lost. All it accomplishes is that min/maxers will choose a race that benefits them, and roleplayers will occassionally be compelled to choose whether to accept numeric penalties to play the character they want.

What about race/class restrictions? That's pretty common too, but how does it add anything to a game? If a roleplayer wants to play an orc mage or troll thief, or whatever...how does it benefit the game to say they can't?

Which brings me to another, more specific question: how do you feel about humans? If you're having racial traits exist, humans present a rather tricky niche, because it's extremely important to avoid pigeonholing them into being representative of any single culture, lest you wind up justly accused of ethnocentrism, but it also typically comes across as boring and uninspired to make humans "good at everything" or otherwise generic.

I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. "Jack of all trades" is the most commonly chosen niche for humans in games. No special benefits; no special penalties. If you're going to have a system that gives gameplay effects based on character identity choices like race...then having a generic default seems pretty reasonable to me. Also, in my experience while a good number of players have aesthetic preferences about race, very few people object to playing a human. Plenty of people will find it distasteful to be a short, bearded dwarf. Lots of people will find it tasteful to be an effeminate elf. Lots of people will reject being something like a troll or orc. I don't think I've ever had a player say "human? Ewww!" So when you have someone who wants to play, say...a mage....even if statistically it might benefit them to play an elf, if their reaction is "what, seriously? I'm not going to be a tree-hugging pansy" it's convenient to have a race that is functional for any class choice that most everyone will find aesthetically acceptable.

That said, again...the problem can be avoided by not using racial specials.

Note also that I routinely use and have played games with extreme racism as an in-game factor, and I don't recall anyone every getting upset or seriously complain about ethnocentric game mechanics. I think it's a non-issue.

As to culture and pigeonholing...in general it seems to be a non issue. Bad writers and gamemaster might tend to make races members of planets of hats, but rarely do people seem to have any difficulty thinking of humans as being culturally varied. Sometimes comically so. Apologies if you don't get the reference, but I've read quite a few "human in equestria" fanfics that have identical conversations in which a human spends a paragraph or two explaining to ponies how incredibly varied humans are. That they're so diverse, come in so many different colors, etc. And yet here they are talking to creatures who don't even all have the same number of body parts or means of locomotion.

It's probably an interesting sociological phenomenon if one were to look closely at it...but short version: for some strange reason a lot of people seem to expect humans to be tremendously varied and versatile, while they tend to think of anything non-human as being rigidly defined by a very strict set of criteria. I don't know why. But it routinely pops up in fiction. Again: planet of hats.

I'm getting a sort of nagging sense that I've pigeonholed
humans into being Western extroverts

Well, cultural trends are a bit different than directly game-play changing mechanics. You're the one making your world. If you make your races such that humans have certain cultural preferences in where and how they live...that can provide useful character to your world. And it doesn't limit characters. If one of your players wants to be an "unusual" human in the sense that they grew up living with a religious hermit in an underground burrow in a desert, no problems are created by this. It only really becomes a problem when you say something like "humans must come from cities" or "human get special magic abilities that aren't really magic but are just totally arbitrary fluff that goes with being human for no good reason..."

an ability that allows sharing of saving throws*:

...yeah, like that. In what way does giving an arbitrary ability like that to a race have any kind of positive effect on your game?

It's a serious question. Think about it.

Do you want players to look at an ability like that and think "wow, that's useful. Ok, I'll choose to play human because having that ability is more important than having a clearly established persona" ? Do you want players who make choices based on roleplaying preferences to have or not have game-altering mechanical benefits? How does this in any way benefit the game?

My own preference, then, would be for traits that would allow for the trope cultures to arise from the racial traits, without having to kludge your way into it by saying the culture gives a certain bonus. So, for instance, instead of giving a Dwarf a +2 bonus on whatever mining checks you're using, you could instead say that a Dwarf ignores some or all of stone's hardness.

Ok. But if you're going to do that there's no reason to tie these benefits to roleplay significant factors like race. Instead of giving dwarves a +2 mining bonus, you could give a mining bonus to anyone who would reasonably have one due to character background. If a human character grew up in a mining town, you could give them that bonus. If a dwarf was a member of the merchant class and grew up traveling aboveground selling golden goblets, and they've never picked up a shovel or pickaxe in their life, does it benefit the game to give them that mining bonus anyway just because they're a dwarf? How stupid is it when it turns out that the level 1 dwarven merchant who has never picked up a shovel is just as good or better at mining as the level 1 human miner who grew up with miners in a mining town because his +2 racial bonus is more than the human gets from being a professional miner?

Just ask yourself: do these things we're discussing in any way benefit a game? How?

