What if Generic Medieval European Fantasy was brave enough to commit to it?

[HorizonWalker]

I'm proposing, here, a setting in which you can play as, say, a brave Frankish knight, a holy crusader in service of Lord Pelor, fighting back the Norman scourge. And the Normans/Vikings are Orcs, because Viking Orcs is simultaneously very obvious and yet something I've never seen anyone do.

For the most part, the fantasy races are pretty well spread-out and intermingled without regard for national border, because it's usually a bit uncomfortable to point at someone's real world nationality and say "You? You're not human." The Fantasy Scandinavians aren't all Orcs, and neither are all of the Viking Raiders they send out; it's just that they happen to have a larger Orcish population than the norm, and the raiding parties generally compose mostly of Orcs, because Orcs have inborn talents that lend themselves well to killing people and taking their stuff. So yes, "Orcish Viking" is a stereotype and it's a stereotype for a very good reason, but if you wanna play as an Elven Skald or a Dwarfish Shieldmaiden or whatever, that's completely fair game.

As for running a game in this setting, I'd say you start with a historical war or something like that which interests you, do some research on it and discuss with everyone else what parts of this war they wanna focus on, and then feel completely free to totally ignore the entire historical record after your campaign starts, because what's the point of being a Frankish knight fighting Vikings if the DM says no matter what you do, the Vikings conquer Normandy, and you either roll over and accept it or you somehow end up dying in the mud.

As a side note, I strongly recommend playing this sort of game with the E6 ruleset if you want to be a knight fighting vikings, and playing with normal D&D rules if you think it'd be funnier to have a Blastificer Empowered Maximized Chained Lightning Bolt the Viking Fleet or whatever.



So, what do y'all think?

[Altair_the_Vexed]

That would all be fine - if you have a player base who are all happy to buy into it.
The social expectations, sensitivities, and maturity of all concerned is a big determiner in the success, or horrible failure of such a setting.

Now that's out of the way...

I love this idea.
This is sort of a thing that I'm looking to make myself - but without the common fantasy races. I want an almost exclusively human setting, with only a very few monstrous creatures, and even fewer humanoid PC "races".

I get where you're coming from - the fantasy races are more or less common around the setting, so they appear more or less frequently in given populations. It's a decent way of allowing diversity of PC species choice, without sinking into the "all elves are French" silliness that can arise from such an idea.

I'd be happy to play in this setting.

[HorizonWalker]

That would all be fine - if you have a player base who are all happy to buy into it.
The social expectations, sensitivities, and maturity of all concerned is a big determiner in the success, or horrible failure of such a setting.
Well, obviously. Left unspoken in pretty much every RPG brief is "Step Zero: Convince your friends to play along with this." My suggestion for getting player buy-in is telling them "Y'know Rollo the Walker, the first Duke of Normandy? Yeah he's a 6th level Orc Barbarian, and he's the final boss of this campaign. You in?"

I love this idea.
This is sort of a thing that I'm looking to make myself - but without the common fantasy races. I want an almost exclusively human setting, with only a very few monstrous creatures, and even fewer humanoid PC "races".

I get where you're coming from - the fantasy races are more or less common around the setting, so they appear more or less frequently in given populations. It's a decent way of allowing diversity of PC species choice, without sinking into the "all elves are French" silliness that can arise from such an idea.

I'd be happy to play in this setting.

Yeah, what I'm going for here is to lean a bit more into the fact that we're using the D&D ruleset for this setting. D&D, in my opinion, has always been at its peak when it was indulging in some twee shenanigans. I mentioned a high-level Wizard doing horrible things to the fleet, and I didn't mention it to be mean or anything. I mentioned it because I firmly believe that's a perfectly valid and fun way to play D&D in a historical setting. You want accuracy, go read a textbook. This is D&D, I'm a Wizard, and I cast Disintegrate on the gates of Constantinople.

(Incidentally, this is why I recommended using E6; if you want to play with history, you're probably also going to want to play with rules that let you try the stuff you read in the history books without feeling like you're wasting your time. Laying siege to a city or castle feels more meaningful and impactful if even a 6th level Cleric of Elemental Earth can't blow all their Stone Shapes in one go to put a breach in the wall. It's fine if you don't want that, but I think it's reasonable to assume you do.)

[brian 333]

I'd say it's a great idea.

Kick around the idea that the demi-humans and humanoid races are actually humans with different backgrounds, so elves may be archers and woodsmen from low-population frontier regions, orcs human commoners from war-torn regions, dwarves sappers from trained military forces, hobgoblins mercenary soldiers, goblins human bandits, and so on.

Let their various bonuses and penalties apply without describing them as anything but human. So instead of a kobold attack, the PCs encounter wretched, lice-infested commoners equipped with weapons scavenged from a battlefield who are desperate enough to attack armed men in the hopes of a quick death or enough coin to buy something to eat. They prefer to use traps and they live and hide in caves behind prepared defenses.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'd say it's a great idea.

Kick around the idea that the demi-humans and humanoid races are actually humans with different backgrounds, so elves may be archers and woodsmen from low-population frontier regions, orcs human commoners from war-torn regions, dwarves sappers from trained military forces, hobgoblins mercenary soldiers, goblins human bandits, and so on.

Let their various bonuses and penalties apply without describing them as anything but human. So instead of a kobold attack, the PCs encounter wretched, lice-infested commoners equipped with weapons scavenged from a battlefield who are desperate enough to attack armed men in the hopes of a quick death or enough coin to buy something to eat. They prefer to use traps and they live and hide in caves behind prepared defenses.

I went halfway down that road with the setting you've been contributing the great story bits for. With one exception, the known Peoples are just human cultures / ethnic groupsl, or an interfertile subscpecies in one case.

There's a strong argument to be made for alternative-to-standard of dropping or mostly dropping the different species thing, and concentrating on the cultural aspects.

[TripleD]

If you’re willing to go even further into homebrew, how about a Latin/Germanic divide?

Medieval Europe can be VERY roughly thought of as having a “Latin” South and a Scandinavian-Germanic North. D&D’s fantasy aesthetic draws in a large part from the Latin Matters of France and England (courtly tales of knights, monsters and enchanters) while the races of elves and dwarves are more from the North (where Tolkien derived them).

It would be neat if a similar divide was represented in your world. Sail the Northern coasts and you will meet elves and dwarves galore. Head down into French and Italian territory though, and you start running into the creatures they believed in. Skiapod’s race alongside cavalry while Panotti merchants wrap their ears around their bodies like cloaks. Everywhere are wonders straight out of Pliny.

If interested, I highly recommend the book “Baudolino” for more ideas on creatures and medieval legends.

[HorizonWalker]

Two major points I'd like to make.

One, I'd like to reiterate that I strongly discourage painting D&D races and real-world cultures as analogous. However, I'd also like to make the case against refluffing the different races as just slight variations on humans, influenced by background. D&D is fantasy, and you really can just have orcs, elves, and dwarves in fantasy without having to explain why. This is a world where magic is real, you don't have to say "oh well of COURSE they're not ACTUALLY orcs, they're just particularly strong and uneducated humans!" That's a copout, and while of course you're not required to have non-humans in your game, I strongly urge you to consider why you're trying to cut out the non-humans, and be willing to have a slightly silly and/or fantastical setting. Let the guy playing an Orc play as an actual Orc, not just a weirdly buff human who lived in the woods for a while.

Two, I'd also like to make clear that I don't mean a fantasy setting that draws more direct inspiration from european folklore that isn't already in D&D. I mean a fantasy setting where you're directly playing out specific events and such from real-world history, except in D&D. The core experience here isn't fighting a Spanish Pixie or whatever, it's fighting Rollo the Walker, first Duke of Normandy, except he's a high level Ogre Barbarian.

[Tom Kalbfus]

I'm proposing, here, a setting in which you can play as, say, a brave Frankish knight, a holy crusader in service of Lord Pelor, fighting back the Norman scourge. And the Normans/Vikings are Orcs, because Viking Orcs is simultaneously very obvious and yet something I've never seen anyone do.

