As far as fantasy RPG settings with a gajillion and one races/monsters are concerned, I have noticed two main schools of thought:
A. Kitchen sink. Everything goes. There are tons and tons of "standalone" or "one-off" races/monsters that exist independently of everything else, creating a wonderfully diverse world. Most D&D editions' setting-less monster books lean towards this. Pathfinder's Golarion is absolutely the poster child of this, no contest.
B. Most race/monster types have a well-defined niche in the setting. Rather than introduce plenty of "standalone" or "one-off" races/monsters, there is an emphasis on directly tying new creatures and their origins to preexisting races/monsters. Most fantasy RPGs with a non-D&D heritage lean towards this, and even D&D 4e has shades of this with its push towards the Dawn War cosmology.
Which school of thought do you lean towards, and why?
Juan Kelly
>As far as RPG boards with a gajillion and one shitposts are concerned, I have noticed two main schools of thought:
A. OP should kill himself
B. OP should kill himself
Which school of thought do you lean towards, and why?
Alexander Torres
Kitchen sink. A setting is for play, and playing needs as MANY weird little guys to rescue as possible.
Oliver Peterson
Sergalfag?
Lincoln Harris
They're both bad, as are settings with non-human races in general, because they always end up as "Humans but with X quirk stapled on and/or Y personality/cultural trait super exaggerated and fladerized."
Humans as the only playable races make the best settings. But this entire topic was just fur-bait/monster-fetish shit, wasn't it, OP?
Owen Parker
Kitchen sink, as long as they're not boring dwarves/elves or fetish shit catgirls.
Beastfolk settings are best settings - you got every archetype you need: strong, communal wolves, big lazy bears, trickster foxes...
Cameron Jenkins
oh, howdy human only troll. How's the bites today?
Anthony Hughes
Not too well I guess? That's a shame. Maybe you should try varying it up?
Kayden Watson
Well, he can, this IS 4chins. Doesn't mean there's not a point though.
Really this is a problem with every kitchen sink setting though. If you want things to stand out and be unique, you can't can't have 100 different varieties of that thing. This is why DnD is such an indistinct mush.
Caleb Gutierrez
>Hurrdurr shitposter is baiting! >Hurrdurr I'm gonna take the bait! >Hurdurr I'm gonna keep taking the bait after pointing it out as bait!
Samuel Rogers
see, there you go.
Levi Morris
I'm inside you, forever.
Tyler Collins
Humans as the only playable race isn't a bad thing for games. It's not what people are usually looking for in their fantasy games, but it works perfectly fine. I've seen alot of simpler games make good use of having only 1-4 playable races, balance-wise.
Dominic Adams
Sure, mr not-raising-the-poster-count.
Matthew Stewart
I'm convinced you're just arguing with yourself now, OP.
Brandon Thomas
Nah, that would require pictures to generate a bump.
Kayden Murphy
No, he's right, actually. There are some games where having only humans be playable is a good thing.
However, there's a difference between playing/GMing a human-only game and going full Humanfag. Never go full Humanfag.
Camden Nelson
Oh, it's fair to say that you can have human only games that are good. But if someone is going into a thread asking about racial preferences that does not include "human only" to bitch about how great human only is, we can probably assume they're a troll. Especially with the amount of spamming that guy has been doing lately.
Austin Peterson
How about you actually come up with counter-arguments instead of screaming that everyone who disagrees with you is a troll and samefag (especially when one of them already had their posts removed apparently).
Jack Ross
Nah, it's pretty obvious this one's a troll, mr. doesn't raise the poster count. No other good reason for him to be here.
Anthony Bell
No, the only spamming is you, who in your juvenile paranoia, thinks more than a single person disagreeing with you is some grand conspiracy to troll the board. In a topic that was fucking furshit bait to begin with.
Logan Reed
Look man, it's pretty obvious. Especially with how you are going on about how you hate the topic.
Jacob Brooks
Are you retarded, people can post in a topic multiple times. I don't even agree with the human-only thing, but you're being a twat.
Logan Ward
Yes, they can. That's the point. It is not a new person agreeing, it's the same person re-iterating what they said. And possibly even the troll in question.
Evan Johnson
It works because it makes something actually fantastic happen. If you can play dwarves and elves, they'll be 'human but' because you're human. It's incredibly difficult to really put yourself in the head of even other humans, let alone something that isn't.
If dwarves are obsessed with crafts and skills to an inhuman degree, live in a strict society where wrongs are never forgotten and everything is in its ordered place, you can take a good stab at it letting them be playable and turn them into cantankerous smiths and brewers or follow that logic to more magical and fantastic extremes that leave them as unsuitable for players. Elves you probably already get (you can play legolas but not the winter knight of the seelie court) and so on.