Time for another "SilvercatMoonpaw Asks An Open-Ended Question That Will Doubtless Turn Into A Discussion On Many Things That Do Not Directly Answer The Question But Are Nevertheless Interesting".
This one's simple: What process do you use to decide what races you are going to include in a setting?
I am mainly limited by my ability to craft interesting, yet flavour-wise fitting races. If I can come up with a good race (or simply a good take on a race invented by someone else) then I'll try to work it into the world. It's not easy to make an interesting race though, and even if I get some good ideas doesn't mean they'll mesh well with the setting.
Third party: if it's in the book, I roll with it. If a friend really wants to play a weird race, I'm not going to deny that. It's really about a shared story around the table, not something for myself.
Personal work: human only; maybe elves and dwarves if I am in a classic fantasy mood. I've never written science fiction with non-human races (only AI stuff).
I feel that fantasy races are a shallow way of expressing the differences that we, as humans, see in others. Maybe I'm not skilled enough a writer, but I can't think of a way that using non-human races is critical to any story.
Quote from: EladrisI feel that fantasy races are a shallow way of expressing the differences that we, as humans, see in others. Maybe I'm not skilled enough a writer, but I can't think of a way that using non-human races is critical to any story.
I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you're talking about using fantasy races as a substitute for ethnic stereotypes then I agree.
But I see the use of fantasy races as having an important purpose so long as it's something you can't get from using a human. For me it's the chance to think about having different physical abilities from a human: you play a wolf if you want the experience of what a wolf can be. This is why in my own work I try to go for non-"humans with funny foreheads".
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawBut I see the use of fantasy races as having an important purpose so long as it's something you can't get from using a human. For me it's the chance to think about having different physical abilities from a human: you play a wolf if you want the experience of what a wolf can be. This is why in my own work I try to go for non-"humans with funny foreheads".
I see what you mean. For me, physical differences always seem to melt away in story, once intelligence is assigned.
I tend to stick with humans unless I've got a compelling reason to do otherwise. For many settings, wacky races are a distraction from the mood I'm trying to create. In other cases, they are part of that mood.
Gnomes, if it doesn't have gnomes than it isn't a good setting...
On a more serious note, generally I craft my people based on the feel of the setting. Personally I tend to shy away from conventional fantasy races as I see them as overused. Besides I enjoy coming up with the varied and colorful background that a new culture or species allows you to work with.
Quote from: EladrisFor me, physical differences always seem to melt away in story, once intelligence is assigned.
That's why the physical differences should be greater than the standard "human with pointy ears". At least one of the race's characteristics should need a lot of mentioning so that the difference is reinforced.
Quote from: NomadicGnomes, if it doesn't have gnomes than it isn't a good setting...
Nomadic, you certainly have the best taste of anyone here at the CBG, and that's saying something.
I swing back and forth with the racial issue. I have some basic formulas for determining races, though.
AmountA world should not have more than 8 normal races. This will be a diverse world. Anymore than 8 and the player base cannot keep track.
A narrowed world should have roughly 3 races. Many science fiction worlds are like this. This allows humans to be a focal piece but to be offset by 2 other, normally very unique races. Consider, for instance, the zerg and protoss.
I generally dislike having races that cannot be played. If they aren't player races, they aren't races - they're culturally advanced monsters. I've always believed that if illithids (mind flayers) and yaun-ti were brought down to player character power levels, they would be much more widespread and liked. They're fun concepts - why can't we play them?
This is just a start, but I need to relocate. Bubye for now!
For me it's essentially humans and human-derived races (i.e changed humans of one sort or another).
Unless I'm in the mood for something different, then I usually try and add in things that seem to mesh and fit the visual appeal of the setting.
I try to theme my races. With the Cadaverous Earth, every race is somehow connected to the concept of death, decay, haematophagy, parasitism, or mutancy - themselves all related themes, that might all be placed under the heading "degeneration." So undead proliferate (I definitely intend them as playable) in a diverse array of forms, while the humanoid/quasi-humanoid creatures include sentient versions of parasitic creatures like tapeworms, leeches, hagfish, snakes, mantises, and vultures (i.e. cestoids, leechkin, hagmen, naghini, mantids, and jatayi). With every cerature I'm trying to hammer home the feel of a dying, or more accurately a necrotic, rotting earth.