For the most part, the fantasy races are pretty well spread-out and intermingled without regard for national border, because it's usually a bit uncomfortable to point at someone's real world nationality and say "You? You're not human." The Fantasy Scandinavians aren't all Orcs, and neither are all of the Viking Raiders they send out; it's just that they happen to have a larger Orcish population than the norm, and the raiding parties generally compose mostly of Orcs, because Orcs have inborn talents that lend themselves well to killing people and taking their stuff. So yes, "Orcish Viking" is a stereotype and it's a stereotype for a very good reason, but if you wanna play as an Elven Skald or a Dwarfish Shieldmaiden or whatever, that's completely fair game.

As for running a game in this setting, I'd say you start with a historical war or something like that which interests you, do some research on it and discuss with everyone else what parts of this war they wanna focus on, and then feel completely free to totally ignore the entire historical record after your campaign starts, because what's the point of being a Frankish knight fighting Vikings if the DM says no matter what you do, the Vikings conquer Normandy, and you either roll over and accept it or you somehow end up dying in the mud.

As a side note, I strongly recommend playing this sort of game with the E6 ruleset if you want to be a knight fighting vikings, and playing with normal D&D rules if you think it'd be funnier to have a Blastificer Empowered Maximized Chained Lightning Bolt the Viking Fleet or whatever.



So, what do y'all think?
What do you need orcs for? Human Vikings can be vicious and brutal and just as much of a challenge for player characters as orcs. If you want a semi-historical D&D game setting, here is what I would do. About 90% of all surface dwellers are human. Anyone other than a human is rare on the surface. Orcs and other goblinoids tend to remain underground during the day and only come out to do their raiding at night. Orcs do not like Viking longships, they don't like sea travel at all, the main reason is their eyes are adapted to darkness, and daylight hurts their eyes and they fight at a disadvantage during the day. If they are out on a boat or ship they must go below deck during the day, and if they are below deck, there is no one to man the sails so their ships would be vulnerable. If orcs go out on boats they only go on short excursions, so they can get back to their caves before the sun rises.

Elves are a reclusive race, they tend to stay away from areas settled by humans and in Europe, that means they stay away from towns, villages, farms and especially cities, they live in wilderness areas, typically in mountain valleys and wild forests far away from human settlements.

Dwarfs live in mountains and hills, particularly in underground mines, they tend to shun human settlements as well.

Gnomes are reclusive as well, they live in forests in their own communities.

Halflings live in rural communities on the fringes of human civilization, while some of them live in human cities pretending to be children and live most often by stealing things.

Giants live in remote areas, Dragons live in remote areas. In the oceans there are kingdoms of merpeople, these are descendants of the legendary lost civilization of Atlantis.

[Tom Kalbfus]

That would all be fine - if you have a player base who are all happy to buy into it.
The social expectations, sensitivities, and maturity of all concerned is a big determiner in the success, or horrible failure of such a setting.

Now that's out of the way...

I love this idea.
This is sort of a thing that I'm looking to make myself - but without the common fantasy races. I want an almost exclusively human setting, with only a very few monstrous creatures, and even fewer humanoid PC "races".

I get where you're coming from - the fantasy races are more or less common around the setting, so they appear more or less frequently in given populations. It's a decent way of allowing diversity of PC species choice, without sinking into the "all elves are French" silliness that can arise from such an idea.

I'd be happy to play in this setting.

You could include a standard Underdark in a Fantasy Europe campaign, the humanoids and other things usually stay underground, but occasionally go above ground to raid human villages in the dark of night, that is what I would do. In a European style campaign it is usually humans versus humans, some humans can use magic, come are clerics, some are wizards or sorcerers. Magic use is rare, and cannot easily be taught to others, and of course the Church frowns on it. A chosen few of the clergy can cast spells and are of the cleric class, those people are referred to as saints, they can work miracles, but are usually not recognized as saints by the church until after they die. People who can work magic are often hunted down by the church before they rise to a high enough level where they can properly defend themselves with their magic. Magic is often associated with witchcraft, and there are true witches as well, but most of the people burned as witches are not really witches, and most real witches are wily enough not to get caught by the church authorities, so there is some doubt as to whether witches really exist. Some witches are evil, and some witches are actually hags as listed in the moster manual, but other witches are human, but they keep their magic a secret whenever possible.

That is what I would do.

[HorizonWalker]

What do you need orcs for?
This is the wrong question to ask. See, this is still Dungeons and Dragons, and in Dungeons and Dragons, orcs are an expected part of the milieu. You don't need a reason to include orcs, they're in there by default. At first, my reasoning for Orcish Vikings was "it sounded cool."

Of course, now it's currently "Considering my stated focus on having the players participate in historical conflicts, I need to have the Demihumans well-integrated into mainstream society, otherwise they don't really have a reason to participate. An Orc who lives in a cave and doesn't know what France is can't really meaningfully participate in the Hundred Year's War, and that means the Hundred Year's War campaign won't really include Orcs. That's a problem because it makes the NPC population more homogeneous."

Now, there's the fact that you, personally, might prefer to have "civilization" consist almost entirely of humans. Ultimately, I can't stop you. But I can tell you that sounds boring and uninteresting, to just take every race that isn't human and declare that they don't get to play in the sandbox, and instead just live Somewhere Else, only to be allowed in play when the DM needs a random encounter with bandits or raiders that's largely inconsequential to the plot. And I can tell you that I strongly advise you to reconsider, and embrace the fact that you're playing D&D, rather than try to fight it.





(On a side note, please refrain from double-posting in the future. It's poor form.)

[Tom Kalbfus]

This is the wrong question to ask. See, this is still Dungeons and Dragons, and in Dungeons and Dragons, orcs are an expected part of the milieu. You don't need a reason to include orcs, they're in there by default. At first, my reasoning for Orcish Vikings was "it sounded cool."

Of course, now it's currently "Considering my stated focus on having the players participate in historical conflicts, I need to have the Demihumans well-integrated into mainstream society, otherwise they don't really have a reason to participate. An Orc who lives in a cave and doesn't know what France is can't really meaningfully participate in the Hundred Year's War, and that means the Hundred Year's War campaign won't really include Orcs. That's a problem because it makes the NPC population more homogeneous."

Now, there's the fact that you, personally, might prefer to have "civilization" consist almost entirely of humans. Ultimately, I can't stop you. But I can tell you that sounds boring and uninteresting, to just take every race that isn't human and declare that they don't get to play in the sandbox, and instead just live Somewhere Else, only to be allowed in play when the DM needs a random encounter with bandits or raiders that's largely inconsequential to the plot. And I can tell you that I strongly advise you to reconsider, and embrace the fact that you're playing D&D, rather than try to fight it.





(On a side note, please refrain from double-posting in the future. It's poor form.)

Sorry, I'm rather new to this site.

Main thing is though, Europeans are rather clannish A Viking would have more in common with an Italian or a Spaniard than it would with an orc, especially back in the middle ages when the population of Nordic countries weren't quite as diverse as they are today. A typical Viking, even if he did live by raiding coastal villages, would view an orc as a monster! I don't think human Vikings and orcs would work well together.

[TripleD]

Magic use is rare, and cannot easily be taught to others, and of course the Church frowns on it. A chosen few of the clergy can cast spells and are of the cleric class, those people are referred to as saints, they can work miracles, but are usually not recognized as saints by the church until after they die. People who can work magic are often hunted down by the church before they rise to a high enough level where they can properly defend themselves with their magic. Magic is often associated with witchcraft, and there are true witches as well, but most of the people burned as witches are not really witches, and most real witches are wily enough not to get caught by the church authorities, so there is some doubt as to whether witches really exist. Some witches are evil, and some witches are actually hags as listed in the moster manual, but other witches are human, but they keep their magic a secret whenever possible.


That’s really more of an Early Modern (late-15th to early 16th) attitude towards magic than a medieval one. The mass burnings we associate with witch trials happened long after the Middle Ages.

The attitude of the Catholic Church towards magic in the medieval era was complicated and varied by place and time. The other problem is that your average peasant or priest of the time probably wouldn’t have understood what we mean by “magic”. There wasn’t the division we have between the natural and supernatural; the medieval worldview was fundamentally supernatural and there were “right” and “wrong” ways to navigate it.

D&D style magic, as an observable and testable phenomenon, doesn’t conflict with this worldview. If anything I’d think monasteries and universities, with the focus on preserving knowledge and transcripting texts, would be ground zero for wizards.

