tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post7178090952619721967..comments2023-05-27T11:14:02.426-04:00Comments on Some Space to Think: About Those ElvesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-38467233103147427912012-01-05T14:34:58.103-05:002012-01-05T14:34:58.103-05:00A friend of mine once asked me how RPG's can p...A friend of mine once asked me how RPG's can pull from Tolkeins work in their racial templates and not get called out for it, but if anyone started sampling from Gene Roddenberry's work and wrote a sci-fi setting that included Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans as stock races, people would cry foul. <br /><br />Personally, I think the reason why these races are constantly re-used is purely about escapism. Elves oven appeal to non-athletic heavyset geeks, and Dwarves appeal to the skinny waifs among us who might wish for more physical power. That's not a hard and fast rule, but I think it explains the prolific nature of these races across many games. <br /><br />Orcs and Golblins on the other hand are humanoid enough to be familiar, but have enough of an "other" quality that killing them doesn't really feel like murder with all the related moral quandaries. <br /><br />That's the crux, the races exist to service a particular narrative need of the game. Elves appeal to a certain kind of player, as do dwarves. The specific advantages and disadvantages associated with each race are meant to balance each other out. You get frail and graceful or tough and slow. Even if you took pointed ears and beards out of it, the nature of these advantage/disadvantage pairs would make the races pretty similar to what Tolkein wrote up originally. <br /><br />The only game I know of that totally circumvented these tropes was Exalted and they did so by throwing the need for racial balancing out the window and then skeet shooting it as it fell. Exalted did this so effectively that any attempts to add in these races became mechanically irrelevant. (Though the mechanics and the narrative option to do so were still very much there.) This instead opened up the game to organically develop very interesting races like the Djala. <br /><br />I think in there we can see a lesson. If designers don't want racial templates that are easily identifiable as elves and dwarves then they need look beyond racial traits that are basically templates for playstyle. (Finess vs Endurance etc...) and consider a more darwinian approach of how a given race might have carved out a niche for it's self outside of the Player Character adventuring context.Helmsmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05248835491973291242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-10451412531932908892011-12-29T11:42:47.522-05:002011-12-29T11:42:47.522-05:00One thought when introducing a new race? Hang your...One thought when introducing a new race? Hang your hat on a simple concept. Beast races are often favored, but you can work it another way. Take, for example, the genasi from <i>Forgotten Realms</i> or the warforged from <i>Eberron</i> (both D&D settings for the three of you who don't know). New races, old motifs. Fire people and water people? Got it. I can figure out how that works and bring all my assumptions about elementals and the elements with me. Robots made of wood? Check. No more need be said. When introducing your own race, if you can sum it up in three words and really sell it, I think you'll be fine.Emerson Harrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03965584179407710504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-88153490058343404392011-12-29T00:06:20.523-05:002011-12-29T00:06:20.523-05:00I also find the evolution of dwarves, elves, and t...I also find the evolution of dwarves, elves, and trolls in <i>Runequest</i> to be interesting as Greg refined his ideas of what Glorantha was. In the early publications (1st & 2nd Edition, <i>Foes</i>, <i>Runelords</i>) they were shown as being rather firmly based in both Tolkien and <i>Beowulf</i>.<br /><br />Now the Mostali, Aldryami, and Uz are totally different creatures, not just culturally and mythologically, but also physically. And an important part of this was in the renaming of them. [Although less so in the case of Trolls/Uz because they don't have a preconceived cultural game legacy to live down.]Reverance Pavanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01217657347160811310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-61719936195283778942011-12-28T23:53:34.960-05:002011-12-28T23:53:34.960-05:00[Nostalgia alert]: There was a period of time wher...[Nostalgia alert]: There was a period of time where <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> was not readily available outside libraries Australia (it was available in the US because the US edition was actually a copyright violation). This is my excuse for why we had never encountered LotR before we started playing D&D, which led to an interesting dynamic. For example orcs essentially became the barbarians that lived outside of civilisation (the law) and were employed as warriors by those who either couldn't afford better soldiers or who didn't care because they treated all feats of arms with disdain (such as myself). On the other hand, we had source material for elves and dwarves. Elves were taken from the Aes Sidhe and Daoine Sidhe of Irish myth, including bronze armaments, mounds, and faerie rades. Dwarves were the solitary craftsmen and magicians of Norse lore, although with a greater Germanic influence. So essentially we were going to pre-Tolkien sources.<br /><br />About a year later one of the new players mentioned LotR ["Oh. You mean like Lord of the Rings?" "Lord of the Rings?"] and it was subsequently borrowed from a library and devoured (and later that year it started to assume it's permanent presence in bookstores).<br />But we'd had a year of playing the game and we liked what we had done. In particular I grew rather attached to my orcs. Particularly since most of my player's interactions were with the orc troops I'd employed (it was a shared world with about 7 gamemasters and 20 or so players; the gamemasters had their original characters who were the literal dungeonmasters in the world). They had to develop personality (in this case "born to hustle" and "good to have on your side in a fight") and so was born the fun fair and Gobbledoks Vegetarian Restaurant(a troll-run establishment that boasted "We Serve Elves Too"). The character of the orcs had been set, and remained that way through every subsequent campaign I've run.