With Xell, I'm trying to go for creatures that exude whimsy and dark romance; I want that world to have the textures of a lush, decadent nightmare. So I've got anthropomorphic orchids and creatures like living glass, the more gothic, Victorian ratheads, the mothlings (inspired by a Fuseli painting), various faerie creatures, and I'm planning a whole host of spirit-creatures, which are totally absent in the Cadaveruos Earth (there are no incorporeal creatures in CE; everything is visceral and physical, to emphasize the presence of bodies and organic decay). I remember that Salacious Angel once described Dystopia as being centered around the idea of "strange beauty, or beautiful strangeness," and that's the feel I want for Xell, as well.
Quote from: JharvissI generally dislike having races that cannot be played. If they aren't player races, they aren't races - they're culturally advanced monsters.
Hmm, I wonder about this. It seems to me like not everything that you wouldn't necessarily want players getting their hands on would have to be a "monster," culturally advanced or not. They could be too advanced/powerful, which is a common reason to forbid them to players, but they don't necessarily have to be "monstrous."
Of course, maybe a term like "monsters" is out-of-date anyway, because RPGing has (well, at least for us around here) gotten away from the pure dungeon crawl hacking and slashing, and we try to create more realistic worlds-- realistic in the sense of having the depth of a viable world, not necessarily being anything like the real world, mind you. It's no longer the sort of thing where you kill everything you meet, so other races of varying intelligence and disposition can exist.
I really only used the term monster to describe the fact that they're typically villains that you're going to kill. Perhaps culturally advanced encounter would be more fitting?
I agree, Sparkletwist, that there are some times when this is necessary. Again the illithids make a great point. Using them in a setting can add a lot of depth, explain why the underworld is the way it is and how it affects the surface, and can add a lot of mythos. That would be a race you wouldn't want being played.
I will say, however, that I dislike significantly mentally-advanced races existing or races that are too powerful to be played. They just seem like they would always be winning against the humans and other PC-level races. I feel like a lot of the excuses given by world-builders as to why they can coexist are just that: excuses. I suppose I just haven't had an answer save my craving for internal consistency.
Quote from: JharvissA world should not have more than 8 normal races. This will be a diverse world. Anymore than 8 and the player base cannot keep track.
Do you assume that these races exist across the world? In my Savage Age setting, which is roughly as large as Earth, Man is the only global race. All others are small populations limited to specific regions - for example, Elves only live in parts of Brond and Kamara, so a random character from Euria would in all likelyhood be ignorant that such beings as Elves even exist. Because of the state of technology and geographic factors, traveling to the far corners of the world is extremely difficult and dangerous, thus the world is decidedly not "small". It follows from all this that the non-human races are only revelevant in their homelands and adjacent regions. Anywhere else they are just fanciful tales spun by crazy sailors, if even that. Thus I could easily have lots of races in SA, as only a few of them could be present in any given story set in that world. Not that I'm actually able to come up with so many races though x.
Quote from: JharvissI generally dislike having races that cannot be played. If they aren't player races, they aren't races - they're culturally advanced monsters. I've always believed that if illithids (mind flayers) and yaun-ti were brought down to player character power levels, they would be much more widespread and liked. They're fun concepts - why can't we play them?
Even with the underlying assumption that settings are always used for RP, rather than writing stories or simply as experiments in conworlding, I don't see why "powerful" races should be shunned. Couldn't there be a game where all player characters are Illithids (or other similarly powerful beings)? That could make a very interesting game.
Quote from: sparkletwistOf course, maybe a term like "monsters" is out-of-date anyway, because RPGing has (well, at least for us around here) gotten away from the pure dungeon crawl hacking and slashing, and we try to create more realistic worlds-- realistic in the sense of having the depth of a viable world, not necessarily being anything like the real world, mind you. It's no longer the sort of thing where you kill everything you meet, so other races of varying intelligence and disposition can exist.