This is getting long-winded, but if you really want to commit to a realistic Middle Ages, and you want the Church to be against wizards and sorcerers, you first have to explain why the Romans and classical Greeks were against them as well. The church fathers were mostly well-off Roman citizens trained in the classics, and Early Christian philosophy is basically just late-Roman philosophy with some names swapped around. Aristotle, Archimedes, Galen, etc. formed much of the bedrock of the Catholic Church’s worldview. What was Aristotle’s explanation for the origins of a fire bolt spell, and why did someone like Augustine of Hippo reject it?

[HorizonWalker]

Main thing is though, Europeans are rather clannish A Viking would have more in common with an Italian or a Spaniard than it would with an orc, especially back in the middle ages when the population of Nordic countries weren't quite as diverse as they are today. A typical Viking, even if he did live by raiding coastal villages, would view an orc as a monster! I don't think human Vikings and orcs would work well together.

A historical European from the real world wouldn't have much in common with an Orc, no, but remember, this isn't the real world. This is D&D, where Orcs are just as natural as humans, and if you grew up in a village that was half populated with Orcs and half populated with humans, then you wouldn't think there's anything particularly weird about Orcs.

People can get used to some weird stuff, if they grow up around it.


That’s really more of an Early Modern (late-15th to early 16th) attitude towards magic than a medieval one. The mass burnings we associate with witch trials happened long after the Middle Ages.

The attitude of the Catholic Church towards magic in the medieval era was complicated and varied by place and time. The other problem is that your average peasant or priest of the time probably wouldn’t have understood what we mean by “magic”. There wasn’t the division we have between the natural and supernatural; the medieval worldview was fundamentally supernatural and there were “right” and “wrong” ways to navigate it.

D&D style magic, as an observable and testable phenomenon, doesn’t conflict with this worldview. If anything I’d think monasteries and universities, with the focus on preserving knowledge and transcripting texts, would be ground zero for wizards.

This is getting long-winded, but if you really want to commit to a realistic Middle Ages, and you want the Church to be against wizards and sorcerers, you first have to explain why the Romans and classical Greeks were against them as well. The church fathers were mostly well-off Roman citizens trained in the classics, and Early Christian philosophy is basically just late-Roman philosophy with some names swapped around. Aristotle, Archimedes, Galen, etc. formed much of the bedrock of the Catholic Church’s worldview. What was Aristotle’s explanation for the origins of a fire bolt spell, and why did someone like Augustine of Hippo reject it?

On a related note, the Roman Empire is also a great way to explain certain things D&D introduces. "Where'd all these dungeons come from?" "They used to be Roman fortifications but now they've sunk into the earth, and also into disrepair." "What about these high-level magic items, when the highest level Wizard we've ever seen was 7th level?" "Leftovers from the Roman Empire, which had the infrastructure to produce mighty Archmages."

[brian 333]

Orcs and humans living side by side with no social stigma to keep them apart will interbreed untill they are indistinguishable. Humans of the middle ages were not so egalitarian, even with other groups of humans.

[Tom Kalbfus]

A historical European from the real world wouldn't have much in common with an Orc, no, but remember, this isn't the real world. This is D&D, where Orcs are just as natural as humans, and if you grew up in a village that was half populated with Orcs and half populated with humans, then you wouldn't think there's anything particularly weird about Orcs.

People can get used to some weird stuff, if they grow up around it.



On a related note, the Roman Empire is also a great way to explain certain things D&D introduces. "Where'd all these dungeons come from?" "They used to be Roman fortifications but now they've sunk into the earth, and also into disrepair." "What about these high-level magic items, when the highest level Wizard we've ever seen was 7th level?" "Leftovers from the Roman Empire, which had the infrastructure to produce mighty Archmages."

You are asking a lot of the Vikings. I've met some of their descendents from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, some of the most beautiful people in Europe are from there. A lot of the supermodels you see in Vogue magazine are descended from Vikings. Orcs are quite beastly. I am sure you are not going to see a lot of romances between Vikings and orcs. Orcs are hideous, they stand seven to eight feet tall, have tusks protruding from their mouths, and they are known to eat humans and each other at times.

Vikings were basically pirates, they had longships, and I think orcs don't make the best sailors, mostly because sunlight is very painful to their eyes, and the Viking longships don't provide much cover from the sunlight during the day. Orcs are not going to like taking long journeys in them across the oceans, they can't take refuge underground as they are used to. The sunlight reflecting off of the water makes the situation even worse.

[JeenLeen]

I'm mentioning this in case anyone else remembers this thread and knows keywords to search for and post a link.

A while ago (maybe a couple years? less than 5 years), there was a thread about a setting like this. I think the designer had different races arise in different regions of the world, and that shaped the cultures and divides. Like -- and I'm picking this pretty randomly, not going from memory -- elves in Asia, dwarves in Africa, humans in Europe, or so on. And going with a pseudo-history of the races expanding, interacting with each other, and developing naturally, akin to how societies in real life did but with fantasy races and small-scale magic. (Definitely not a Tippy-verse, though I forget if it was magic was rare or there just wasn't a strong justification for magic not redoing a ton of things like agriculture, warfare, and logistics.)

However potentially-offensive part of it was, and I think it was pretty well-done actually, it was a cool example of trying to do something akin to, if not fully in line with, your idea.

---

You might also like looking at the lore of the Perisno mod of the game Mount & Blade. Link here: https://perisno.fandom.com/wiki/Factions
It's not Europe, but it has countries run by different fantasy races, with history and politics akin to a European setting. Again, could give ideas, but it does assume all the major races are relatively civilized and on par with one another. (Maybe not the giants, but at least dwarves, humans, and elves. No orcs.)

[HorizonWalker]

Orcs and humans living side by side with no social stigma to keep them apart will interbreed untill they are indistinguishable.
It's D&D, you can just make up any reason at all why that isn't the case. Like, uh... the existence of all the races is a relatively new thing, ala Shadowrun, and it happened because of the Romans. It's only been a few hundred years, which isn't that much time, genealogically speaking, and that's why there hasn't been enough interbreeding to make "Orc" a meaningless term.

You are asking a lot of the Vikings. I've met some of their descendents from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, some of the most beautiful people in Europe are from there. A lot of the supermodels you see in Vogue magazine are descended from Vikings. Orcs are quite beastly. I am sure you are not going to see a lot of romances between Vikings and orcs. Orcs are hideous, they stand seven to eight feet tall, have tusks protruding from their mouths, and they are known to eat humans and each other at times.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and something tells me that Northmen who value being the biggest and strongest around might take a liking to Orcs, who are even bigger and stronger than the biggest and strongest humans, and are so viciously lethal even their mouths are deadly weapons. How cool is that?

(As for the cannibalism thing: that is flavor text with some specific assumptions. Orcs only eat people in settings where Orcs are "uncivilized savages.")

Also, is it specifically Orcs you have a problem with? Because I proposed Elfish Northmen as well, and Elves are plenty beautiful, conventionally-speaking.

Vikings were basically pirates, they had longships, and I think orcs don't make the best sailors, mostly because sunlight is very painful to their eyes, and the Viking longships don't provide much cover from the sunlight during the day. Orcs are not going to like taking long journeys in them across the oceans, they can't take refuge underground as they are used to. The sunlight reflecting off of the water makes the situation even worse.
Consider the following: 1) Basic sunglasses are in fact very easy to make, if you need them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_goggles) 2) Orcs can see in the dark. Do you understand how insanely valuable that gets to be at night, when you're out of candles and can't see that iceberg by starlight alone?



And, finally... again, this is Dungeons and Dragons. Why are you so hellbent on stripping out the flavor brought to the table by orcs and tieflings and elves and such in order to bring the setting back to being generic and boring? Does it logically make sense to have orcs and tieflings and dragonborn intermixed with the general population? Maybe not, but who cares? It's cool as hell, that's all the reason we really need. It's fantasy.

[Tom Kalbfus]

It's D&D, you can just make up any reason at all why that isn't the case. Like, uh... the existence of all the races is a relatively new thing, ala Shadowrun, and it happened because of the Romans. It's only been a few hundred years, which isn't that much time, genealogically speaking, and that's why there hasn't been enough interbreeding to make "Orc" a meaningless term.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and something tells me that Northmen who value being the biggest and strongest around might take a liking to Orcs, who are even bigger and stronger than the biggest and strongest humans, and are so viciously lethal even their mouths are deadly weapons. How cool is that?

(As for the cannibalism thing: that is flavor text with some specific assumptions. Orcs only eat people in settings where Orcs are "uncivilized savages.")

