Post/Author/DateTime	Post
00_Whupass 06-05-06, 01:13 PM	This like most of my recent posts here is regarding rules for my upcoming campaign setting, but I feel could be used in any game. What I'm thinking about is divorcing the racial statistics from the races culture, making racial traits based purely on the physiological make up of a species, and then allowing everyone a free regional feat or two to reintroduce the aspects of race governed by culture. One potential problem is that this does not effect all the races equally. Humans and Half-Orcs are almost completely uneffected, while Dwarves and Elves loose several elements of their race. Has anyone tried to create something like this before? What did you find in your experiments? Do people feel this is a course worth pursuing?
Sereno 06-05-06, 02:04 PM	I love the idea. A new and compelling society is 100 times more interesting than another (usually arbitrary) mechanical advantage. Keith Baker did exactly this for Eberron. The elves of Aerenal and the elves of Valenar have completely different outlooks on life and approaches to living, but they've all got the same racial statistics. You'll find that this argument really boils down to liking subraces, or hating subraces. Most of the people who hate subraces are "offended" by the notion of an "elf for every class"; that is, an elf with stat bonuses that are custom-tailored to each archetypal character. Strong elves for fighters, smart elves for wizards, quick elves for rogues, wise elves for clerics/druids, etc. Blech! A lot of people also wonder why, if this happens for elves with the longest lifespans, why doesn't it happen for humans with short ones? Mutations to fit environments take many generations to happen (if they ever do) and more generations means more likely to change. BTW, put me in the "subrace haters" categories. :) I wouldn't even go so far as handing out "free" regional feats. I'd just have them available like FR ... there's a list of which regional feats are common for each major area, but you don't get them for free. Your typical powergamer isn't going to care much about a "watered down" regional feat and your typical roleplayer will probably just take one, anyway, to fit their character concept. Oh, quick question, which elements would elves and dwarves lose in your system? There's probably a way to keep all of the standard PHB elements attributable to the specifics of the race and not culture.
00_Whupass 06-05-06, 02:36 PM	Actually it was reading some of Keith Bakers writings that made me think of this. However I'm looking to go a step farther than Keith. In Eberron all elves, whether Aerenal or Valenar, get Martial Weapon Proficiency with Longbow, Lonsword, and Rapier. This martial weapon proficiency to me seems a cultural consideration, as I cannot imagine a race with a physiological affinity to a weapon. Similar considerations should be made of the dwarves racial hatred of goblinoids, their ability to treat urgosh as martial weapons, etc. My proposal is to stip the races of all mechanical traits which owe their existance to cultural phenomina and then allow each character a regional feat to reinstate the effect of culture on their character. The biggest pitfall that I see is that the Elf and the Dwarf have significantly more triats tied to the archtypal fantasy culture ascribed to their races than the other options, and if I remove traits tied to culture these races will suffer more greatly than there fellows. Has this clarified my position? Do you have any more feedback to offer?
Sereno 06-05-06, 02:53 PM	Actually it was reading some of Keith Bakers writings that made me think of this. However I'm looking to go a step farther than Keith. In Eberron all elves, whether Aerenal or Valenar, get Martial Weapon Proficiency with Longbow, Lonsword, and Rapier. This martial weapon proficiency to me seems a cultural consideration, as I cannot imagine a race with a physiological affinity to a weapon. Similar considerations should be made of the dwarves racial hatred of goblinoids, their ability to treat urgosh as martial weapons, etc. My proposal is to stip the races of all mechanical traits which owe their existance to cultural phenomina and then allow each character a regional feat to reinstate the effect of culture on their character. The biggest pitfall that I see is that the Elf and the Dwarf have significantly more triats tied to the archtypal fantasy culture ascribed to their races than the other options, and if I remove traits tied to culture these races will suffer more greatly than there fellows. Has this clarified my position? Do you have any more feedback to offer? Actually, I think that Valenar elves get their funky double-scimitar as a replacement for the longsword ... but I'm not sure if that's official or Keith's suggestion. However, a racial weapon proficiency does make sense for a race that takes a long time to mature and would be emulating their parents as children. I think it makes perfect sense for some races to have weapons that better suit them than generic swords and axes (like the Urgosh for dwarves). The hatred for