this is a thread to attract SE4 forumers to the first Dungeon Oddessy roleplay thread

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
new proposal:no evil or good races, no supeirer or inferior races. in other words, no 'standard' elves or orcs, etc.

That was posted for discussion, correct?

It doesn't strike me as meshing well with the option for sentient animals and Minotaurs already encountered; sure, I'd go along with the no inherently evil nor inherently good races, considering that "good" or "evil" is often (but not always) a judgement based on what nation the one you have allegiance towards is currently/recently/soon to be at war with, or the other nation's economic/technological standing; goblins could simply be considered evil because their current ruling class are warmongerers, or because their economy crashed and many turn to thievery out of desperation, or because they are new to the region and haven't figured out which local vegetable fibers are good for weaving, and so wear lots of animal skins. Individually, each person makes their own choices.

As for attributes, superior and inferior are either context based (specific attribute(s) and their relation(s) to specific task(s)) or opinion based. Different races are ... different. That doesn't make one better or worse than another; elves may be, on average, more agile, but they are also, on average, physically weaker; dwarves may be, on average, physically stronger, but they are also, on average, less agile. Both developed societies, so both have the full capability to do anything that is necessary to build and maintain a society. Which is better depends on the situation. Such Dwarves would beat such Elves in tunnels; such Elves would beat such Dwarves in a forest; both due to the terrain being suitable to their abilities.

Further, one being stronger of weaker, more or less agile than the other only addresses averages; an exceptionally strong Elf may well be stronger than most Dwarves, and an exceptionally agile Dwarf may well be more agile than most Elves; it's the whole bell-curve thing.

Also, there are no real standard races besides humans (although that is probably why you used the quotes....); virtually every fiction book/mythos/tradition/RPG defines their own variants of each. In one, Elves might be slightly taller than humans; in another, slightly shorter. In still another, they may be very short (couple of feet) or tiny (height measured in inches, sometimes less) - I've read books with all four Versions (some in the same book!), as well as comperable variations for other types, one book that turned the short weak elf concept on its head, making big strong elves. RPG's usually define the different types of races as having their own strengths and weaknesses that balance out on the whole with the others. Sometimes there is an imbalance, but this is usually balanced with some kind of penalty (reduced starting EXP, or a greater EXP cost per level, special weaknesses, social stigmas, et cetera - mind you, these are usually only appropriet when you have specific numbers such as EXP or assigned stats to play with, which isn't the case here).

Morover, most such differences could be attributed to culture; dwarves distrust magic and rely on their own senses, so magic doesn't like them, which gives them some measure of immunity to spells cast directly on them, but also impairs their ability to cast spells (alternately, they could be skilled enchanters, making dwarven artifacts of reknown). Elves are good with the bow because it is the weapon most commonly used in their society, due to hunting requirements, perhaps (sort of like how virtually every US citizen knows how to drive a car; it's mostly because almost everyone has one; a cultural thing). Culture of this type even happens on modern Earth. Japan-based instruction focuses strongly on memorization, so first-generation Japanese immigrants often have better memories than US born people. Does this mean people of Japanese decent are inherently better at memorization? Probably not - it's most likely just a cultural difference; they are good at what they have been made to do all through school because they have a lot of practice at it.

On the plus side, different races can add text and atmosphere to the conversation; it might come up that goblins were once elves, but became as they now are due to some warlords forcing them out of their forests and deep into mountain caves for several generations. Likewise, a character whom many NPC's react well/badly towards on sight because of their pointed ears/short stature/green skin/whatever could also add character development, text, and atmosphere.

Mind you, you don't want to saddle someone else's character with any of this type of thing; if Sue's elves don't have the same mythos as Johnny's, that's fine - they are different variants (wood elves and mountain elves, perhaps; wood elves might be commonly viewed as thieves while mountain elves are considered paragons of virtue or vice-versa; I'm inclined to leave it up to the person playing the PC for the details of the specific variant they are playing). I have no objection to allowing non-human races for entering PC's. NPC's may be a different story, however.

[Krsqk]

I would tend to lean toward including non-human races. I would add that, as a matter of courtesy, one should only assign cultural traits to an NPC that negatively affect their own character. Positive traits are less problematic, but can still interfere with character/story development. Checking with the other PC(s) by PM beforehand is probably the best option if one wishes to affect their character.

Besides, if we don't have other races, how am I going to include that half-orc, half-dwarf dragon-riding mage-warrior?