Also, is it specifically Orcs you have a problem with? Because I proposed Elfish Northmen as well, and Elves are plenty beautiful, conventionally-speaking.

Consider the following: 1) Basic sunglasses are in fact very easy to make, if you need them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_goggles) 2) Orcs can see in the dark. Do you understand how insanely valuable that gets to be at night, when you're out of candles and can't see that iceberg by starlight alone?


And, finally... again, this is Dungeons and Dragons. Why are you so hellbent on stripping out the flavor brought to the table by orcs and tieflings and elves and such in order to bring the setting back to being generic and boring? Does it logically make sense to have orcs and tieflings and dragonborn intermixed with the general population? Maybe not, but who cares? It's cool as hell, that's all the reason we really need. It's fantasy.

I'm not bent on anything, I am just giving you some advice on what I think works, don't take it personally. We won't always agree.
I am working on my own spelljammer campaign similar to your idea. I have charts for all 8 planets in the Solar System, so if you like you can come take I look at what I posed and comment if you wish. this is an invite, I'm just mentioning it here and we can move on. It can be found at http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?592233-Spelljammer-Earth-s-Solar-System-3-5

[Enixon]

And, finally... again, this is Dungeons and Dragons. Why are you so hellbent on stripping out the flavor brought to the table by orcs and tieflings and elves and such in order to bring the setting back to being generic and boring? Does it logically make sense to have orcs and tieflings and dragonborn intermixed with the general population? Maybe not, but who cares? It's cool as hell, that's all the reason we really need. It's fantasy.

I swear this seems to be a question I find myself asking myself over and over when reading fantasy RPG web forums, lately there's just been this strange sort of vendetta against fantasy races where people demand you to come up with some big justification for why your fantasy world has fantasy races and if you can't give them a "good reason" they'll look down their noses at you with scorn for not "just using different human cultures" and frankly it kind of bugs me so kudos to you for standing your ground here.

[Tom Kalbfus]

I swear this seems to be a question I find myself asking myself over and over when reading fantasy RPG web forums, lately there's just been this strange sort of vendetta against fantasy races where people demand you to come up with some big justification for why your fantasy world has fantasy races and if you can't give them a "good reason" they'll look down their noses at you with scorn for not "just using different human cultures" and frankly it kind of bugs me so kudos to you for standing your ground here.

Would you have problems with King Richard the Third being married to an orc? Imagine a female orc dressed up as a queen attending the royal court, and no one seems to notice that she wasn't human, and Richard the Third being a sort of villain who murdered two princes, doesn't seem to notice that his wife is an orc. Does that make any sense to you?

How about people with evil alignments just like ugly? Where do you draw the line on what makes sense? It would change history if certain rulers of nations were elves simply because of their long life span. What if Augustus Caesar was an elf, how would that affect things?

[Enixon]

Would you have problems with King Richard the Third being married to an orc? Imagine a female orc dressed up as a queen attending the royal court, and no one seems to notice that she wasn't human, and Richard the Third being a sort of villain who murdered two princes, doesn't seem to notice that his wife is an orc. Does that make any sense to you?

How about people with evil alignments just like ugly? Where do you draw the line on what makes sense? It would change history if certain rulers of nations were elves simply because of their long life span. What if Augustus Caesar was an elf, how would that affect things?


See this is an excellent example of what I meant, you just posted a handful of fascinating plot hooks and ideas that you could only have with non-human races, but are instead painting them as badwrongfun.

Using the Orc queen example, take all the political intrigue that would have happened in the real world when royalty married a spouse of a different cultures or ethnicity but now it's an even bigger deal becasue she's literally not human, and any heirs born of the union will not only not be "pure English blood", but they'll be Half-Orcs with a lower life expectancy (going by most settings I've seen anyhow). There's all sorts of angles this could take, nobles who value blood purity being even more against it than real world versions would, scheming relatives that see the shorter life span of any heirs to be a boon for getting one of their kids on the throne later, the tailor's guild that sees this as a potential gold mine from all the extra curtains they'll be able to sell the royal family to help the Orc Queen cope with her Light Sensitivity Racial Trait :biggrin:

[Tom Kalbfus]

I think Shrek would be perfectly at home in this world. Lets run with it!

Maybe we can create stats for various fairy tale creatures. Lets start with Jack and the Beanstalk. The giant in the story is obviously an evil cloud giant, as he lives in a castle in the clouds, his famous saying is "Fe Fi Foe Fumb, I smell the blood of an Englishman!" So I deduce that England is at war with a bunch of cloud giants, as the giant takes the pain of identifying the nationality of Jack.

Snow White is a German princess, that story seems to be derived from a greek myth, involving a jealous goddess Aphrodite.

Cinderella is French. Pinnochio is Italian. An Ice Queen rules up North in what is now Norway. King Arthur rules the British Isles, and he has a problem with a band of Cloud Giants.

Just some ideas.

[Enixon]

I think Shrek would be perfectly at home in this world. Lets run with it!

Maybe we can create stats for various fairy tale creatures. Lets start with Jack and the Beanstalk. The giant in the story is obviously an evil cloud giant, as he lives in a castle in the clouds, his famous saying is "Fe Fi Foe Fumb, I smell the blood of an Englishman!" So I deduce that England is at war with a bunch of cloud giants, as the giant takes the pain of identifying the nationality of Jack.

Snow White is a German princess, that story seems to be derived from a greek myth, involving a jealous goddess Aphrodite.

Cinderella is French. Pinnochio is Italian. An Ice Queen rules up North in what is now Norway. King Arthur rules the British Isles, and he has a problem with a band of Cloud Giants.

Just some ideas.



I'm a little confused, you keep coming up with great ideas, but then stuff like the Shrek reference makes me think you're still being snide and dismissive at the idea that people might dare use fantasy races in their fantasy setting so I don't really know how to respond. :smallconfused:

[Tom Kalbfus]

I'm a little confused, you keep coming up with great ideas, but then stuff like the Shrek reference makes me think you're still being snide and dismissive at the idea that people might dare use fantasy races in their fantasy setting so I don't really know how to respond. :smallconfused:
Don't like Shrek? I think you are trying to find insult in my attempt at humour. I noted how the various races wouldn't integrate smoothly in a serious fantasy campaign, but not all fantasy campaigns have to be serious. The world Shrek lives in certainly isn't serious, it has all sorts of fairly tale characters comingled together, but one can certainly build a fantasy world by stitching fairy tales together in some sort of world that makes sense. One can go up a notch from Shrek and still not have a serious campaign.

One thing Shrek world contains is a whole lot of modernism. Having fantasy races smoothly integrated into historical kingdoms is a modernism of a sort. Shrek has lots of puns and silliness. Another silly world is Xanth, by Piers Anthony. Nothing wrong with such a campaign is there?

[Trask]

And, finally... again, this is Dungeons and Dragons. Why are you so hellbent on stripping out the flavor brought to the table by orcs and tieflings and elves and such in order to bring the setting back to being generic and boring? Does it logically make sense to have orcs and tieflings and dragonborn intermixed with the general population? Maybe not, but who cares? It's cool as hell, that's all the reason we really need. It's fantasy.

Honestly, for a lot of people (including myself), Orcs, Tieflings, Dragonborn are pretty darn boring. In my perspective, a game that shoehorns in all different kinds of wacky fantasy races is infinitely more generic than one that tries to honestly portray almost any real world human culture.

Not saying that having fantasy races makes your game generic, but is it really exciting at this point in time to have fantasy races? Are dragonborn, tieflings, and orcs really "cool as hell" at THIS point. That just baffles me.

[Max_Killjoy]

Honestly, for a lot of people (including myself), Orcs, Tieflings, Dragonborn are pretty darn boring. In my perspective, a game that shoehorns in all different kinds of wacky fantasy races is infinitely more generic than one that tries to honestly portray almost any real world human culture.

Not saying that having fantasy races makes your game generic, but is it really exciting at this point in time to have fantasy races? Are dragonborn, tieflings, and orcs really "cool as hell" at THIS point. That just baffles me.

There's also the question of whether the various species fit the atmosphere and origin cosmology of the setting, or are just there to be there.

[Lord Raziere]

Honestly, for a lot of people (including myself), Orcs, Tieflings, Dragonborn are pretty darn boring. In my perspective, a game that shoehorns in all different kinds of wacky fantasy races is infinitely more generic than one that tries to honestly portray almost any real world human culture.