goblinoids/skill at fighting giants is largely a factor that dwarves, goblinoids and giants all compete for the same terrain (mountains). If your going to change their "default homelands" you might just consider a different "racial enemy." Most of the mechanics of the PHB elves and dwarves (vision, resistances, detections, stat adjustments) are all easily tied to makeup rather than culture, and it would probably be easier to assign different racial weapon proficiencies and combat bonuses rather than replace them with different types of feats ... generally, a feat is worth "more" than a racial (or even in many cases, a class) ability. Feats that emulate racial abilities are generally considered to be underpowered, too. If you've given it much thought, yet, please post which racial abilities you think should be dumped from each race and I'll give you my opinion (for what that's worth). :)
00_Whupass 06-05-06, 03:12 PM	I haven't yet given this a lot of consideration, it first occured to me friday while reading some of Keith Baker's comments about the creation process for Eberron (which by the way I love the transparency Kieth has provided into his design process) and haven't yet started to disect the races into which elements I feel are cultural and which are physiological. I agree that most traits will be physiological in nature (save bonuses, vision, skill bonuses, et al), however as you point out certain elements are cultural, like elves racial proficiencies (not necessarily that they get proficiencies but what proficiencies to give) or dwarves racial hatred of goblinoids or AC bonus vs giants (though this may be more geographic than cultural it falls into the same bucket of "not physiological"). This therefore leaves me with two options, create subraces which are vastly similar but have a few differences to reflect the geographic and cultural divides between groups or use some sort of regional feat system. Personally since I, like yourself, dislike subraces, have opted to consider the second. I agree that feats are generally more valuable than racial features however given that characters would have a specific subset of feats to choose from and those would be tied to geography and culture, this may not be the case in the proposed system. As I said, I'm not sure of anything yet and am just beginning my preliminary exploration of the concept. Also the replacement of the longsword with the scimitar was suggested by Keith, but is not mentioned in the Eberron campaign setting.
Hodo 06-05-06, 03:21 PM	Take away the cultural abilites and replace them with something similar to a feat, only better. It's been my experience that people choose Humans not only because they relate to them better, but also, because a bonus feat pretty much trumps all other bonus abilities other races give. There is also little incintive to play the smaller races. I justified some changes by claiming that the traits were more on the evolutionary/genetic level. I can see a species having spent much of it's existence underground with creatures like monstrous vermin and mushrooms devloping a means of navigating underground (darkvision and stonecunning) and becoming more resistant to toxins (immunity to non-magical posions). I took away skill bonuses to Dwarves, as well as their bonuses against orcs/giants and instead made them immune to non-magical poisons and upped resistance to magic to a +4. I also changed the -2 to Cha into a -2 dexterity. Elves lose weapon proficiencies, but gain weapon finesse as a free feat to signify their greater inclination towards finesse over brute force. Gnomes lose the ability to cast spells and bonuses against giants , goblins, and kobolds, but gain bonuses to all int checks and a +2 AC bonus against all medium or larger enemies, and darkvision to represent a race descended from clever burrow dwellers. Halflings lose racial bonus with thrown weapons and slings, and instead get immunity to non-magical fear owing to their fearless nature. I ditched Half-Orcs and made Orcs a playble race, with the stats of Half-orcs, but bonuses to spot, survival, and listen, and the endurance feat for free to signify that they're tough and can take care of themselves in the wild. Eberron makes SOME attempts at resolving the cultural dilemmas, especially with the Elves. Valenar Elves and Arenal Elves are actually pretty similar. The valenar are just a militant order of warriors within Aerenal society. Aerenal elven ranges used to extend beyond their island, unto the continent of khoravaire, until goblins drove them off. During the last war, Elves were brought over to fight, with the vast majority of course being the milatristic Valenar, and decided to reclaim a piece of the continent as their own. Valenar elves are actually raised on Aerenal, as are their horses, and lots of their gear, and they only come to Khoravaire after they reach a certain age/level. Nevetherless, Valenar elves replace their proficiencies with the scimitar and double scimitar. Drow from xendrik get a special boomerang, and Halflings from the Talenta Plains get the Tangat, Sharrash, and a special boomerang.