And, no, it's not myyyy precioussssssssssssss. Although it did have me laughing out loud.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
ooc:[everybody in jack's world knows life-extension techniques?]

Just about. The goal of the council is to further the science of magic. Once life-extension techniques are known, nearly infininte energy is available due to the Harnessed Uncertainty Jewels, and food can be created from energy, combined with an emphasis on sharing knoweledge as a means to increasing it, it is quite possible to make disadvantaged classes basically dissappear. A small number of missionaries could concievably spread knoweledge, food, culture, techniques, et cetera at a cost of time (and not really anything else). With virtual immortals, time isn't an issue. Parents would teach their children, and the techniques would eventually become sufficiently widespread that people would start demanding it be taught in an orginized fashion (like basic math and computer skills, today). With magic so commonly available, just about everyone will learn some of it (sort of like reading or driving in the United States - almost every adult knows how, just because it is so common and so necessary for everyday life). If Life Extension gets added to the curriculum, just about everyone will learn. How many people would skip immortality classes? And of those who did, how many wouldn't go back and try again later on in life, especially once it was obvious that they worked? Those that don't would soon be an extreme minority, as they slowly die off of old age. Some might purchase magic items that have similar effects (sort of like buying Windows for your computer rather than learning C and using Linux - it's a trade off of money vs. personal effort). I'm basically just building the world in my head and running through probable consequences of the way I have described things as being run.

This would also likely happen with flight and/or teleportation as well.

As conjoured food is tasteless, farming would still happen, primarily for the flavor of decent food. Many would still pay craftsmen for their labor (whatever the craft) rather than learning it themselves. People will still want payment, so they can buy food that tastes good. An economy would build around this, preventing socialism from fully developing. However, even those that wouldn't work would still be fed; however, they would never be satisfied with a lifetime diet of tasteless food, and would be likely to try to imporve their station (get a job/farm/hunt/et cetera) to get better tasting stuff and to pay for any desireable gadgets. Also, the economy would run greatly around the mages and farmers, although they would likely end up being treated much like skilled engineers today.

Mostly, think of the Federation in Star Trek: the Next Generation (or Voyager or Deep Space Nine), replacing science with magic and tossing in immortality as a common thing.

Of course, the final exam on the Advanced Immortality class would be murder....

Originally posted by Krsqk:
I would tend to lean toward including non-human races. I would add that, as a matter of courtesy, one should only assign cultural traits to an NPC that negatively affect their own character.

Makes sense.

Originally posted by Krsqk:
Positive traits are less problematic, but can still interfere with character/story development. Checking with the other PC(s) by PM beforehand is probably the best option if one wishes to affect their character.

Again, this makes sense to me.

Originally posted by Krsqk:
Besides, if we don't have other races, how am I going to include that half-orc, half-dwarf dragon-riding mage-warrior?

And, no, it's not myyyy precioussssssssssssss. Although it did have me laughing out loud.

Me too

[ July 09, 2003, 04:33: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ok, i don't know what happened to my original post on this, i couldn't find it.

i have no objection to different races.

i do object to 'elves are good, orcs are evil'. elven culture might be good, in focussing on learning and peace, but like you said, that would be there culture.

i don't object to strengths and weaknesses.

i do object to 'elves are superior, orcs are inferior'. in other words, if elves are long-lived, gracefull and inheritly skilled at everything, it's because they spend a lot of time studying life-extension and body-manipulation magics, which would give them extensive weaknesses elsewhere - perhaps more than if they took a more balanced approach.

regarding humans, i do object to the 'humans are somehow superior and have no specific strengths and weaknesses' attitude.

I would tend to lean toward including non-human races. I would add that, as a matter of courtesy, one should only assign cultural traits to an NPC that negatively affect their own character.

huh? you mean, if your an elf, the npc is an elf, you shouldn't give all elves massive bow skills?

Besides, if we don't have other races, how am I going to include that half-orc, half-dwarf dragon-riding mage-warrior?

ok, everything but the dragon is fine.

how are you going to balance that?

i can see several ways an immortal society could be 'fragile': ambition or lack of drive, extended anxiety over all they've got to loose and/or major recklessness, boredom. basicaly, although everyone would have a lot of time to 'be all that they can be', they would also have a lot of time to 'be all they shouldn't be'. extremes.