Not saying that having fantasy races makes your game generic, but is it really exciting at this point in time to have fantasy races? Are dragonborn, tieflings, and orcs really "cool as hell" at THIS point. That just baffles me.

I'm of the opposite opinion, so I'll tell you my point of view.

every time I see yet another human culture in fantasy, it doesn't interest me at all. the cultures are just as generic, just without any real distinguishing aesthetic biological aesthetic, its even more samey because of that, and I'm not a "less is more" person, I'm a "More is more" person. which is just a preference.

like, human cultures when you get down to them pretty much fall into:
1. decadent empire (often claims to be "morally grey" while they play the Imperial March.)
2. warrior culture (becomes empire if too successful)
3. nomads (dies to farming)
4. divided bickerers (can come in useless diplomatic arguer or bloody warring states flavors, though the latter often evolves into the former)
5. capitalism (which really is just empire but with less killing and more lying)
6. isolated village (dies when exposed to other people)

and the reason why the cultures come to be is almost always environment anyways, so once you know the environments, its pretty easy to figure what the culture is. and as far as I can tell, there has never been a truly peaceful culture in all of history, nor any human culture I'd truly want to be a part of if given a choice.

when I play a non-human character, its to free myself from culture, not just human ones but whatever fantasy culture my character is apart of. The point is portray individuals to me, not someone who is a product of a culture, for I dislike the concept of culture, and don't much care for it aside from being a background tool. for being apart from culture is something I consider a more relatable state to me than being apart of it, even though one can argue that everyone is apart of culture due to invisible all controlling forces of social whatevers that I don't care for.

the point of them in short, is not to portray a being that conforms to something that is external, but expresses something within. if your human, a human has to map to something humans do, something external that is known. the fantasy races are not human and thus you can choose them based on different reasons. (whether actually do so is another discussion entirely).

its the option to opt out of all human societies you can name without doing the stupid "raised by wolves" thing.

[Trask]

I think about a character's culture a fair amount in my creation of them. I do think that copypasted "all members of x cultural/racial group are y" is lazy worldbuilding and character design, but I dont think it has to be that way. Those archetypes you listed are just that, archetypes, not hard and fast laws. You can play around a great deal within very small ranges.

The problem with fantasy grab-bags like D&D is that you have so many races that a worldbuilder wants to think of cultures and divisions and sects between them to make an honest representation of an interesting fantasy race. But its hard enough to create realistic culture for just humans, let alone alien species.

Obviously most people dont care and do go that far, but if you dont then whats even the point of having an alien race? Dragonborn, tieflings, orcs, theyre just setting dressing. Humans wearing costumes. They have no real defining characteristics.

One of the best examples of an honestly and fully realized fiction culture imo are the Dunmer from TES III Morrowind. They feel actualized, drawing on many of the archetypes you listed above but not slavishly following any of them, and creating uniqueness through synthesis. Cultures, when built well, endure in the minds of people and they inspire art, philosophies, religions, folkways, sayings, weapon styles, and countless other things that make the game richer in my experience.

Playing only as individuals existing as anomalies in a world that feels completely disconnected from them is just boring to me, its more akin to contemporary anime storytelling (a medium based primarily around wish fulfillment) than it is to any kind of real roleplaying, fantasy or otherwise.

Not saying that playing games or characters like that cant be fun of course, but its definitely not my cup of tea and in my opinion its not the kind of roleplaying that endures and is easily shared with friends. Its a much more inwardly focused form of roleplaying that feels antithetical to a social game like TTRPGs are to me.

[Lord Raziere]

Not saying that playing games or characters like that cant be fun of course, but its definitely not my cup of tea and in my opinion its not the kind of roleplaying that endures and is easily shared with friends. Its a much more inwardly focused form of roleplaying that feels antithetical to a social game like TTRPGs are to me.

My mindset is that if your friends can't handle what you express with those races and what you want to portray without having to be bothered with some annoying human culture thing they're aren't really your friends, because if you play as human, that human is an implicit commentary on that culture in some way. thats just how I observed they tend to shake out even when done well, and sometimes you don't want to make that commentary because no matter what you do, people draw parellels you don't intend and its best to avoid that.

sure its a social hobby, but its also a space where ones individuality can hopefully expressed someplace without ridicule, which is apart of being social. and I do not find exploring other viewpoints that normally don't exist as wish fulfillment. if I can create a unique viewpoint, a new way of seeing the world that puts things a different light and makes people rethink things when they view it through it- I don't see anything bad about it. wish fulfillment to me is far less creative- someone being rich or a king or something stupid like chosen ones, y'know something privileged and not knowing much suffering, and those are common as dirt.

a game where I'm forced to conform too much is not my cup of tea is all, we all have not our cuppas.

[brian 333]

The thing is, creating cultures is hard. Creating cultures with which human players and readers can identify is even harder.

In over fifty years of reading fiction I've seen it tried many times. Usually it fails miserably. Sometimes it doesn't kill the story. I've seen C. J. Cherryh do it well. Once.

Why?

Because humans understand one societal arrangememt and anything else is just confusing.

Don't believe me? Watch someone interact with their dog. Invariably they will treat it like a human child. Dog trainers will tell you this is a mistake, and everyone will say they know, but almost everyone does it anyway.

Culture is programmed at a very early stage of development and the unconscious assumptions we make hundreds of times a day happen at such a basic level of our consciousness that most of us never examine them.

A writer of a new culture would have to spend enormous effort explaining the culture or the reader wil make assumptions and the entire effort will have been wasted. Not only that, but it risks losing the reader.

So, what do the masters of new fictional cultures do? Mostly they go: "They are just like humans, (or a romanticized human subculture,) except..."

Example: every creature in Tolkien's work was a version of one or another class of Englishman.

Counterexample: Heinlein's Martians were never developed as a culture except through the lens of Smith learning to be human.

[Max_Killjoy]

The thing is, creating cultures is hard. Creating cultures with which human players and readers can identify is even harder.

In over fifty years of reading fiction I've seen it tried many times. Usually it fails miserably. Sometimes it doesn't kill the story. I've seen C. J. Cherryh do it well. Once.

Why?

Because humans understand one societal arrangememt and anything else is just confusing.

Don't believe me? Watch someone interact with their dog. Invariably they will treat it like a human child. Dog trainers will tell you this is a mistake, and everyone will say they know, but almost everyone does it anyway.

Culture is programmed at a very early stage of development and the unconscious assumptions we make hundreds of times a day happen at such a basic level of our consciousness that most of us never examine them.

A writer of a new culture would have to spend enormous effort explaining the culture or the reader wil make assumptions and the entire effort will have been wasted. Not only that, but it risks losing the reader.

So, what do the masters of new fictional cultures do? Mostly they go: "They are just like humans, (or a romanticized human subculture,) except..."

Example: every creature in Tolkien's work was a version of one or another class of Englishman.

Counterexample: Heinlein's Martians were never developed as a culture except through the lens of Smith learning to be human.

It's horribly hard, you've seen me grappling with it in the thread you were (very kindly) contributing (good) stories to -- I freely admit that other than the Twilight People / Zath, the cultures there are "just" remixes of existing or mythic cultures. The Moon People are mythic Fianna and mythic "gypsies" and so forth blended together, for example.

The Twilight People are in some ways "what if an entire culture was built on how my brain works?"

I do have the dubious advantage in this whole endeavor of feeling like an alien among my own species and within the overall culture of my country (or any other I suspect).

[Lord Raziere]

I do have the dubious advantage in this whole endeavor of feeling like an alien among my own species and within the overall culture of my country (or any other I suspect).

Oh so, similar to me then. I get that feeling sometimes to, can't get how anyone withstands small talk or whatever.

mostly my solution for making sure aliens are truly alien is to start with changing reproduction. it is the beginning the cycle to which all returns and altering that first makes sure there is a fundamental difference that cannot be bridged by human social mores. like for example, a race that reproduces through setting things on fire.

while my solution for making sure fantasy races are plausible are to say they are humans who have altered themselves magically to become them and all such fantasy-like races are literally just humans who decided to make themselves that way. that all playable fantasy races a literally magically altered offshoots of humanity, and are defined by reasons and purposes of their alteration. for these purposes I am currently working on a few archetypical reasons why humans would do this to put them into a few broad categories so that they will be organized, and I find many fantasy races suddenly make a lot more sense with this kind explanation and system.

