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Post by mao on Feb 13, 2018 14:03:04 GMT -5
Thank you, I will use it. Me too!(and your welcome)1
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Post by Warrior Twin One on Mar 1, 2018 19:07:19 GMT -5
Better than a bridge too far. I really dislike halflings, even more than hobbits. Wait - Did you say halflings or half-sister? I need to know if I should be offended Halflings, I don't have a half-sister. Although I have always wondered, what would the other half be?
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Mar 1, 2018 23:34:17 GMT -5
Half again as twice the other.
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Post by robkuntz on Mar 2, 2018 6:43:26 GMT -5
Men and then "dwarf-like" and "elf-like" creatures but with no ties to the D&D realm as such, and nothing else. The vast majority have been made up and the minority in that design cycle, as noted, given MAJOR work overs which have no backwards relation with what they are derived from.
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Post by sixdemonbag on Mar 2, 2018 12:10:54 GMT -5
Players can be any race they choose even if it puts them at significant social disadvantage.
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Mar 2, 2018 14:55:36 GMT -5
Players can be any race they choose even if it puts them at significant social disadvantage. Hence my wife's weird tendency to play half-orcs who think they're beautiful. Sonya the Red Orc (who was brown and only a half-orc) liked to wear an Alice-the-Goon type hat with a flower in it, and a pretty (?) dress over her plate armor. And never change the dress or wash it either. Ewwwww! But with a CON of 16 and a STR of 18/85, no one would tell her. (Have I mentioned that I hated the extra additions to the maximum starting strength of 18?)
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Post by raikenclw on Mar 6, 2018 0:20:01 GMT -5
I don't usually do half-races, except as weird, magically-created one-offs. Orcs are orcs, elves are elves, humans are humans, etc. Now, there can be some really weird elves and humans, but the weirdness will come from societal factors, not biological ones. I'm also fine with letting players play just about any intelligent monster as a PC (particularly in my current go-to-system of Savage Worlds). But after the first time a mob tries to lynch their PC - and the rest of the PCs just stand around whistling - they usually create something a bit less upsetting to the general populace.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Mar 6, 2018 19:21:05 GMT -5
(Have I mentioned that I hated the extra additions to the maximum starting strength of 18?) When I was young I thought the whole percentile strength thing was cool, but as I got older it seemed to be a foolish unnecessary addition to the game like a lot of things.
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Post by raikenclw on Mar 6, 2018 20:59:20 GMT -5
When I was young I thought the whole percentile strength thing was cool, but as I got older it seemed to be a foolish unnecessary addition to the game like a lot of things. IIRC, you only got bonuses if your Strength was well above average, yet without the % levels, there would be only a couple of bonuses before you hit the "monster" Strength levels of 19+ (which weren't available to player characters absent strong magic). In other words, they attempted to fix a basic fault of the system by tacking on a special rule . . . which gave the precedent of doing the same sort of thing for every other crack discovered along the way. Still, you can't really blame them. It was early days and they were trying to figure things out as they went. Today's game designers have so many more and more varied concepts to pull from, in designing games.
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Post by robkuntz on Mar 7, 2018 2:07:34 GMT -5
When I was young I thought the whole percentile strength thing was cool, but as I got older it seemed to be a foolish unnecessary addition to the game like a lot of things. IIRC, you only got bonuses if your Strength was well above average, yet without the % levels, there would be only a couple of bonuses before you hit the "monster" Strength levels of 19+ (which weren't available to player characters absent strong magic). In other words, they attempted to fix a basic fault of the system by tacking on a special rule . . . which gave the precedent of doing the same sort of thing for every other crack discovered along the way. Still, you can't really blame them. It was early days and they were trying to figure things out as they went. Today's game designers have so many more and more varied concepts to pull from, in designing games. Well that could be one way of looking at it (but I wouldn't insist on that beyond yourself), but Gary and I really did that to increase the fighter's prowess and importance compared to the spell-casting PCs. Note that my own addition of Dice-ranges for different class hp also threw a balancing effect into that in order to level out the increased numbers and ranges of spells. Note that the D% in design access terms can be re-sculpted (-/+) whereas stepped linear ascent (19, 20, etc) cannot. At the time we also had customizability in mind.
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Post by hedgehobbit on Mar 7, 2018 9:36:54 GMT -5
My random generation chart for PCs includes all the usual suspects plus pixies, giants, and goblins. I'm actually surprised that pixies (or any other flavor of fairies) haven't been mentioned. I consider them to be a "standard fantasy race."
