Poll - What is your opinion on exotic races?

[trylobyte]

Sept 30, 2014 12:01:24 GMT -5 Edge said:

I'm not going to debate the semantics of the narrow gap between "only" and "primarily" in this context with you. I have better things to do with my time and I presume you do too.

Not really.  It's a slow day at work.  <.<

[Edge]

Fair enough I guess. I can't say the same.

Frankly the whole debate hinges on not what is true but your personal perception of such and the resulting accusation, which is even more pointless a basis for an argument. Until you can come up with a direct quote from someone - preferably someone who is active NOW - saying they picked a race just for the stats, it's really just conjecture and bias on your own part.

[trylobyte]

Sept 30, 2014 12:04:49 GMT -5 Edge said:

Fair enough I guess. I can't say the same.

Frankly the whole debate hinges on not what is true but your personal perception of such and the resulting accusation, which is even more pointless a basis for an argument. Until you can come up with a direct quote from someone - preferably someone who is active NOW - saying they picked a race just for the stats, it's really just conjecture and bias on your own part.

Allow me then to elaborate a bit, so you know where I'm coming from.  I don't mean to offend people quite as much as I do, and I think the reason for that is that I probably have a different mindset.  Namely, I have two sticking points that make ECL races a really touchy subject for me.

1)  I see ECL races as things that should be a little bit rare and exotic.  Special things.  They're meant to be races that inspire feelings in a 'mundane' character, whether that be fear, awe, curiosity, or hostility.  Right now, I kinda don't see that.  Because they have become so commonplace and the reaction to them is so player-centric, they've become 'just another day in Arabel.'  It makes some of the remaining pieces of the setting look awkward as well, such as why half-orcs are legally banned from Arabel while half-fiends, half-dragons, and even the occasional drow walk around like it's no big deal.  I personally try to avoid ECL races unless I can't tell the story I want to without using them (I have two drow and an aasimar) and I tend to expect other people to do the same.  This dovetails neatly into...

2)  I tend to be mechanically-focused.  I spend all day working with complex systems and as such I tend to think in terms of systems.  The main system in NWN is obviously the game mechanics engine.  When I see ECL races, especially the high-ECL ones, I see a huge mechanical advantage for a low trade-off.  I see what would be called overpowered in other games.  The D&D mechanics that normally keep ECL races in check (lower overall levels, weaker/fewer magic items, caps on XP, NPC reactions) don't really exist in NWN.

This combines to give me the general opinion of 'ECL races are overpowered.  They're obviously not taking those races because they're original or rare or unusual, because they're not.  How many stories really require the player to be that race?  They must have mechanically-motivated reasons, otherwise they wouldn't feel the need to keep making more of those races.'

Am I right?  No.  I'm often wrong.  I know this.  But it doesn't stop me from thinking it, and as you can see in my replies, it's going to taint my thinking a lot on this topic.

I apologize to everyone I've offended already and I preemptively apologize to the people I will probably continue to offend as I post.

[The Nameless Bard]

Honestly, I think a lot of people have similar feelings to point 1, we've just, as Kirin has said, Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zoo.

[Edge]

Since I'm in a ranting mood anyway I'll just go ahead and elucidate on my own stance on this. I've probably got a fair chance of being the resident speaker for fans of exotic races - if I had to guess, I think the only person with a larger weird:normal ratio in their vault is probably Vincent. Maybe FW or Bella as well.

You wanna know why I play exotic-race characters? Why I like them? Why the vast majority of my characters are something bizarre and unusual?

Because I am BORED of the Standard Seven.

I am BORED by almost every single campaign setting being occupied primarily by Tolkien knockoffs. I am BORED of Elves and Dwarves and Orcs and Halflings. And I am absolutely, positively, completely, utterly, totally SICK AND TIRED of HUMANS. Paizo and Pathfinder at least did something interesting and different and bizarre enough with Gnomes to make them interesting where in prior versions of the game they were utterly forgettable not-halflings not-dwarves not-elves, and made them stick out from the rest of an array of base species that can all be narrowed down to "Humans with different bodily phenotypes". Tall skinny human. Short stocky human. Big burly primitive human. Short sneaky human.

