"Races" vs. "Monsters"

[FireHorse]

Q1: In your own personal little chunk of Cidri (as opposed to the Official Cidri, or the chunk at anybody else's House), which dominant species get to run the cities and pretend they're Civilized, while callously slandering all the other ones as "monsters"? Or to put it another (possibly less accurate) way, which ones do you allow as Player Characters?

Q2: What's the distinction between the two? Is it basic intelligence? Complexity (and size) of social structure? Good vs. Evil? Something else?

[mark hill]

I presume my Cidri-lands are mostly dominated by humans, but that most folks on Cidri are blind-to-species. Unlike say D+D, I expect any species might be running a shop in the market, doing whatever job, being a copper or working in government .. they are much more egalitarian and multicultural than us (who apparently cant manage this with a single species lol)

my main reason that humans are dominant is because Ive mostly read human-dominant myths, fiction, history and TV plots .. which I steal stuff from :)

I allow the oldschool tft races I guess .. Im yet to run a 'new' tft game

"monster' species to me might be things like Ogres, who I view as man-eaters who couldn't walk down a city street without a battle .. this is cause stupid (IQ 6)

I dont apply anything like 'good and evil' to my Cidri .. those are mythical concepts (maybe not to Cidri religions) .. vampires might be 'sane' .. coppers might be 'crooked' .. villainous characters might be motivated by greed, revenge etc .. but never by a worship of 'Evil' .. thats more a D+D thing

well, usually .. there have been cases where Ive done it like Good and Evil .. for the sake of a particular plot :)

[Senturian]

I don't care for the idea that all of Cidri has already been explored and civilized or even that the Wizard's Guild is one entity. I think of the world as still young.
City States form as regions create defenses against the unknown.
Each ruler (races and cultures) would have different goals and the Halls would be used as he saw fit to achieve them, including the relationships with it's neighbors. Several could be takeover by force or subterfuge, as trade partners or the joining of the two by agreement to create a more powerful kingdom.
The Mnoren aren't around much because they chose to visit a realm occupied by Demons and cost many of them their lives to seal the portal.
Casting Summon Demon enough times will attract their attention. They may decide to intervene.

[Sinanju]

I'm still formulating all the details, but my personal take on things is this:

The Mnoren *created* all the other races (except humans).

The elves were playthings--tall, beautiful, slender, somewhat flighty.
The dwarves were workers--strong and tireless, obsessive.
The halfings were house servants--small, unobtrusive, silent, domestic.
The orcs were soldiers--tough, aggressive, violent.
The goblins and hobgoblins were cannon fodder. Nuff said.
The "monster" races (ogres, giants, minotaurs, etc) were created to be hunted for sport, as in The Most Dangerous Game.

What's missing from this list? That's right--humans. All the other races are specific "breeds". Purebreds, if you will. Humans...are mutts. Humans come in all shapes, sizes and color of hair, skin and eyes. Humans are what you get when the various races fool around with other races. The first generation may be "half-whatevers" but go much farther, and you get...humans.

Every race thinks they're the best race, of course. Their nations tend to be run for and by their own race, though members of most other races are usually present, sometimes in significant numbers. But the dwarven lands exist for the benefit of the dwarves and never doubt it. Ditto the elves, orcs, humans, etc. Within each race, they tend to rank themselves (whether they admit it or not) by how closely the individual hews to the standards for the ideal elf/dwarf/etc. Most cultures do it informally--standards of beauty vary for each race. Some cultures do it very formally, and many a "half-elf" or "half-orc" is simply an elf or an orc who didn't make the cut and was effectively culled (shunned).

Outsiders may not even see or notice the differences, but *they* know. Fortunately, even the lowliest half-elf (or whatever) considers himself superior to a lowly mutt (i.e., human).

Humans get little to no respect, in that regard. Which isn't to say they don't get some respect--they're numerous, and they're dangerous. Not as agile as elves, not as strong as dwarves, not as ferocious as orcs--but they do well enough to have carved out many a kingdom for themselves. A human be a fearsome fighter, a wealthy merchant, a powerful wizard...but you still wouldn't want your daughter to marry one.

(I came up with this because I wanted a reason by all the various fantasy races were fertile with one another, and wanted a world where humans weren't the norm.)

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Q1: In your own personal little chunk of Cidri (as opposed to the Official Cidri, or the chunk at anybody else's House), which dominant species get to run the cities and pretend they're Civilized, while callously slandering all the other ones as "monsters"?

For the first wording of the question, each place in my rather large mapped Cidri campaign has different ideas and grey areas. Some places are much more tolerant than others. The most common are predominantly human cultures where there are a fair number of orcs who are theoretically first-class citizens but in practice are greatly suspected and seen as a stigmatized minority by most humans, though not as monsters. Elves, dwarves, and halflings are also minorities but seen with less stigma as they tend to have positive reputations. Goblin reputation/stigma varies by place - they are seen as distinctly "other" by other (non-hobgoblin) humanoids but also often tend to have a good reputation because of their honesty thing, intelligence, and tendency not to be thugs, but in some places they have bad reputations due to certain major events in the campaign. Hobgoblins tend to be treated as a second-class race in most places, and are often servants, slaves, minions.

