Designing Races

So I guess this is a game design post, talking about some considerations when designing races for your game, but it's also a Centerra post, because I'll talk about the races there.

So, a lot of game design is top-down.  Someone starts brainstorming their world, and thinks about four-to-seven distinct races for their game world.  Elves-dwarves-orcs-hobbits-humans, perhaps.  Or giants-kenku-illithids, maybe.  Then they start thinking about what kind of bonuses each race would get, and that stuff gets written in.

Giants get +4 Strength.  Kenku get +4 Stealth.  Because that's what makes sense for the fiction, so that's what should be reflected in the statblock, right?

The problem with this is that it quickly leads to synergy, which leads to builds.  (At least if you have race and class as separate.)  People who want to play smashy fighters will be drawn to giants, and giant players will be coaxed towards being fighters.  And in balancy games, the game will be balanced for that level of optimization.

Same thing with kenku and rogues.

GLOG Design Rule #48: Race abilities/bonuses should not synergize with class abilities/bonuses.

GLOG Design Rule #3: Never use small, passive bonuses.  They're boring, easy to overlook, potentially confusing, and often lead to synergy.  Use active abilities instead.  (What Extra Credits calls "incomparables".)

Even if you use race-as-class, the dwarf class is still going to be good at fighting and bad at magic, and so a player who wants a dwarven mage is out of luck.  (This is why I like keeping race and class separate, even though I hate synergy/builds/mechanical optimization.)

GLOG Design Rule #51: Class and race should be separate.  Race should be optional.  (All human campaigns are my favorite these days, with other races being unlocked as play progresses.)

And one more thing.

When a player chooses their class, they are sort of choosing their play style as well.

A player who chooses a barbarian tells the DM that they (probably) want to kick down doors, drink beer, and break shit.

A player who chooses a wizard tells the DM that they (probably) want to study problems, spend time in preparation, and overcome them in one fell swoop.

Et cetera.

I like that.  I think classes should be conducive to certain types of play styles.

So here's my idea: what if players picked classes to determine what role they wanted to play, but the table as a whole picks a single race to determine what type of game they want to play.

GLOG Design Rule #44: Races should be written as to encourage the whole party to pick a single race, and that choice of race should modulate the game in such a way so that it changes the way the entire party approaches the game.

snail man by Richard Partridge

Here are the most extreme examples.

Orcs
Orcs have two racial abilities: Hatred and Hated.

Hatred
If something almost kills you (forces you to roll on the Death and Dismemberment table, forces you to save vs. Death, etc) and you survive, you must draw a scar on your character sheet and label it with the name (or description) of the creature that almost killed you.  Thereafter, you get a permanent +2 bonus on all d20 rolls when attempting to kill it, or preventing it from killing you.

Hated
Every civilized place will treat you like shit.  Humans will kill you on sight.  Orcs will also kill you on sight, because you are not a part of their tribe.  Anything larger than a camp is going to be hostile to you.  There are no safe places to rest, sell, or trade.

People you meet in your adventures, in dungeons or in the wilderness, will treat you normally.  The wild places have fewer stigmas.

Everyone you travel with suffers the same stigma.  Orcish slaves are never kept, and orcish prisoners are always killed, so no fair using those excuses.

Discussion
Since the penalty extends to the whole party, there's no reason not to stock the whole party with orcs.  It's a subtle encouragement to a whole-orc party.

It's also appropriate for a party who wants to play the game on Hard Mode.  Imagine this:

DM: Let's play Keep on the Borderlands again.

Players: Okay, but let's play orcs.

DM: Okay, but be aware that the keep will attack you on sight.  You'll have to rest in the wilderness, and you'll have no place to sell your stuff.

Players: We're ready!  Hur hur hur!  Gut the fuckin' humans!  Waaaaaaaaagh!

Halfling (Afner)
Halflings have two abilties: Small and Team Stealth.

Small
Small creatures get no penalty for fighting in cramped spaces.  They eat half as much as a full-size human.

Small creatures must use armor and weapons sized for them.  Small weapons deal damage one die size smaller.  If they attempt to use regular weapons, they get -2 to hit.

Team Stealth
Halflings get +1 Stealth for every other halfling PC sneaking alongside them, up to a maximum of +4.  They lose this bonus if any participating halfling's player fails to speak in a whisper.

Discussion
I know, I broke Rule #3 and Rule #48.  I gave them a passive bonus that synergizes with thiefy classes.  But I only did this because I love all-thief parties.  How much will the game change when the whole party has an extremely high chance of being able to sneak past so many combats?

Or put another way, how much does the game change when combats become more optional?

