"Other" Playable Species Poll

I would love to see merfolk, demonic, and reptilian races (but please, don't make all the reptiles evil, some of us keep them as pets and quite like them) but I'm open to anything, although, I prefer humanoid designs because, well, I am human lol.

I'd love to see somewhat outlandish creatures as playable races. Like an insect swarm hivemind thingy or even something completely alien. As fun as it is to see anthropomrophic animals, they're very human-like. Seeing non humanoid races actually playable would be awesome. Or if they have to be humanoid, something more unique than wolfmen and lizardmen would be nice (armadillomen? behouldermen? there are worlds of possiblilities).

 

I mean, we already have the basic, familiar humans, elves, and dwarves. Taking a page out of the scifi genre and going with a race that's very different from humans would be pretty interesting to me.

I'm all in for all the presented options, Although I would LOVE to play an undead.

. . .

 

Some of those species you posted were really creative looking. Thanks for sharing them. There are those interesting question to ask yourself about what a more alien looking species would look like, walk like, how they'd 'animate' in general, and then tie that into what they'd create, what they'd use, how they'd use it and what they would wear. Some of the art you posted clearly tried to adress such questions.

 

You know, a setting with the races from the Dark Crystal could be interesting...

 

Gelfling!

 

Skeksis rule Gelflings drool.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Umberlin

Vampires and Zombies !!!

Vampires and Zombies !!!

 

I see a small problem with the undead - they don't have a soul (or so I heard). Well, a writer can surely bend the rules and come up with something, but still.. dunno.

Vampires and Zombies !!!

 

I see a small problem with the undead - they don't have a soul (or so I heard). Well, a writer can surely bend the rules and come up with something, but still.. dunno.

 

I'm not really for the undead as a race in general, but I'll play the Devil's Advocate quick and say that in some settings the Undead are souls bound corpses are various levels of decomposition, some halting the rot and others not, such things depending on the type of binding, power of the soul or just the setting's rules in general.

I like to see new, original races or races that have not been overused in fantasy.

 

Orcs, Elves and Dwarves are far too overused. Getting sick of them. Need more Dryads, Harpies and Minotaurs as playable races.

githzerai, baatezu & tanarri subspecies would be nice

Edited September 28, 2012 by molarBear

I picked aquatic, demonic and insectoid. I'd like to see some bizarre races along with ones similair to planetouched (which I believe the Godlike might be?).

I voted for something completely different and a whole bunch of the more strange races. I woulnd't want the game to be flooded with them but at least 1-2 races that are not the fantasy norm just to spice things up.

Shapeshifter would be interesting, you'd never have to worry about in game xenophobia again.

I did a litte google image searching and loved what came up when I searched for lizardman.

 

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs46/f/2009/180/0/c/Lizard_Man_by_genci.jpg

http://digital-art-gallery.com/oid/11/590x709_3705_Lizardman_2d_fantasy_creature_lizard_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

 

and some minis...

http://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/lizardman-hero-f.jpg

http://www.avatars-of-war.com/images/aow34_blister.jpg

http://www.fantization.com/ProductImages/painting_gallery/DB_Lizardman_final2_090807.gif

http://www.antimatter-games.com/shadowsea/store/images/miniatures/lizardmen_B_2.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4110/4953217906_63fdf175f1.jpg

Alright I think I came up with an idea - how about a race, which is one step higher in the evolution?

 

What it could be - a being with extremely powerful soul at some point ascended past the biological body and became a creature of mind. Not having any hormone glands or a brain itself, it's feelings are a memory or imprintment of the past ones', from when it still had body. Slowly, it learned how to divide\multiply itself and with time, created a new specie. I won't bother with creating motives or culture for it, since it's not my job

 

Anyways, I always welcome the daemonkind, because you know they always try to screw you over, but you always need them to some extent. Gives some space for a clever character to prove himself.

 

As for the racial diversity overall - I think it'd be the best to have humans at the root of all. From there, you could build new species from them and come up with reasonable explanations. Deities, to be more precise. At one point the gods may had simply imprinted some characteristics at their followers, creating new variation of humans. Curses, magical accidents, improvement\degredation\evolution of soul - tons of ways to create new humanoid species. Not the most innovative, but makes sense in the game's world in my opinion.

What about energy based life form - can possess others temporarily, disrupt nervous systems, or connect inanimate objects to form a body/weapons.

Something demonic please :3

I'm an Orc-O-Phile. In any game where there is an option to play as an Orc or even a Half-Orc I will almost certainly play as an Orc, at least for my first character. I would be very happy if there are Orcs, or something that sort of resembles Orcs is the game. Green skin FTW!

Id's say otherworldly. Demonic, Angelic, Undead. Humans are ok too.

 

Pretty much my favourite character type is an twisted evil angelic character. Your character's race is generally benevolent and also know for that, but for some reason your character is completely evil and twisted.

 

I'm also a big fan of vampires that are done right(pretty much anything goes that's not overly Twiligt).

I didn't really see anything in the second tier that I'd ask for.