I actually like using the term monster when refering to intelligent beings. It's loaded with potential for sweet political incorrectness, which can be helpful in invoking the athmosphere of a primitive world full of superstitions and prejudices. Indeed, in Savage Age most Men who know about Elves would probably label them as monsters :-p
It is an interesting question, SCMP.
I am constantly blathering on about rules and such matching the actual game the GM and PLayers want to play. This is along those lines, however.
First off, some perspective. Celtricia has changed and morphed quite a bit in it's time as an active setting. The hsitory of the races was there from the beginning. I chose to take on many of the trope races due to player input, but specifically fit them to the needs of the historical narrative.
(Mark that term in your memory banks. "The Needs of the Historical Narrative".)
I am a big believer that the history of the setting must be well thought out before deciding what races exist. True Creation myths (seperate from the creation myths that the pcs are told, normally) must be thought out in conjuction with the feel of the fluff.
I had run about 5 decent sized campaigns before Celtricia, and my intent was to create a hitorcial narrative where many races would be somewhat familiar, but then to have history itself place a seperate stamp on the races. Or more appropriately, The races were created each for a specific need and for a specific situation by the Planars, but the underlying goal was to show a time in transition, when Culture was totally superceding the racial stamp.
So my elven caraciture, my Omwo~, were once super long-lived, superior masters of magic. But the Planars had turned away from their rigidity, and they had been somewhat left behind by many of their original designers. Humans, too, had been created as the 'answer' to the Omwo~ by a colalition of (independently acting) Planars, more freewilled and less doctrine bound, shorter-lived and thus more able to change. But they were created with the idea that the Planars would still be on the "waking Dream' to guide them, and the war among the P;anars and subsequent leavetaking of those celestial beings messed up that plans, and the humans never really fulfilled their promise.
The 'Stunatu' (White Omwo~, 'Working Folk'), or the stunted, which includes the Hobytalia, the Klaxik, and the Gnomic folk (Hobbits, Dwarves, and gnomes) were created to be servant races to the Omwo, Sauroid, and humans.
It was about 2 years into running Celtricia that I realized that since I had done the same thing with the Orcsah and other Ogrillites (Orcs, ogres, gnolls, bugbears, etc), they should be included as playable races. I try not to do anything because it would 'be cool', but I do listen to the players. We had a new player in the fold, and the group had run into an Ogrillite tribe in the Southern Tiche Plains. She immediately went into attack mode, and the rest of the players had to slow her down, letting her know that they weren't necessarily baneful, that different tribes acting different ways, and that it was pretty much considered uneducated and immoral to attack a creature due to race.
She (the Player) had one of those great revelations that we GMs live for, when they 'get it'. The Gartier chief of this destitute, poor tribe was an ultra sarcastic type, named Bozecloun. He was proud but desperate, and the PC saw that while it should have been a tough fight, this particular tribe was in no shape to fight. Starving, bony orcash children bravely carrying items, since this group had no mounts left, etc.
The PC, a priestess of Amerer the Balance, ended up adopting the tribe. Total change-over in attitude. I forget the original name of the tribe, because they actually changed their name to, "The Faunem', which was based on her surname. She healed a lot of them, negotiated a work contract with them and a merchant guild in Ogbar, and integrated them into a partnership with the Trabler government. [note=Wrath of a PC] As a GM, I could NOT resist being logical and having the BonePures, a orcash racial superiority movement within the Zyjmanese ogrillites, get wind of this success and start attacking the small but solvent Faunem Tribe. Talk about scorched earth. You'd swear I'd slugged the PC's baby. Everything took a backseat to her getting to where the tribe was, and protecting it, and then punishing every BonePure Orcash she every met.[/note]
More, for the next PC she made for another group within the campaign (How did I get anything done in college?), she wanted to run a gartier of the Faunem tribe. Now, I won't get into the specifics, but suffice it to say, at the end of a few days of thinking, I wrote up the rules for playing the Ogrillite races.
