Zalanthas Fantasy Race Discussion

[Pariah]

One of the points of contention [for the new 2023 Karma Revamp] was the whole "Humans being only zero karma choice."  While I believe Usiku when she said that most people who start play as a non-human (elf, breed, stump) tend to fall off from the IC racism, limitations etc etc.

I do think the greater problem, the more pressing problem is the documentation of said races here.  Example, Every half-elf is mentally disabled in some fashion, from slight anxiety disorder to straight up crazy ass bi-polar disorder by the docs.

I think if we took away these "pre-existing conditions" to races, we would have an easier time for people to pick up and play non-human races.  I know I've had some d-elves, some dwarves, a breed or two as a player who's been playing since 2005ish I think, but the vast majority are human, not because I don't see the allure of breeds and elves and all that, I don't want to get into yet another shit fit with an opinionated staffer about their "interpretation" of how I play said race.  Human allows me to play however I want, they are free to be the sweetest thing in the world or the most devious, evil fucker in the world.

While I'm all for recommendations, or examples of what a good elf is, what a good breed is etc.  I feel the documentation is too heavy handed in the non-human races and say we have a new staffer who's reading said documentation and observes an elf who for some reason is genuinely kind in a moment, they potentially will, by the rules of the race, be like, "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"

It's almost like the original staff of the game had this vision of every elf, breed and dwarf and wants them to be extremely cookie cutter with no individuality, so they hardcoded these disorders or personality flaws into them.

I dunno, again I'm normally human, but I think that races should be left more to the player to bring to life their quirks and their habits than some stale old documentation from the 90s.

[Jihelu]

One of the things I really liked about the mud-that-must-not-be-named was they got rid of required half elf freak outs.

And you know what?
I wound up naturally developing in a way I enjoyed. That led to its own strange freak out (Still), but it felt nice being able to know for sure 'I'm doing this myself, from the awkwardness of not fitting in with a culture'.

Half elf? I definitely see. Also they weren't crazy in Dark Sun.

I also really, really dislike the 'Oh elven appearing half elves can't ride' stuff they decided on. If elven appearing elves can't ride, why can't they run? If they can't ride, why can't human appearing half elves be completely functional people? Why not just give each type of 'half elf' a perk of some kind? (Elven gets shitty elf run, but not the same. Half elf gets the ride. Human gets uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh let them pick psion I guess or give them haggle? I don't know)

Elves could use some love, but I think they should still have some oddness to them. Dark Sun elves would ride if their lives depended on it, it was just shame inducing.
You know what makes you immune to shame? Being exiled or having no people, or having left them.
You know what you can't do at all in Armageddon? That. And if you do it on a city elf, you get shit on instantly and stored. Because apparently your city elf who can have the backstory 'I literally don't give a shit about my clan, I left it, fuck everyone' cares so much about...hopping on a beetle. Or a skimmer.

Dwarves should probably still have focuses but I'd prefer the dark sun method (Who knew?) of 'You don't always need a focus' and 'You can willingly change it, at great mental cost'. AND 'We aren't stupid and in lore acknowledge dwarves have focus, we aren't dumb'.

What's a dwarfs reward for completing or using a focus? I dunno. Mechanically I'd assume or would think they'd be harder to mind control and what not but that probably won't ever happen, I assume the benefit would be like...roleplaying.
Because it's a roleplaying game and junk.

Elves are probably the hardest to play if only because they tend to be such a chaotic pain in the ass species. They are individuals with thoughts and emotions, and they also tend to be vagabonds who have no issue just fucking with people because they know they can just leave (In Armageddon this behavior should probably not be as prevalent seeing as despite being the greatest nomadic species to ever grace the planet they are only semi-nomadic at best)
I'll always enjoy the 'robbing you via trade' elves versus the 'literally robbing you' elves. If only because the former allows for bonds to develop and actual trust to form, if need be. Humans in Dark Sun could literally join elven tribes, the person writing the setting guide was apart of one for the longest time, but I feel like in Arm if you attempted that you'd get a lot of 'tee hee silly fucker' and people treating it as impossible, whether it should be or not.

I have literally no idea why muls are the way they are. I have a literal conspiracy theory on it being because someone read prism pentad ONCE and decided 'Ah yes, all muls behave this way'.
For reference: Muls in Dark Sun DO NOT have some crazy killer rage and are NOT pain immune robots who need a companion to be beaten in front of them.
There's a single scene in Prism Pentad where the main character mul is going to be whipped or something, and he doesn't particularly enjoy that. However, to fuck with him, the guy is like 'What if I whipped your mate instead?'. His mate who is, unlike him, not a trained burly gladiator. He isn't pain immune, this isn't the only way to get to him, it's a highly specific moment.
It feels like someone read that and went 'Anyway uh all muls have this done to them' which drives me batty.
No idea where the killer rage shit came from. If they wanted to be 'lore accurate' you'd just give muls like 600 stamina and call it a day.


