Kamfrenchie

I can't think of any mythology where anthropomorphic races are the good guys, although you're welcome to give some counterexamples. Even then, I'd guess the good anthropomorphic guys are the minority among mythology. So what do you want to imply? We're fine with slaughtering them. You know that even if they're not arch ennemies, you wouldn't have to be friendly with them at all if obsidian give us the liberty to RP the way we like ? Haven't they said you should have the option to refuse and/or kill secondary characters you don't like ? Heck, I hope we have the option to be mean to elves, dwarves and others aswell. Actually, I have no idea where from this avatar came from, just piced from the internets. Also, necrophiles does not roam internet and demand to put dead girls and boys you could have sex into the games\cartoons\moveies\books\everything else and demand that people be more acceptable to the issue of relationship with the recently dead. Guess who do? I dunno.. Care to enlighten me ? Didn't happen in this thread, we're just debating on the possibility of playing beastmen/anthro Like Jezz said. It's a french comic that used to run in Heavy Metal. It is literally the baddest ass thing ever conceived by man. Give it a read. Wait, I think I saw it a while ago, isn't it with a female hero who has ridiculous proportions on the cover ? Ohter than that, most arguments I see are "it will attract a community I don't like to the game" well guess what, any animal will, having combat means you might attract crazy peoples bent on murdering others. Necromancy ? Will attract necrophiles. And so on. Plus the whole thing might be quite limited if no beast/athro race is included. I mean you guys have a problem with minotaurs being in the game ? Could have been that descriptions is pretty vague. It might not be your thing though, it's pretty stylized. The furries are secondary to the argument I think. I mean clearly we've seen in this thread evidence that even talk of furry races attracts furries, and I think we can all agree that furries are abhorrent mutants. The main discussion here is whether or not the animal head-human body archetype is tired, and under which circumstances. I can't think of any mythology where anthropomorphic races are the good guys, although you're welcome to give some counterexamples. Even then, I'd guess the good anthropomorphic guys are the minority among mythology. So what do you want to imply? We're fine with slaughtering them. This is a very valid point I hadn't thought of. Evil guys is one thing, but I think it may be when you have playable good guy human-animals that they cross into furry territory. Is this a compromise we can all agree on? That furries can be in the game as long as we cant play them, and get to slaughter them? Again, even if they aren't meant as primary ennemies, you'd be free to distrust/despise/dismember them as much as any other race if you're so inclined...

Like Jezz said. It's a french comic that used to run in Heavy Metal. It is literally the baddest ass thing ever conceived by man. Give it a read. Wait, I think I saw it a while ago, isn't it with a female hero who has ridiculous proportions on the cover ? Ohter than that, most arguments I see are "it will attract a community I don't like to the game" well guess what, any animal will, having combat means you might attract crazy peoples bent on murdering others. Necromancy ? Will attract necrophiles. And so on. Plus the whole thing might be quite limited if no beast/athro race is included. I mean you guys have a problem with minotaurs being in the game ?

What still bothers me is where the line between unimaginative anthros and other potentialy interesting beast-like species is drawn. Is it the size ? The fact that they are bipedal ? Because honestly, I'm afraid any "evolved" society whose members use tools require bipedism and probably humanoid form. Because you need 2 hands (or similar members) to create tools and all that. A specie of telepathic wolves isn't gonna build much of anything afaik, because there is only so much you can do with your mouch and paws. How about a society of raptor-like beings ? does that count ? Or a society of intelligent bear ?%0

Goblins aren't usually known for ingenuity, however (unlike the humans). It's usually the explosive mixture of a short life span, ambition and intellect. That theme is extremely common, but there's definitely something to it. I get what you mean, but having humans always be this kind of people and the ones meant to dominate in the end is a bit overdone. I think It'd be interesting to change that sometime, maybe have another race with this same mixture, but a bit better at it thann humans or somth I think warhammer did beast like species rather well, including beastmen (humans and beasts mutated by chaos ) and lizarmen (servants and creations of the ancients ) I think the RPG rule book...what's it called... Total eclipse ? had a few cool concepts aswell, like a lizardman species who pretty much made a reserve of eggs, hatched some of them regularly, had the youngs be born able to survive on their own already, and they were cast out of the tribe for a few years, after wich some of the survivors were selected to integrate the tribe... And if the tribe was bout to be exterminated they could hatch all of their eggs, have the youngs flee and be taken care of by other frienldy tribes, so in effect a tribe could be "reborn".

