01-03-2013, 07:36 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Non-Humans in Fantasy
Do you like to have non-human races like elves, dwarves, orcs or more outré offerings in your fantasy campaigns? Personally, I'm beginning to grow more and more opposed to it.
1) Non-humans usually become "humans in funny suits" and I find it really hard to see the human in the non-human. Maybe it's because I'm bad at creating non-humans. :( 2) It tends to foster a "they're Orcs so you can kill them without mercy" attitude that I don't really like. Even worse, there's an attitude of "I'm playing an Orc so I'll kill and rape anything I come across". I'm getting less and less interested in running DF campaigns. I don't think that quite catches my reluctance to include elves and orcs but it will do for the moment.
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01-03-2013, 07:48 AM | #2 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
I think you've had some bad experience. One of the campaign I ran didn't have humans at all. (Though everyone was a humanoid, with a racial template that had between 20 and 30 points of Dis/Advantages, balanced to 0.)
Never had a problem in 'serious' fantasy. Maybe hack-and-slash is different, but if you're looking for deep cultural characterisation in hack-and-slash, something seems off. Edit: though I do admit that I'm tired of Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes and Orcs. The only elves I still find interesting are Blood Elves (due to being mostly unlike the usual version). By now, the Elves stereotype has been so cemented for me that I don't see the original Fair Folk as Elves. Last edited by vicky_molokh; 01-03-2013 at 08:30 AM. |
01-03-2013, 07:51 AM | #3 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
My fantasy setting (WIP, and may wind up becoming a setting for fiction rather than games) has only distinctly non-human non-humans (no elves, dwarves, etc.). You can't really label any of them as evil. Some cultures (human and non-human) are somewhat barbaric, but there is no real "bad guy" race. And the closest thing to a "good guy" human nation is in a grudging alliance with reptilian tribes against another human nation.
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01-03-2013, 07:54 AM | #4 | |||
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
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I'm comfortable with that. I generally play or provide as NPCs characters who embody some sort of definite "type" even if I'm playing humans, so having non-humans fall into an identifiable type of their own is a useful tool. Quote:
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And that is what you're really saying.
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01-03-2013, 08:00 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
I usually don't have demihuman races such as elves and dwarves. Looking at the campaigns I've run in fantasy worlds of my own creation, I don't see any with "races." They've had fantastic beings such as faeries or ghosts, but these haven't been a "race" that lived side by side with human beings; they've been more of the nature of spirits that had manifested themselves.
On the other hand, I've run campaigns set in Middle-Earth and on the Discworld, and in both there were demihumans. The Middle-Earth campaign even had elf and hobbit PCs. (The Discworld campaign had an Igor PC, but Igors are more a tribe than a race.) Part of the trouble, for me, is that Tolkien has produced such a quintessential version of the fantasy-world-with-multiple-races trope that it's hard for me to imagine one independently—but I don't want to run a cheap knockoff of Middle-Earth. Bill Stoddard |
01-03-2013, 08:14 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: The Great White North
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
I make demi-humans different in my campaigns by changing their basic reproduction strategies. For example: Orcs. I pattern them after lions. An Orc tribe is run by a small band of males. They kick out younger males when the reach maturity. These young males form roaming bachelor bands that cause so much grieve to any neighbouring farmers. Eventually, these bands become strong enough to take over a harem and form its own tribe. A different reproduction strategy means a different perspective on the world.
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01-03-2013, 08:38 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Houston
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
Im all about em and there a key component, especially in Dungeon Fantasy.
Taking a page from the Star Trek playbook, rip off some culture form human history and cast the entire race with those general qualities. I knew a guy who did elves as genre projected samurai. It was neat. Ive always thought that If anyone ever wanted to play coleopterans I do them like the Yazarians from Star Frontiers. As to the Orc problem, recall the treatment of Klingons between TOS and Next Gen and still further the treatment of cardassians over the course of DS9. If your playing the 'stereotypical' Orc, your not really fleshing out those adventure possibilities. Orcs value something. Orcs hold something sacred. Murder and rampage are generally a means to an end. Whats the mindset that drives it? I always did the proliferate conquer and prosper of the Orcs through a rapture/slavery lens. There would come a time when Gruumsh would return to the world and elevate his 'true' followers. Those true followers would get thier '40 acres and a mule' as retribution and attonement for the orcs being cheated out of thier land in the original division of the earth. That 40 acres and a mule would come from the land the orcs had managed to conquer up to the time Gruumsh returns. So the general message was Keep the Faith, and Kick a little ass because the land you conquer may end up belonging to you or your lineage. As to the 'Humans in Funny Suits'. Look we ARE human. We will always view other races in human terms. Ive seen some odd races and we will always mentally ingest them in human terms as human players. Since human is our poitn fo comparrison, it will always be 'like human but'. As a final note. Never use gnomes. I hate those guys. For no good reason other than Ive yet to actually see them meaningfully and uniquely defined. Nymdok |
01-03-2013, 08:51 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: The Great White North
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
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01-03-2013, 08:58 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Chatham, Kent, England
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
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In our celto-viking game, there exist dwarves, but they are small people who became miners (the tunnels are easier to travel when you're small). Then there are the 'wee men', litle grey persons who appear to children, live under the earth and appear to be more toward the magical, with few adults remembering them. Then there are the caeru, the beautiful people who were here before the present people, may still be met under rare circumstances, and are the cause of people who present with magic ability, wild talents or unusually bright eyes or hair. They are both real and unreal, depending upon the individual's travels, affinity with magic and degree of knowledge. When these things are carved in stone (or read out from a monster manual), you have not got a suitable level of wonder and mystery. YMMV, of course. |
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01-03-2013, 10:08 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Houston
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Re: Non-Humans in Fantasy
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in other words, Ive never found a use for a gnome that wasnt already filled elsewhere. Theres just no Niche for em so I dont use em. Nymdok |
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