That's a knob that a DM has always had the power to turn, we just never admitted it as much.  (For example, by creating a house rule that says monsters never surprise the party, and the whole party can use the thief's stealth.)  It creates a very different game, man.

Iron Ghost People
The Iron Ghost People have one ability: Blink.

Blink
After meditating for a full round, you can teleport as far as 2 feet.  At-will.

Discussion
One of the players is going to be reading the rulebook and have the epiphany of "Guys!  What if we were all Iron Ghost People and we could just get past every door in the dungeon!  We wouldn't care about locks!"

Their eyes would be wide with the possibilities.

And they're right.  This would change the game entirely.  Dungeon design sort of goes out the window as soon as you introduce something this game-changing into the game.  While orcs turn the game's difficulty up, they don't introduce anything revolutionary.

I'd say use this one with caution.  Remember, the DM chooses which races to allow in each game.

A Few More Words on Dwarven Culture

Dwarven Religion

Dwarves don't worship the dwarf god.  There are no dwarven gods (possibly because no dwarf has been creative enough to invent any) and in fact, the whole notion of gods usually requires some explaining in the first place.

Hesaya is the primary religion of the dwarves, just as it is the primary religion of the entire continent of Centerra (although it takes a few different forms).  Like everyone else, they indirectly revere Zulin, Prince of the Upper Air and directly worship a multitude of local priests and slave-gods.  But how do you get dwarves to worship an air god?

Missionary: "What is better, the earth or the air?"

Dwarf: "The earth, because it gives us toil, tombs, and bread."

Missionary: "But does not the act of digging create an air-filled tunnel, which allows you to access more of the earth?  You claim to love the earth, yet you strive for its absence."

Dwarf: "Harrum.  This does not seem to be entirely untrue."

And so this is the root revelation of the Dwarven Covenant: that goodly dwarves will never escape the cycle of rebirth and enter the Heavenly Mansions of Truth.  Instead, goodly dwarves will simply be reborn as dwarves, to dig in the endless earth for all eternity.

One knock on effect of this philosophy is that each dwarf believes that they are already the best lifeform possible.  There is no hope for a better life, because the dwarven life is the best life for them.  This leads to a great deal of civil contentment and smugness.

Note: If you're a regular reader of this blog, don't try to follow Hesaya too closely.  It's gets rewritten every couple months because I can't make up my mind.

The Dwarven Crusades

Given the Hesayan predilection for antonyms and inversion, it is entirely possible that the Riddle of Air is not a metaphysical one, but a physical one.  And it is possible that the answer is to be found downward, rather than upward.

And so the most devout dwarves engage in the Quest to Find God, which mostly involves digging as deeply as possible.  It's a cross between mining, a never-ending pilgrimage, and the Crusades.

There are multiple, concurrent Under-Quests.  Each one is a legion of dwarves digging to the center of the world, supported by supplies from their surface cities.  In the centuries since they started, the front of this ant-line has moved deeper and deeper into the Underworld, leaving dozens of empty cities and cathedrals behind them, abandoned as they build new ones deeper and deeper.

Quite of few of the Dwarven Crusades have become lost, and the fate of these unknown, eternally digging colonies is not known.

Dwarven Gender and Sexuality

Dwarves have no concept of gender, and struggle to discuss sex.

Male and female dwarves look identical, unless you get them naked.  They are completely unromantic when sober, and marriage and conception is something that is usually performed in the service of their king or council.

The non-creative, work-obsessed dwarven psychology disappears entirely when they are drunk.  It is during these times when dwarven acts of passion are committed.  These include marriages and joint mortgages, but they also include more traditional one night stands (which are usually accompanied by a lot of fumbling around with belts and beards, and a lot of speculation whether the other dwarf's hardware is a "bolt" or a "nut".  Not that it changes the outcome much, except when it comes to pregnancy.)

They don't have gendered pronouns.  The closest thing that they have are the concepts of craftsdwarf and miningdwarf, which they use as translations for 'female' and 'male' respectively.

A big divide in dwarven culture exists around the concepts of those who obtain raw resources (the miners) and those who refine them (the crafters).  This schism is large enough that dwarves often lament their irreconcilable psychologies ('craftsdwarves are from Venus, miningdwarves are from Mars').  And like human genders, these labels come with a host of stereotypes and cultural expectations.

Craftsdwarves tend to care more about their appearance and be more assertive, for example.  (The appearance thing is not to be understated; some miningdwarves are filthy, and spend decades without beds, baths, or razors.)

Dwarves use craftsdwarf and miningdwarf as stand-ins for 'woman' and 'man' in private, or around humans if they are still largely unexposed to human culture.  This is because miningdwarves are usually away from home, doing hard labor, while craftsdwarves rarely travel too far from their hearths.  This is the most salient detail dwarves notice when trying to tell apart human men and women.