[brian 333]

Oh so, similar to me then. I get that feeling sometimes to, can't get how anyone withstands small talk or whatever.

mostly my solution for making sure aliens are truly alien is to start with changing reproduction. it is the beginning the cycle to which all returns and altering that first makes sure there is a fundamental difference that cannot be bridged by human social mores. like for example, a race that reproduces through setting things on fire.

while my solution for making sure fantasy races are plausible are to say they are humans who have altered themselves magically to become them and all such fantasy-like races are literally just humans who decided to make themselves that way. that all playable fantasy races a literally magically altered offshoots of humanity, and are defined by reasons and purposes of their alteration. for these purposes I am currently working on a few archetypical reasons why humans would do this to put them into a few broad categories so that they will be organized, and I find many fantasy races suddenly make a lot more sense with this kind explanation and system.

This is an example of what I was trying to say: they make sense to you in a human context.

Let's take the reproductive bias as an example. Let's assume the issue is resolved the way corals do it and that the social distinctions male and female are not relevant. Now construct a society based on that.

No chivalry.
No art.
No marriage.
No crimes of passion.
No passion.

In fact, humans will have a hard time identifying with the oyster-people on any level.

One of the fundamental building blocks of human culture is the wonderful difference between the sexes, and without it things get bland fast.

And that's one of many such unspoken assumptions humans make. What about a culture which values children as much as corals do, or even sees them as pests? Or a culture that has fatal 'adulthood exams?' Or a culture that eats its elderly?

The farther from human we go the fewer readers or players we have who will stick with us to the end of the story.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is an example of what I was trying to say: they make sense to you in a human context.

Let's take the reproductive bias as an example. Let's assume the issue is resolved the way corals do it and that the social distinctions male and female are not relevant. Now construct a society based on that.

No chivalry.
No art.
No marriage.
No crimes of passion.
No passion.

In fact, humans will have a hard time identifying with the oyster-people on any level.

One of the fundamental building blocks of human culture is the wonderful difference between the sexes, and without it things get bland fast.

And that's one of many such unspoken assumptions humans make. What about a culture which values children as much as corals do, or even sees them as pests? Or a culture that has fatal 'adulthood exams?' Or a culture that eats its elderly?

The farther from human we go the fewer readers or players we have who will stick with us to the end of the story.

Back up -- no art?

[Lord Raziere]

Back up -- no art?

Honestly I question the existence of "no passion" as well. the passion and art may be different, but it would still exist.

[brian 333]

Honestly I question the existence of "no passion" as well. the passion and art may be different, but it would still exist.

It's valid to question it, I have for many years. Go to any museum in the world and look for the great artistic works of eunuchs.

For that matter, go to a patent office for the same.

There are many studies by people who get paid to study such things, so you should be able to get started on your research with a google search.

[Lord Raziere]

that seems like biased sampling. I doubt many people are eunuchs at all in the modern age, much less eunuch artists. not really equivalent to an alien species that never had sex to begin with, they would have to figure out some way of entertaining them even if they do it for the same reasons.

[brian 333]

Eunuchs were common enough that the number of gelded artists should be above 0.

But let's take another aspect of culture: language. Let us assume the culture never invented it.

It is, in fact, strange that humans did. It may have happened only once about 120,000 years ago, and we modern humans are all descended from a strange little woman who made weird noises with her mouth.

Non-lingual cultures existed before this, and it may have been a major difference between us and Neanderthals.

So, what aspects of culture change, and what does it take for us to find an empathic link to such people?

Again, art does not exist. The same part of the brain that creates language creates art. This takes romance out of the picture as well because romance is sexuality on a symbolic level. The question then becomes, how do I get readers to empathize with such people?

It's done by emphasizing the things we have in common. In other words, by showing how the invented culture is just like us, except...

[Lord Raziere]

eunuchs weren't seen as a positive thing. why would anyone in power want their works to be remembered? history is written by the winners after all. and being a eunuch is quite the physical loss- no sons or daughters, no legacy, no one to tell their tales or pass on what they valued. time erodes many things, and there is much about the past that isn't known. lack of evidence of eunuch art is proof of nothing. how would you even tell if a piece of art was made by one? its not as if there are specific brands or signifiers on art for "this was made by someone infertile". its very possible that they simply did not survive the march of time if not deliberately destroyed because people are prejudiced jerks. it wouldn't be the first time humanity has done such a thing, its not as if they need a reason aside from their stupidity.

there is simply too many other factors to reliably conclude what you have.

[Lacco]

Back up -- no art?

I think the "no art" would be dependant on mental faculties of the species/individuals. If we assume they are able to perceive beauty - by any standards - the "no art" becomes "different art".

Maybe more geometrically driven - creating new shapes, new connections, colours. Or even new flow of air/water between one's body parts :smallbiggrin:

And that could apply to most of Brian 333's list.

No Chivalry then becomes Different Chivalry (maybe protect the weaker/smaller/less intricate? protect clan/structure? give way to young/older/different colour?).

I would agree about the "no marriage".

No passion/crimes of passion could be "Different Passion" - maybe one connected to very different values? Again - with "oystercoral" people this could be related to flow of air/water around their bodies, purity of water one has available... or even spatially-focused passions ("You ruined my perfect plan for settling this rock, now choke on my children!").


In fact, humans will have a hard time identifying with the oyster-people on any level.

I definitely would, I'll give you that. But that's the best part about roleplaying for me - identifying with something you are not.

Someone likes their elves as beautiful humans with pointy ears and certain set of advantages - I like the idea of elf that is ageless, has been around for hundreds of years, knew the fort we are delving into when it was just a village surrounded by forests, and basically yells at humans (in his mind; elven etiquette/courtesy disallows such outbursts outside one's mind) "get off my lawn forest, I worked my elf-shaped bottom to get it this way for last 2400 years!". What would it be to go on adventure with someone whose life expectation is equal to our view of flies? As GM I am always angry when players refer to NPCs (especially those titled nobles) with "that fat guy"... but in case of elves in human society? Completely acceptable. "Oh, I don't remember the names and you humans look almost the same when you've seen 50,000 of them in last 1472 years... baron of this, baron of that - your barons switch places so fast I don't even manage to remember one..."


What about a culture which values children as much as corals do, or even sees them as pests? Or a culture that has fatal 'adulthood exams?' Or a culture that eats its elderly?

These are nice, can we discuss these instead of the whole "eunuch" thing?

[brian 333]

Another idea related to the OP:

Folklore had a place for most of the races we find in the Monster Manual. Go back to these roots.

Dwarves delve in mountains seeking gold and gems. You see them occasionally in human cities, but mostly they live apart and uninterestedin human affairs.

Gnomes live in homes beneath oddly located or shaped hills, and visitors who consume their mead/ale lose about a decade of time to wake naked in a strange place.

The Seelie and Unseelie fey courts, house sprites, and etc. all coexist with contemporary humans, and when a human sorceror or other magic user type summons them orcs swarm from their warrens to serve as soldiers in a monster-armt.

[Bohandas]

Now, there's the fact that you, personally, might prefer to have "civilization" consist almost entirely of humans. Ultimately, I can't stop you. But I can tell you that sounds boring and uninteresting,

On a related note, anyone who doesn't think its boring and uninteresting has clearly never studied Medieval European history. Without fantasy elements it's just a laundry list of dates when kings decided to send people to fight each other for stupid and/or irrelevant reasons.


that seems like biased sampling. I doubt many people are eunuchs at all in the modern age, much less eunuch artists.

That really depends on how you define it. Ignoring the social baggage of the term there are plenty of people who have had testicular cancer requiring amputation and plenty of postoperative transsexuals. If we take an even more aggressively nihilistic approach to the historical social baggage of the term (which I do) we can also include people who have had ovarian cancer requiring amputation.

[Lacco]

On a related note, anyone who doesn't think its boring and uninteresting has clearly never studied Medieval European history. Without fantasy elements it's just a laundry list of dates when kings decided to send people to fight each other for stupid and/or irrelevant reasons.

(not sure if you were serious or sarcastic, but I'll go with serious; also: using publicly available sources as I have no access to the library where I read the account below)

On global level, this view can be considered quite accurate. When we look at year

On personal level... not so much.