So, how do you decide what sort of races to use, to bring this back around? A lot of this is based on how much work you want to put into it. Races can be an excuse to do less work with seperate cultures. Nothing is easier than having xenophobic racially based enclaves/states, where race is an excuse for culture.
Sometimes a GM might want to skip the fantastic, and make human cultures diverse. But that is also a choice to make in a 'fantasy' role playing game.
I found that creating intersting racial histories and backgrounds, micro and macro, was more important for player enjoyment that asking players ahead of time what they want. But thats me.
My attitude to races is that they should either explore some concept that would be hard to bring forth in a group of humans (how a blind race of aesthetics see the world, how a race that tries to become human would work) or that they should simply be creative experiments that differ vastly from humans; the warforged of Eberron, the Simulacra of my setting, the om-beh-ral of LC, the cestoids of Steerpike etc. etc. (we have plenty of these races in various settings).
Elves, halflings, anthropomorphic animals and so on are as previously mentioned pretty much just humans with a few slight alterations and are considered cliche by many, and classical by many others. There should be nothing keeping you from adding one of these races - as long as you add a twist of some kind! We have plenty of settings filled with aloof forest elves and gruff mountain dwarfs; if you want elves and dwarves you need to at least modify them slightly so they belong to your campaign. If you might have accomplished the same with humans then there is no reason for elves. Let's use Eberron as an example. Dwarves are somewhat standard, but their fairly isolationist nature could not be done in quite the same way with humans. Elves are necromantic death worshippers or horseriding marauders so that's a pretty big step up. Halflings ride dinosaurs so that's... something.
Anyway, if you want to copy an element you'll have to at least make it your own copy in some way.
To choose races, you might start by looking at themes. If your world is falling apart it might be appropriate to add a race that is falling apart/dying. If not, you could look at the following racial "classes" to see whether any of them should be filled.
Servitor races: The Servitor races were subjugated by a major race (probably humans) and even the free ones are looked down upon. In this category you might find manual labor races like orcs, or you could even have twisted experiments doing the bidding of their masters and creators.
Outsider races: Outsider races fill the slots of those who are distrusted or simply unknown. Think gypsies/nomads or some super-rare race.
Antagonist races: The enemy. If your setting is based around a war, or a conflict of some sort, inhuman enemies might add another edge. Inhumans do work best for hostile invasions with little mercy; monstrous barbarian pillagers rather than civilized armies.
Cosmopolitan races: This a decision you should make early: are you going for a cosmopolitan/star wars cantina feel where the crowds are made up of a dozen races? If so, you should have some non-humans to help enhance the tone.
Otherworldly races: if you have more than one plane, you might consider having creatures from different planes be occasional (playable) visitors.
Wild races: Jungles and deserts might have more sentient dangers than random critters; wild races are those races who live far from civilization but might get in your way anyway.
So these are the primary slots to consider when picking races. And yes, all of them could be filled with humans if you wanted to. But you can fill them with something else and get away with it just fine :)
I hope this made sense somehow... i tend to make it up as i go along...
Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowCosmopolitan races: This a decision you should make early: are you going for a cosmopolitan/star wars cantina feel where the crowds are made up of a dozen races? If so, you should have some non-humans to help aid this feel.
This is
the big reason I include non-human races (aside from just hating humans for various reasons). Although it has a lot to do with two other things: playing a creature physiologically different from humans to imagine being in a different kind of body, and exaggerating appearence differences to the point where I can understand people caring about them. The latter is one of the reason why I avoid "humans with funny foreheads" and all-human settings: other than gender differences (and maybe not even then) humans are all alike to me, and when they decide to draw on physical differences for prejudices I'm left clueless. (Please no one try to explain it to me: I don't want to know.) Heck, I have a hard time with
any prejudice, it's just easier to grasp the more obvious (and comical) it is.
Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowIf your world is falling apart it might be appropriate to add a race that is falling apart/dying.
That theme can work just fine in a world that isn't falling apart. It could be that a race was too weak to stand up for itself in competition for living space, and due to this it was driven from it's natural habitat to a different environment where it cannot thrive. Being unable to adapt to the changed conditions, the entire race is doomed to extinction. Every member of it is now malnourished, sickly, and looking at a drastically shortened lifespan. As generations pass, the population gradually diminishes due to infertility, illnesses and violent deaths resulting from clashes with other races/monsters.