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Post by raikenclw on Mar 7, 2018 19:42:45 GMT -5
Wow! I didn't realize I was conversing with a True Ancient! . attempting to fix a basic fault . . . . . . Gary and I really did that to increase the fighter's prowess and importance compared to the spell-casting PCs. You say po-tay-toe, I say pah-ta-toe. Now, I was okay with such things [percentile Strength, variable hit dice and similiar patches) back when they were the only way to go, particularly given that the game used random character generation (or at least was supposed to, absent GM-allowed fudging). But over the decades since, I've found that designed character systems are much more to my liking. If you make creating a mage relatively expensive and creating a fighter relatively cheap, mages end up being less attractive at the time of initial character generation . . . save to those players equipped with sufficient patience and ingenuity.
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Post by robkuntz on Mar 8, 2018 4:12:22 GMT -5
Wow! I didn't realize I was conversing with a True Ancient! . attempting to fix a basic fault . . . . . . Gary and I really did that to increase the fighter's prowess and importance compared to the spell-casting PCs. You say po-tay-toe, I say pah-ta-toe. Now, I was okay with such things [percentile Strength, variable hit dice and similiar patches) back when they were the only way to go, particularly given that the game used random character generation (or at least was supposed to, absent GM-allowed fudging). But over the decades since, I've found that designed character systems are much more to my liking. If you make creating a mage relatively expensive and creating a fighter relatively cheap, mages end up being less attractive at the time of initial character generation . . . save to those players equipped with sufficient patience and ingenuity. Well, actually, I state what we did to improve, stabilize and to showcase the expandability (customizability) of the system--in real applied ways--which improved and evolved it as it was growing. That is not "filling in cracks" but is called "design". Hindsight proves that that was the best approach for the system as it stood in its current iteration--as it is still functional/evolvable to this day--, proclivities for its further design evolvement by those at present notwithstanding.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Mar 11, 2018 0:36:19 GMT -5
My random generation chart for PCs includes all the usual suspects plus pixies, giants, and goblins. I'm actually surprised that pixies (or any other flavor of fairies) haven't been mentioned. I consider them to be a "standard fantasy race." One of the things I liked about Hackmaster was the fairy/pixie race, though I never played HM or a Fairy/Pixie. Giants I am not sure I'd allow but it'd depend on the setting. I have had Orcs & Goblins as PC races. I am still debating what races to include in my revised setting.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Mar 11, 2018 0:41:56 GMT -5
I don't usually do half-races, except as weird, magically-created one-offs. Orcs are orcs, elves are elves, humans are humans, etc. Now, there can be some really weird elves and humans, but the weirdness will come from societal factors, not biological ones. I'm also fine with letting players play just about any intelligent monster as a PC (particularly in my current go-to-system of Savage Worlds). But after the first time a mob tries to lynch their PC - and the rest of the PCs just stand around whistling - they usually create something a bit less upsetting to the general populace. I love Half-Races but I was heavily influenced by Dungeons & Dragons. I have to admit to having a potential change of heart on the subject & I am thinking of tossing them (Half-Races) out. Basically saying any breeding from compatible races the non-human blood is dominant & is passed onto the child. I might introduce a few other races that will replace both Half-Orcs & Half-Elves.
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Post by raikenclw on Mar 11, 2018 20:50:14 GMT -5
I'm actually surprised that pixies (or any other flavor of fairies) haven't been mentioned. I consider them to be a "standard fantasy race."I' I've never much used pixies, fairies and other races of that scale in my games or (in fact) experienced them in anyone else's games or in most fantasy novels I've read. However, I've recently been reading Seanan McQuire's October Daye series and such small fry do show up there. In recent novels, the pixie-sized nighthaunts (the race that eats Farie's dead, since immortal fairie flesh doesn't naturally decay) have been important to the plot, a current secondary protagonist used to be a nighthaunt and in the *most* recent novel a "regular" pixie becomes important to the plot. Another exception that springs to mind is Kim Harrison's Hollows novels, in which civilized pixies (and to a lesser extent barbarian fairies) play a significant role in the action from the very beginning. It has been my experience that when Very Small Folk show up (either in games or in books), they tend to get magically enlarged fairly soon. I suspect that many GMs and authors just don't want to complicate things with compatibility of scale issues, especially in the realm of combat. Needles as foils and scalpels as halberds are pretty pointless, unless you add some very potent poisons into the mix . . . and then have other PCs maneuvering to use those poisons, too.
