Comments on: Races and Fantasy RPGs

By: Michael Orton

Michael Orton — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:19:04 +0000

Thanks for the mention of Bulldogs, that pushed me to investigate RPGGeek, something I had never quite got round to looking at. I have just read on there that WotC are about to rerelease AD&D 2nd Edition! Golly, just perhaps my son will want to play it, sometime towards the end of the next decade…

(My son is not yet a year old.)

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:41:47 +0000

I always liked the RQ ducks…

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:09:06 +0000

If you’ve ever seen Bulldogs (A space-opera game based around dodgy free-traders), it’s got an interesting take on races. Assuming I’ve understood the rules correctly, there are no humans in the game. There are several humanoid races as well as more alien ones, but there is no race called “Human”.

Their equivalents of RQ’s Ducks are the psychotic teddy bears.

By: Michael Orton

Michael Orton — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:51:05 +0000

Never underestimate a Duck.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:57:08 +0000

To be fair on the poor DM, early editions of D&D were so poorly written that many groups misunderstood a lot of key rules.

And you’re right about Runequest – that game made a very good job of making nonhuman races far more alien. Mostali and Aldryami ended were a long way removed from D&D’s dwarves and elves. We won’t mention Ducks….

By: Michael Orton

Michael Orton — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:49:26 +0000

I have not played AD&D since the 2nd edition, and the group I gamed with most dropped most of the racial bits after a couple of years. Most of the Gygaxian rules were only there to enforce a Humanocentic world. We rapidly came to the conclusion that the racial class limits added nothing to the game, and then that the ability to dual class wasn’t worth having either. The thief class was obsolete as soon as the cleric could Find Traps and the MU could Knock, so race quickly went the way of being a background attribute, much like the way they seem to be treated in online RPGs now.

As for that episode where the MU was disqualified for fighting. I think the DM should have read the PH a little better. A high level MU using Tenser’s Transformation is a much better melee warrior than a Fighter. After all the Fighter will be in +X plate mail with a nice shield, so probably as an AC of -4 or so. The MU will be in braces of AC2, cloak, prot ring and Dex adjustment for AC -6, or lower, add Mirror Images and a Displacement on top of that and who needs Fighters any more? Yes Fighters have more hit points, 120+, but so what? The MU probably isn’t going to take any damage anyway, so only having half that number of hit points is not material.

Anyway, if you want a game world which really does have its races sorted then try Runequest (2nd edition). The racial cults and runic metals do make race relevant without wrecking things.