The world itself goes on just fine, but this one race is going the way of the Dodo.
@Ghostman: of course. It was just an example keyed together with a common theme. There is nothing keeping you from exploring concepts outside the scope of your themes with your races.
I can't say it any better, so I'll just repeat what Vreeg said:
"First off, some perspective. [Calisenthe] has changed and morphed quite a bit in it's time as an active setting. The hsitory of the races was there from the beginning. I chose to take on many of the trope races due to player input, but specifically fit them to the needs of the historical narrative.
(Mark that term in your memory banks. "The Needs of the Historical Narrative".)
I am a big believer that the history of the setting must be well thought out before deciding what races exist. True Creation myths (seperate from the creation myths that the pcs are told, normally) must be thought out in conjuction with the feel of the fluff."
Quote from: AcrimoneI am a big believer that the history of the setting must be well thought out before deciding what races exist. True Creation myths (seperate from the creation myths that the pcs are told, normally) must be thought out in conjuction with the feel of the fluff."
And what do you do if there's a good reason you don't want to go through all this?
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawQuote from: AcrimoneI am a big believer that the history of the setting must be well thought out before deciding what races exist. True Creation myths (seperate from the creation myths that the pcs are told, normally) must be thought out in conjuction with the feel of the fluff."
And what do you do if there's a good reason you don't want to go through all this?
I'm not sure what a "good" reason for not having at least some sketch of the world's history would look like... no time, maybe? Players are just colossally uninterested, perhaps?
In either of those cases, it seems like you're pretty much wasting your time building your own setting in the first place. Just pick up a module and play.
Now, there's another issue that you might raise, which is that this sort of begs the question. After all, if the history dictates the races, then surely the races dictate the history. "In the beginning Tegroth the Just created the race of the Komori..." pretty much establishes that there will be some Komori in your world. "The Komori civilization was destroyed by the Gratani" introduces the Gratani.
So what made you choose the Komori and the Gratani to put into your history?
The easy -- and I think correct -- answer is "Because it's all in my imagination and that's what I imagined."
Like I said earlier... if you're bothering to create a setting you've already committed to dreaming some stuff up.
Quote from: AcrimoneI'm not sure what a "good" reason for not having at least some sketch of the world's history would look like... no time, maybe? Players are just colossally uninterested, perhaps?
The problem is that I experience a loss of creativity when I explain too much. I do the big explaining thing and then feel done. Not done in the sense that I've accomplished something:
done, as in the entire rest of the process is suddenly a useless waste of time.
Quote from: AcrimoneIn either of those cases, it seems like you're pretty much wasting your time building your own setting in the first place. Just pick up a module and play.
Sometimes it's easier to say how you hate something in front of you than to say what you like about something you've never seen.
Quote from: AcrimoneNow, there's another issue that you might raise, which is that this sort of begs the question. After all, if the history dictates the races, then surely the races dictate the history. "In the beginning Tegroth the Just created the race of the Komori..." pretty much establishes that there will be some Komori in your world. "The Komori civilization was destroyed by the Gratani" introduces the Gratani.
So what made you choose the Komori and the Gratani to put into your history?
The easy -- and I think correct -- answer is "Because it's all in my imagination and that's what I imagined."
Like I said earlier... if you're bothering to create a setting you've already committed to dreaming some stuff up.
At the same time maybe race means nothing to history. "The Komori civilization was destroyed by the Gratani" implies that they were very separate. But you could have a setting where race is just a way of describing how someone looks. You can still think it's important to know what looks exist in the setting and how common they are, but not think the difference impacts the long view of history.