You're right perhaps I should have just compared them to child pornographers as I doubt many of them are physically fit enough to force themselves on the guy in the bugs-bunny outfit at six-flags, but I'm sure they'd all like to. To clarify I'm not referring to anyone who ever played an argonian in skyrim or w/e. I am referring specifically to those identifying as furries so this is a pretty big digression. Bottom line animal head-human body = very tired archetype Fair enough I guess Just about anything in a fantasy world can be considered a very tired archetype imo. I think it's just about how you handle it. Divine Divinity universe could probably be considered generic, but somehow, it's still very enjoyable and lively. @ Karrantain With that kind of logic, goblin-like beings should be dominating, well, at least if they have decent IQ in the universe

Oh wow Since when does fury imply sex ? I thought the term referred to people who like anthropomorphism or disguising themselves as animals ? http://en.wikipedia....ki/Furry_fandom Then you were mistaken. There is a section called "sexual aspects" in the very link you posted, which should set you straight about the whole thing. And this apply to all of them how ? There is porn and sexual aspect for everything, that's the rule number 1 of internet Did you read your own link? Even those (very high)numbers are likely under-representative given that most people with any shame or dignity wouldn't admit to wanting to bang cartoon animals. My bad for linking to wikipedia, confused it with another artcile i can't find anymore. I think it just boils down to which definition of furries you chose. If furries is just liking anthro characters, then I think the poll isn't representative as many of these people don't consider themselves a furry or wouldn't know too much about it. If by furry you mean the guy that are more... err "hardcore" then I guess the pole is right. I meant the larger group ie people who just happen to like anthro characters, wiki seems to refer to the other one. Still, comparison with pedophiles are uncalled for imo.

In the post you're referring to, I was summarising what I think people are criticising the most. Personally, as stated in some posts before, dislike them for feeling unrealistic to me, where unrealistic means immersion breaking. They just cannot be explained in a way I'd found plausible. Explaining them through magic works, but that implies a level of magic that i personally don't want as I prefer low magic settings. I also think this kind of magic doesn't fit into the universe; merging races seems more complicated than healing, and healing isn't in the setting. Even if they had that kind of magic, the setting would lose some of its integrity as than you can start to wonder why certain other things are possible while others are not. What is left is a natural explanation, so we have evolution. Humans evolving into humans with animal heads makes no sense as that implies being seperated for many generations from the other humans. Animals themselves evolving similar to humas as apes did is even more arbitrary, as that would imply several races between the original animal and the endresult animal-head-human. There is just no way I'll find this plausible at all and I doubt this can be changed, no matter how good an explanation is. Telepathic wolves may be lazy design as well, but they weren't supposed to be a player race in my example. I don't expect as much from encounters as I do expect from playable races as the later can only be justified by giving an extended background in the world which the former does not need as much. Regarding the sexualisation of furries, http://en.wikipedia....#Sexual_aspects 33% sure is much (if those surveys are reliable) so the prejudice is understandable imho. But then there are all the things in the middle. What if a human-like species develop scales over millenias ? Or what about an evolved animal specie with hands (or something similar) that can stand on 2 legs if it wants to ? However I do hope at least some encounters will have a lot of works in them. I guess it's an agree to disagree situation. I enjoy both low magic worlds and worlds with more magic, and I'd agree in a low magic world it would make much less sense. I might have missed how high the "magic level" will be for PE And, my bad for linking to wikipedia, confused it with another artcile i can't find anymore. I think it just boils down to which definition of furries you chose. If furries is just liking anthro characters, then I think the poll isn't representative as many of these people don't consider themselves a furry or wouldn't know too much about the it. If by furry you mean the guy that are more... err "hardcore" then I guess the pole is right.