If you want there to be rules, that's fine. If you want mechanics, that's fine too. If you want complicated systems of numeric penalties and benefits that players can take pleasure poring over to create the most mechanically powerful character...I don't object to that. But I do recommend divorcing these mechanics from aesthetic factors.

The day you have a player enthusiastically show up to his first gaming session having spent hours the previous night writing up an extensive character background for his female, elven mercenary fighter, complete with separate biographies for his immediately family and has a full page, full color drawing of the character, and a list of personality quirks and tropes and speaks with an accent and uses specific language when speaking in-character...and you tell him that "elves get a -1 to constitution, and females get a -1 to strength. That's a bad choice for a fighter."

...that's the day you realize just how counterproductive it is to connect gameplay mechanics to aesthetic choices.

[Bauglir]

Fair points, all! To get at the major thrust of it, I'd like to list a couple of reasons for why, in the system I'm putting together, I want to have racial traits.

First, I want distinctions in the flavor to have impacts on the crunch. If it doesn't feel different to play an Elf than a Human, why even bother having Elves? If it's a meaningful choice for your character's history and background, it should have some impact on what playing your character feels like. And giving mechanical side effects of race gives a springboard into roleplaying-relevant topics to people who approach builds from a character stats-first perspective. For people who have a more unique vision of the character in mind before they start on the mechanics, I like to think it gives a sense that that unusual choice had more meaning than just the roleplaying implications. At least as I envision it, a system should be as much a game as it is a vehicle for storytelling.

Second, it provides a built-in mechanism for a character who wants to play a really unusual creature. If I want to play a Gorgon, it's going to feel pretty weird if my eyes don't turn people to stone. Having racial traits provides a framework for making that happen, and giving the so-called "standard" races some abilities establishes a way to have a tradeoff in exchange for those abilities, which is good for game balance (on a side note, the stone gaze probably would require additional investment, but you'd probably have something related to snake hair and such things right from the start, instead of whatever it is humans or whatever else get). It's important, though, to build monsters with the expectation that somebody might want to play them, and so to include a mechanism for that to happen, so this justification only makes sense if I also do that (which is something I want to do).

Third, I'm trying to avoid redefining the genre completely. I'm not talking about mechanical paradigms, which I'm happy to overturn if I think they work better, but rather the storytelling fixtures that tend to exist. "Standard Fantasy" is kind of an absurd concept, but it becomes even moreso when every fantasy race is functionally identical. I mean, how does a hobbit hole designed around a 3-foot person make sense in that sort of scenario? What I'd like to do is create a system of races (and pretty much everything else in the game) within which all of those tropes are probably going to emerge on a cultural scale, but are neither going to be the only possible culture to emerge*, nor should a player of that race feel forced to adopt that trope or somebody seeking that trope feel like they have to play a member of that race.

Finally, I'd like to have a base on which people can build if they want to play an exemplary member of the race, more than anything else. Along the lines of Racial Paragon classes in D&D, there are some concepts that boil down to, "I want to be the ideal Elf". Having racial mechanics gives you an idea of what Elves are good at, so that you can construct the rest of your character around emphasizing those abilities, or even take a level in some sort of racial class.

So, more specifically, I've realized in retrospect that that ability I listed earlier is a bad one, for several reasons. It starts out with me explaining how I want human culture to look in the campaign at large - bad idea. I should leave that out of racial traits entirely, because I keep saying that I want traits to influence culture, not the other way around. Second, it's at once too useful and too weak. On the one hand, that's a very powerful ability that's going to get used all the time if you have a party with a variety of different high saving throws. But it encourages you to try and get the rest of the party to fill roles that help you, or else you're not getting a decent return on the investment. That's a problem, because I don't want to get into a situation where a player wants to tell another party member how to play their character.

More generally, I'm trying to construct races so as to avoid the trap of relative penalties. What I mean is basically what you brought up; if human women get -1 Strength for some obnoxious reason (not something I plan to model outside of the most blatantly sexually dimorphic monsters, such as giant spiders I guess, if I ever care enough), then you're penalized for not playing a man. If orcs all get +1 Strength, you're penalized for not playing an orc. If both are true, you feel like a chump for not playing a male orc if you're going for a raging barbarian sort of character. In general, the route I'm trying to take (and not succeeding at, in the case of that example human ability) is to give no universally-applicable, constant bonuses. Also, no penalties, because those just exacerbate the problem and don't really serve much purpose.

For instance, "favored ability scores" don't give you a bonus to that ability score, or let you buy them more cheaply, but instead let you be make some rolls with them Single Attribute Dependent (basically, given the paradigm I introduced in the OP, you roll AND keep your ability score instead of rolling some other number, and keeping your ability score), OR you can treat your ability score as 1 higher for a single check, all a limited number of times per day. Similarly, you can use literally any ability score in the game to attack in a number of ways (there are 8 fighting styles associated with each ability score, except for a couple which only have 7 due to the way the numbers worked out - either way, too many to know them all). I'm not sure if these are just attempts at band-aids, or if they actually address the problem, but I'm hoping for the latter.