I can imagine the sort of setting you mean, Silvercat. What comes to me is a utopian sci-fi sort of setting where grand collectives of species and civilzations have integrated themselves so thoroughly that they now exist in a homogenous culture; or, to look at it differently, race and culture could become utterly distinct, since most racial differences are mostly cosmetic. Creation stories aren't necessary because the default answer is "they evolved on planet ____"; old racial histories are such ancient history that they no longer seem relevant ("so what that our peoples were deadly enemies ten thousand years ago? We've been friends ever since the accords that ended the war, living side by side!"). Thus you'd have a series of creatures living in very cosmopolitan settlements, where prejudice is almost unknown and where physical differences are really the only differences between major races.
Where you and I might perhaps disagree is that creatures of radically different physical designs can still have the same sorts of brains, but I think I could stretch my suspension of disbelief considerably to accomodate the sort of world I think you're envisioning; after all, if all the races coexist peacefully in the same culture, the cultural influences acting upon them would change how they think as much or more than their biology (potentially). Some creatures might reproduce sexually and others by fission or whatever (as I ranted about above), but in this hypothetical melting pot/mosaic these differences would elicit rarely so much as a shrug; complete acceptance would be the norm.
Now personally, I'd be inclined to make such a world a transhumanist future, where humans (and other species) can basically change their race and modify themselves more or less as they please, but I could see why some would probably want to avoid such a future, since it opens a big can of worms about all sorts of things like identity that would remain more-or-less closed and out of sight otherwise.
The big question for me that would remain in a setting like the one I think you're imagining is conflict. The creation of a peaceful, totally non-prejudiced collective of sentient species living together in close proximity and relative harmony suggests to me not only a civilzation that has overcome even the last vestiges of racism but one that's dealt with most of its political (and possibly economic) problems as well, since it necessitates the coming-together of large numbers of different species who after all must have been separate civilizations originally.
My thoughts on this would basically be:
1) Have other civilizations of comparatively less prejudiced natures come into contact with the hypothetical civilzation described above. Conflict (not necessarily war) results, almost inevitably.
2) Have unfathomable intelligences be the baddies, like the Borg, or the aliens from the Alien franchise, or the bugs from Starship Troopers. These make the perfect "endless Nazi" bad-guys in a pulp-style game since they usually aren't fully fledged-individuals as typically defined but glorified organic machines (to steal your term). They don't have families or friends or feel human love, empathy, emotion, etc, even if they're not mindless per se. I could see why you'd potentially want to avoid this option (given your distaste for unfathomable intelligences), but I think when we were talking about "alien minds" before were were talking in terms of playable races, or races within a central civilization, rather than villains. I think you also imagined a sort of Evil Emperor villain in one iteration of your sci-fi setting, with endless henchmen; this amounts to the same thing, really.
3) Run an exploration-based game set in the abandoned planets of defunct civilizations. Combat would be with dangerous wild animals, extremely primitive tribal creatures, or mechanical guardians.
4) Run a very low-conflict game as typically defined, more like a drama/soap opera/campus novel than a typical DnD game. The game would revolve around personal relationships, romance, subtle political struggles, and the intricacies of life in the utopian super-civilization.
Or, of course, mix between all 4.
Hope that was somewhat helpful. The more I talk with you the more I come to comprehend your particular tastes, I think.
Quote from: SteerpikeI can imagine the sort of setting you mean, Silvercat. What comes to me is a utopian sci-fi sort of setting where grand collectives of species and civilzations have integrated themselves so thoroughly that they now exist in a homogenous culture; or, to look at it differently, race and culture could become utterly distinct, since most racial differences are mostly cosmetic.
Actually I tend to think of it as a setting where either they got integrated and then lost contact only to reemerge as distinctive cultures that are each integrated enough that their conflict differences are culture/nationality, or a universe where racial integration does not have to mean utopia. And if your universe is big enough you can have both.
Quote from: SteerpikeWhere you and I might perhaps disagree is that creatures of radically different physical designs can still have the same sorts of brains
It's probably idealism on my part to get everyone to stop looking at differences because we don't have a good track record of what we do with that information.
Quote from: SteerpikeThe big question for me that would remain in a setting like the one I think you're imagining is conflict. The creation of a peaceful, totally non-prejudiced collective of sentient species living together in close proximity and relative harmony suggests to me not only a civilzation that has overcome even the last vestiges of racism but one that's dealt with most of its political (and possibly economic) problems as well, since it necessitates the coming-together of large numbers of different species who after all must have been separate civilizations originally.