Let's say 1611... relatively unremarkable year by global standards. Denmark declares war on Sweden. King James Bible is published in England. Gustavus Adolphus succeeds his father as King of Sweden. Mutiny on Discovery. An uprising occurs in Moscow against occupying Polish forces, resulting in a major fire. (source: Wikipedia)

On global level: this is really boring. No dragon attacks (only fire in Moscow), no mystical elements, nothing special.

On personal level: Thibault participated on fencing tournament in Rotterdam, where he claimed first prize. According to some courses, he held a multi-day demonstration of his fighting style, where he invited any and all who would like to test their skill against him, beating everyone. Imagine Ip Man when he beat all those masters... but the main hero is a Belgian guy with a rapier. Definitely would like to see that.

So yes and no. Fantasy elements could make "the year" more colorful but from the viewpoint of individuals, the years themselves could have a lots of cool stuff. It's a matter of perspective.

Of course, in reality there will be definitely few months, even years where you can safely state "and nothing interesting happened". But my immersion is broken if I get a fantasy village where everything happens all the time :smallbiggrin:

[Satinavian]

Eunuchs were common enough that the number of gelded artists should be above 0.

There are thousands of eunuch artists. Just have a look at societies that actually had court eunuchs and eunuch officials and be impressed by the wide range of art they produced. Even if you ignore Chinese poetry there is quite a lot left.

You also need some social status to have time for art or get someone to pay you for doing art professionally or to get credit for your art. That is the reason there is little eunuch art of Europe.

I also don't think that gender is a particularly important part of modern culture and have no problem imagining societies without it.


What about a culture which values children as much as corals do, or even sees them as pests? Or a culture that has fatal 'adulthood exams?' Or a culture that eats its elderly?The only one of those i have not yet played is "eat the elderly". And i really don't see a problem with playing something nonhuman that actually does behave differently based on different biology.

[Tom Kalbfus]

What if we added amazons as a fantasy race, replacing orc hordes for instance? Just one gender, they mate with humans or elves to produce others of their kind.

[Trask]

I think something very important for capturing a truly medieval feel for a setting is to focus the setting around the perspective of the medieval society you are playing as. {Scrubbed} It would be an easy leap to make Orcs vikings but paint them not only as barbarians, but a divine scourge to punish some wrongdoing in the land.

{Scrubbed}

[Lacco]

Would that mean that you can not really have a party that includes a cleric of certain deity and a druid due to imminent conflict?

This could of course work if both sides would enjoy the tussle, but could not be easily applied in all groups.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Would that mean that you can not really have a party that includes a cleric of certain deity and a druid due to imminent conflict?

This could of course work if both sides would enjoy the tussle, but could not be easily applied in all groups.
This focuses on a mediaeval world linked to a specific geographic region, namely Europe. There are other parts of the mediaeval world with their own perspective, there is the middle east, and the far east, there is the New World, {Scrubbed}

[Trask]

Would that mean that you can not really have a party that includes a cleric of certain deity and a druid due to imminent conflict?

This could of course work if both sides would enjoy the tussle, but could not be easily applied in all groups.

{Scrubbed}

I think having party members be different brands of the same overall religion is a much more realistic party tension than being of completely different religions. In a truly medieval setting the latter is extremely not likely, and would kill more roleplay than it would create imo.

{Scrubbed} The literal existence of a church wards off monsters for miles around. Holy water sprinkled on grain keeps the necro-locusts away. {Scrubbed} A public display of piety can dispel a band of orcs.

Theres a lot to play around with when you take things at face value and interpret them literally.

But all that relies on it being actually true (to some degree) and not relative.

{Scrubbed} Thats how to avoid the D&D kitchen sink where gods are just kind of floating around and "evil" is terribly mundane.

[Tom Kalbfus]

{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote}
Theres a lot to play around with when you take things at face value and interpret them literally.

But all that relies on it being actually true (to some degree) and not relative.

{Scrubbed post, scrubbed quote} Thats how to avoid the D&D kitchen sink where gods are just kind of floating around and "evil" is terribly mundane.

{Scrubbed}

[Max_Killjoy]

Not to be That Guy, but I'm afraid for this thread's future if the discussion keeps going along these lines.

[Trask]

Not to be That Guy, but I'm afraid for this thread's future if the discussion keeps going along these lines.

oof yeah i forgot about that rule.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Not to be That Guy, but I'm afraid for this thread's future if the discussion keeps going along these lines.

My suggestion is to look at how fantasy creatures are used in classic fairy tales and then use them in that way. I'll give you an example. Lets take Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. How common are dwarves in the fantasy world where Snow White and her stepmother the evil Queen live? The dwarves live in a forest, it appears to be a mining camp, no female dwarves are mentioned. What does this say about dwarf society if we use this example?

[Ventruenox]

Mödley Crüe: As a reminder - when you play ball here, the churchyards and government property are considered out of bounds. Resume game.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Mödley Crüe: As a reminder - when you play ball here, the churchyards and government property are considered out of bounds. Resume game.
A castle is government property. I assume by government, you don't mean kings, queens, dukes, earls, counts, barons in a fantasy setting.

[Ventruenox]

Mödley Crüe: a lighthearted attempt to say "avoid real world politics and religion in this discussion."

[Lacco]

@Ventruenox: Thanks for the reminder. Will try to stick to non-volatile points.


What if we added amazons as a fantasy race, replacing orc hordes for instance? Just one gender, they mate with humans or elves to produce others of their kind.

First idea: Would different racial combinations produce different result?


I think having party members be different brands of the same overall religion is a much more realistic party tension than being of completely different religions. In a truly medieval setting the latter is extremely not likely, and would kill more roleplay than it would create imo.

I prefer different "Faith". And while likely, with direct intervention from divine powers of different types (e.g. Thor & Dark One both having their clerics with wondrous power) and a pantheon (or several competing pantheons) you would get party members of different brands.

Historically, I can not say - I am not that knowledgeable - but I assume you could get very interesting roleplay, and mainly in such combative environment as standard RPG campaign you would find characters of different faiths fighting alongside. For country, for ideals, for survival... for money, for power... many possibilities.

Of course, in Faith-focused campaign the focus would be different. And I agree - this can go bad really fast - depending on the GM and the players.

Also: playing completely different system, my focus is also different. When a player asks to be a divine caster, it's actually a big deal and they are not reduced to magical band-aid.


My suggestion is to look at how fantasy creatures are used in classic fairy tales and then use them in that way. I'll give you an example. Lets take Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. How common are dwarves in the fantasy world where Snow White and her stepmother the evil Queen live? The dwarves live in a forest, it appears to be a mining camp, no female dwarves are mentioned. What does this say about dwarf society if we use this example?

...that maybe some of the Seven Dwarves were actually female but we were unable to tell?

Silly idea.

Regarding fairy tales - Sapkowski has done some work with this idea already (7 gnome miners turned bandits; little mermaid; etc.). Depending on what country you are from, you get wildly different fairy tales. Some of my favourites - Fearless and Good-for-nothing the Best Knight - could be turned into adventure paths :smallwink:

We also have quite many local legends - every castle (and if I remember correctly, there are 100+ of them even though most are ruined) has a legend on its own (especially the ruined ones). But for worldbuilding...:
13th of December: the name day for Lucia (Lucy). If you craft a stool from one piece of wood (you need to work on it every day and use no nails) and sit on it on crossroads, you get to see all the witches you ever met. Other version states that by doing so you not only see them - and their true visage - but you pull all of them towards yourself (so you better run fast). Third version states you need to make a hole into the stool and when you look into the hole, you will see the witches' world.

[Tom Kalbfus]

@Ventruenox: Thanks for the reminder. Will try to stick to non-volatile points.



First idea: Would different racial combinations produce different result?



I prefer different "Faith". And while likely, with direct intervention from divine powers of different types (e.g. Thor & Dark One both having their clerics with wondrous power) and a pantheon (or several competing pantheons) you would get party members of different brands.

Historically, I can not say - I am not that knowledgeable - but I assume you could get very interesting roleplay, and mainly in such combative environment as standard RPG campaign you would find characters of different faiths fighting alongside. For country, for ideals, for survival... for money, for power... many possibilities.

Of course, in Faith-focused campaign the focus would be different. And I agree - this can go bad really fast - depending on the GM and the players.

Also: playing completely different system, my focus is also different. When a player asks to be a divine caster, it's actually a big deal and they are not reduced to magical band-aid.



