[PnP] To be a noble or not to be...

[Albert Sales]

I concur with most. Humans never became boring for me in PnP. If the game is based outside of human society, the other races work well (we even did a goblin game once, about six sessions, I think). A human trained as a sidh will definately accept the elder. Also, the Zenda have a love for the elder, so it seems (perhaps not the sidh, however). If you want more non-humans, it is not hard to make it work, if that is what your players want.
On role-playing, the non-humans are tough. We require 2 games as a human, then the option for a dwarf arises. After about 18 months of exposure, we allow for elves. We will only allow a player to use a faerry (we have actually had several) after they show that they understand the basic systems, magic, societal role-playing, and how easily they can become paste. Our most interesting was a faerry brute who went by the nickname of toe-tickler. He would carry his victims shortly above tree-level until he was ready to drop them and loot. He put a LOT into Stamina, and a good amount into strength. 
When included, we found that non-human characters greatly enriched our games. I used the write-ups for the races and alignments to come up with some (physiological) racial personality traits. The descriptions are good enough to show that they all see the world in a completely different way. I will look for this (or rewrite it) to share later.

Scott Adams <longshot at darktech.org> wrote:
At 10:12 AM 10/19/04 -0400, you wrote: 

I read this and wonder how people played most non-human races in their games. 

In my world, nobody ever played a Faeery.  Never. 

I think I might have seen ONE elf.  The problem being that for the most part, many cultures don't like or trust elves (especially around Donara, which being close to Caldo (the main center we tended to use) was troublesome.  

Dwarves were more accepted, at least in cultures with any sort of elder respect. 

In short, my world was much more humano-centric then Scott's obviosly was for his play-by-mail game (and probably face-to-face games).  I guess I played my world a lot more gritty-realistic in that sense in that non-human races just tended to get crapped on by the cultures in the area, so they relagate themselves to their various enclaves.  
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In my world non-humans are known as would say most major cultures in human society now.  Everyone knows about and what a Arab looks like or a typical ethopian.  So there is that culture awareness in my world.  Going forward, I allow anything to be played.  Course there are problems with some races entering some areas and having bias or hatred.  In those cases they have to disguise or hide all together.  Marentia is just one of those cultures that is more open since it is sort of crossroads to many areas.  This is one reason I wanted to do my culture project (specifically that non-human chart on which culture liked which races...that will help in the future).  Because of this awareness and the awareness that many creatures are out there people in my world don't run when they see a faerry.  They may stare...they may sneer...they may laugh..but they don't run.  In some areas they may charge and burn him alive :).  In another area of major play for me over the last 2 decades is the Port
 Doman area of the world.  In that area we never saw much non-humans or ran them.  For obvious reasons.  So it just depends on situation and place.

Elf - Easy to run since they are the easiest to disguise.  Lighting helps in many ways as well.  A simple hood will do wonders...  I like elfs for their basic skills though a bit sterotypical (ie archers, etc.). 

Dwarves  - Easy to disguise as kids or small humans in some cases.  They are the hardest though for me and most of my players to run.  Since they have to have a distinct personality trait to work with and run it not so much 'human'.

Faerry - The hardest to disguise but they tend to have magic to offset this.  Faerry aren't strong so they make just nice magic users or field scouts or archers or such...Faerry I love for their basic mischevious nature and one can have some real fun with them.

Humans just get so boring after decades of playing in some ways.  ITs good to play everything so you can get a feel for the race.  I've even had special situations of players taking on other races like animal races or such if there is a specific special need for it.  It adds spice to things.  


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