See the first part of this post.
Quote from: SteerpikeThe more I talk with you the more I come to comprehend your particular tastes, I think.
Understanding me is easy: I see so many things people do in their quest for whatever it is they're questing for as utterly absurd. Pretty much any conflict falls under thing, as do the people who create that conflict. So stories make more sense when they portray this absurdity: people get into conflicts when they're being stupid, people who
want to get into conflicts are
insanely stupid, and conflict gets resolved by rationality.
It's allegorical truth rather than realism.
A bit off topic, but i was wondering Silvercat, what do you work as/with?
I realize "I'm just curious" might be an answer, but why do you want to know?
Curiousity for one, and you seem to have a rather specific worldview so i was wondering whether it was influenced by your choice of work :)
And then what job would influence you in that way ^^
It has nothing to do with my job.
I actually wouldn't be able to work out for you what influenced my worldview from any real life. It's one of the reasons I prefer not to talk about that part of myself: my mentality is more "me" then anything outside.
With (at very least the starts of) two all-races settings, one human-only setting, and one most-races setting under my belt so far, I'd have to say that flavor, as well as whether the setting is divset or ethoscentric, is a major part of my process. If it's divset, all-races is go. If it's echocentric, I'm going to be a bit more selective.
For my setting, I wanted a mixture of classic mythological and legendary creatures. Due to my obsessive love of symmetry, I needed to make sure I had a race for each of the four elements, I needed one race from each world, and a couple more to round things out. I ended up with 10 base races.
What I hope will make my setting unique is that I am approaching the races from the angle of science fiction, determining how they evolved and such in order to make them feel more organic. Since my setting is going to be used for games as well as novels, I've tried to make sure that certain features are only held by two races (I have two strong races, 2 stealthy races ...), that way there is variety amongst player races.
I believe your choice of races is dictated by the feeling you want to portray.
Quote from: Steerpike1) Have other civilizations of comparatively less prejudiced natures come into contact with the hypothetical civilzation described above. Conflict (not necessarily war) results, almost inevitably.
2) Have unfathomable intelligences be the baddies, like the Borg, or the aliens from the Alien franchise, or the bugs from Starship Troopers. These make the perfect "endless Nazi" bad-guys in a pulp-style game since they usually aren't fully fledged-individuals as typically defined but glorified organic machines (to steal your term). They don't have families or friends or feel human love, empathy, emotion, etc, even if they're not mindless per se. I could see why you'd potentially want to avoid this option (given your distaste for unfathomable intelligences), but I think when we were talking about "alien minds" before were were talking in terms of playable races, or races within a central civilization, rather than villains. I think you also imagined a sort of Evil Emperor villain in one iteration of your sci-fi setting, with endless henchmen; this amounts to the same thing, really.
3) Run an exploration-based game set in the abandoned planets of defunct civilizations. Combat would be with dangerous wild animals, extremely primitive tribal creatures, or mechanical guardians.
4) Run a very low-conflict game as typically defined, more like a drama/soap opera/campus novel than a typical DnD game. The game would revolve around personal relationships, romance, subtle political struggles, and the intricacies of life in the utopian super-civilization.
Or, of course, mix between all 4.
I don't know whether this counts as a mix, but you forgot one:
5) Keeping the status quo/fight the forces of chaos. This is how you define games where the setting is mostly good and orderly and the PCs play agent who have to fight the random elements that crop up who haven't gotten the message. This is the sort of game where you play good cops, secret agents working for peace, paranormal investigators, and Silver Age superheroes. The point is that the conflict isn't with one entity and probably not for long at any one time.
Yeah, you're right; I'm surprised I hadn't considered that. A lot of my adventure outilnes for the Cadaverous Earth, oddly enough, function like this, in a slightly twisted way; there's a status quo (though it isn't good) that's fairly immovable, and small threats crop up towards it, most of them things beyond the pall even by the standards of the Twilight Cities.