Sereno 06-05-06, 03:56 PM	Valenar Elves and Arenal Elves are actually pretty similar. The valenar are just a militant order of warriors within Aerenal society. Aerenal elven ranges used to extend beyond their island, unto the continent of khoravaire, until goblins drove them off. During the last war, Elves were brought over to fight, with the vast majority of course being the milatristic Valenar, and decided to reclaim a piece of the continent as their own. Valenar elves are actually raised on Aerenal, as are their horses, and lots of their gear, and they only come to Khoravaire after they reach a certain age/level. Nevetherless, Valenar elves replace their proficiencies with the scimitar and double scimitar. However, though, the Valenar elves existed on Aerenal before their import to "Valenar" the nation. The "we emulate our ancestors through battle" tradition is the hallmark of the Tairnadal who are native to the northern steppes of Aerenal. The Aerenal tradition is "we venerate our ancestors by living with them!" :) I'm pretty sure the use of the Valenar double-scimitar goes back further than their arrival on Khorvaire. You also make a good point about the free feat for humans being one of the main reasons to play a human ... it's also why a lot of the CO Boards builds start with a human. If anything, I'd rather develop a couple of set "cultures" for each race -- maybe with some of them even sharing characteristics like a nation where dwarves and elves live together, getting similar non-physical additions -- rather than have to dream up a bunch of feats specific to cultures. Perhaps something more like the "starting packages" for the classes. Elves from particular culture would get the physical mods and a package of non-physical, cultural changes. Perhaps anyone from that culture would get the cultural changes ... but, I'd limit it to small differences like weapon proficiencies and (possibly) a couple of minor skill bonuses.
Hochiu 06-05-06, 03:56 PM	I've been doing this for a while, trying to divorce the notion of race and culture that seems to be ingrained in D&D. D&D has almost attempted to create different species of races...each particular breed of a elf for example is somewhat different in appearance, physiology and the like. What I do is offer the base race as presented, maybe possibly tailored to my world's needs. Example: The predominant race of elves in my game were actually a group of seperatists that managed to survive while their parent race went extinct. They share similar pysiological attributes to that race, but are in no way the same. Then, I'm in the process of going the route of FRCS or the Wheel of Time d20 game, I'm regionalising a lot of things, so that people from one particular region have different attributes than a neighboring one. They have access to certain feats, the opportunity to designate certain skills as class skills not just cross-class skills (maybe they get a benefit for it), a regional language, and a different kinds of starting equipment. What I'm currently exploring is the aspect of regional substitution levels. Because a region may fight a certain way and put a certain cultural emphasis on a smaller number of classes, like two or three, characters from that region may want to take something to differentiate them from the standard class she's in A lot of people dont want to do the work that's needed to be put into this, nor can they really share their work as a lot of the time its campaign specific.
Hodo 06-05-06, 05:38 PM	I tried going down the "regional classes and weapon proficiencies" route with a homebrew, especially when I came to the tribal cultures that lacked ironsmithing and shunned heavier armors which mean their weapons did less damage and they would have lower AC (who would CHOOSE to play them) without some intervention. It was very involved, and I enjoyed doing it, but what rteally turned me off of the idea was fear of imbalance: whether these changes would end up too powerful, to underpowered, or simply represent conflicts in existing mechanics (PCs will always come up with something you never expect). Overwhelming players with too many options and unexpected changes was another concern as well. Telling them, "You can't be from this culture and use a composite crossbow. They don't have those." and making many more customized options would get old as well. I've begun favoring skill selection as a means of differentiating different cultures. In descriptions for each nation or region, I'll list "popular" skills and feats. In the description of the people, I'll make note of what values they extol. Seafaring people known for trading might have have... Recommended classes: Rogue, Swashbuckler Recommended Prestige Classes: Dread Pirate Recommended skills: swim, profession (fisherman), profession (sailor), balance, bluff, diplomacy Recommended feats: Deft Hands, Negotiator Then in the discription of the nation in regards to defense and warfare, mention that they generally shun heavy metal armors, and prefer fighting with compact weapons like hand crossbows and shortswords. Then the player themself chooses if they want to play a more traditional example of their culture, or be more unique. I also give my classes about 2 extra skill points and a wider choice of skills. Most players max out their class skill ranks anyway, and I have no fears of the party fighter or wizard out-tumbling the monk. It gives them more freedom to customize their chartacter and have a life outside of combat.
Xeviat-DM 06-06-06, 03:20 PM	I've done this in my games already. If you'd like to see how I've separated the race and culture stats from the PHB races, PM me (I'm about to start publishing my setting). Interestingly, it works very well for foreigners and imigrant characters too; a human who grows up in a dwarven region will develop with dwarven culture, not human culture. Each race was given cultural traits, which were generally removed from the racial traits. This allowed me to rebalance racial traits quite a bit too (interestingly, I used this to improve Half-Elves and Half-Orcs too). It is a very good idea to me. Things that come along with cultural traits are skill bonuses to non-physiological skills (such as a dwarf's craft bonus), weapon proficiencies or familiarity, favored class, and starting languages. I had to add a few abilities to a few races' cultures, to keep things balanced, but for the most part things have gone well.