Do we want elves and dwarves?

In my opinion it would do only good for game use existing archtypes for races, because inventing arctypes which we have never seen before is hard and time consumptive and rarely till produce anything really new and especially anything forth all that work. Much faster and easier route is take existing archtypes and give them some twist what makes your world to look different from other fantasy/sci-fi/etc. worlds. But on the other hand I don't want see another Forgotten Realms which have absolute everything what you can or can't think about and then more, variety is good but some time it can go over the top.

 

One thing what I wouldn't want see is that races are divined to good, bad and neutral. I think every race should have different agendas and philosophy, which gives them to different perspectives and ideologies about good and evil. And every race of course should have good and bad apples (those who live full on for race's ideology is good apple and those who broke this ideologies are bad apples) . Addition for that every race should have several different nationalities, which can have different ideologies, for example human nation 1, elven nation 2 and orc nation 5 could have nearly similar philosophy about life whereas dwarf nation 1,, elven nation 1, succubus and incubus (or demon) nation and human nations 3, 87, 177 have similar belifs, philosophies and agendas. And some factions in game could consist from these groups with same ideologies (of course same ideology don't always mean peaceful coexistence, as nations who see them better than others probably have very volatile relations with other nations with similar beliefs).

 

And it would nice to see also nations like Australia or USA where old European nations dumb their lesser criminals and other folk which nation leaders didn't like and where all fortune hunters go find their luck or market towns like Venice, L

No need for so many options in a pool, we can make another one with with less options, my suggestion would be:

Traditional RPG races (dwarf, elf, orc)

Hurr We want differant racis

Traditional races but with a twist

Alternatively, if elves and dwarves aren't terribly different from humans, why can't there be one or two multi-racial civilizations? Rome was a rather cosmopolitan place, for example.

I don't really care either way if we have elves or dwarves. It would be nice if they're included with a novel twist to them but as long as some of the characters from both races are interesting and well thought out I don't think it matters so much. I think it would be nice to have some other more original races included as well though. I'm not a huge fan of animal+humanoid features =new race (i.e cat, lizard people etc...). It would be interesting to see them include say a full race of changelings (like someone else brought up) but to actually implement them logically with the world, which I've never seen done.

Imagine if anyone you ran into could be someone posing as someone you knew. What kind of effect would that have on you? There would be widespread suspicion and 'witch hunts' etc...

 

Anyways I feel like that might be a little to much work to implement unless thats a main theme of the game. However it is useful to illustrate my preference that if elves or dwarves or completely novel races are included, that the relationships among these different races are realistic. So although the racism thing between human/elves/dwarves is a little played out atleast to me it strikes me as realistic given the current state of affairs.

Edited September 17, 2012 by zlarm

Very tired of old elves-dwarves-orcs and Middle Earth/Fearun like settings. I could accept them if they're truly different in culture, way of life, and aesthetics (something like elves who are more like githzerai/githyanki in how and where they live while keeping the long lifespan, elegance, and pointy ears would be fine) from the old cliches but nothing so superficially different as DA or Arcanum (this was alway one of the biggest negatives for me when it came to Arcanum).

 

Edit: In the end though, as long as it's well done and in the spirit of the old IE games, I'll probably still be able to stomach more or less bog-standard fantasy races and still enjoy the game. But it's very much not what I wished for.

Edited September 17, 2012 by limaxophobiacq

I think that races for player characters should be limited, and perhaps a little more "vanilla" than the races open for companions and NPCs. Part of the reason for that is it opens up more opportunities for character customization. Besides, with 3/4 races, and one of them almost by necessity human, the choices for the remaining playable species is relatively limited.

 

On the other hand, I hope Obsidian goes crazy with variety for companions. PS:T proved it could be done. My money's on them doing it again. Literally.

 

 

Also, go dwarves.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Berdrin

Since Obsidian is going the new IP route, I'd actually like to see them use different races than your more typical fantasy races like elves and dwarves.

I would like to see a game that would only have humans for a change. Culturally and physically diverse of course, but still humans. You could easily have all archetypes fit into different human races.. the nimble archers, the hardy brutes, the all-rounders etc..

 

I can stomach elves and dwarves if they aren't too mainstreamed.. but if there will be gnomes and halflings I'm going to despair.

 

As far as non-human races are concerned.. it would be far more interesting to see humans with demon blood for instance.

