Implimencations of (PC) race

[SirMonkeyMonk]

I wanted to start a discussion on what kind of consequences the (sub)race of the PC people like it to have. With this I was thinking about reactions from NPCs about, but also item restrictions for example.

 

I think most people will expect some kind of realism in the responses from NPCs. Some communities or regions are less stranger-friendly than other, some indivuals might be openly racist, while others are but won't say it outloud and some think they're not but actually think a lot in stereotypes. Ofcourse the way it's handled in the setting can make a huge difference.

 

However do expect to get denied access to buildings because of your race? or that of your party members? Get more quests offers because of your race, or more specific kind of offers.

 

Do you expect race restrictions on romances? Maybe party members only willing to join with PCs or certain races.

 

And do you think the racism should be more or less equally divided? Humans hated in the first town, dwarves in the next, etc. Or one race egtting screwed over through the entire campaign?

 

And do you expect each set of armor to be tailored to a race? I don't think it's very realistic that a dwarf and an elf can wear some piece of armor. But having a race restriction on everything can be annoying.

 

Personally I think it hads a lot of replayability, it's fun, but better to keep it to limited area's of the game. This because of it can very annoying to miss out on a lot in a playthrough or be very restricted by the character you love so much. With campanions I'm all for it, maybe not refusing to join PCs of one party, but being more judgemental or quicker to leave the party based on PC race.

[Rajaat the Warbringer]

I do hope that some quests, equipment, alliances, etc will be denied to you based on race. It gives you even more of an excuse to play the game several times.

[nikolokolus]

I kind of like the idea of racially sized armor and even some racism and bigotry in the game world can be a good thing, but given what will probably be a tight budget, this kind of thing is probably going to be tough to put into the game.

Edited September 23, 2012 by nikolokolus

[Muzrub333]

Implimencations, implimencations...I like it! I'm going to use it at work. Rolls off the tongue just so.

 

Srsly tho...

 

I like to see racism, often seen as factions, in games. I love to be the guy no one wants in town. Make me earn the locals trust, make me scream at my monitor because some high and mighty nit wit won't let me buy a beer in the local tavern. Do I kill him and everyone in town? Do I kill all the folks the townies don't like? Hmmm life is full of choices.

[septembervirgin]

POGO!!! Implimencatioshuns!

[PsychoBlonde]

Implimencations? Is that like, implications combined with implementation?

 

BEST. MISSPELLING. EVAR. I salute you.

 

Anyway, my personal preference is for your chosen race to impact both story and gameplay in some way, especially since AAA games don't do this kind of thing any because they'd rather have 100% voiceover. If they let you play a non-human, it doesn't matter, and if they don't, you're stuck playing a human. (I'm looking at YOU, Dragon Age--I love those games but they need to make up their freakin' minds.)

 

How, exactly, this is implemented is up for grabs. I prefer it when the gameplay/mechanical differences are somewhat significant, but not overwhelming--a dwarven sorcerer, for instance, is just not going to have the spell DC's, but they will have a lot of HP to help make up for that. I don't want there to be a case where, if you choose to play a dwarf sorc, you're HOPELESSLY inept.

 

That would suck.

[eimatshya]

You had some pretty serious race-based reaction modifiers in Everquest (and also religion-based reaction mods, but that's a different topic). Sometimes it just meant vendors wouldn't sell to you, but other times it meant you were kill on sight until you raised your faction with the city in question. Being able to raise your faction standing with a city was kind of a neat touch because it meant that you occasionally would see a Dark Elf hanging out in the Wood Elf city. One time my Wood Elf teamed up with this Ogre Shaman who was roleplaying a good Ogre and we worked together to kill enough Orcs to get his faction standing up enough to where the elven guards wouldn't attack him on sight. It was going pretty well until some other players came by and were like, "an Ogre; kill it!" He ended up respawning back on his home continent and didn't feel like making the rather dangerous, 1-2 hour long journey to come back. So that was the end of that quest.

 

Anyway, having racial reaction modifiers can be fun as long as there's a way to change people's opinions of you. I remember having to flatter people a lot to get them to give me the time of day in Arcanum; it added a lot of depth to the interaction. Since P:E isn't an MMO, the system should probably be more like Arcanum than Everquest (having some city where only certain races are kill on sight would be tedious in a story-based game).

Edited September 25, 2012 by eimatshya

[Technatorium]

I would not be surprised of inaccessible quests do to various factors. It's the nature of being a character in roleplaying. You wouldn't be a goodie-two-shoe paladin and then go to the thief den to talk to an NPC to get a quest, now would you?

 

I think even in Arcanum they had a lot of racial based factors throughout the game.