 

It would have been nice if there was an "Other Option- describe in thread"

I want playable ent. Image ent ranger with eight muskets telling you that you will not cut any trees from my forrest. And even that ents are tolkien race, they would be very unique as playable race.

 

 

 

Amazing ideas here guys, keep'em comin'. Hmmm maybe with 2 questions I can write upto 20 option in a future poll but this one already served its purpose quite well.

My first instinct was to click every option but the first. I held back. A little.

The "standard races" that you see in every single game have grown more boring for me. Sure, I might role one and go through it, but I'd have a lot of fun trying something new... even if it was putting a new twist on something old, culturally and visually.

 

On the matter of those alien designs, some are awesome, but as someone mentioned before, they mean a ton more work for the developers, as they'd have to do all the outfit designs again to make it work. Not exactly ideal. (That's why Swtor has such humanoid races. They'd have to remodel, rerig, and reanimate a TON to make something too different, and they already have the optional variety in body types... which I loved, btw. More games need options to change bodies, not just faces.) But that's getting into character customization, which is another topic entirely. >> <<;

 

Merfolk, for example, you don't see as PCs often. Vampires you don't either, except for specifically vampire oriented games.

Beastmen, Demons, Bulls, and even Insectoids tend to be more common. (Though the perception of Bulls and Insectoids is possibly slightly biased from having just tried Legend of Grimrock. )

I'm a little confused as to why "Bearmen" is sepparate from the more general 'animal people.'

 

I would love to see some nymphs/dryads/other nature spirits. I cannot remember a game where they're a potential player race. (Though, given my memory, I suppose it isn't saying much.)

 

Werefolk who had a special shapeshift ability would be amazing, but sadly, I doubt they'd be doable.

 

In the end, though, whatever's chosen, it'll be awesome.

I sign here, specifically to respond to this. I would very much like if we don't see any kind of animalistic/angel&demon races which always seems to me like designers run out of ideas.

 

Typical examples of angelic&demon races are Celestials from D&D, Draenei in Warcraft (after the mess with lore) - this things are just way too much common. I don't care if the race has horns, wings and hoofs, but it would be nice if its not another demon spawn.

 

An example of animalistic races are Argonians and Khajit from Elder Scrolls or Taurens in Warcraft. Its just animal given human personalities, that's just downright pathetic, in my eyes this is even worse then the angel&demons. Magic the Gathering is suffering a lot from this problem - they have rats (from that samurai plane), elephants(Loxodnons?), Cat / panther/ jaguar people (Mirri), Birds, Lions too, etc... there is more, i just can't remember right now.

 

I know that eventually the race design will be limmited by graphic engine and armor design, as it would be impossible to make an armor onto Hannar or Dridder, but seriously please - at least give it a try Obsidian. You don't have to repeat everything from old games.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Lord Balgeron

human-animals make no sense.

 

Sure they do. In a world full of magic, I see nothing odd about strange hybrids cropping up due to curses or magical experiments.

 

Anyway, I'm not really sure what to vote for in the poll, as I'm undecided on what I would want (which is part of the reason why I didn't create a poll for the other thread). As far as something reasonably traditional, I think my preference would be for something like the Dracha from Arcana Evolved (although I'm not a fan of lizardmen, so I didn't vote for that option in the poll):

 

 

 

 

However, as Hideo Kuze pointed out in the other thread, a dragonoid race might be too morphologically similar to demon/human hybrids, which we might be getting through the Godlike.

 

If dragon-people were out, I would maybe like to see some sort of wolf-men/jackal-men.

 

Really, my biggest concern with any race in the game is that it feels natural within the setting. I usually don't feel that medieval Europe themed fantasy woulds should have insect-men or lizard-men in them, but if Obsidian made a world where they did, I would be ok with their inclusion.

Just a minor addition/reminder, what I said was in regard to tieflings, not all godlike (since Aasimars look human).

 

 

In any case, it would be great if we also got other scalies (like Dracha from Arcana Evolved that you mentioned) as subraces.

And IMO scalies fit perfectly in a medieval setting. You know... medieval, knights, dragons, scales

 

I'm not really into canine races, I guess the internet has traumatized me on that. But if we were to have them, something in the vein of Anubis (jackal) would not be that bad.

 

As for insect races, how about something based on this little fella?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, what I wanted to post here was this:

http://www.kickstart...clave?ref=users

Scroll down to The Races of the Kin.

IMO they gave a nice twist to the first three races (gnomes, human/elfs, dwarfs) and added 2 new and nice looking races.

Also, the portraits look f**king awesome.

Is this a loaded poll?

 

Options 1 and 5 are exactly the same, If you were "Totally True to AD&D" you can make your own

 

if you really felt like it you could make, say, 40' turtles that communicate via telepathy as PC's. the rules are in the DMG.

 

as for the more Canon options, the Humaniods supplement allowed PC's to be a large number of races, from Gnolls to Ogre Mages. and then, of course, there were dem planetouched, Modrons anyone?