The Campaign Builder's Guild

I've been thinking about this lately. Dwarves, goblins, elves... these are staples of the genre, and a lot of people are really attached to them. Whether we're using long-established extra races or new ones of our own creation (or a mix of the above), most fantasy world writers are playing with the idea of "otherness" by including races of people that are not humans.

I think that in its roots, this was a way of playing with xenophobia. I think that a lot of fantasy was (and still is) allegorical at some level, either very overtly or very faintly. Having a race (or several) of people that is unquestionably different makes it easy to set up a contrast.

We've gotten more egalitarian since Tolkien, but we've got to give him credit for starting some trends. He uses humans and hobbits as people the reader is meant to identify with closely, and elves, dwarves, and orcs as various types of exotic "other." Whatever we may think of this setup today, it performs some important functions very efficiently: it sets apart various groups quite unmistakably. The lines between good and evil are clearly drawn in this particular literature, and it's easy to tell at a glance what side most people are on. There's no need to ask if a particular orc is a bad guy; we can tell, because he's an orc. The "elfness" of the elves helps characterize them, and helps draw the line between those who are waxing in power and staying to fight (humans), and those who are waning in power and leaving the world.

This is a longwinded way of saying that I think the distinction of races here serves a purpose. Tolkien doesn't harp on themes of alienation and xenophobia the way some others do, but if you were to rewrite his literature with all the characters changed into humans, you'd need something to draw the lines between various groups. The racial distinctions serve a purpose.

In a lot of gaming, there's less distinction between races we're meant to identify with and races we're meant to regard as "other." It's hard to define an elf as mysterious and exotic, for example, if you're supposed to be able to play as one-- you have to be able to identify with them as closely as you'd identify with Tolkien's humans and hobbits. Also, when all races mingle freely (as they do in many adventuring parties, as well as in the more cosmopolitan areas of lots of settings), it's harder and harder to use race to draw those same lines. Race loses its power to generate strife, and becomes relegated to a mere physical characteristic. "Jim is a gnome" often carries little more visceral weight than "Bob is tall" or "Sarah has blue eyes."

I struggle a lot with this lately. I have eight playable races in the Jade Stage, and I'm starting to wish I didn't. I don't use race to its fullest potential-- in many cases, it does just feel like a physical description, no more. I know that in my first drafts, these races got included because everybody else was including lots of races, too. I invented several whole new races just because I wanted to give players options, and the narrative grew to support them (or to leave them unsupported) much later. In a lot of cases, changing everything to humans wouldn't prevent me from using the themes I am trying to use, and in some cases, eliminating the multiple races would solve some thorny problems for me.

So, my questions for discussion:

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?

Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre?

If so, do you think that's a problem?

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?

I'm really interested in hearing your opinions, here.

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?
I use multiple races in my world, but, if I were to run a game in it, probably only humans (and maybe centaurs or vanara) would be playable.

Why did I include them? I have endeavored to use all the creatures featured in various world mythologies. With the exception of phaneans (which I mostly made up as the race of the Golden Age), the creatures in Kishar all come from myth/folklore.

Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?
Sometimes. Phaneans do. Most of the other "races" are variant species of fae, which as a whole serve both as nature spirits (and thus gods for animistic societies) and an alien other which men fear.

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre?
Yes. I get that sense. I often try to avoid it.

If so, do you think that's a problem?
Sometimes. It depends on what the setting is going for. If you want a high-fantasy typically D&D esque world, these tropes can be a good thing.

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?
Awesome things? I don't know, racial wars, maybe? Maybe historical themes not possible with humans?

Problems: I say the biggest is that either they are alien and thus not plausible as playable races, or just humans in funny suits, in which case their inclusion can be questionable. I also feel like non-human races can erode a setting that is supposed to be dark, or gritty, or realistic, or remotely representative of any real historical culture. It's why so much of the supernatural stuff for Kishar has wound up getting pushed out to Otherworld, Jotunheim, and other underworlds.