This isn't fantastical to me. The allure, the mystery, the fantasy of these races isn't fantastical. And it breaches settings. Just how different is a Greyhawk elf from an FR elf from a Golarion elf? Not a whole heck of a lot! Even less so with dwarves and orcs - you could toss one from one setting to another and likely most of their OWN KIND wouldn't even blink! Much less other races!

At least Eberron had the decency to shake things up a bit!

Nowadays, when I want to create a character for a fantasy game, I want something fantastic. In my PnP games, this is built into the system - Bella, Kamon, and the rest of my group use a homebrewed setting with a vast array of exotic, alien, unusual creatures as playable races, built into a world where such things are expected, a fantastical world where just because something doesn't look humanoid doesn't mean it can't be anything but the next combat encounter. That's less of an option here, because of the in-place exotic race system and the FR-based setting, but it's still an option that's available, one I have taken advantage of and will continue to do so in the future.

Now inevitably any time a complaint like this gets brought up, there will always be some genius who responds, "Well, what makes a character interesting should be their character and their actions and their story, not their race!". Which is true - as Trylo has, all too often, complained, there have been numerous incidents of exotic characters who had little more to them than a cardboard sign reading "I'm a monster! Rawr!" But race is one of the biggest building blocks of fantasy characters. It determines their origins, their history, their culture, their background, where they've come from and quite often where they're going, at least at the beginning of their adventure. And frankly, the cultures and backgrounds of most of the standard races BORE ME. I've never been a big fan of elves. Halflings were never all that interesting to begin with, especially in FR. 3.5 gnomes are forgettable; I don't even know what their story is on FR or if they even have one, beyond their (ugh and immensely problematic) rivalry with kobolds. Orcs are bluh. And even as much as I like the stereotypical dwarf as a construct, the idea of playing one has lost its luster. And humans are humans.

Hence why I reach for stranger realms when new character concepts start bubbling up. Cultures that haven't been dabbled in as much. Histories and backstories that are still interesting to me. It's why I can't thank FW and Vince enough that the World Serpent exists on CD - it gives me all of Planescape (a setting that as far as interesting and cool goes kicks FR to the curb and steals its teeth then sells them on the Sigil black market) to pull background ideas from.

That's pretty much in total why I get prickly when comments like Trylo's come out about "only/primarily playing certain races for the stats, not the story". Because these are the only stories I'm really interested in playing, but because they're mechanically superior to the basics, it's just assumed from the get-go that the numbers are the driving reason.

[The Red Mage]

Well, you can look at the races applied for and the class progression they aim for to see the convenience between ECL picked and build planned. I can write a convincing exotic race application in an hour and come up with a decent back story. Having had so many(probably almost two hundred) characters on this server since I started, making character backgrounds is easy. Having spent years in writing workshops and having a passion for story telling and DMing makes it easy to come up with, at least, something decent. But as I said, I think it would be more creative and more thought provoking for -other people- in almost every application I could write if the race was substituted as human instead of X ECL.

That's my stance on it though. I find it much more challenging to level and play a vanilla race that has a particular struggle in multiple areas rather than insert a race that would supplement my build idea and google stuff and insert random tidbits of information to make a story coherent and develop it afterward. Maybe I just like to avoid certain "fall from grace rise to glory" storytelling tropes in my characters since I don't think I could bare to play that with interest for hundreds and hundreds of hours.

I want to be surprised as a player and a DM. When I see a certain race and/or build with the race, I've a pretty good guess as to what their background, stuggles, or ambitions are going to be. The overlay is comparable to humans with the same build, but there's a wide berth for surprise that locking in an ECL prohibits. When I rolled a half-gold monk, I did so so that my character would be unwavering in his conviction for such and such, but as I played it out, I found the lack of flexibility really showed in his appeal to others. Of course he's capable of bending, but how far could I really take it without going against the actual BLOOD of the character? A human or vanilla race doesn't face those things. You can completely flow with whatever story there is and be changed despite character integrity and such, because it's more believable and immersive for them to change in a story.

While I do think ECLs are mechanical monsters and introduce a power creep that needs to be balanced around for higher level dungeons, content, and quests which leaves others a step behind in scaling, my biggest issue is story telling potential and how ECLs can get left behind in bigger plots, because they simply don't fit and would -never- fit. I feel that's an issue that should've stayed present on applications where it use to ask, "Why can't this be non ECL?" The answers to that question aren't convincing at all.