...that maybe some of the Seven Dwarves were actually female but we were unable to tell?

Silly idea.

Regarding fairy tales - Sapkowski has done some work with this idea already (7 gnome miners turned bandits; little mermaid; etc.). Depending on what country you are from, you get wildly different fairy tales. Some of my favourites - Fearless and Good-for-nothing the Best Knight - could be turned into adventure paths :smallwink:

We also have quite many local legends - every castle (and if I remember correctly, there are 100+ of them even though most are ruined) has a legend on its own (especially the ruined ones). But for worldbuilding...:
13th of December: the name day for Lucia (Lucy). If you craft a stool from one piece of wood (you need to work on it every day and use no nails) and sit on it on crossroads, you get to see all the witches you ever met. Other version states that by doing so you not only see them - and their true visage - but you pull all of them towards yourself (so you better run fast). Third version states you need to make a hole into the stool and when you look into the hole, you will see the witches' world.

You could simply have human bandits, orcs are just a substitute for those. Orcs don't add any unique abilities, they serve as bad guys, bags of menacing hit points that pcs need to kill.

[Lacco]

You could simply have human bandits, orcs are just a substitute for those. Orcs don't add any unique abilities, they serve as bad guys, bags of menacing hit points that pcs need to kill.

I normally use human bandits - and in one case elven bandits - since the game world I normally play is quite human-centric.

Also, I would suggest you to take a look at how Burning Wheel manages orcs. It's quite interesting.

In my current game world, the orcs are a bit different - not only bags of menacing hit points (no hitpoints also, detailed wound system) - during worldbuilding one of the players came with an idea for a half-orc character, a friendly wild guy with nature-loving streak, who can - and will - kill you with your own arms torn off if you make him too angry. Result is in spoiler.

I never viewed Elves as "nature loving hippies" and also liked Sapkowski's version (basically: elves are planehopping race that usually travels somewhere, subdues the available races, sucks resources and goes on, but they were "stranded" in local plane and can't get away unless they open some planar gates; the elves that are born on local plane are basically "wild" elves - not "high" elves, but they like to pretend they are this ancient natural race).
So elves - they are the "magic" race. Long-lived, careful not to upset the balance, but still able and willing to exploit natural resources to their limit. They build cities, castles, utilizing magic as far as possible.

So with Player X's basic premise for nature-loving orc, the wheels in my brain started working and voilá - ORCS are the nature race. Wild, free, naturalistic, predatory, animalistic - they live in harmony with nature. Elves are wary of long-term consequences, but still change and manipulate nature, an orc just lies down in middle of forest and takes a nap, hunts only to feed himself and his clan - something inspired by an old book of native american tales I read a long time ago (no idea about RL counterparts).

Orcs have camps, no real cities - and where possible, try to have as small impact on nature. So when they build actual settlements, they build them in ruined cities, temples - even dungeons - so they "use" the space provided instead of building a new city. And some of them also have druidic magic available - the only "natural" source of magic.

Orcs still have their "dark side" - when they are in line with nature, they are calm and peaceful. But when they see nature suffer, they start slowly to hate - and in the end the hatred consumes them.

Oh and the wars between human nations and orcs? Human nations - most of them - still think this is orcish "warlike nature" and desire to conquer. But the wars originated from the basic conflict - humans took too much from nature too fast; orcs tried to take it back.


But back to the discussion:

Which fairy tales would you use in your games?

[Tom Kalbfus]

I normally use human bandits - and in one case elven bandits - since the game world I normally play is quite human-centric.

Also, I would suggest you to take a look at how Burning Wheel manages orcs. It's quite interesting.

In my current game world, the orcs are a bit different - not only bags of menacing hit points (no hitpoints also, detailed wound system) - during worldbuilding one of the players came with an idea for a half-orc character, a friendly wild guy with nature-loving streak, who can - and will - kill you with your own arms torn off if you make him too angry. Result is in spoiler.

I never viewed Elves as "nature loving hippies" and also liked Sapkowski's version (basically: elves are planehopping race that usually travels somewhere, subdues the available races, sucks resources and goes on, but they were "stranded" in local plane and can't get away unless they open some planar gates; the elves that are born on local plane are basically "wild" elves - not "high" elves, but they like to pretend they are this ancient natural race).
So elves - they are the "magic" race. Long-lived, careful not to upset the balance, but still able and willing to exploit natural resources to their limit. They build cities, castles, utilizing magic as far as possible.

So with Player X's basic premise for nature-loving orc, the wheels in my brain started working and voilá - ORCS are the nature race. Wild, free, naturalistic, predatory, animalistic - they live in harmony with nature. Elves are wary of long-term consequences, but still change and manipulate nature, an orc just lies down in middle of forest and takes a nap, hunts only to feed himself and his clan - something inspired by an old book of native american tales I read a long time ago (no idea about RL counterparts).

Orcs have camps, no real cities - and where possible, try to have as small impact on nature. So when they build actual settlements, they build them in ruined cities, temples - even dungeons - so they "use" the space provided instead of building a new city. And some of them also have druidic magic available - the only "natural" source of magic.

Orcs still have their "dark side" - when they are in line with nature, they are calm and peaceful. But when they see nature suffer, they start slowly to hate - and in the end the hatred consumes them.

Oh and the wars between human nations and orcs? Human nations - most of them - still think this is orcish "warlike nature" and desire to conquer. But the wars originated from the basic conflict - humans took too much from nature too fast; orcs tried to take it back.


But back to the discussion:

Which fairy tales would you use in your games?
Have King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table rule Britian. Britain gets is a war with a bunch of evil cloud giants that live in the clouds, from Jack in the Beanstalk. Alladin is living somewhere in Morroco. Robin Hood and his Merry men are fighting a guerilla war against the cloud giants who are occupying a part of Britain. The Snow White story takes place in the kingdom of Bavaria. The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire is a little nuts, he was seen prancing about without any clothes on, saying he was wearing invisible clothes. Cinderella is French. An Ice Queen rules Norway. There is a toymaker in Italy who made an animated puppet.

A few ideas. Of course you may want to replace King Arthur with Beowulf, that works too.

[Sam113097]

I normally use human bandits - and in one case elven bandits - since the game world I normally play is quite human-centric.

Also, I would suggest you to take a look at how Burning Wheel manages orcs. It's quite interesting.

In my current game world, the orcs are a bit different - not only bags of menacing hit points (no hitpoints also, detailed wound system) - during worldbuilding one of the players came with an idea for a half-orc character, a friendly wild guy with nature-loving streak, who can - and will - kill you with your own arms torn off if you make him too angry. Result is in spoiler.

I never viewed Elves as "nature loving hippies" and also liked Sapkowski's version (basically: elves are planehopping race that usually travels somewhere, subdues the available races, sucks resources and goes on, but they were "stranded" in local plane and can't get away unless they open some planar gates; the elves that are born on local plane are basically "wild" elves - not "high" elves, but they like to pretend they are this ancient natural race).
So elves - they are the "magic" race. Long-lived, careful not to upset the balance, but still able and willing to exploit natural resources to their limit. They build cities, castles, utilizing magic as far as possible.

So with Player X's basic premise for nature-loving orc, the wheels in my brain started working and voilá - ORCS are the nature race. Wild, free, naturalistic, predatory, animalistic - they live in harmony with nature. Elves are wary of long-term consequences, but still change and manipulate nature, an orc just lies down in middle of forest and takes a nap, hunts only to feed himself and his clan - something inspired by an old book of native american tales I read a long time ago (no idea about RL counterparts).

Orcs have camps, no real cities - and where possible, try to have as small impact on nature. So when they build actual settlements, they build them in ruined cities, temples - even dungeons - so they "use" the space provided instead of building a new city. And some of them also have druidic magic available - the only "natural" source of magic.

Orcs still have their "dark side" - when they are in line with nature, they are calm and peaceful. But when they see nature suffer, they start slowly to hate - and in the end the hatred consumes them.

Oh and the wars between human nations and orcs? Human nations - most of them - still think this is orcish "warlike nature" and desire to conquer. But the wars originated from the basic conflict - humans took too much from nature too fast; orcs tried to take it back.


But back to the discussion:

Which fairy tales would you use in your games?

I love this take on orcs! You've helped me solve some writer's block in one of the setting's I'm making concerning the role of orcs in the setting!