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Post by raikenclw on Mar 11, 2018 22:01:04 GMT -5
[NOTE: I did have a player in a science fiction game who wanted to play a member of a squirrel-sized race. It turned out that what he really wanted was to play a character with the maximum possible Disadvantage points, so that he could buy all the combat Advantages he wanted with these. Squirrel Boy was so happy . . . until he realized that his kitchen-trash-can sized "battle suit" was vulnerable to being mobbed by regular-sized starport bar patrons, then aggressively disassembled by one of them (due to the tool belt he was still wearing after getting off work). Once the patrons had Squirrel Boy's suit mostly taken apart, the PC party leader stepped forward and said (paraphrased from memory): "Hey. I agree that he's an annoying s**t and I'm sorry he tried to pick a fight with y'all. But maybe he's learned his lesson. Keep the suit if you want, but how's about giving him back now? I'll throw in a round of drinks, if you do." Everything ended cordially . . . and I let the techie who took apart the suit mail it back to Squirrel Boy, one major piece at a time. ]
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Mar 12, 2018 8:38:31 GMT -5
I have Earth-races and different species - not all of them cross-fertile. (A TnT rock troll and a D&D balrog hybrid? No thank you!)
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Post by ffilz on Mar 12, 2018 16:04:07 GMT -5
I voted for "The Original Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits plus Other on Request" because that's pretty much what I run in my OD&D campaigns.
Other campaigns might have different answers, but the only other active campaigns are Traveller (mostly human only, though one player did roll up a Vargr but never played him).
If I end up kicking off a Burning Wheel campaign, the answer would be Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Roden, though I could be convinced to try Dark Elf, Orc, Troll, Great Wolf, or even Great Spider campaigns...
Frank
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Post by Mighty Darci on Mar 16, 2018 9:54:33 GMT -5
My random generation chart for PCs includes all the usual suspects plus pixies, giants, and goblins. I'm actually surprised that pixies (or any other flavor of fairies) haven't been mentioned. I consider them to be a "standard fantasy race." Do you have that chart posted anywhere? How do you run pixies?
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Post by Yaleric on Jun 29, 2018 19:28:38 GMT -5
I voted for the first option.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 29, 2018 19:42:44 GMT -5
I voted for the first option. So you like human centric campaigns then? Not knocking it, I just prefer a bit more variety; but open to playing in a human centric Sword & Sorcery campaign if I get the opportunity.
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Post by Yaleric on Jun 29, 2018 19:59:52 GMT -5
I voted for the first option. So you like human centric campaigns then? Not knocking it, I just prefer a bit more variety; but open to playing in a human centric Sword & Sorcery campaign if I get the opportunity. I just use the basics and then they can play anything else by request.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 29, 2018 20:04:46 GMT -5
Derp, I misread the poll - it is what I get for posting while distracted by cooking.
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Post by Yaleric on Jun 29, 2018 20:06:31 GMT -5
Derp, I misread the poll - it is what I get for posting while distracted by cooking. Cooking is a good thing to pay attention to.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 30, 2018 19:43:08 GMT -5
Derp, I misread the poll - it is what I get for posting while distracted by cooking. Cooking is a good thing to pay attention to. I love to cook, so I should know better. I have twenty minutes till the rice is done, so I am free to check & reply to some messages at the moment.
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Post by Admin Pete on Jul 2, 2018 23:25:04 GMT -5
Cooking is a good thing to pay attention to. I love to cook, so I should know better. I have twenty minutes till the rice is done, so I am free to check & reply to some messages at the moment. No multi-tasking for me, if I try to do something else while I cook, I lose track of time.
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Post by ripx187 on Jul 3, 2018 23:06:34 GMT -5
We are starting with humans only, then adding more races as we find them.
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Post by Admin Pete on Jul 6, 2018 14:47:46 GMT -5
We are starting with humans only, then adding more races as we find them. That is a great way to start.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jul 7, 2018 23:32:22 GMT -5
We are starting with humans only, then adding more races as we find them. That is a great way to start. I agree, that said I am partial to non-human races in my settings - blame the influence of Talislanta for it. It has been a HUGE influence upon on my fantasy settings since I was first introduced to it in '89-90. Also blame comics like Elflord by Barry Blair (RIP), Darkewood by Gordon Derry & later on I,Lusipher (later named Poison Elves) by Drew Hayes (RIP). All influenced my ideas on Elves. Then toss in my love of 'Elder Scrolls: Skyrim', that game shaped my view on Orcs.
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