Before I make a swipe at your questions, I want to actually discuss the topic first.  I agree completely that races have lost a lot of their value.  I think a lot of this can be compared to the elven subrace debate, where all of the subraces are all the same race they just have different cultures.  The campaign I'm currently running features mostly core races, and I don't feel like the characters truly portray their races.  It's exactly true what you said: their races have become "relegated to a mere physical characteristic."  Sure, the dwarf talks like a dwarf and the elf talks like an elf, but those could just be personality quirks.

Dwarves, for example, are too human.  I could describe the human kingdom of Staldorn, where the men wear their beards long as a sign of tradition, the wives are kept in their homes nestled in the mountains of Staldorn, and they have a lot of loyalty to their various clans.  If I just made them a foot shorter, we would have a human kingdom that plays like a dwarven one.

The only person in my campaign who plays their character like an actual different race is the karthen player, which is a humanoid with fox features (and the player's not even a furry or into that sort of thing).  The elf, dwarf, kobold, and satyr could all be described as humans with different personalities.  

Now I'll answer questions as it fits into my post -

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?
In my old campaign world, Aldreia, I used multiple races as force of habit.  Elves, dwarves, and other such unworthy of note races filled the world.  My new world, Tephra, has a very different approach, where I've created the races to be very different from one another.  Some of them will be humans with very different cultures and a couple different abilities, but the rest are created to have a very unique roleplaying experience.  

My new world's races were developed almost formulaically.  I knew, for example, that I wanted to have no more and no less than eight races from the get-go.  That may sound like a bit much, especially when all of the races are unique and very different, but it's the differences in the races that let me do it.  Furthermore, we don't have any monstrous races that aren't core races (like fourth edition gnomes, the bastards).

But they were designed to fill different roles in the world, and they all fill them and bring another unique aspect to the world.  Sure, I could drop one or two of them and be fine, but I think it would leave holes in the world.  They bring flavor to it.

[b\Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?[/b]
Here I am getting ahead of myself.  So, continuing from before, yes, they are.  The haudi, for example, were designed to be the epitome of a superior race with cutthroat social Darwinism and to be a race that isn't afraid to be completely inhumane.  If I were to cut out the haudi I could just give a human nation the same culture, no sweat.  However, this human culture wouldn't be nearly as tall or strong as the haudi, and therefore make it a little more of a stretch to consider these humans fit for their culture.  

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre?
Quite a bit.  I mentioned above that my original world was full of fantasy genre races.  I eventually ventured away from the mold a little bit (by making satyrs and kobolds core), but even that wasn't enough.  The world didn't feel like its own world '" it felt like a fantasy world that I had no control over.  The genre precedents influenced it too heavily.

If so, do you think that's a problem?
Not always.  It doesn't work for me, because I want something more out of world-building.  Elves and dwarves and halflings are fun races to play, and using them is more than just genre stereotypes but also a chance to play races that everyone knows and loves.  How are old-fashioned D&D players going to feel when they get to Tephra, look around, and say, 'Where are my pretty elves?  I can either play a mutated brutish elf or I can play a daemon that has possessed an elf's body?'  It's not core D&D anymore, which is good sometimes.  But sure, every once in a while we just want to play the classic.

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?
Having multiple races is easier on writers and DMs for making stereotypes.  When a human nation and a dwarven nation are at war, they can easily mark each other as enemies.  This holds truer with goblins, orcs, and ogres who are always enemies.  Rather than saying, 'You see a man with sharp facial features and a long nose '" he looks like a Vildergraut, which you're kingdom's at war with,' the DM would simply say, 'You see a goblin.'  Is this a problem or is this a good thing?  I guess it depends on how much immersion you want in your game.  I think some people would have issues with having a game where you raid complexes full of those humans with sharp features and long noses.  Because they're goblins it takes away some of those humanitarian feelings, let's us distance ourselves.  For my style of DMing, I would say that's actually a problem.  For others, it's a good thing.

