melkathi

I prefer them as they are than when silly things are done to them the wrong way.

Though generic races are part of what turns a setting generic. Using anything overly familiar creates difficulties (Going for completly "new" ideas does too of course. Most importantly the "Why should I be interested in this?" question of potential customers). Elves and dwarves are fairly clearly defined as fantasy races and the archtypes that come with them. If you stay too close to the known model, you run the danger of having that part of the game dull and forgetable. If you deviate too much from it, you miss the whole reason to have the races in the first place. The question is then, how do you add personality to something overly familiar without alienating the audience and without making your changes appear like a gimmick. One way is to take the races from a familiar environment and put them in an up until then unfamiliar one. Of course once it has been done a few times, it looses its effectiveness. Prime examples for this option are Shadowrun, Warhammer 40k but also Spelljammer and Dark Sun. Dark Sun looks at Elves and aks the question: if elves live in nature, away from the bustling human metropolises, but that nature is vast deserts, how would their culture be then? Warhmmer 40k looked at Squats and while they had made attempts at explaining the "dwarf" presence in the setting, ultimately decided it just didn't work and had the whole species nearly wiped out. (Jervis Johnson wrote up a great explanation here ) The other option is to take the setting and enter an unfamiliar variable, then explore how that would affect the world and races that inhabit it. Arcanum attempted this and created a very interesting setting. The two races though, dwarves and elves, are probably the most forgetable part of it. Of course that is part of the setting. The human industrial revolution coupled with the usurpation of power by the gnomish financial interests leave no room for the old powers of bygone times, turning them into tragic side notes. Dragon Age also, to a lesser extent, went this way with Dwarves, by removing the old, conventional racial enmity with orcs/goblins and entering the darkspawn into the equasion. The new enemy allowed for the otherwise fairly generic dwarveness to develope a feel and atmosphere of its own. The Legion of the Dead is not truly unique. In fact they are little more than Warhammer troll slayers without the wierd hair. But they work and the setting is richer for having them. And Dragon Age brings me to the third way of handling races: saying "Our <race name> are different!" Which is what Dragon Age did with Elves and... well, they didn't need elves to tell that story. The nomadic people in the woodlands could just as well have been a human civilization, the city elves just as well a different human ethnicity. If elves had been left out, the exact same story could still have been told. What the game gained by having elves this way? They could briefly touch upon racism without any fear of controversy (which there would have been had it been humans living in squalor based on their skin colour instead of their ear-pointiness-factor) and well, they got to have elves. But I better get back to work... Was going to write something about the Witcher, AD&D's Birthright settign and others, but mostly forgot what i think in the end I wanted to end wih something on the lines of: Let's see what Obsidian will do with these races to make them interesting without making them a gimmick and including them just so they can say they have pretty people wih pointy ears and short dudes who drink too much.

Damn it! Why? I don't think that's how it should be working. Do I have to make just one question and all the choices there? Yes you do. You ask a question and provide possible answers to choose from. The poll as it stands asks three questions. Edit: Think of it this way: If there cannot be two skies, how can there be three sepparate questions in this poll ?

The second digit of my age is the number of choices in this poll. The first digit is the square root of the product of the second digit multiplied by the first digit. Favourid RPGs: Planescape Torment Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura Final Fantasy Legend II Final Fantasy 6 and 7 Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator Vampire the Masquerade Redemption Vampire the Masqueade Bloodlines Alpha Protocol Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Neverwinter Nights 2 Sacred Sacred 2 And because in some interview someone (Tim Cain) said that we get to list Star Control 2 as an RPG: Star Control 2 / The Ur-Quan Masters

Sounds like an evil playthrough of Arcanum.

As others said, dogs have been kinda done to death in games. The mabari in Dragon Age carried an emotional attachment with it, especially when playing a human noble (though I believe Obsidian would be more able to explore the possibilities this attachment offered), but mostly it has become an rpg convention. I would not mind some new exiting way of exploring the basic concept of an animal companion / pet etc.

I probably am the only person who's imediate reaction was "Cardboard of course. Do you even have to ask? Where is your ecological sensibility? Plastic jewel cases are not biodegradable." That was my first reaction. The second reaction was "...They'll have to chop down trees to make those cardboard boxes though... Still, a green box is better than a plastic box and for the manufacture of that they would still ruin the environment and end up with a non-recyclable poduct..." Thought three: "People are used to jewel cases now. The cardboard box will be unusually oversized... oooh! Flip out front!" Thought four: "Maybe they should go cardboard box with the pledge to plant a tree for every box sold..." Thought five: "With store shelves adapted to jewel cases, will the cardboard box even fit in the shelves? Or will shops de facto give it a special place because ti doesn't fit in the normal ones?" Thought six: "Maybe i should be 1 tree per 10k boxes sold..." Thought seven: "What size will the cardboard boxes be? Will it be same height and length as the plastic, just double width? Then it will fit the shelves I guess..." Thought eight: "Maybe it should be more trees. We need to plant a forest. Wood elves and pixies need homes too! The Obsidian Forest retirement home for Woodelf and other Woodland NPCs."

Planescape Torment, Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Neverwinter Nghts 2. To a lesser extent Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate.

So I upped my pledge by 8. Is there space for a Teddy Bear Adventurer in this order thingie?