>I hate Tolkien elves. Here's my original fantasy race,

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>Magic works because you believe it works and there's literally nothing else to it.

>humans

>magic

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>>51604033
>History of the world is one big HFY circlejerk in which all other races take a back-seat
>The beast races are only goons for the more human looking ones
>"It all went downhill when 'x' decided to 'x'"

>gods

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>>51604033
I don't think I can pick a most

>D&D like Pantheon+Elemental Lords+primordial Titans+eldritch Lovecraftian beings from Space, because there just absolutely has to be every flavor of all powerful immortal beings
>fey/faeries/seelie with lolrandom whimsy "trickery", edgy mental disorders powered by a glance at wikipedia and a paper thin romanticized thematic connection to nature.
>Its just present day and there are hidden vampires or something, done.
>guys guys, every myth and conspiracy theory is true!
>comic relief tech gnomes, who build comic styled modern devices out of old junk wood, rope and snowplow looking armor pieces.
>"realistic" grimdark pseudo medieval only human low fantasy reconstruction of europe without anything to distinguish it.
>"nothing is original, so don't dare try to make something fresh and build the above setting, anything else is just hipster subversion nobody could possibly relate to."

>>51604695
this is why the humans only occupy a territory no larger then the other territories I put on my map, I'll give my pet peeves

>always chaotic evil races
>everyone hates each other for no good reason when the devil is at their fucking doorstep
>the gods are all assholes and you're better off without them

>word salad cosmology

Fucking shoot me, you are not a theological genius

IRL had a cosmos made of a big ass tree or mountain, not your schizophrenic ramblings about pseudo mysticism

>>51604033
>Believe it or not but...
When world make Elves, but their version of elves are NOT tolkien elves? They just wanted the same look and name recognition but make something completely different.

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>Magic is a science that anyone can do by following three simple steps

>>51604790
>the gods are all assholes and you're better off without them

Isn't this pretty much true of Greek mythology?

>>51604927
>Three simple steps
Study
Practice
Have the material components

>>51604033
>Reed thin greasy anarcho communist guy makes a civilization
>"So my civilization is more advanced than all the others and they are much higher culture, and they are all anarchocommunists that constantly win victories over the evil primitive capitalist kingdoms!111!!!

>>51604988
I'll take things that never happen for $100, Alex.

>>51604695
>The beast races are only goons for the more human looking ones
This annoys me no end.

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>>51604033
>Multiple writers
>Everyone making their own civs
>Every brainstorming session this one guy I swear to fucking God
>Every time someone explains the theme of their civilization
>"Oh my civ does that too but better"

>>51604933
A lot of European and Near Eastern cultures tended to be like that.

>>51605000
While I respect your trips, I must say you would be fucking surprised

>>51605027
why is that? I'm actually curious now

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>>51604033
>So I'm basing this off an anime...

>>51605018
Oh god I'm guilty of that, not just in wordlbuilding but in all discussions. No one told me to my face that I'm annoying but I can't help but interject "yeah that happens in/to something I know too!" every time.

>>51605051
Oh god. So much this.

Not even just anime, just... That a person doesn't seem to understand a carefully crafted character arch, compared to a Chaos Drive PC.

>A wealthy democratic/mechantile city on a coastline/river that has an adventurers guild, is diverse racially and culturally, with little to no strife between any portion of the population.
>All of regions/towns surrounding this city are essentially theme park stops that correlated to a stereotype expected in every fantasy setting.

>>51604843
>people try to base their cosmology on indian myth but don't actually know anything about it
Pretty shit, to be honest. Just because Kirkbride could do it doesn't mean you can.

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>>51604807
I blame modern interpretations of ancient religions. Also Morrowind, not everyone can do it but they still try.

>>51605068
>>51605051
Linked wrong one.

>>51605046
Shared Indo-European cultural heritage.

>>51605068
>yeah that happens in/to something I know too
Total difference between being into something and assuming you know more than everyone else

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>>51605134
>assuming you know more than everyone else
h-haha yeah only assholes do that right

>>51604033
>"So this is my fantasy race."
>Pallet swapped humans that simply live longer and are better in every conceivable way for no real reason, and of course are all attractive.

>"technology" as a thing that changes more or less linearly over time, with ages
>a fictional setting that lines up absolutely everything to one real-life society because anything else would be the "wrong" tech level
>the above, but it's medieval, however guns are somehow an exception and there's none of them because if there was it apparently couldn't be fantasy

>>51605110
>The adventurers guild also has portals there and is the perfect adventurer shopping mall.

>>51605181
Literally everything in GURPS does that by design, including the "just like an IRL society but one or two technologies are absent or present for no fucking reason other than I felt like it" thing.

>>51605134
>tfw I legitimately do know more about most of these topics than almost everybody else

>>51605249
Do not build a setting based on GURPS mechanics. If you insist on using GURPS, at least build the setting first and then go to mechanics.

>>51605267
Joke's on you I use GURPS as a crutch even when making unrelated settings.

>>51605181
>guns
>mfw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp0cNZopl_U

>>51604790
If it's backed up by reasonably thought out history then everyone hating each other when he devil at the door is fine. Probably happened more this way throughout history than the alternative

>races

>>51605289
I don't risk guns unless something specifically keeps them from clashing, or if something explicitly makes them special in the setting

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>...because of [x] the region has recently seen a big influx of (throat clearing, narrator voice engaged) ***~Aaadventurers~*** (wink wink, nudge nudge). The governor is a former ***~Aaadventurer~*** (and thus matters). this fucking pervasive PC centric writing. As if there was a class of people chosen by destiny to be roaming murderhobos.