I suppose my contention is that races should fill a definite hole in a world.  If a world-builder can replaced dwarves with a human culture, like above, then why don't they?  Well, whatever the reason, there should at least be a reason.  

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?

In Wonders, I do. It was for several reasons - firstly, it was originally partially inspired by a separate setting (or rather, a mix of other settings and works) that contained other races. The Daemons, for example, HAD to be alien - because that was what they were, alien. I think I also wanted humans - who are alien, yet not, for various different reasons - to have very few things to identify with in the new world they are now trapped in, apart from the daemons (who they have nothing but a 'master-slave' relationship with). The Duer are there because I needed a very foreign, very different culture to set the main setting in, and I included elves because I simply wanted to make them something different, and I needed a 'template' species to fit in where everything else didn't. Finally, the Eldritch and Hariij are there as the sort of local 'good-vs-evil' shadow-war, but where both sides are morally ambiguous. They're more like Tolkien's elves, or even the Valar, and are unintended for play if a game is actually done - they're more there to manipulate people, the puppeteers behind the scenes whom the players will only encounter if they get to the root of some plot against them.

Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?

As mentioned, the Hariij and Eldritch are there to perform political warfare against one another, and to manipulate PCs or characters in fiction. The species are effectively there for the purpose of creating completely alien creatures opposed to each other - and to play around with the idea of 'normality' and worldview from creatures possibly incapable of various human functions or emotions.

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre?

I think this is definitely a problem. I do it, I know, and would much prefer all-human settings in many cases. It's expected more in DnD than in the fantasy genre as a whole, though - DnD gives preset races and easy tools to create new ones, whereas fantasy is full of all-human settings or settings where non-humans are your standard epic-powah individuals. However, the greater problem (IMO) is that races are often made to be more 'humans in funny suits' than actual 'alien' creatures in their own right.

If so, do you think that's a problem?

See above.

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?

Mmm, as I said before, I think that the MAIN problem is that you end up with multiple humans-in-funny-suits-and-stereotypical-cultures. Oh, also the nasty tendency of DnD to encourage making 'The dwarven nation. Made up of dwarves. Who speak dwarven. All dwarves come from here.' Happily, we do tend to see much more linguistic and cultural diversity/realism amongst settings on the CBG, and/or reasons given for 'this race speak this language have this accent and this culture' (i.e. genocide everywhere else).

On the PLUS side, you can get a lot more xenophobia without resorting to potentially-offensive actual racism ('pointy-ears' being less likely to offend real people than, well... yeah), and you can, if you take the NON-humans-in-funny-suits route, create genuine alien cultures or alien worldviews which provide a challenge for the best of roleplayers/authors to play/write.

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?
No. I allow only "human" races, although there are about 13 different and distinct subethnicities/cultures amongst them.

Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?
It functions as a part of the key conceits of my campaign, as to instill a greater sense of suspension of disbelief and "ground" characters within believable and familiar cultures wrapped tightly into a low magic world that is on the verge of the fantastic rising again from mythology.

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre?
Definitely expected.

If so, do you think that's a problem?
Absolutely. Fantasy as a whole is predictable. My aim at the time I'd written the basis for my homegrown back in 1992 was to bring fresh ideas to the norm of which my players were accustomed.

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?
How can we possibly conceive to roleplay the psychology of an Elf that is hundreds of years old; more specifically, his or her's approach to the most mundane of tasks and thoughts? It is much easier to accept fantasy elements when they're embodied within men who face the same issues we do today: racial tension, religious issues, pride in one's country and ethnicity. Set against a backdrop of low fantasy and magic, it sets a more believable tone for a campaign. One has to look no further than George RR Martin to understand the strength of his literature and to empathize with the characters.

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?
I do, and I included them so that the PCs, being Humans, would feel more keenly the alien nature of their new surroundings.

If the natives of Reth Jaleract were just different-coloured Humans, or Humans with a different culture, then yes, they would have been alien, but not AS alien.

Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?
Their main function is, as I said above, be different to Humans. However, aside from physical and cultural differences, I haven't yet touched on exactly how they're so different yet.

Another theme I intend to explore with my non-Humans, but haven't yet, is that of their nature as.. I dunno, maybe elemental is the right word.
A lot of my setting is to do with Humans struggling to survive in this strange new land. To reinforce this theme, I would like the explore the notion of the non-Humans being as much a part of Reth Jaleract as they are inhabitants of Reth Jaleract.

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre?
Yes.

If so, do you think that's a problem?
It CAN be a problem, but it doesn't have to be. It all depends on the execution. A badly written and thought-out world with only Humans in is still bad, and a great world in every sense other than the fact that it has no really good reason for it's plethora of races existing is still pretty damn good.

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?
Good things :
Hm... well, the obvious, highlighting a difference between two peoples. They're not just different culturally and socially, but physically, as well!

Also, some players, no matter how roleplay-focussed they might be, still like to have fun with supernatural powers, and non-Human races let them enjoy this without having to take a specifically magic-oriented class.

Bad things :
The old Humans With Pointy Ears syndrome.

Also, they can detract from certain moods and flavours. An otherwise fine African-themed setting will suddenly seem very strange once a High Elf wanders into the village - unless, that is, a considerable amount of high-quality justification for their presence is given.

It's going to be hard answering your questions individually because I just have so much to SAY on this issue.  I think I'd better just answer in my own way.

For me multiple races is a requirement.  I get to see humans every day and being one I know what they're like.  When I think about a fantasy world I want something different.  The thing is, though, I don't want "Star Trek"-style races, humans with a bit of makeup and a couple of prosthesis.  Give me intelligent wolves, beings made of smokeless fire, and/or shades of blue if it comes to that!

Why?  Because to me the look of a character is very important as it indicates what the person on the inside of the player wants to be.  I'm not playing a game just to wear my same old restrictive human skin.  If someone else feels comfortable that way then it's fine, but when I write my worlds I want there to be options so that hopefully people will find something that expresses on their character's outside what they are on the inside.

Now on to the issue of "humans in funny suits": If something doesn't look human that what is it like mentally?  My answer: It doesn't matter.  By that I mean my work ends at a race's appearance.  Sure I think that some bits of personality are hard wired into us as instincts, but I'm not willing to risk creating a restriction for any non-human race until someone gives me one for humans.  The idea of "alien minds" doesn't occur to me: I have trouble understand many members of my own species.  That suggests to me that understandability is not based purely off the mind created through genetics.  (Also it's my hope that by not stereotyping racial personalities that I can avoid the "humans are the most culturally variable race" pitfall.  It's way too arrogant in my view.)

(Please excuse any typos. My hands seem to not want to properly obey my brain today, and while I ran this through a spellchecker, if any typos happened to create real words, it (and I) could have missed them.)

Do you use multiple races, and if so, why did you choose to include them?
Depends on the setting. I'm seriously considering cutting out the majority of races besides humans, cephaliths, and sea devils out of my Pirates setting, whereas I feel that Sooth needs more and more races. Really, it comes down to size of the setting: if the setting is large enough, then multiple races work well, whereas a smaller, one world or one landmass setting often feels cluttered to me if multiple races are used. Part of this also stems from my desire for quasi-realism in a setting: there needs to be a justifiable evolutionary or magical reason for these races to exist. (IE: Cephaliths and Sea Devils evolved to fill an aquatic niche that is a void in the real world, whereas in Sooth each race evolved on their own Material, and therefore would not be human simply because of evolution.)

Do races serve a function in your work, to support or highlight a particular theme?
Yes and no. I'm carefully cutting out extraneous races from my settings except for those that fill a particular purpose, because otherwise I think the world loses a lot of flavor. Now, if your intent is to create a setting that semi-adheres to traditional fantasy norms, then by all means use the traditional fantasy races (much as I hate the "gods each created their own race and therefore there are different races.) However, settings that are meant to be played in also need to be fun for players, and many players thrive on having options: classes, magic types, and races. If you're writing a setting for your players to game in, you have to take into consideration what the players would have fun with, because otherwise you're just indulging in the masturbatory DMing style that has become a pet peeve of mine, but that's a different rant.