How Reptile Men are seen depends on how close an actual Reptile Man settled population is, and what they and their reputation are like, and then of course also how the Reptile Man in question behaves. Even large humans with fighting skills are feared when they misbehave - when they're also Reptile Men and you've almost never seen another Reptile Man before, they can easily be seen as monsters of sorts.

Gargoyle Men tend to be seen as uncivilized, suspicious, feared, and/or monsters, and also most of the ones in my campaign are uncivilized. But it's possible for some to be accepted as civilized and get a positive reputation, especially if a local lord or guild hires them on as guards.

Giants are very rare and stigmatized in most places.

Prootwaddles are generally exiled to terrible remote villages with only Prootwaddles in them.

Centaurs and mermen are thought by many to not exist.

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Or to put it another (possibly less accurate) way, which ones do you allow as Player Characters?

I allow players to play monsters, but it doesn't make humanoids behave any differently toward them.

I don't force PCs to get along, either, and point out that if the idea is they hope to form or join an existing group of adventures, that they may be much less likely to succeed if they design their PC to be compatible.

In practice, most lasting PCs have been humans, with a few dwarves and some elves. They have had NPC comrades who were goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, haflings, half-breeds, and reptile men, and any of those races are normal choices for PCs. Different parts of the game world however are more or less appropriate for different races as PCs.

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Q2: What's the distinction between the two? Is it basic intelligence? Complexity (and size) of social structure? Good vs. Evil? Something else?

Intelligence and language I would tend to want unless it's a very short experimental game.

Beyond that, for me what makes sense as a PC depends on the desired game type, starting social context, and player mix.

As GM, I consider what the game type will be like for certain PC races, and whether I want to GM that or not, so that comes down to taste and interest for me.

For example, I once said yes to a PC Bale (from GURPS Fantasy Folk, an evil blood-drinking race) and I started to work out what would be needed for that, and then punted because I realized I just really didn't want to GM that awful a situation.

But I don't mind running PCs as some other monster types that are more appealing to me (again, IQ and some sympathetic quality seem like minimum bars for what I'd want to run). I've run octopi and dragons and had quite interesting games with them. An all-Wights could be interesting. There aren't many other IQ 8+ monsters in basic TFT that I think I'd want to run.

[FireHorse]

The Fantasy Trip's versions of Goblins, Hobgoblins and Orcs are slightly surprising to me, I confess. I am accustomed to treating them as "monsters" who are a rough hybrid of Tolkien, D&D, and Warhammer — and WarCraft, for that matter. In my head, I kind of think of them all as being just variant forms of the same race, all green-skiinned, pointy-eared, and irredeemably Evil.

(Which is why we never even allowed Half-Orcs in our D&D campaigns, back in the Olden Days. No such thing in our world.)

But TFT handles them all as "races", which may be used as Player Characters. So as I'm building my own little chunk of Cidri, I'm wondering if maybe I need somebody else to play the common, relatively low-to-medium challenge Bad Guys. You know, somebody for the Human / Elf / Dwarf alliance to periodically have wars with.

Maybe these Prootwaddle things? I have no idea what the #&!$ Prootwaddles are, or where they came from, but they sound incredibly annoying. Maybe people would enjoy killing lots of them…?

[hcobb]

In TFT terms a campaign against Prootwaddles would be like a campaign against raccoons. Both are cute urban pests.

Best TFT big bads:

1. Humans. Never trust a human.
2. Charismatic orc warrior leader.
3. Goblin sorceress (and her army of fearful hobgoblins).
4. A dragon, but only if you really buff her up. Roll her over and polish her scales well, but only to ensure there's no missing scales for those nasty halflings to target.
5. The necropus and her army of skeletons that increases after every meal.

[FireHorse]

Raccoon pelts make fine hats, judging from Davy Crockett. I wonder what the fur and leather trade is like in Cidri…

But as amusing as that might be, I think instead I'll choose Bad Guys who are more menacing, as opposed to just irritating. ;)

And yeah, Humans are always good for that.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The necropus and her army of skeletons that increases after every meal.

BTW, the octopi eventually conquer Cidri and destroy all life but their own. Then over the next few millenia, they evolve into the Octolings from Splatoon. True story.

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

BTW, the octopi eventually conquer Cidri and destroy all life but their own. Then over the next few millenia, they evolve into the Octolings from Splatoon. True story.

That's why you should never trust invertebrates. Or anything that's ever been served on a dinner plate, because they are guaranteed to be plotting vengeance.