Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Zetesofos]

First of all, hello everyone (long time lurker, first time poster)

So, I have my own campaign world that I've been working on for a good long time now; but I'm having a bit of an existential crisis, so to speak.

The short version is that I'm having trouble deciding upon whether the inhabitants of said world should all be human; or if I should have there be several races of distinguishable shape/size/ability.

Obviously, I know there isn't a "right" answer, but I guess I'm looking for a pro's and con's of each - and having a hard time figuring them out myself.

In case it matters, here are a couple notes about the world

-currently set in equivalent late 1800's (almost steampunk, but not quite)
-Magic exists (technically available to anyone; but more often than not - limited by social class)
-ancient civilization created a gateway artifact that is now nearly universally used by other races/civilizations as predominant means of long distance transportation
-beyond secure populations/borders - high prevalence of dangerous beasts/powerful magic/ "bad stuff" exists - encouraging exploration, and separating civilizations
-omens of ancient evil threatening world in the somewhat distant future; though threat is vague

So, if anyone has thoughts on what they've done with their games regarding races, please feel free to post.

[Virgobrown72]

I had a similar issue with my Sci Fi home brew I'm working on. What I did was go into the races as created in the Deluxe edition rules and reskinned them. While a description can make them seem vastly different, mechanically they are still pretty much balanced, so it worked out... Your milage may vary...
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[fanchergw]

One thing to consider is what will work best for the game you want to run. Will adding non-human races improve the world/game/story or just muddle it? Do you have players that are likely to want to play a non-human race, or do they always play humans regardless of what else is available?

Gordon

[OSIAdept]

Depends on perspective

Humans allow for easy character creation. IF you go that route you might want to allow characters to switch out the free human edge for either an attribute boost or 2 skills starting at a d6.

The SWDX is a great resource for making new races
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[ValhallaGH]

[kronovan]

Somewhat along the lines of what Valhalla is saying. Whether or not non-human races are included has a lot to do with what genre you're amining for. Not that you can't create a setting that bridges 2 genres or is multi-genre, but by sticking to 1 it's easier to borrow, or draw inspiration, from existing sources; may not seem important, but when you're far into a campaign and digging for ideas for new adventures it can really help.

From what you've bulleted as your setting's trappings (especially the presence of magic) it seems like it would fall within one of the Fantasy genres. I could see it work as High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy or Sword (Gun Powder) & Sorcery - could also work well as horror. High and Dark fantasy almost always feature a variety of non-human races while Sword & Sorcery is almost always centered on Human player/protagonists.

Different races in a high fantasy setting let players from vastly different walks team together for the common good, while different races in Dark fantasy are usually about the player conending wiith repression and overcoming adversity. If you're going high fantasy give a lot of variety to the size, shape and appearance of your races so that players can choose radically different characters to team towards a common goal of good.

For Dark fantasy its often more important to allow races that have the traits of the environment they dwell within. A race thats been historically repressed and forced to the darkest, forested hinterland is probably agile, dexterous and stealthy, while those that retreated underground are likely compact, hardy and possess dark vision. Meanwhile those inhabitting the most remote, perilous heights are probably tall, light-weight and lanky with good climbing ability. There's also playing innately evil races in dark fantasy, and they just need to have traits that exemplify that which is considered very evil.

If you want to encourage players to create PC's that are of questionable reputation and character, then a human centered S&S setting is usually better. The reason being is that players focus more on character traits and peronality to distingush them rather that racial traits. As some examples. The parties Thief isn't notable because she's of an agile and highly-dexterous race, but because she's stubborn and conceited and brings bad baggage along with her. The Cook in the party isn't distinguished because he's an Ork with a mighty chopping arm that can cleave a skull with 1 swing, but because he's an ex-militia cook, disgraced by his sometimes unethical choice of ingredients and blackmarketing his poisonous concoctions. The Fallen Noble along for the ride isn't notable because he's a member of a once esteemed High Elven civilization, but because he's a helfpless womanizer that reeks of cheap spirits, but man can he ever wield a sabre!

My advise would be for you to try and create a 30 second elevator pitch as described in SWD on pg 128, as that will help you identify the genre and theme you're aiming for.

[Jordan Peacock]

For me, unless the presence of non-human characters serves some distinct purpose in the campaign (e.g., "plot point," "staple of the genre," or "I painted up all these lizardmen and I'M GONNA USE 'EM!"), it depends on the players.

If I've got a player at the table who always wants to play an elf, then in my otherwise pseudo-historical Medieval fantasy setting, I'm probably going to find some way to justify letting him play one -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to shuffle around the setting and have elves on EVERY STREET CORNER. For the setting you've described, if I had the "I want to be an Elf!" player, that'd be fine; perhaps a (temporary?) bridge was established with the "faerie realm" as a side effect of this magical gateway system, and the PC came on through on a one-way trip -- but that doesn't mean the whole lot of them had to do likewise.

There's a risk to my approach, though. If you let players play anything they want to play, to the point of even DESIGNING their own races, the SWD race-creation rules can break pretty easily. Min-maxing usually isn't an issue for me in Savage Worlds, but the SWD race-design rules, as written, have a whole LOT of opportunities for coming up with "drawbacks that aren't really drawbacks," for the player who's perfectly willing to design his entire race to be specialized for exactly HIS particular character concept. (E.g., his favorite skills are racial skills; his dump-stat is one that the race is penalized in increasing - but he has no plans to ever increase anyway.)

Really, if someone insists on playing some oddball race, it doesn't mean I have to suddenly retcon this new race into being major players in the game setting. It could be some far-flung, heretofore undiscovered country in "Here There Be Dragons" territory the hero is from. Or, maybe he's the unique product of some sort of alchemical experiment or ancient curse (or magical transportation malfunction). In fact, sometimes there's not even need for a special racial package; whether or not one has pointy ears, pink hair, or a marked resemblance to a particular sort of animal doesn't necessarily demand an Edge or Hindrance to make it official. One could just take the Human package deal -- or some standard racial package -- and change the "trappings."
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[Zetesofos]

Thanks for the responses so far everyone.

What I'm leaning towards now are humans with different 'bloodlines (called skiens); currently, I like a limit of four - and they provide some small effects (one skien is a natural magic user, another gains a natural attack (minor shapeshifting), one can heal/remove life via touch, and the last one is kind of a herd mentality (they all start with Common Bond).

The one thing I suppose I could be concerned about, as Kronovan said, is if this system would inhibit more deep characters because people would look to the race to be the defining point of their character. I suppose, none of my races have any base attribute modifiers though.

[kronovan]