Do you get the sense that many people write in multiple races as a matter of habit, or just because it's often expected in the genre? If so, do you think that's a problem?
[note=Side Rant]A huge race problem I have is "Humans exist in multiple cultures and have numerous Gods, but all other races exist as part of a homogeneous culture with either one god or a separate racial pantheon that caters to them alone. It doesn't make sense in most settings that society evolved this way: the elves that exist in the Arctic woods of the north should not be the same, culturally and value wise, as the elves that inhabit the jungles to the southeast without an explanation for it. If both elves were once part of a massive elven empire that spanned both these areas, then that is fine by me. On the flip side, giving every race their own distinct culture works equally fine as long as humans have a homogeneous culture as well, including a specific pantheon and such. [/note]Yes to both. I'm not accusing anyone on the CBG of doing this, but I think a large number of gamers write in various races because various races are expected to exist within a world. Again, if this is done to make the world more fun for your players, then by all means do it, but if it's done because you feel like fantasy should have multiple races because that's what fantasy does, then it's weak logic that damages the setting more than helping it. If there is a reason for dwarves, then let there be dwarves! If dwarves are in your setting because they are in the PHB, however, then I think you should seriously consider if dwarves really deserve to be in your setting.

What awesome things are made possible by the use of multiple races? What problems are caused?
Awesome: Multiple races allow the exploration of some very interesting themes: racism, cultural tension, religious conflict, xenophobia, and ethnocentrism, to name a few. Also, using traditional fantasy races in new ways can be amazing because it plays with players stereotypes: imagine their surprise when the learn that Orcs, despite what their characters were raised to believe, (and what the players thought from past games) are not brutal killers that slaughter for fun and because they hate humans, but rather live in a culture that emphasises individual achievement and freedom of expression, only raiding human lands because centuries of human expansion forced them out of their ancestral lands into a banner land that prevents them from engaging in sufficient agriculture to survive, forcing them to raid humans simply so their children do not starve (though many still do.) In addition, races can make fun foils for the PCs: if a character has part of their back story parents who died in orcish raids, then meeting an orc paladin who is dedicated to the preservation of innocent life that they must ally with to deal with a great evil forces the character to deal with their racist attitudes and creates great roleplaying opportunities. Also, for more mature games, different races allow for interesting exploration of various themes that focus on sexuality. Sexual preference, interracial relationships (especially when they cannot produce offspring), "impure" halfbreeds, gender roles, and more can be explored from a whole new angle when races are introduced. (for example, the women of race X are physically more powerful than the men, putting them in the role of hunter and provider except during the X months they are pregnant and therefore must take care to avoid hurting the infant, while members of race Y are egg laying, and therefore male and female differences are virtually non-existent besides which race lays eggs and which race fertilizes. Meanwhile, race Z only mates once a year while they are in heat, but otherwise have almost no libido, therefore causing them to look at human sexuality with bemusement.) Of course, such themes should only be explored with gaming groups that have the emotional maturity to handle them.

Problems: Clutter is the main one. A setting with too many races (and often even three or four can be too many) feels cluttered and forced if not handled properly. If multiple races exist in a setting, they need to fill a role, even if that role is largely thematic. Otherwise, they're dead weight that has no need to exist. This also applies to settings where race X once existed but is now extinct. Unless there is a need for that race to have existed or they fill a purpose, they should be cut out. (Elves once enslaved humanity until a revolt and the following genocide wiped the race out, explaining why human peasants are allowed much more political freedom than they had in the real world past work as an extinct race, while gnomes that once existed but were killed in a demonic invasion are just dead weight 90% of the time).