If we need muls to be such high karma because they are literal death machines and have really weird contrived mechanics, are they adding anything to roleplay flavor? Would it not be better to make them a bit more down to earth, lower the karma, and let them not have a stroke?

Also I want Mantis
I can live without halflings though.

I've literally never interacted with Thryzn. Which either means 'Why did you add them to the game' or 'I should explore more, maybe'. Though I honestly fear I'll come across them in bum fuck no where and get insta jumped.

Also get rid of elven beards.

[Coda]

I think if we took away these "pre-existing conditions" to races, we would have an easier time for people to pick up and play non-human races.

So if we.. make them humans but with boosts?  I dislike that, the unique nature of the races is wrapped up in their mentality, and playing that inhuman mentality is a big part of what makes them feel distinct.  If we remove that we lose a lot of theme, lore, and uniqueness from the setting.

To put it another way: If you're just going to act like a human anyway, why not just app one? Unless the point is -1str+1agi+1wis or -1wis-2agi+3str (numbers made up) or whatever racial modifier.

[Jihelu]

I mean, you could say the same about basically any modern day TTRPG. Most of the races aren't particularly that different from humans. If they are, it's usually things that are culturally different that humans could have as well.

The interesting aspects come from the wacky weird stuff they can do.
Default Dark Sun dwarves were boring as hell barring their stat locations and class choices. You also got like *checks notes* I think a bonus to working metal (Have fun finding some). Does that mean people aren't going to play dwarves? No, not really. People would pick elf if elf was 100% the same as human because it interests them.

[Coda]

I mean, you could say the same about basically any modern day TTRPG. Most of the races aren't particularly that different from humans. If they are, it's usually things that are culturally different that humans could have as well.

The interesting aspects come from the wacky weird stuff they can do.
Default Dark Sun dwarves were boring as hell barring their stat locations and class choices. You also got like *checks notes* I think a bonus to working metal (Have fun finding some). Does that mean people aren't going to play dwarves? No, not really. People would pick elf if elf was 100% the same as human because it interests them.

Yeah, it's deeply boring in my opinion that most races are just 'human but green and +2 strength'.  And Darn Sun has really dull dwarves, I agree. And that wacky and weird stuff should, in my opinion, be weighed against having to conform to the mentality and mindset that the race represents.  Not just because 'Look, I can run fast'.  The culture that they have arises from the way they are.

[Jihelu]

I think the issue I have more with it is it isn't just the culture, it's like an ingrained 'You must do this no matter what'. I think there's a legitimate argument to be said of 'Even in games where elves can do X, don't have them do X to enforce the world'. Half elves, no matter what happens, wind up being basket cases. Loving home? Crazy. Terrible home? Still crazy.
And it completely kills my vibe to play them.

Should there be some sort of weird 'I've got elvish freedom pulling at me on one side, and human nothing pulling at the other'? Perhaps, but I think that sorta thing would be better defined vaguely and left to the player. Not 'Independence good. Now me want conformity. Now independence good again!'

Or the answer is just 'Don't play half elves Jihelu' to which I go 'Okay, I will continue to not play half elves'

Cultural clashes are fun and cause drama. 'Me do this because brain wired' isn't really...that interesting to me.

[Coda]

I think the issue I have more with it is it isn't just the culture, it's like an ingrained 'You must do this no matter what'. I think there's a legitimate argument to be said of 'Even in games where elves can do X, don't have them do X to enforce the world'. Half elves, no matter what happens, wind up being basket cases. Loving home? Crazy. Terrible home? Still crazy.
And it completely kills my vibe to play them.

Should there be some sort of weird 'I've got elvish freedom pulling at me on one side, and human nothing pulling at the other'? Perhaps, but I think that sorta thing would be better defined vaguely and left to the player. Not 'Independence good. Now me want conformity. Now independence good again!'

Or the answer is just 'Don't play half elves Jihelu' to which I go 'Okay, I will continue to not play half elves'

Cultural clashes are fun and cause drama. 'Me do this because brain wired' isn't really...that interesting to me.

That's fine, it doesn't need to be.  In my opinion, you already called out the solution: play something else.  There are races I don't play because I don't like them either.

[Kavrick]

Non-human races are completely written as caricatures with exaggurated features. Dwarves and Half-giants have this especially bad with dwarves unironically being bald, slave-raced piss-drinkers. This is all massively compounded by the docs being written as 'everyone hates everyone', which is something iirc even halaster said was written into a dead end.

God bless the people who rp the 'racism' with more nuance than 'I hate you and will kill you if I see you outside of a settlement'. The times I've rped where it's me and another race chatting, and we accept that we are different, with that difference actually making for a fun and interesting dynamic have been some of the best rp I've ever had.

Maybe the extreme racism and flanderized races are something from the hack-and-slash days but it certainly hurts rp. Dwarves are known as the 'em grunting stat sticks' probably because they have zero culture and dynamics to lean into that isn't 'I'm a short, stubborn human'.