A relatively easy way, and a very satisfying way to hide the fantasy tropes behind fantasy races is not to use the traditional fantasy names, but instead use the lore names. For example, the mmorpg Mortal Online has basically 2 elf races, 2 dwarf races, a 2 half-orc race and then four human races. But since they're all referred to with their lore names (plus the concept art and description also do a great work in differentiating them quite a ways from the traditional rpg stuff), you actually don't feel that much like choosing a an elf or a dwarf, but instead you make a Veela of the Alvarin clade, or Huergar from the Oghmir clade or Thursar or a Khurite from the human clade.

Planescape races. Why do the typical fantasy bull**** all over again?

Well, if the devs think they can create interesting new races I'd like to see them!

Edited September 17, 2012 by Chaz

would love to see something completely original but humanoid

They're just good filler material for some general variety. Make the story between them interesting and "mature" in any meaningful sense of the word, and they should be fine.

Yeah, I really hope they don't use elves and dwarves honestly. Even when done in interesting ways like in the Witcher games I'm still just...tired of them. They make it feel like an unoriginal world in some serious respects. I mean, what good reason is there to have them in besides their history as part of other fantasy media?

Edited September 18, 2012 by Mezentine

I would not mind seeing them around the game (both elves and the dwarves). In saying that, it would be one of the races that I would not be interested in choosing my gameplay with them. If they feel it is necessary and can bring a unique experience then so be it.

Well, its been confirmed that elves and drarves are in...crap. Ok, we know one of the other races is some kind of godlike race..ok. What about some monster/demon race? Your usually stuck as a good race but not many games let you be a non original race. If they are creating some new races, then please make something O-R-G-I-N-A-L and not just something that looked like it fell out of your ever day dnd book or looks like a modified dnd monster. Hey look, its a slow witted giant with horns...um, isn't that just an ogre with horns?

 

There have been some pretty good ideas from some other threads like shapeshifters, or soul/energy beings that can create avatars/take over bodies, on play as a golem like creature...etc

 

One idea for a monster species in a game was the spider women(name is a work in progress), do not let the name fool you, while they resembles spiders a bit, they were very alien, they were called that because they do look like spiders and they do create a sort of web, but thats it. Any way, this takes place in the same universe as the setting for the created elves race I mentioned earlier. they can survive on regular food, but if they want to use any of their special abilities they have to eat fresh or perserved inteligent humanoid meat. They are beuttiful, have powers of mental suggestion and release a strong powerful pharamone, they also can paralyse (or kill) with a touch (poison secreted on skin) and create webbing from the pores on their skin, crawl/walk on walls, see in the dark, incredibly strong, transform into a hedeous spiderlike monster, etc (these are just a few of their powers) Also, they have a horrifying reproduction cycle that kicks in every 10 years. Every 10 years there biological urge to reproduce overrides their instincts, they seek out beutiful woman with families, they sneak in, paralyze all the family members and bring them into a large room, the woman selected watches in horror as the chest of the SW splits open revealing tenticles/mouth (lovecraft like things) a single hollow tipped stinger on a tenticle comes out and shoves itself into the womans neck to implant an egg/larva. After it is done, the spider woman abondons her newborn and leaves (she has four more houses to go to). The egg/larva crawls its way into the brain of the victim eating it and collecting the knowledge and skills, after it eats it starts to releases genetic information that starts to alter the DNA of the person. In a short while, the body will rise up and the new born will be starving (it isn't really inteligent yet, its more animal instinct and the hunger is from the many changes in the body). It will kill/feed on the womans family. It will be several hours later that the newborn has assimilated the memories/skills from the host, but also has access to some of the genetic memory of its parent. The baby is NOT the original character, nor can she pretend to be, part of the change is mixing the genetic material of the woman, with the genetic material of her "mother" which changed her looks into a mishmash of both. The newborn is not evil/nor good. It did what it did out of instinct and nothing more, she might regret what she did and try to make amends, or she might like being a predator.

 

A few notes, the spider women do not have any group gathering or a society, they reproduce out of overriding instinct, but do not interact with any of their 'family'. When two spider women meet, they instantly hate each other and usually fight on first meeting. No spider women would EVER seek out their mother, like spiders, the mother instinctively tries to kill and eat her daughter because of some biological urge to cull the weak.

 

Spider women become great spies and assassin, using their skill to seduce and kill their targets, even able to eat them so there is no evidence. Good SW's, usually become bounty hunters or go after groups that they know will try to kill them so they can justify killing and feeding for self defense. SW hate nothing more than when someobdy surrenders and not put up a fight,

HAHA! Dwarf haters can suck it! They're in the game! WOO HOO! My work here is now complete.

I chose "I don't care", because it's all about how they are implemented in the game world. Elves and dwarves in this game could still be different from elves and dwarves in other games/books. It doesn't matter if there are other races, but they fill the same role as elves and dwarves, then the game has achieved nothing in that regard.