>>51605249
>Literally doesn't know what TLs are for.
>Doesn't know mixed-TL societies have been canonically recognized by the system for over a decade and unofficially long before that

>>51605310
>risk
Do you risk swords? Do you risk bows? Do you risk polearms?

>>51605300
explain further, because this is vague

>>51605321
I like it better when the king has a fucking line of mercs and sell swords lined up infront and behind the players, they aren't special and are generally seen as a nuisance that must be endured for the greater good

>>51605128
Neither Sumerians nor Elamites nor Semites were Indo-European. The Hittites and Mitanni were Indo-European but they were far more influenced by Semitic Mesopotamian civilizations than the other way around. Mesopotamian mythology was basically grimdark as fuck long before the Hittites were even a thing, and Hittite beliefs were actually comparatively optimistic (the gods would wreck your shit and the shit of everyone you knew or cared about if you pissed them off, but IIRC they were generally somewhat more reasonable and predictable than the Sumero-Akkadian deities, and would forgive you if you confessed and made amends, plus at least the Hittite royalty and nobility got to ascend to the heavens and live among the gods, even if it appears that everyone else was doomed to the same sort of bleak underworld that Sumero-Akkadian religion said everyone went to).

>>51605046

In the case of bronze-age Mediterranean/Near Eastern Indo-Europeans like the Hittites and the early Greeks I think a lot of it was due to Eastern influence. For the rest, I'd say it's probably a matter of harsh circumstances resulting in a pessimistic worldview (or being influenced by cultures that had said Eastern influence).

>>51605253
Do I even need to point out the obvious here?

>>The existence of gods is a known fact, but gods still need faith.

>>51605444
Is that your way of saying that you don't have any method to "point it out" that actually illustrates your point, so you're going to just act like it's totally a given already and hope everyone just rolls with it¿

>>51605460
My trips combined with your lack of self awareness proclaiming your expertise on everything should say it all.

Odds are Chuck that you don't know any more about anything than your daily acquaintances .

>everything and everyone is as awful as possible, every viewpoint character is either a huge baby-eating rapist war criminal or a naive fool who gets lectured by said rapists before getting horribly murdered, viewpoint characters keep getting killed

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>"realistic" fantasy
>there's plenty of murder, rape and commoners living in shit, yet STDs don't exist

>"cyberpunk"
>there are elves and dwarves

>"hard" scifi
>there are vampires

>>51605873
>william gibson pls go

>I'll give you that, though, I vaguely recall the vampires being in there for a thematic reason other than being cool, but he could have just gone with 'psychopath' like the rest of the "heroes".

>>51604033
>My world is different. Instead of a Black and White Morality its a grey morality.
Fuck you George Martin

>>51605904
What? Martin does a pretty good job of having less banal morality without being a memelord about it.

>>51605935
You can still see who is evil and who is good.
He also claims it would be realistic. Yet Daenerys is still alive even when she fucked up more times than any other characters

>>51605873
There weren't as many STDs because women didn't fuck random strangers who bought them a drink at the bar.
Maybe the one thing religion was actually good for, keeping STDs in check by telling you sex is evil.

>>51605972
>people who fuck up a lot don't always wind up dead
Yeah, that's how it goes. You ain't dead either, are you?

>>51606006
>religion telling you sex is evil
Not sure if you're intentionally trolling but either way this is another thing that fits the theme of the thread.

>>51605873
Shadowrun is supposed to be a science fantasy story, not pure cyberpunk

>>51606027
I don't mean it literally, obviously.

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>Dwarves

Lets be honestly here; no one doesn't anything with dwarves except copy Tolkien's Jews with Scottish Accents and Nordic mannerisms Dwarves.

>>51606055
What possible way could you have meant it that wasn't bullshit?

>>51606089
Well if you wouldn't do that, then they wouldn't be dwarves, they'd just be a bunch of hairy midgets.
Elves atleast have pointy ears to differenciate them as a race.

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>>51606107
You know what, just forget it.

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>>51605782
This, not everyone in the medieval times was a xenophobic asshole and the church was nowhere near as corrupt as it is commonly seen in "realistic" fantasy. In fact the "LG church is secretly the fucking gastopo" is used so often it's almost become an assumption that this trope is in a setting even where it should never happen, this is why the Dragonlance Cataclysm or whatever the hell its called made no sense to me.

>>51606112
If pointy ears is all it takes to make a different race, I'm sure a race that never grows higher than 4' counts, too.

Hell, the only thing I've seen interesting done with Dwarves was a friends setting where Dwarves were basically Halfling Tieflings; a parish of them stole a sacred anvil from the god of the mountains and he cursed them to forever use it to fight in his war against the gods of the underworld

>>51606089
I like the Brandon Carbaugh dwarves. They're underground jews with 19th century utopian societies and millenial social issues.

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>>51606089

My dude, what about the Dwemer?

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>>51604033
>this setting is realistic
Instant turnoff as I realized anybody saying it more than often disregard enjoyment of readers or players and use it as a soapbox platform to bitch about his/hers oh so hard life of being ignored by pretty women and mocked by men.

>this setting is historic
Very few can make this fun since the author simply want to self insert their own mary sue into the era and have everyone else watch as peeping toms.

>this setting is sci-fi
See the top.

>>51606006
Which religion you might be talking about? Are the absolutely no fertility cults or adulterous relationships, and is sacred prostitution not a thing? And if rape is a common spoil of war, doesn't that literally mean that lots of strangers will end up fucking each other?

>>51606182
Elves.

>>51606182
Not that anon but the dwemer are literally the only good dwarves.

And they're elves. Really makes you think.

>>51606193
You know, i found my mistake.
With "realistic" fantasy i was thinking middle ages with a mild fantasy favour, not just a low fantasy setting.