A secondary problem is Humans With Pointy Ears Syndome (HWPES), when other races exist, but they are just like humans except from some cosmetic and mechanical differences. If other races exist, they should be distinct, with a semi-alien worldview and thought process. This doesn't need to be pronounced dramatically - people still have to be able to play these races, after all - but there has to be differences to create interesting roleplay and to fit the setting.

Another problem that develops is the "obviously evil" problem. If Orcs are Evil, then they must be killed, even though they are intelligent thinking humanoids with their own lives, culture, feelings, passions, hopes, and dreams. It doesn't matter - a player can slaughter them gleefully while still being considered Good, because they are "Usually Evil." Most groups do this and don't have a problem with it, despite the fact that it's a form of racism (even directed at an imaginary race). It provides an intellectual shortcut, at least in my opinion, allowing players to skip attempting a subtle or rational approach to a problem and instead killing the humanoids that are ugly and have green skin. (Aside: why are evil races always the more dramatically physically different? Racially Good elves could pass for humans with their hoods up, while racially Evil elves have odd skin, eyes, and hair, marking them plain as day.)
 

Quote from: KindlingBad things :
The old Humans With Pointy Ears syndrome.

Heh. I hadn't even read your post when I posted mine, yet we both came up with the same term for the same problem.

Also, I left this out, but I think you have an excellent point with the supernatural powers. I'm one of the players that loves playing races with innate powers, because it's just fun and kind of cool. Plus, it allows me to feel like I'm playing in a fantasy setting even if I'm playing a rogue or fighter or other non-magical class, and gives me a taste of magic when I normally wouldn't have it.

Before I get to looking specifically at individual replies, let  me say that I don't want you to feel bound by my particular questions. If you want to talk about other things, wonderful! I just wanted to ask something, to get some sort of discussion started.

So feel free to avoid, ignore, or alter my given questions, or add questions of your own. Whatev.

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawNow on to the issue of "humans in funny suits": If something doesn't look human that what is it like mentally?  My answer: It doesn't matter.  By that I mean my work ends at a race's appearance.  Sure I think that some bits of personality are hard wired into us as instincts, but I'm not willing to risk creating a restriction for any non-human race until someone gives me one for humans.  The idea of "alien minds" doesn't occur to me: I have trouble understand many members of my own species.  That suggests to me that understandability is not based purely off the mind created through genetics.  (Also it's my hope that by not stereotyping racial personalities that I can avoid the "humans are the most culturally variable race" pitfall.  It's way too arrogant in my view.)

I agree fully with the previous part of your post, but I'm going to have to disagree here.

Humans have a number of wired in desires that other races might not have. A lot of them tie back to the sex drive - humans are influenced by this to a large degree, and a race with a different sex drive (such as one that has a mating season but is otherwise sexually disinterested) would have entirely different family relationships, generally only being raised by the mother with males protecting the young. Their leadership would be different, because it would likely be difficult to establish who is whose father, so it would either be maternally passed or, more likely, would pass through some other method. (I've actually been working on a project about different sexuality that could arise from different biologies in fantasy/sci-fi, and there's hundreds of different ways of handling it - all of which would carry a certain amount of personality baggage.

Also, a personality trait a huge number of humans have is that we form emotional attachment to other living creatures. A different race might lack this drive, instead interacting with other creatures because of some other drive - perhaps it sees the survival benefits of such interaction, perhaps it is curious about their behavior, perhaps they have broken away from a racial hive mind and desire the company of other races to provide some semblance of the community they once had, perhaps they do it because they enjoy the mental and sensory stimulation provided by other beings: all of which can be done without the emotional attachment many humans feel.

Then there is the desire for individual survival and propagation, something most humans have. However, a member of a different race may have a desire for species survival and propagation without much concern (if any) for their own individual role in it, making them more self sacrificing but less independent than humans.