[ July 09, 2003, 06:23: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Krsqk]

I think I'm in agreement with you. No inherent strengths without balancing weaknesses, and vice-versa. No arbitrary racialgood/evil, although cultural good/evil is acceptable. No "humans mop up the board" stuff. Does that about cover it?

I do think that across the board, the average human's strengths/weaknesses would be less min/maxed. However, I also think that the human race would have more distant extremes and a vastly wider variety of skills present in any randomly chosen subset. In other words, there really would be no racially-determined human trait--the "average" skill level is only obtained by averaging all humans.

I mean, don't create an NPC which does not interact well with a PC without first checking with that PC. I would also be careful with the scenario you gave, though--I think the less racial determinations are messed with, the better. Some generalizations such as "Most elves are faster than most orcs" would be fine, but things with strong in-story effects should be related to the character rather than the race where possible (even if they are overall true for the race)--it leaves more flexibility for both your own PC and other PCs when writing.

ok, everything but the dragon is fine.
how are you going to balance that?

The dragon is afraid of mice.

[ July 09, 2003, 06:27: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

well, humans do tend to be more varied than most fantasy races. how about we try to change that?

[Krsqk]

Let's see if I have this right. Every race is varied, with only the slightest (if any) racial modifiers. Instead, modifiers should be cultural and/or character-specific where possible.

OT: did you see my response to your OOC? Which were you concerned about?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

well, for an example, why should all dwarves be strong and stout? that sort of thing.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
ok, i don't know what happened to my original post on this, i couldn't find it.

posted July 05, 2003 22:54 in the Roleplay thread, edited July 07, 2003, 16:26; the full quote:

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
ooc:[Narp will awake if there's any sounds of a fight. new proposal:no evil or good races, no supeirer or inferior races. in other words, no 'standard' elves or orcs, etc.]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:


i have no objection to different races.

i do object to 'elves are good, orcs are evil'. elven culture might be good, in focussing on learning and peace, but like you said, that would be there culture.

i don't object to strengths and weaknesses.

i do object to 'elves are superior, orcs are inferior'. in other words, if elves are long-lived, gracefull and inheritly skilled at everything, it's because they spend a lot of time studying life-extension and body-manipulation magics, which would give them extensive weaknesses elsewhere - perhaps more than if they took a more balanced approach.

Okay - I was reading you a bit off of your intent, then; my bad.

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

regarding humans, i do object to the 'humans are somehow superior and have no specific strengths and weaknesses' attitude.

In much of the fiction on the subject, humans mostly just ended up overrunning the other races by force of numbers; long lifespans lead to low birthrates, so it takes the elves millenia to recover from a war, but only decades for humans. Humanity usually ends up with less culture and skill than Elves or Dwarves, but the numbers make up for it. It's a difference, advantageous in war, disadvantageous in prolonged periods of peace (overpopulation).

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

quote:

---

I would tend to lean toward including non-human races. I would add that, as a matter of courtesy, one should only assign cultural traits to an NPC that negatively affect their own character.

huh? you mean, if your an elf, the npc is an elf, you shouldn't give all elves massive bow skills?

---

I suspect he means that If you are an Elf, and another is an Orc, you shouldn't give that NPC an intolerance of Orcs; just Elves.

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

quote:

---

Besides, if we don't have other races, how am I going to include that half-orc, half-dwarf dragon-riding mage-warrior?

ok, everything but the dragon is fine.

how are you going to balance that?

---

Dragon scales fetch a pretty penny at the market; there will be a lot of people trying to hunt the dragon down. Besides, the dragon is a pet. If it isn't too bright, someone might steal it....

---

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
ooc:[Krsqk, in your post you made a reference to relath. Jack is from another plane, so the only way you could know about him would be to be from the same plane.]

Krsqk made him up, not me. About the only personages I've named from Jack's home plane are Jack's Master, Yargoth and the tyrant mage Thozray whose overthrow resulted in the formation of the Council.

[ July 09, 2003, 06:41: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Krsqk]

well, for an example, why should all dwarves be strong and stout? that sort of thing.

'Cause all the tall, skinny ones with glasses got laughed at and beat up? I agree with that point, as long as neither extreme is pushed (neither "All dwarves are like such and such" nor "There are no characteristics which are statistically identifiable as 'dwarvish/dwarfish.'") It would make sense that some characteristics would be shared throughout a race, just as much as they would be among families. And dwarves would be more distinguishable to each other than to other races (again, speaking in generalities).

[ July 09, 2003, 06:48: Message edited by: Krsqk ]