Either way, sure, lots of strangers fucking a couple captured women, but outside of them, how many other women do you think they would probably fuck in their lives? Even without 90% of the soldiers dying of said STDs, other illnesses, hunger and in battle?

>>51606195
Yes, technically. However, every theme and motif about the Dwemer is obviously Dwarf related. If you gave Trolls pointy ears and called them Trollmer it would still be pretty obvious what inspired them.

I like the Mesopotamian style of the Dwemer. But then again I also like the robber baron American style of the Dragon Age dwarves, so maybe I'm just a tasteless Armok-worshipping loser.

>>51606273
DF Dwarves best Dwarves.

>>51606273
The Dwarves are about the only thing from Dragon Age that I recall being generally well-regarded on /tg/ until DA:I came out and made Origins look so much better by comparison

>>51606249
Sex is one of the major leisure activities since there isn't any radio or tv or Internet back in the days.
Either you gossip, play dice or cards or fuck.

>>51606299

I liked how the DA Dwarves had a rigid caste system, ancestor worship (Paragons), bizarre superstitions about the above ground world, and a shady backstabbing political sphere despite being all 'muh honor' on the surface.

But I only played DA:O, how did DA:I muck it up?

>>51606303
Ok, one last try.
People were more likely to stick with just one person and maybe a few affairs than regularely switch their sex partners like today.

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>Dwarves, Elves, Orcs and Humans

>Any setting that has more than five sapient races

>>51606249
>fucking a couple captured women
Or a couple dozen. Although this kind of thing is actually less typical for the professional troop setup of the middle ages than it was in some other periods, since war was more regulated.
>how many other women do you think they would probably fuck in their lives?

Some might fuck only their wives and perhaps a mistress or two, but you can bet there were ladykillers in those days too.

>>51606352
Perhaps the problem is not simply that you have a misconception of what historical sexual practices were like, but that you have a misconception of what modern sexual practices are like. Most modern people do stick with one partner for years at a time, or decades as they get later in life. In late teens and early 20s, there's a portion of the population that fucks like fiends, but there's a larger portion that doesn't, and you can bet there were sluts in the old days too. They just relied on significantly inferior methods of birth control compared to what we have now, but there was generally not, in most countries for most of the medieval period, a big problem with having premarital sex as long as you didn't get pregnant without also getting married.

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>>51606409
Alright, i give up. You win the discussion.

>>51605873
>yet STDs don't exist
I've basically never seen that. All the low fantasy settings I know make passing references to at least one character that had pseudosyphilis or herpes or something, especially if prostitutes are involved.

>>51606362
first you fuss over limited selection, then you fuss over having too many?

>>51606562
Not limited selection, but rather the most stereotypical fantasy selection there is.

>>51606580
every attempt at "breaking the mold" always ends up literal reskins of the elves dorfs and orcs, so why not just be honest and stick with the archetypes that work without the pretensions of being "NEW"

>>51606362
Both of those things can work well if done by a competent worldbuilder.

My personal peeve:
>My race is original therefore it must be good

Originality by itself is never a virtue. I'd rather have a well done Elf than a ham fister Tr'uk'ai or whatever.

>>51606089
I done magic Dwarfs before.

>>51606678
I like you, I'll offer my own
>Nature/Magic vs tech
>especially if tech is the default bad guy

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>>51604033
>I must turn this show/ book/ videogame/ anime I just binged into a setting or character

I've known many a player and GM guilty of this. I'm guilty of this, as once the shine wears off the end result usually lacks a soul of its own.

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>>51606638
Even if you classify all new races as on of these four archetypes, all you are doing that way is disallowing variation. Even if its only "reskins", what makes one skin more valid than the other? Why should new skins be disallowed?

>>51604787
>Its just present day and there are hidden vampires or something, done.
>guys guys, every myth and conspiracy theory is true!

There is literally nothing wrong with these.

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>>51604787
>Its just present day and there are hidden vampires or something, done.
You take that back right fucking now

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>the setting is just the real world, but flipped around and with fantastical races

This is something I actually really struggle with myself, since I'm a huge historyfag and real history is what I know best. I have to go out my way to randomly generate a map and start forming an entire alternate history just to make a setting.

I hate contrarians.

I hate HFY

I hate people who bitch about answers given in the context of the answerers world, in threads about a general setting question.

I hate people who bitch about common fantasy races, but then also complain about races so unlike them as well.

>>51606719
And nature is always good (or natural for that matter)
>changing biomes into other biomes they like more
>micromanaging every population and biome eliminating natural change and fluctuation
>making every forest a fucking zen garden
>arbitrarily excluding species because they are unpleasant
>sending forest friends as battle thralls into a meatgrinder
fucking druids

>>51606836
Agreed. I like the pigorcs much better than greenskins and if you must have classic orcs at least make them not green.

>>51606189
the first is straight asshole because you can expect the author putting in porn shit, insulting people who don't think everyone is a sociopathic Hitler deep down who'll eat babies when given the chance, AND some half-baked insult towards Tolkien we've seen a billion times.

>>51605873
>"hard" scifi
>there are vampires
Nigga Blindsight was great

>>51605873
>"hard" scifi
>there are vampires
Larry Niven had vampires.

>>51607102
Blindsight craps on evolution and I hate everyone on /tg/ who ever recommended it because it was supposedly "hard"
Watts a shit, A SHIT

>>51607159
>Blindsight craps on evolution
Elaborate

>>51606706
A short dwarf questionnaire:
1. Are they Nordic?
2. Are they renowned miners? Smiths?
3. Are they bearded?
4. Do they hate elves?

If the first three of the above are true, or if the fourth and at least one other are true, your dwarves are shit. If not, there is a chance that they are not.

>>51606182
>-mer
nice try kirkbride

>>51604033
>Space Opera Sci-Fi: Humans are always good or evil.

