The Campaign Builder's Guild

That's it. From now on all elves must wear cow bells.

Convention: Elves are aesthetes, more discerning as to what is more visually appealing.  The eat foods with caried tastes and have sensitive palettes.
Breaking it: Elves are herbivors with 4 stomachs.  The eat grass and wear cowbells.


I think I'd have to pay a PC to be an Elf after this.

Convention: Elves are enlightened beings, living in harmony with nature.
Breaking it: Elves are crude barbaric animists, living in harmony with nature because they don't know any better.
Justification: Now elves can fulfill both the barbarian druid role and the I-hate-elves niche.

Yes, I think I will require my elven players to wear cowbells now.  This is definitely a must.

I like the thread, and the ideas that have come about from it are great, but I just have to throw in the proverbial monkey wrench: Why does one need to "justify" themselves for breaking genre conventions?

Firstly, keep in mind that justification falls under ethics.  When you justify something, it means that you are taking an action that would otherwise be considered unethical, or "wrong," and stating, in this specific instance, why it is now ethical, or "right."

Many "genre conventions" are nothing more than clichés.  One of the "rules" of writing is to avoid using clichés.  So why then, in gaming, would one have to justify not going by a cliché?  Ordinarily using a cliché is wrong, but for some reason, in RPGs, using the cliché, according to the original thread, is the right thing to do.  The whole arse-backwards-ness of the original idea just bothers me a little.  Not that it didn't produce good things as a result, it's just seems to be going at it the wrong way.

Just something to ponder...

Quote from: limetomI like the thread, and the ideas that have come about from it are great, but I just have to throw in the proverbial monkey wrench: Why does one need to "justify" themselves for breaking genre conventions?

Firstly, keep in mind that justification falls under ethics.  When you justify something, it means that you are taking an action that would otherwise be considered unethical, or "wrong," and stating, in this specific instance, why it is now ethical, or "right."

Many "genre conventions" are nothing more than clichés.  One of the "rules" of writing is to avoid using clichés.  So why then, in gaming, would one have to justify not going by a cliché?  Ordinarily using a cliché is wrong, but for some reason, in RPGs, using the cliché, according to the original thread, is the right thing to do.  The whole arse-backwards-ness of the original idea just bothers me a little.  Not that it didn't produce good things as a result, it's just seems to be going at it the wrong way.

Just something to ponder...

I think a better way to phrase this might be, "what rationale do you use to support your deviation from the cliché?"

Sure, avoiding clichés is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can all of a sudden say that dwarves climb trees without giving any explanation for it (note: dwarves in that world are evolutionarily closer to apes then, say, elves or humans are).

Isn't random, unexplained phenomena just as bad for writing-- specifically, world building-- as sticking to clichés?

Internal consistency is the key.  Cross breeds don't work in every system, but tons of worlds have half elves.  I use Hobyt/Dwarves and Hobyt/gnomes, because Hobyts are incredibly fertile and genetically adaptable.  
AS long as there are good reasons...

Quote from: Stargate525Proteins are arequired by the human phisique, and unless you know about nutrients and diet, it's hard to get protein from plant matter.

From plant matter, maybe, but there's still eggs and dairy. Actually, even from plant matter there are certain things with naturally high concentrations of protein; beans for example.

And these are elves, fonts of ancient eldritch wisdom. You think the subjects of nutrition and diet are gonna be unknown to them? I, for one, do not :P

Not to mention that while proteins are required by the HUMAN physique, they might not be by an ELVEN physique.

Convention: Dwarves are a gruff, dirty, insular race that prefer the company of coin, God and an axe to anything else.  They have Scottish accents and arrange their, supposedly single-gendered society, into great clans that live in deep mines.

Breaking It: Dwarves are happy, extroverted surface folk who weave arcane wonders while on ships that traverse the world. They meet each day as if it were a new life, exploring it just as hard as they explore themselves and the new cultures they encounter on their voyages. Dwarves do not congregate in large communities because they are too consumed with the joys of exploration to stay in any one place for too long. Having said that, Dwarves do enjoy sensuality with both the same and opposite gender and often make port to explore the pleasures of the flesh and mind, for with out pleasures a Dwarf, as everyone knows, would be a very sad creature.  

Justification: Dwarves are too bent up in Tolkien conventions for their own good. Dwarves need to a new angle that helps them evolve past Gimli and the Ring.

I never did understand where the whole Dwarven = Scottish thing came from... I've always imagined them sounding more... I dunno, eastern european, maybe?

I don't know how they came about the Scottish accents. I assume it was an association with the two using the word 'Clan.'

Personally, I always assumed they had more of a Greek accent because that's who the original Norse Dwarves were believed to be based off of, i.e. short swarthy folk who are obsessed with metal. :)

Quote from: KindlingI never did understand where the whole Dwarven = Scottish thing came from... I've always imagined them sounding more... I dunno, eastern european, maybe?

I think it's the dourness.  Dourness  + stubbornness + ale  = Scot    (in that sort of older English stereotype kinda way)

To my knowledge the more "stereotypical" Scots drink is whiskey, not ale. And if Dwarves were supposed to be Greeks, then maybe I'm not so far off with my eastern European thoughts :P

Somehow, I can't really imagine the realm of forms coming from a dwarf...

I can see Dwarves possessing a great history of Philosophical thought. I mean they live in a dank cave, some unique ideas have to be born from just that simple fact!