They struggle to notice boobs and timbre.  Gender just doesn't sit very close to sexuality in the dwarven headspace.

The biggest oddity is that dwarves sometimes change professions throughout their lives, especially in the miningdwarf to craftsdwarf direction.  This leads to odd questions, such as:

Dwarf: "You repaired that saddle excellently.  Are you planning on becoming a woman in a few more years?"
Man: "The fuck you say?"

It is rare, but not unheard of, for biologically female dwarves to adopt human culture down to its gender roles.  These dwarf-women shave their beards; other dwarves usually mistake them for halflings at this point.

Dwarven Names

Dwarves frequently identify themselves according to what their labor produces.  Here are some sample names for a miner, gemcutter, and warrior.

• Brevigon the Calcite Strand
• Tivik the Smagdarine Eye
• Korlag the Nine Orcs

First names are reserved to intimate friends.  Those who meet Tivik had best become accustomed to addressing the dwarf as "The Smagdarine Eye" for a while.

<digression>This is similar to how dragons identify themselves by their hoards, or by the most valuable item in their hoard.</digression>

Dwarven Rulers

Being non-creative, sober dwarves struggle in leadership roles.  For this reason, dwarven kings are never kings themselves.

They are known for kidnapping clever people and forcing them to rule the dwarven kingdom.  (They are good at detecting duplicity and schemes.  They are non-creative, not stupid.)

But they sometimes engage in the practice of shackled kings.  This is when they summon a clever devil and force them to become their king after extracting a lengthy and comprehensive contract has been drawn up.

And not just one devil-king.  They usually get a hold of several devils and force them to work at cross-purposes.  (Pitting the Devil King of Infrastructure against the machinations of the Devil King of Military keeps the devils working in the dwarves' interest.  Most of the time, anyway.)

The only time that dwarves are ruled by dwarves is when they have a Council of Drunkards.

Upside-Down Colonialism

When dwarves invade a place, they usually kill all the underclasses, but preserve the nobility.  The captive aristocracy is confined to their houses, but is generally allowed to continue going on as they always have.

They are attended by dozens of servile dwarven war-butlers, armed with daggers in case the old nobles try anything funny.  The children of these nobles grow up in a city that is 99% dwarven.

The former aristocracy will be depended upon to run the administrative tasks until the dwarves figure out how to take over these things themselves.  Then these human families will be ushered into service industries: masseuse, psychiatrist, and bards (roles that dwarves struggle with, or despise doing).

Dwarven Debts

Dwarves have a great love for contracts and courts.  They have a great many of each.

Debt is something that is common to many dwarves, and they frequently incur a mutual debt in order to cement a treaty or a marriage.  It is a revered--almost holy--tradition.  Since one dwarven family might be richer more than another, or they may be unequal when it comes to repayment, it is often that one family slides into debt to another.  A large proportion of dwarves are born with huge debts.

This isn't seen as too onerous, since it is honorable work.  It only requires fourteen hours of labor a day for several decades, and then the dwarf is free.  Working your way out from under a large debt is immensely respected among dwarves, and is accompanied by parties, laurels, and all the tasteless beer they can drink.

Dwarven Prisons

Dwarven prisons are always fortified labor camps.  This is also not seen as too terrible, since there is always work to do and the work is always tallied accurately.  Sometimes a human is condemned to a life of hard labor in a dwarven work prison, and the dwarves will wonder why the human cries so much when the sentence is read.

The second-most terrible thing you can do to a dwarf is to cut off their beard.  The single most-terrible thing is to cut off their hands.

Even dwarves in solitary confinement are given bricks to stack or a pile of straw to sort.  Lacking that, dwarves go insane, and will smooth the walls until their hands bleed, or slip into the idiosyncratic madness known of fleshmining.

Dwarven Madness

More than any other race, dwarves tend to go insane.  There is a lot of genetic pressure on their behavior, and it creates a lot of psychic friction.

Stable colonies of insane dwarves are known as the duergar.

But there is an upside to this madness.

It is well-known that magic items (aside from scrolls and potions) are only created by a master craftsman in a mindset of great instability: fear, love, and of course MADNESS.

Dwarves are also the most likely of the races to allow madness to run its course.  Mad dwarves are often sealed up inside their homes and given the materials needed to perform their crafts.  A close eye is kept on them, and they usually send for the healer when the mad dwarf begins headbutting the floor monotonously or eating their own beard.  This is why dwarves have more magic weapons than anyone else.