The big human faction is always good or evil, it's either Star Fleet or the Galactic Empire. It's rare that a Sci-Fi world with humans in one big faction are actually nuanced in any way; they're either all good or all evil.

>>51604787
>>"realistic" grimdark pseudo medieval only human low fantasy reconstruction of europe without anything to distinguish it.

These really piss me off. Fucking GoTbabbies.

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>>51605321
Fuck.

>It's a medieval fantasy, but there's a class of people called adventurers that roam and stuff.
>What, other adventurers? Sociopolitical repercussion of murderhobos? Why does the king keep his throne if every adventurer could kill him in coldblood? We're in medfan, mate. Just kings and peasants and shit. And adventurers. Don't think too hard about it.

Eberron does adventurers-centric setting really well. All the other ones are completely pants on head retarded, Golarion being loli pantsu on head absolute retardation.

>>51606719
This so much. Also
>"technology"
>somehow swords and other medieval stuff isn't technology

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>>51606896
>Implying V:tM is just present day and there are hidden vampires or something, done.
You take that back

>>51607245
>Don't think too hard about it.
Every time a GM utters this phrase, it's a major red flag for me. It's usually obvious that the GM also didn't think too hard.

It's almost as bad as:
>lol, magic

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>>51606089
That's an Exalted dwarf. They're pretty cool.

>>51607159
Fuck everyone who recommended that piece of shit.

>>51607236
>humans in one big faction
>one race one faction
>one planet one faction

>>51607310
What's worse is when
>Humans have multiple factions and are varied in their design and motivations
>Aliens are all one race, one faction and everybody acts like one person with identical motivations and personalities

>>51607274
>>lol, magic

Well, it's magic. It's one of the rare things which I can dig that it works because it works.

But when there's institutionalized adventurers, then you have to ask: why? How? What do they do? How does it change your setting? Are there commerces that caters to adventurers? Is the profession a common outlet for peasants? How does secular power answer to a lot of people with flaming swords and WMDs? Do they hire adventurers too? But then what prevents adventurers from deposing a king? Are kings all old adventurers who killed their previous ones in trial by combat?

What about an army? Is there an army? Are adventurers like mercs? Are there mercs if there is adventurers? Why?

Lot of questions.

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>>51607212
alright, lets apply this questionnaire to my dwarves
>are they nordic
once upon a time, sure, but conditions (read: getting BTFO by not!goblins so hard they lost their kingdoms under the earth) foced them to change into a classically generic medieval society based in a forest, since that was the only available space left to put the rest of their species. i've got a somewhat romantic arthurian fell to them, but haven't gotten it narrowed down
>Are they renowned miners? Smiths?
tbf the don't have a lot going for them, other than being damn quick builders. elves might have the best buildings, but if you want something done efficently and quick with a minimal amount of fuss, you hire dwarves. they do make wicked crossbows though
>Are they bearded?
universally? no. some are clean shaven, some wear beards, some go full crazy with the crazy beard styles, but that is just leftover cultural heritage that stuck
>Do they hate elves?
not necessarily hate but strong dislike because they stopped joining them on their once in a generation crusade to try and retake their homes from the not!goblins. they used to be friends when they forced the humans of the setting (which really exist in backround lore and not actually in the 'game') off the continent across the sea, but time and a lack of continued aid to reclaim their homeland have mellowed it out

how'd i do?

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>>51606182
>tfw no cute hyper-intelligent transcendental waifu with the goal to cut holes into reality by her sheer refusal of everything.

>>51607344
>lol, magic
This doesn't refer to magic working in unexplained ways, it refers to brushing aside problems with the setting by saying that it's fantasy, without paying any attention to consistency or keeping things reasonable.

For example:
>This lake has one river flowing in and like 10 large rivers flowing out
>lol, magic

>How does this large city in the tundra feed itself?
>lol, magic

Etc.

>>51607344
> why?
There is a demand for professional monster-killers / dungeon looters
> How?
it takes special skills to take on magical monsters and stuff, so a support organisation was created to nurture those who has those skills and restrict them into a certain line of work
> What do they do?
Murderhobos gonna murderhobo
> what prevents adventurers from deposing a king?
Guild rules. Also: king's guard having been levelled up for pvp whereas adventures are usually pve

> source: trash japanese light novels

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>>51604033
>single continent with one zone for each race
>there is an Evil Continent
>PCs can traverse the entire world in about 2 weeks because mapmaking is hard
>part of the map is blocked off because you haven't done the preceding Zelda dungeon yet

>>51607344

This is something Trails in the Sky handles well.

>But when there's institutionalized adventurers, then you have to ask: why?How? What do they do?

Mostly odd jobs, arbitration of disputes and local law enforcement

Are there commerces that caters to adventurers?

Not really, outside of guildhouses

Is the profession a common outlet for peasants?

One assumes so

How does secular power answer to a lot of people with flaming swords and WMDs? Do they hire adventurers too? But then what prevents adventurers from deposing a king?

Strict political and international non-intervention charter that becomes a huge plot point as the heroes need special dispensation to stop a coup and rescue the monarch from being held hostage as it technically exceeds their mandate

Are kings all old adventurers who killed their previous ones in trial by combat?

No

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>>51607464
It is truly sad when thrash japanese light novels have a more coherent setting than Golarion.