[Coda]

They are not written as caricatures, they are written as inhuman minds.  They've also been treated with varying levels of care over the years in this fictional text game.  Players, too, have handled them with varying levels of nuance.  But an important aspect of the different race is that they are fundamentally not human.  What looks like a caricature is because, if they were human, they would be - but the fun and the joy of the roleplay is in finding ways to express a fundamentally different mind in ways that are compelling and interesting.  Not everyone hits the mark all the time, but it's a lot more fun than 'is a human but short and strong' or 'is a human but tall and fast' to me. 

My experience is that I've mostly seen people being far too accepting of other races, because we're all good 21st century humans for the most part, and we don't want to be racist.  At worst, you'll get demeaned a little for being a half-elf, or if you're on the wrong side of the 'rinth maybe there'll be a fight.  But there are so many people that will step in for a half-elven stranger who gets told to buzz off that it gets rid of a lot of interesting Rp, even if it is (ICly!) unpleasant.  There's a reason that the helpfiles let you know, up front, what to expect.  It's so you're making a conscious choice when you select that race.

[Pariah]

I'm all for races having "Suggestions" or "Common Traits" that they normally abide by.

The issue with them as they are written now is they are written into a box, and sure you can portray the breed identity a number of ways, but really you're just tweaking the same theme over and over the way it's written.

If they were written more as guidelines instead of "Every breed has this specific mental disorder." then they would be more manageable.

But again, we have much more tolerant staff now, so maybe they are more open to individual takes on non-human psyche and it's nuance.  But if that's the case, we out to have the documentation fixed to reflect that.

This is something I think that someone like a Mansa who enjoys librarian type activities would be a shoe in to re-write.  Maybe instead of Moderator we should make him some type of documentation librarian and have him, partnered with staff, re-write a lot of these helpfiles and documentation to be more succinct and palatable to the masses.

[titansfan]

I hate playing out racism. Honestly, I hate it. I'll act like an elf and talk people out of coin in a professional way. I'll be frustrated with a flaky half-elf (but because of the flaky part not the half elf part). Mages I'll be wary of but if they're doing positive things I'm not going to hate them. I just can't bring myself to fully take part in that aspect of the game.

[Coda]

I'm all for races having "Suggestions" or "Common Traits" that they normally abide by.

The issue with them as they are written now is they are written into a box, and sure you can portray the breed identity a number of ways, but really you're just tweaking the same theme over and over the way it's written.

If they were written more as guidelines instead of "Every breed has this specific mental disorder." then they would be more manageable.

But again, we have much more tolerant staff now, so maybe they are more open to individual takes on non-human psyche and it's nuance.  But if that's the case, we out to have the documentation fixed to reflect that.

This is something I think that someone like a Mansa who enjoys librarian type activities would be a shoe in to re-write.  Maybe instead of Moderator we should make him some type of documentation librarian and have him, partnered with staff, re-write a lot of these helpfiles and documentation to be more succinct and palatable to the masses.

I dunno man, if you want to play a character that doesn't have a mentality based aversion to riding and a driving need to get one over on someone, don't play an elf. If you want to play a reliable and consistent person, don't play a half elf. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you play those races and, frankly, the only change between the races, if we flattened out the inhuman brain aspect, would be the stat buffs.

It's not anywhere near as interesting to me.

Don't, in your mind, relate elves, dwarves, half-elves, or muls to real world mental disorders. They're fictional nonhuman entities with psychic powers that can kill a totally-not-a-Tyrannosaurus-rex in single combat with a sword made of flint.

Get fuckin' weird with it and live in the weird! That's the cool story part.

[Pariah]

I dunno man, if you want to play a character that doesn't have a mentality based aversion to riding and a driving need to get one over on someone, don't play an elf. If you want to play a reliable and consistent person, don't play a half elf. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you play those races and, frankly, the only change between the races, if we flattened out the inhuman brain aspect, would be the stat buffs.

It's not anywhere near as interesting to me.

Don't, in your mind, relate elves, dwarves, half-elves, or muls to real world mental disorders. They're fictional nonhuman entities with psychic powers that can kill a totally-not-a-Tyrannosaurus-rex in single combat with a sword made of flint.

Get fuckin' weird with it and live in the weird! That's the cool story part.

Yeah I hardly ever play anything but Human simply for the reason of I want my character to be able to react in varied ways to stimulus without someone going:

He's doing it wrong!

And while I applaud your way of thinking and way of adapting your thinking to that alien psyche, I feel like that's just working within a flawed system.  Just like some people love abstract art and it's chaos, I like characters that aren't predictable or similar.  When you have to sculpt your play to work around silly tropes, it's always possible, but not always fun is my take.

[Coda]

They don't have to be predictable, though. There's a wide range within each racial mentality. That's whats fun to explore. What would someone whose mind works in this different and inhuman way be like? How would they react? That's really really fun for me.