I'm not saying every race should have a laundry list of mandated personality traits, and I think we'd agree that races that share human origins (either divine or evolutionary) should be mostly humans with different skin. I just think that humans with different skin is not using other races to their fullest potential: a few personality traits or outlooks defined by genetics makes more sense to me than races with a basically human outlook on life.

You may have misinterpreted what I said:
I'd be willing to put in a species's wired personality traits (which I do believe exist), but only once I can also do the same thing for humans.  And as it stands I don't trust myself in determining a general human outlook (or more likely I don't trust anyone else to accept one of my own devising).

(Possibly my "alien mind" comment may be a little misleading: I'm reacting to my perception that this means "can never be understood by a human".  By saying that there are human minds which I completely fail to understand I'm trying to point out that the difficult parts of another species's outlook would not be indecipherable simply because of genetic differences.)

Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawYou may have misinterpreted what I said:
I'd be willing to put in a species's wired personality traits (which I do believe exist), but only once I can also do the same thing for humans.  And as it stands I don't trust myself in determining a general human outlook (or more likely I don't trust anyone else to accept one of my own devising).

(Possibly my "alien mind" comment may be a little misleading: I'm reacting to my perception that this means "can never be understood by a human".  By saying that there are human minds which I completely fail to understand I'm trying to point out that the difficult parts of another species's outlook would not be indecipherable simply because of genetic differences.)
[/quote]
Ahh, okay, I did misunderstand that point. I'll agree that "never understood by a human" is a misleading outlook for races - humans, as you point out, are hard enough to understand by other humans, and besides, it'd be impossible for a player to play as a race (or a writer to write a race) that has motivations beyond human comprehension - that's best reserved for entities that are not races, such as the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft.

Quote from: Xathan, Not Quite Actually Back But Kinda IsWhile some exceptions exist, most of these exceptions are either considered to have some form of psychological difference from the norm, or they form emotional attachements to nonhumans

It's the exceptions that get me: are they still a reflection of an already understood instinct or do they show that the one in question isn't hard-wired?

Quote from: Xathan, Not Quite Actually Back But Kinda Isa race'¦that has motivations beyond human comprehension - that's best reserved for entities that are not races, such as the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft.

Actually the "Great Old Ones are beyond human comprehension" thing is how I developed the idea that "alien minds" might not be as hard to understand as we think: it's the proposition that just because something is different from a human we can create no mutual frame of reference.

When I was working out the outlines of Axa, I considered having human-only, since I wanted to focus on cultures rather than races. But I ended up wanting some cultures that were physically different, adapted to different climates and locations. I'm not sure why exactly, it was more of a feeling that the world seemed insufficiently fantastic without some variations.

In the end, I settled on the idea that all the races are really just humans that have been shaped by their environment over the eons to create different races. So, no vast differences in lifespan, all cross-fertile, yet ranging in average height from about 4 feet to upwards of seven. Varying in build, constitution, hair or hairlessness, etc. In cases where there was an analog among the core races, I've adopted the core name as a short hand, such as "elves" and "dwarves", but they really aren't the same thing. In other cases, such as the beast men, you've really got three different races that are all referred to (by non-beast men) by the same derogatory name.

That ended up implying that the races don't really live together, because their preferred environments are so different. In really cosmopolitan areas, you might find trader towns from one or two of the other races, but even that not so much. I wanted to retain the idea of a world that had lots of room for exploration and the unknown, so most trade is still pretty local, meaning relatively little ocean-going trade.

This leaves lots of room for racial/cultural animosity where appropriate. But really, the denizens of my world consider the dark-skinned, hairless humans just as foreign and exotic as the dwarves.

(Just as an aside, how the heck do D&D dwarves eat? They are supposed to like ale and meat - but living underground, I'm not sure how they would grow grain for the ale or raise cattle or sheep. Best I can figure, they must subsist on slimes, fungi, and lichens they can grow in their caves, and water from deep aquifers. My "dwarves" ended up being short, stocky, hairy humans who live in the mountains and build in stone, but they live on the surface to tend sheep and hunt mountain goats.)