>>51607428
If your GM glosses over that shit, slap them, because those explanations are also STORYHOOKS.
>This lake has one river flowing in and like 10 large rivers flowing out
The lake is a source of water in addition to storage for the tributary's water. At the very bottom, dead centre, is the sacred spring of a naiad/Undine/water elemental/whatever the fuck you call powerful magical water related beings in your setting. Due to a compact she agreed with the ancient founders of the settlement on the lake's shore, every year she will produce enough water to fill ten rivers so that the otherwise arid plains can be irrigated into usable farmland. All she asks in exchange is that the town hold a grand boat race in her honour each year - So that invading army? Make sure it bypasses the town somehow, because even if you safely evacuate the townspeople, you're dooming all the people of the plains to starvation when the rivers dry up.
>How does this large city in the tundra feed itself?
The town wizard always seems to have an endless supply of hard-wearing long lasting rations to keep the townspeople alive, yet despite the high crime rate in the frontier town, the prison always seems to be empty. Where do the prisoners keep going? SOYLENT BREAD IS PEOPLE.

Always explain, because the explanations take the story somewhere new.

>>51607212
>1. Are they Nordic?

In as much as they're like maggots in the flesh of Giants. Or maybe as lice.

>2. Are they renowned miners? Smiths?
Yes.

>3. Are they bearded?
Only the men

>4. Do they hate elves?
No reason to.

>>51604572
Hey, that was actually cool in King Killer Chronicles. It was like, you had to be able to truly expect miracles of the world for them to actually occur, and they would.

>>51607212
Do Inuit and Siberian peoples count as nordic?
(rest is no except insofar as they have better grasp of metallurgy than the cities to their immediate south)

>>51604927
Nah, consistent magic is best magic.

>>51607212
>1. Are they Nordic?
they are hasidic.
>2. Are they renowned miners? Smiths?
not at all. they are known to be bankers and peddlers.
>3. Are they bearded?
well, yeah.
>4. Do they hate elves?
not all elves. just certain bandits who want to liberate a fictional teritorry known as Elfastine.

>>51607715
Yeah, there's only one little problem with it. It's not magic.

>>51604787
Well, what's left?

>>51605000
Sadly it does happen.
There are individualls this infatuated with defunct political and religeous systems worldwide.
Monarchists, Communists, Islamists, Extreme Christians, Budhist fanatics, modern day ''scientists'' (who only show arround a diploma and are not prone to scientific discourse)...etc.

Kinda like the modern ''liberals'' only going to the extreme ends of the left and then scaring off any decent liberal by claiming them selves as mainstream liberals.

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>>51604572
>Magic is literally Placebo

>>51607241
which settings do this?

>>51605321
I hate adventures. That's not a job, it's a hobby for the rich. I hate worlds full of close together catacombs full of gold that you can literally make a living plundering.

I do like adventurer clubs. A bunch of rich game hunters who love adventure.

>>51605449
What they need is obviously worship.

>>51607766
Actually, it's kinda true IRL. Read Levy-Stross on magic (he references some other interesting research, but I don't remember the names).

>>51605321
>>51607245

Tha's really the fault of worldbuilding as a whole.

I tend to go with high magic setings where allthough there do exist independent powers in the state, the country is still centralised, private mercenaries are banned and nobility has the priviledge of entering specific academies to keep them powerfull enough to rule.
There is a ''Kings guild'' that handless work requests and voulunteer trops.

>>51605873
What the fuck are you talking about?

>>51605904
I mean, that's important. Stories where rightness and wrongness can be found in almost equal parts wherever you look (with peaks and troughs of course) are more interesting.

>>51607844
The Problem is that it isn't Grey Morality. Its Black and White. You can clearly see who has malicious intent and Altruist Intent

>>51607844
>>51607866
To Further add. The Tyrells are the only ones who are in the Moral Grey.

>all these fantastical races
>all have strengths and weaknesses
>humans are just average across the board

Hate this shit. Just recently I came across something where humans were natural god worshipers and could give themselves over to a god so wholly that they made the strongest priests, paladins, and the like. It found it super interesting and a good change of pace.

>"This fantasy race, which is coincidentally my favourite fantasy rate, is objectively superior to every other race and Has received the most effort and world building."
>"This other fantasy race, which is coincidentally my least favourite fantasy rate, is objectively inferior to all others. And I've devoted maybe five minutes to writing a collection of stereotypes which all combine to make them look as bad as possible."
>"this faction, which coincidentally shares the exact same political philosophy as me, is the most powerful and morally righteous faction in the setting."
>"your characters an elf and you want to visit the elves to acquire some special elves equipment... well I don't like elves so we won't be seeing any elven towns any time soon."
>"you're a dwarf and want to acquire some special dwarven equipment? Well lucky for you I like dwarves so they're fucking everywhere"
And so on and so forth.

>>51606089
Well i think giving the races new names when you twist them is far better.
My humanoid races are basically all just humans with slightly different features and there is no ''standard human jack of all trades race''.
I give them two or three different names with at least one demeaning term among them (cause face it racism and banter go hand in hand).

My dwarves are a mix of mongols and inuit.
Highly tribal, know hospitality but wont bat an eye when robbing you for pragmatical reasons relating to survival of them selves and their tribes.
Short, stocky, resistant to the cold but surprisingl dexterous.


My elves are basically the typicall drunken slav with a depressive state of mind because despite being freedom loving fey-born humans they are just forced into repressive social systems (High elves with their ''progressive'' city states, Dark elves with their absolutist Sorcerrer clans and Wood elves with their agrarian societies ruled by a caste of Druid-Knights and Martial artists).
Tall , lanky and with high physical strenght.


Orcs, Goblins etc. remain what they were in the Tolkein universe, just straight up corrupted creatures and undead.
One can cleanse them but has to kill them first to save their souls throgh the cycle of reincarnation.

>>51606189
Your just naming whole categories of fiction. Like, really big ones. What the fuck.

And a fantasy setting being realistic used to be a real selling point. Fantasy used to be about some real bland, mythical shit. These days, because of a drive for realism, we've got real stories being told in fantasies. About real characters. No Cinderella, no Prince Charming, no fairy tales.