Oh wow Since when does fury imply sex ? I thought the term referred to people who like anthropomorphism or disguising themselves as animals ? http://en.wikipedia....ki/Furry_fandom Then you were mistaken. There is a section called "sexual aspects" in the very link you posted, which should set you straight about the whole thing. And this apply to all of them how ? There is porn and sexual aspect for everything, that's the rule number 1 of internet

Nice trolling there. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=furry

I'd have no problem with only having the "basic races" as civlized enemies. However, note that I don't have anything against making monsters sentient, just making them anthropomorphic is what I don't like. Magical wolves who are able to communicate with you through their minds? No problem. Beholders are fine, too. I don't see how you get that impression. Most people stated that those races are (most of the time) done very badly and that they just find them unplausible. After all, there are also certain tropes with werepeople and the like. Almost always, the NPCs fear them and the quests you are about resolving the conflict between the beast people and the other people around, where the beastpeople are accused of having murdered the normal people and then you find out it was someone different and everyones happy. I don't need that, either. And the laziness argument does stand. You dismiss the argument with the notion that it would be "lazier" to just exclude those additional races, which implies there is a need for them in the first place. But thats exactly the point we're arguing about. The people who are against them state that if there are to be additional races, those should be unique and interesting, while animal-head races are not to them. So instead of making something boring just for the sake of being there, they should rather let it be and include no additional animal-head races at all. The other point of view seems to be that animal-head races are unique and interesting enough to fill that role. Then from what you say, it sounds more like you don't want them in because you think /assume they will be poorly implemented. Which isn't that different from "add them if you can do them well and they add something" As far as making civilised monsters go, humanoid bodies just seem to be one of the most effective evolution. Most civilisations imply, I think, certain concepts, such as ways to transmit culture and knowledge, use of tools and whatnot. I guess telepathy could solve that for the wolves, but for the others, writing would probably be needed so it's either telekinesis or hands/tentacle. And so on most races would end up either having quite some similarities with human civ, or just be the usual supertitious tribal society. I also don't really see why beastmen doesn't fit as a distant cousin of human-like races. Or how 2 different species evolving toward a humanoid form is that unlikely. There could be some convergence toward bipedism /humanoid form ? Isnt' that a scientific theory anyway ? That bipedism is just better for developping intelligence ? Also, then your telepathic wolves are "just" wolves with telepathic powers. There could be people disliking reusing the same animal as lazy design aswell.

What am I supposed to be dishonest about? As previously stated, I don't like / need the concept *and* it breaks my immersion. It's not like I said the later as an excuse so I don't need to say the former. It breaks immersion because I find the concept to be unplausible. How do such beings come to live? Evolution makes absolutely no sense here (otherwise, there should be several stages inbetween the animal and the animalpeople) and I find the all-purpose explanation of a wizard did it to be lazy design. I prefer low-magic settings where magic is not all potent. I can only speak for myself but most of the things you are referring to I find just as bad as the proposed player races, although some of those races are better than others. Although I will admit that I have less problems with slaughtering them as playing them. I also have no problem with werepeople turning into the animals (mind me, not some mixture of human/animal but from pure animal to pure human). That doesn't leave much room for any "cvilised" ennemy then. What do you think about things like beholders then ? Do you want to "only" fight other members of the "basic races' like humans elves and dwarves?

You need to stop using this argument because it isn't valid. You're just saying you don't like a group of people, that this idea would bring these people you don't like , and making baseless assumption about them. That's like saying there shouldn't be vampires or werewolves because it will attract twilight fans. I like beastmen or whatever you wanna call 'em, I'd like them to be there as long as it isn't just fanservice and they don't detract from any other aspect of the game. I still don't see how beastmen are worst than elves and fairies and all that. As far as explainations go, those can be the result of some wizards experiment, or people with their soul linked to animals and whatnot. And I wouldn't say it's arrogant to put humans in every games/ setting, what's arrogant is making them pretty much always the dominant force that's gonna ends up be much more powerful than the other races.