<br /><br />The role of Elves and Dwarves (and Goblins and Dragons) <i>were developed in play</i> from this basis too. In fact the Aes and Daoine Sidhe were later shown to be exactly the same creatures who took an alignment stance based on who they were talking to at the time, and then later ceased to be what people thought they were entirely. [<a href="http://reverancepavane.livejournal.com/tag/rpg%20nostalgia" rel="nofollow">http://reverancepavane.livejournal.com/tag/rpg%20nostalgia</a> has details if anyone is interested ... or bored.]<br /><br />The result was different from Tolkien although we drew on the same sources. Because the character of the races had been developed in play they fitted the world. And the fact that they were different from either the D&D paradigm or Tolkien granted freedom to new players (it helped that a new player wasn't generally allowed to play a non-human because they were "non-human" and therefore alien and strange, not just humans with pointy ears and immunity to sleep spells).Reverance Pavanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01217657347160811310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-14417439358215626152011-12-28T13:49:37.146-05:002011-12-28T13:49:37.146-05:00@3Jane Fascinating! I was unaware of this. Thanks ...@3Jane Fascinating! I was unaware of this. Thanks for the heads-up!Jeremy Morganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16449966818010858502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-25982743717975765902011-12-28T11:31:17.490-05:002011-12-28T11:31:17.490-05:00@Cam I'm pretty sure I haven't. The reali...@Cam I'm pretty sure I haven't. The reality is that I'm so scarred from experience at the table that well written books are no defense. :)<br /><br />Though that's part of the rub - if the work of "fixing" isn't done at the beginning, then you get diminishing returns on trying to do it later.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-82914223673536650292011-12-28T10:56:46.486-05:002011-12-28T10:56:46.486-05:00Arcanis from Paradigm Concepts is another that som...Arcanis from Paradigm Concepts is another that some cool twists on the classic races. Dwarves were once giants and have been cursed by the gods, Elves are elemental beings of magic, etc. Makes it stand out as much more than another D&D clone.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-27863395095042529242011-12-27T18:15:00.527-05:002011-12-27T18:15:00.527-05:00I wonder if you ever read anything I ever wrote ab...I wonder if you ever read anything I ever wrote about kender (or other races). I frequently went into such assignments with a problem (often perception of past use of a race) and a mind toward a solution.<br /><br />"Fixing" races and expanding them to be more than cookie cutter templates in RPGs is one of my things.<br /><br />You should have heard me swearing about tinker gnomes back in the day, before I was made to write about them.Cam_Bankshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16162534181760938499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-3500826662340474732011-12-27T17:54:38.542-05:002011-12-27T17:54:38.542-05:00(As a side note, Jeremy, if you look to the source...(As a side note, Jeremy, if you look to the source, dwarves *were* just another elven race: ljósálfar, "light elves" vs. dökkálfar/svartálfar, "dark elves"/dwarves.)3Janenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-87486256356390608852011-12-27T17:37:02.941-05:002011-12-27T17:37:02.941-05:00Enjoyed this post thoroughly, and thought I'd ...Enjoyed this post thoroughly, and thought I'd add a bit more on the way Skyrim does things.<br /><br />My brothers and I have come to an interesting conclusion in regards to the dwarves in Skyrim (or the Dwemer, if we want to be proper). As we see it, there are no dwarves, really. The Dwemer are just another elven race, like the Altmer, Dunmer, etc. It might be better to avoid the elven terminology and call them something more like demihuman or elder race.<br /><br />Not sure why I felt the need to share that, just found it interesting in context of what you've said here, Rob.Jeremy Morganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16449966818010858502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-20384025060820932011-12-27T14:05:18.866-05:002011-12-27T14:05:18.866-05:00That raises a good point - the line between a crea...That raises a good point - the line between a creative interpretation and a full on twist can be a fine and fuzzy one. For DA, I view it as interpretation because if you don't know the cultural details, dwarves still look like dwarves (Short, grumpy, armored and be-axed). In contrast, if you don't know the details and you see the elves, then it's likely you'll ask "Why are they living in slums?"<br /><br />But it's a fuzzy line, and no harm in it being so.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14216103531396452644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-82550294665407593122011-12-27T13:07:50.974-05:002011-12-27T13:07:50.974-05:00Dragon Age, for example, has very standard-seeming...Dragon Age, for example, has very standard-seeming dwarves, but enough thought has gone into their culture that they feel much more interesting than the standard. <br /><br /><br />I thought that the caste-mad Dwarves were significantly different that I lumped them with the Dalish and the Elves as being nicely reinterpreted.Paul Weimerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02444942522624902562noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1678761812929125529.post-51971912898848762842011-12-27T10:53:11.097-05:002011-12-27T10:53:11.097-05:00As I recall, Monte Cook's Arcana and Arcana Ev...As I recall, Monte Cook's Arcana and Arcana Evolved also did a good job providing races that were original or interesting without leaning on elves, dwarves etc.Nickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14483839593436870340noreply@blogger.com