>>51607310
Globalized culture and NWO-style government is a thing and pretty much a given for an advanced civilization that hasn't collapsed or doesn't have settlements isolated by travel trimes etc.

>>51607884
The reason for this isn't that humans are necessarily average at everything, it's that everything else is measured in terms of how different it is from humans, for convenience's sake.

>>51607760
>muh scientists are biased against my brilliance
Let me guess, you're an IT worker?

>>51605328
If his experiences are anything like mine then any mention of ealy hand canon's automatically leads to my players demanding nepolianic rifles and shotguns as well as grenades

>>51608019
>nepolianic
Napoleonic

>shotguns
blunderbuses are pre-napoleonic by a wide stretch
>rifles
Just say no
>grenades
Make them unreliable, there's a reason everyone stopped using them almost entirely in the 18th century

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How much of an aneurysm does this thread have over Planescape?

>>51604695
>x=x
>when the orcs decided to the orcs
>when 'x' decided to 'y'
Ftfy.

>>51607212
I try to let the easy to keep stuff stay in my variants. My dwarves and elves are pretty weird, but the unimpactful changes I didn't make. Dwarves are bearded, they are short, they drink alcohol, whatever. These things make them familiar, so the word stuff is more palpable.

>>51608041
2E AD&D settings usually get a pass because a) a lot of the people whining about this stuff are faux grogs who never heard of them and b) a lot of the homebrew being laughed about is really incredibly shit.

Also note that someone in this thread already posted bait about SR and WoD.

>>51605449
Read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

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>>51608066
But Planescape violates many of the sins here.

>>51608137
And Bach threw his own rules in the trash when he saw there was something great to make out of breaking the system a little.

Also I don't doubt that some people would definitely go full frontal autism about PS.

>>51608041
Personally, I don't like Planescape very much.

Torment was a good game that used the setting well, but I still don't like Planescape.

>>51605110
>A wealthy democratic/mechantile city on a coastline/river that has an adventurers guild, is diverse racially and culturally, with little to no strife between any portion of the population
Well that's a thing that happens IRL bar the adventure guild part

>>51607884
I hate this even more if there are just humans rather multiple human races that make sense considering the enviroment they hail from.

>>51608191
>bar the adventure guild part
They called it the VOC

>>51606141
No, admit you're a fedora tipping retard.

>>51608250
>muh fedora
*tips mitre*

>>51607264
Well, it's "present day and there are hidden vampires or something, also everything is grimderpgothiclol with gargoyles on every building and shit", so not much different really.

What made Bloodlines good wasn't the setting, but (mostly interesting) quests, self-aware comedy and writing.

>>51607729
Why not?

>>51608043
You know how they are dude. Orcs gonna orc.

>>51607212
I just used gnomes instead. Went all the way back to Paracelsus.

>>51608334
Because it would be just a natural phenomenon, a part of the world's physics, science. There wouldn't be any reason to call it magic.

>>51608370
Why would a specific subclass of physical phenomena not be given a name? Would it be better if they gave it any other name than "magic"? Is that specific word the issue?

>>51607866
>>51607877
You guys are now just discussing GoT, when I was responding to someone saying their pet peeve is people trying to have interesting characters with varying balances of good and bad characteristics and motivations.

>>51606089
>Nordic mannerisms Dwarves
Nordic Dwarves actually have more of a variety of Characteristics and manners than typcial Fantasy Dwaves.

>>51608282
Very few settings cannot be summarized into "x and there are y or something, also something is z with p on certain q and shit".
Also, it's nonsensical to claim that the opinion that settings that are "present day and there are hidden vampires or something, done," is bad by presenting something that is done well and based on that type of setting, if the reasons that make the thing in question good are independent of the setting.

>>51608370
Majority of fantasy settings have magic like this and it's called magic, so it's kinda like firing bows vs. releasing bows.

>>51608383
Sure, it would be better if it was called something that isn't by definition supernatural. We don't call electricity, nuclear or quantum physics magic.

>>51608352
Top kek.

>>51606089
except they copy D&D/WoW/PJ Dwarfs. Tolkien's Dwarves were quite different.

>>51608423
Even when there's some degree of explanation it's rarely ever something scientific so much as "what do you do for magic", ultimately the scientific phenomenon behind will stay unexplained and magic itself can have unpredictable reactions.

Also to some extent, irl magic is "this shit works and we don't know why but we'll pretend it's because I was wielding that stick the right way"

>>51608436
Oh, just shut the fuck up with your asshurt already.

>>51608436
Right, in our world, the word "magic" is something used to describe a phenomenon that doesn't exist. But in a fantasy world where they do exist, is it so bad to use the same word? Or would it be okay if they did away with the word magic and just called it all "channeling" or some made-up word? The distinction seems arbitrary.

>>51606836
>>51607032
1993 was clearly the best year for the Orcish race.

>>51608446
Tolkien dwarves were scots with scottish accents instead.

>>51608436
We don't call electricity magic because we, now, in the 20th century, understand it to some extent.

>>51604787
>comic relief gnomes

Personally I'd do them as imperialist asura. Instead of orcs, elves or mankind spreading across the world it's magitech shortstacks literally ass-raping everything they come across. A little bit might makes right and a whole lot of the greater good

>>51607502
>there is an Evil Continent
but it's fairly realistic. not in our days maybe, but two hundred years ago...

>covered in fucking desert
>natives are cannibals
>strange misshapen animals, most of whom try to kill you horribly
>poison and venom everywhere
>populated by criminals from civilized world

...Australia was pretty much an evil continent

>>51608475
>natives are cannibals
mate, it's not the natives who considered the locals fauna

Also the terrifying australian fauna got fucking overwhelmed by bunnies.