If I do it right, race will be a choice that matters, but still be a choice. You shouldn't have to choose between being an effective character and being the character you envisioned. And if that's the case, the only people choosing a race based purely on mechanical reasons are the people who don't really care about their character's race anyway (which doesn't necessarily rule out a developed persona; and if it does, such people aren't likely to have a well-developed persona anyway).

I want to end by thanking you for bringing up those questions, which I needed to consider (I hadn't put much conscious thought into all of them). It's a good thing to think about why I'm thinking about what I'm thinking, if you see what I mean. So, yeah, thanks. I haven't actually addressed everything in your post, but I'll try to get back to it in a while.

*In the Dwarf example, if you give them that hardness-negating ability, they're great at mining and smithing, but they're also great at siege warfare, a realm Dwarves typically aren't known in because they spend all their time defending their own fortresses. As a consequence, one ability can give rise to a standard dwarf civilization living in the mountains, and another nomadic culture of mercenaries who derive personal honor from breaking sieges and in building the toughest walls they can, so that they can later see what it takes to break them down. In either case, the reason for the bonus isn't cultural, but the culture evolved to fit the bonus (which might be due to primeval Dwarves' having been hewn from the living rock by their god, a natural result of evolution in unstable caverns, or whatever other reason that gets incorporated into the mythos).

[Knight of Fools]

I've found it useful to separate a character's Race from a character's Background, both of which are different from character's Class or Profession.

Racial modifiers could be small, to emphasize the point of role play over mechanics. You make a few good points, but several factors already impact, define, and make different races unique. Humans are human, Elves live long lives and don't sleep like most creatures, Orcs are large and ugly, Halflings are small, dwarves are short, stocky, and grow too much hair.

Heck, if you wanted to make things interesting, bonuses to important abilities (Like defense, higher strength/dexterity/etc, bonus feats, skills) could be more dependent on Background and Class rather than Race. Use Race as a fluffy thing - Minor bonuses to some things, maybe a point or two in a couple attributes, a description of the race, and you're done.

It could be dangerous trying to make each race feel different to play, in terms of balance and stereotypes. The emphasis on what sets one race apart from another is one of attitude (Racism) and preferred culture (I hate how desert people do that!). While race may not have a huge impact in bonuses and such, they'll still help create a point of perspective. An elf, orc, human, and halfling all see the world differently, and not only because of culture.

It'll encourage players to choose a race they see as interesting instead of choosing one that will give them the best chance at surviving what you may throw at them, and make things more interesting for everyone.

[LordBucket]

important abilities
could be more dependent on Background

That's how I run my games. Abilities are a function of character background. Two characters who are both members of the same class would not necessarily have the same abilities.

For example, a fighter whose background includes time in his nation's army might have skills in armor maintenance, siege warfare, logistics, etc. Whereas a fighter who grew up in the woods hunting deer for his village might have bowyer and fletching skills, knowledge of hunting and tracking, etc.

I see little benefit in arbitrarily saying "fighters have these skills." I also have no formalized list of abilities, nor do my players receive a fixed number of points to spend on them. I ask them to write up a character background and tell me in plain english what their skills are. Then I translate that into game mechanics.


Systems like we're discussing are better for people who enjoy spending hours making characters than for people who enjoy spending hours playing a game.

[Knight of Fools]

Yeah, I hate D&D's rigid skill system. It's probably the big reason I prefer classless systems much more than ones that force a certain style of play down your face. Why can't my rogue know how to survive in the wilderness? Why can't the druid have some street smarts? Why can't my warrior know some cantrips?

Systems like we're discussing are better for people who enjoy spending hours making characters than for people who enjoy spending hours playing a game.

I always found that character creation was the idea time for my character. Typically, my character generation never ends - My character isn't "finished" as soon as I'm done making a character sheet. There's still lots of development and untold stories to be revealed. I often enjoy making characters as much as I do playing them.

There's a balance that has to be made, and a lot of understanding between DM and Player - The players often want to invest in a character, but need encouragement to do so. That job usually falls to the GM, but the way a character is made can definitely play heavily into that. DM's also have to have some restraint when it comes to killing characters, but there still needs to be the tension of danger during a risky situation. The right balance can spell an awesome game for everyone, but everyone has to invest themselves into the game, and everyone has to trust everyone else to do their part.


There was another thought I had, but I forgot it. I'll come back to it if I remember.