They also sometimes die from overwork, but this is something to be revered, like starving to death because you gave all your food to hungry orphans.

Dwarven Tombs

What do dwarves do when they have no work to do?  When there is an absence of gems to cut or metal to work into armor?  There must be a release valve somewhere, for the overflow.

And this is the function of tombs in dwarven society.

A dwarf's most prized possession in their tomb.  The usually begin digging it when they are very young, and they will slowly excavate it throughout their entire lives.  They like this because it is concrete and (relatively) impossible to steal.  It is eternal.

And so every dwarven city is surrounded by a halo of tombs, most of which are occupied.  This also helps with their brand of ancestor-worship.

If you do a great service for the dwarves, they will probably reward you with one of the royal tombs.  (The laborers who built the royal tomb are already buried under the floor.  It is their tomb, too.)

Humans who would prefer to have territory, money, or soldiers instead of a royal tomb are usually given these lesser honors, with a shrug.  Who can understand the minds of humans?

Remember. . .

According to the high elves (who alone have a history that predates the Time of Fire and Madness), dwarves were created by them be a race of asteroid miners.

I've been thinking a lot about dwarves lately.  Hopefully this will make the beards stop.

See Also:
A Few Words on Dwarven Culture
The Dwarves of Mt. Doldrum

A Few Words on Dwarven Culture

Holy Moley

Most of Centerra believes in reincarnation, and the dwarves are no exception.  They believe that a good dwarf (which is the same thing as a hard-working dwarf) will be reincarnated as a mole, the most sacred of creatures.

Moles are referred to as "beards of the earth".  Killing a mole is not taboo (since they will just be reincarnated again as another mole), but grabbing or transporting one is.

(The dwarven reverence for beards is well-documented.  You may slap a dwarf's mother in front of him and live, but you must never, ever grab him by the beard.  Dwarves are uncreative, but they are not unemotional, and this is almost guaranteed to piss them off something fierce.  Moles, which occupy the same conceptual space in the dwarven brain as beards, fall under the same category.)

Moles are holy.  They are believed to dig constantly, and travel the globe.  Many dwarves have a mole garden cavern behind their houses, or shared between neighboring domiciles.  (This serves the same function as your mom's butterfly garden.)

Angels are giant moles (see also: dire moles) that ascend from heaven (which is located in the center of the earth) while crapping out gemstones where good (i.e. hardworking) dwarves are destined to find them.

This leads to the common dwarven expression of wonderment and/or fear, which is (translated as) "holy moley".

Rats

Dwarves believe that rats are the evil (lazy) antithesis to moles.  Rats do not dig holes, but instead steal their burrows from honest moles.  They do not earn their food, but instead steal it from other animals.  It is known that rats can eat gemstones, and crap them out as especially foul turds.  If a rat sleeps on top of a bag of gold coins, it will turn them into copper.  And when a dwarf of either gender is especially evil (lazy), they will not bear children as other dwarves do, but instead give birth to litters of squeaking rats.

Talk to any dwarf about rats, and you will hear a dozen different "truths" about rats (and there might be a shred of truth to some of them.)  You will also hear about how delicious they are.

While dwarves experience moles spiritually (think about the Hindu relationship with cows), rats are mostly viewed through a gustatory lens.

Dwarves.  Fucking.  Love.  Eating.  Rats.

A rat on a stick is the traditional food of the everydwarf, but dwarven recipes for rats are as numerous as the rats themselves.  These usually vary in their sauces (e.g. honeyed rat blood) or their preparation (e.g. boiled in blackberry mead), but occasionally they will have their tails braided together and then fried into exciting poses.

Dwarven nobles also enjoy their rats, but prefer their feasts to be indicative of their extravagance (like most nobles).  For example, picture a table upon which two thousand deep fried rats are arrayed, each one carefully posed in a combative stance, bristling with breaden breastplates and brandishing swords of spun sugar.

Rat jerky is still rat-shaped, and flats of rat jerky are usually sold with all the rats tied together by their tails.  Rat jerky salesdwarves sometimes wear vests of jerky-rats; when the salesdwarf is shirtless, he goes home.

Booze

Centerran dwarves are uncreative laborers whose only goal in life is to work.  They are the perfect lumpenprole.  (And some say that they were engineered for exactly that reason.)

However, as soon as they get drunk, they start putting horns on their helmets, fetishizing axes, brawling atop barrels, and mysteriously speaking in Scottish accents.  They loosen up.  They become a lot less enthusiastic about working 14 hours a day.  (The bottom line is that you can still play a generic fantasy dwarf in Centerra as long as you stay drunk.)

Not even the elves have an explanation for this phenomenon, and refer to it as the "pointless miracle".