>>51608041
I like the idea but strongly dislike the alignment-based worlds

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>>51608475
I cannot mount any argument against this.

>>51608451
>Right, in our world, the word "magic" is something used to describe a phenomenon that doesn't exist.
Rather, to describe something that doesn't exist naturally, scientifically. And when you use our language for your setting you should choose appropriate words.

>But in a fantasy world where they do exist, is it so bad to use the same word?
If they exist and are understood as a part of worlds physics, it is bad to use a word that means something else.

>The distinction seems arbitrary.
You use a language where words mean something. So when someone sees the word "magic" in your text they will think about magic, and they will think that to the inhabitants of your world it should seem magical. And it doesn't.

>>51608462
What? Go read Silmarillion or Hobbit. They were never scotts, accent was never scottish, their language was quite different, the scraps of it Tolkien left us, that is. They are somewhat jewish, but that's it. Nordic names they use come from human languages, they just use them when interacting with humans & elves, since their true names are to be heard only by other dwarves.

Peter Jackson's movies are NOT a good representation of what Tolkien's dwarves are.

>>51604033
>Gods exist and their influence is shown through their worshipers that wield powerful magics in their name.
>But everyone's Agent fucking Scully in this world.
So irritating. If I saw a land split asunder by an angry god's mountain sized sword, I wouldn't be very skeptical afterwards.

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>>51604572
>Magic works because you believe it works and there's literally nothing else to it.
So this, basically.

>>51608524
We're not going to call it physics for the same reason we call it magic; it's not physics to them. The people who invented gunpowder had no conception of what the word chemistry would mean, even if what they were doing was chemistry.

>>51608462
We never called it magic. The word is of ancient Greek origin, and they didn't consider it magic.

>>51608436
So magic needs to be unpredictable? This is literally the only conclusion I can draw from what you're saying. Because you can learn how magic works and make it happen on purpose, it isn't magic. In a world where you can learn to reliably levitate objects with only your will, magic is this other thing that wizards randomly do, who even knows what the fuck is going it's just a fuckin carnival up in those towers, those motherfuckers are crazy.

Nobody is suggesting explaining magic with actual science, because magic isn't actual. So when we say consistent magic, were talking about this SUPERNATURAL science that can be tested and observed, but isn't explainable with IRL science.

>>51608536
The cliche of Tolkien dwarves being lowland scots (especially the greed) is really, really old and predates the PJ movies by decades.

>>51608436
mag•ic (măjˈĭk)

n.
The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.
n.
The practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature.
n.
The charms, spells, and rituals so used.

Doesn't have to be supernatural.

>>51608436
but quantum physics ARE magic in a whole lot of sci-fi. it's kinda a meme already that most of magic stuff can be explained by quantum mechanics.

>>51608554
then those people didn't read the books with due attention.

>>51607701
Inuits, Siberians and Ainus are already pretty much dwarves so that's cheating.

>>51608541
>it's not physics to them
Physics = nature. That's the meaning of the word. If it's not physics to them, what is it then?

>The people who invented gunpowder had no conception of what the word chemistry would mean, even if what they were doing was chemistry.
Exactly. And yet they understood that they aren't doing magic, they aren't doing anything supernatural, that it's all part of nature.

>>51607802
>it's kinda true IRL
No shit.

>>51608524
I can see this being true for sci-fi settings about Earth, like how in Mass Effect you wouldn't use "magic" to describe biotics because that's assumed to be a word with the same connotations as in real life... But in a different setting with a different background, do you not htink it's a convenient way to denote "a subclass of this universe's physics that happens to correspond to things that real life physics can't explain"?

>>51608548
>So magic needs to be unpredictable?
Doesn't have to be entirely unpredictable, but that's indeed one way to make actual magic. Another would be magic as the will of a higher being.

>when we say consistent magic, were talking about this SUPERNATURAL science that can be tested and observed, but isn't explainable with IRL science.
But the whole problem is that you're using the word magic in-universe, so you imply that it isn't explainable by in-universe science.

>>51608568
You literally provided the definitions that use the word supernatural.

>>51608571
That's the problem of said sci-fi settings. It's not magic irl.

>>51604033
>there are other adventurers in the setting
>whole guilds of them, sometimes
>for many years before the current time
>there're still unexplored caves and ruins within a few days' journey from big cities

>>51608627
whatever Dr. Strange or AIDA do in MCU is 100% magic, even though it's "quantum energy" from parallel dimensions

>>51608524
Our world is actually real. We can describe the precise mechanics behind most of what we see occurring naturally. When an inhabitant of a pretend world refers to magic, despite them knowing that it works and specifically how to make it work, they do not know how it works, because IRL it does not work. There are no authors who can explain their magic at a sufficient depth to warrant not calling it magic. So anything your citing as "not magic" because the mechanics of it are well described (note: not described will enough to be actual physics, because that's impossible), NECESSARILY qualify as magic.

>>51608436
Just call it psionics then. Psionics are literally just alternate magic or space magic in every setting anyway.

>>51608638
>Our world is actually real.
Many Buddhists would disagree.

>>51608637
>You're telling me people spent nearly 3000 years robbing the pyramids and this Champolion guy still managed to find stuff?
>bullshit I say

>>51608585
Then magic can't exist. Because if it does, it's natural in that setting, and is thus not magic.

This just in: no settings have magic.

>>51608648
How many weeks do your adventurers spend looking around for hidden rooms?

>>51608650
Quite the battle of semantics going on here.

>>51608689
They do a check or two and then worry about supplies and the trip becoming pointless, then they forge ahead.

I don't think I've ever played with people who are that deep on the spectrum.

>>51608627
Well Many Buddhists can suck my dick.

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>>51608650
Well shit, no wonder my rituals never work.