These are my opinions. I've been impressed by some ECL play, but I also think most of the ECL storylines I've seen would've been more impressive -to me- if they weren't expected struggles. You can be the best prose writer of all time, but retelling a story or introducing expected plot curves won't sell an audience as well as surprise or betraying someone's expectation.

I won't lobby against ECLs like I've done in the past, but I think there is a lack of consideration for storytelling in the application process when most applications are plugs for build holes.

-Edit- Edge is the guy who picks catgirls in FFXIV! I knew it!

[Edge]

Sept 30, 2014 12:39:45 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

-Edit- Edge is the guy who picks catgirls in FFXIV! I knew it!

What I wanted to be able to play in an FF game that I didn't get a chance to was those lizard dudes in XII. Never been a big fan of catfolk, though we have lionfolk in our setting, Bella created those.

[Edge]

I feel that's an issue that should've stayed present on applications where it use to ask, "Why can't this be non ECL?" The answers to that question aren't convincing at all.

I was actually one of the ones who suggested to remove that question back when it was on the app. Because I agree, let's be quite honest, there is no concept that can be played that can't be done, with a little tweaking, with a "normal" race. And frankly I considered it a pointless question as a result.

It's what it is because that's what the player wants, whatever their reasons. I personally don't think it needs to be justified beyond that.

[The Red Mage]

I feel your sentiment of just being "bored" of playing vanilla races to be the most valid argument thus far. If someone put that on their application, I would honestly just say, "Well shit, alright".

[Edge]

Hah! Fair then.

[trylobyte]

Sept 30, 2014 12:58:38 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

I feel your sentiment of just being "bored" of playing vanilla races to be the most valid argument thus far. If someone put that on their application, I would honestly just say, "Well shit, alright".

This makes perfect sense to me as well, especially for an old-timer like you.   

[Arya]

Sept 30, 2014 11:45:40 GMT -5 Nymera said:

Sept 30, 2014 11:42:02 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

I honestly wouldn't consider this snarky at all when demographics can be plotted.

To be fair, even if every single player was a half-dragon, Arabel still has an NPC population of thousands of humans.

This. SO much this.  

The adventuring population as a whole constitutes as...what? 1, maybe up to 5% of the entire population?  They would be part of the "Other" population on demographics, if you want to put demographics into the mix.  So sometimes not even 1% of the population.

And quite honestly, some of the comments about the exotics, the elves, etc have been quite snarky in this thread, so people are going to take further comments egging those comments on as pretty much snark at this point. It gets old very fast.

~Arya

To be entirely different my own experience with ECL's is this.

First, it's not the race or the special glamour they have.  Fey are included in this.  It's how they're played and how interesting a player makes them.  Instead of relying on the extra bits, horns, wings, attributes and special abilities and coolness that goes along with an unexpected race, there's deeply involved story lines that develop and how those traits are perceived and involved in the story lines of others.  Now, those traits are widely different and it makes for examining what makes these characters who they are equally an interesting process because there's meat to play with.  Regular chars, dwarves, elves, humans, gnomes(That aren't used in Trebuchets), Hin, and half orcs, all have a wide variety of traits and personalities that make Rp great, and it's a matter of finding and bringing it out in an interesting way.

Second, ECL's may have an advantage mechanically, but again... it matters on the player using them.  I personally suck at playing them and regularly my chars are treated as pushovers.  I'm okay with that, it simply means I've less talent at NWN than most others.  No shame in admitting it.  If someone played it better and powerbuilt a cleric or a weapon's master, I look past all that and see how much effort is put into RP and so on.  It's what makes encounters great.  Yes I'm scared your character can annihilate mine, but it's how you come across and display or hide your talents that make it fantastic.  Really a subtle blend of both worlds.

Hope this wasn't snarky and was helpful.

[The Red Mage]

I've always wanted to play a Fey character, but I don't know how.

[The Nameless Bard]

Sept 30, 2014 15:48:20 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

I've always wanted to play a Fey character, but I don't know how.

Goat made a handy guide just for you!