>>51608699
That's literally what this is all about. You're talking SPECIFICALLY ABOUT semantics. Your whole claim is that it doesn't make sense for characters to use the word "magic" to describe natural things. I'm saying supernatural things do not occur. Unless they're random, unreplicable miracles. I'm saying that the only type of magic you permit to be magic is things which cannot have any science done on them, and are thus fundamentally supernatural. The only things which are sufficiently not natural, meaning not at all predictable parts of our fictional nature, must necessarily be totally random.

Listen, the way you see it, random wild magic is the only magic. Not even the will of a god is unpredictable enough to be permitted the title "supernatural", which is the only requisite for something to qualify as being magic.

I want you to know that this is precisely what you've described.

>>51608699
I replied to the wrong dude.

Hello, stranger. Welcome to our own little corner of hell.

>>51608787
The definition of supernatural is not that that it's unpredictable, it's that it's not part of the natural world. So to be truly supernatural it can't have observable effects.
According to anon's logic nothing that actually happens in a setting can be called magic because in the setting it's possible and from their perspective not supernatural.
That's stupid of course.

>there's one big sea or an ocea
>maybe a small sea, quite likely inland
>there's one big mountain range. one peak is very-very tall
>there's one big ancient forest no one ever fully explored or made road through. unless elves.
>there's one big river
>every race, apart from humans and tribal stuff like orcs, has exactly one kingdom and one ruler. political differences don't create factions, they create whole new species

>>51608873
Welcome to the Indus Valley Civilization.

>>51608912
Or Ancient Egypt, except for the forest.

http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/

I'll just leave this here.

>only aethetics that survived until Middle Ages are allowed to be active factions
>egyptian, sumerian, minoan,etc. styles are reserved for ruins and undead
>exception is made for greek and roman style sometimes though

>>51608982
>exception is made for greek and roman style sometimes though
Maybe cause they survived until the Middle Ages?

>>51604695
That's what I like about our current fantasy game with homebrewed setting, the races essentially come from FantasyCraft so there are loads of more more bestial races doing important shit. I mean there's a whole bloody Lizzad Inquisition we're currently going to have to deal with.

>>51608999
as ruins/heritage, not as active cultures

>>51609018
wow, I didn't expect the Lizzad Inquisition

>>51609028
>What is Romanesque style?
>What is Byzantine Empire?

>>51609028
It must be noted that Greco-Roman civilization was going strong until Late Antiquity and didn't just disappear overnight, while the Sumerian, Minoan and Egyptian civilizations were already incredibly old or dead even in Classical times. We're talking millennia here.

>>51609076
>>51609079
I meant actual toga-totting sodomites, not what they evolved into

by the way, you see Byzantine style even more rarely

>>51605873
>"cyberpunk"
>there are elves and dwarves
And what's wrong with this?

>>51606362
>Any setting that has more than five sapient races
What, why?

>>51609291
Well, while I agree that usually four is more than enough, five is still okay.

>>51609291
I agree to be fair. If it has more than five major sapient races it should either be a galactic setting or otherwise involve races from different planes/planets, maybe a Banestorm-style set up where races came from outside.

>>51607926
>And a fantasy setting being realistic used to be a real selling point.
To you but not to me,my friends, my family members or my colleagues.
It's basically telling us the author don't care for our enjoyment and therefore money and rather pander to their own delusions about how's life and people in general is horrible despite the obvious fact from reading their tripe that they never have much human interactions outside of the Internet where a lot of children and basement dwellers spend most of their time belittling them.

> Fantasy used to be about some real bland, mythical shit.
You are seriously retarded. Read more books. Epic tales of adventures, debauchery and heroism have long been in fantasy books before soapbox fanfiction authors enter the market.

>Here's the feudal Empire ruled by Prince Electors where everyone has German names
>original pls donut steal

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>>51609327
>>51609352
Well our fantasy world has 14 races, Drakes actually transition from like kobold to almost a dragon too and the majority of the population don't actually know about this so most people in-universe would consider there to be about 16 races. Most races then have a few variants as well, for example I'm now playing an Oni which is an Ogre variant.

Honestly, I see no problem with it, I'm honestly amazed at how many races there are going back and looking on the wiki here but it does make the population feel varied and has no negatives to complain about.

>>51609382
>This the Jade Empire/Empire of the Rising Sun

>Here's a scattering of sapient creatures that are completely different in origins, appearance and culture
>For some reason they're all able to crossbreed and are referred to as "races" rather than different species

Fuck this gay earth

>>51609449
or
>Khitai/Cathay/Cantha/etc

>>51604033
>distinct species culture boundaries
I always felt it was retarded to have all the fishmen gang up against all the humans and shit like that.

It always made more sense to me for the french, frog-man and human alike, to fight against the dastardly orcs and elves of britain.

>>51609484
>monosyllabic dynasties in the middle of a succession war while being invaded by horse nomads
Those fucking hacks!

>>51609497
>there's a big wall too
>doesn't stop nomads tho

>>51609487
Obviously it's lazy if this is all that happens, but surely it's not that unlikely that people tend to find more common ground within their own species than within political borders?

>>51607680
>>51608538
>You're not allowed to dislike a cliché because I can name examples of settings that use it!
That's why it's a cliché.

>>51609487
>what is St. Bartholomew's Day

>>51609550
Maybe in early city state eras, but as time progresses people have more important things to do than bicker and fight with their fishy neighbors.
They have to bicker and fight with THOSE FUCKS OVER THE HILL

>>51609327
>>51609352
>>51609411
So, no actual argument beyond
>b-but you just shouldn't!
?

I mean, I understand if you've got a Tolkien-style small world where every race has their own homelands/nations and whatever, fine, but that 's a very specific boring type of world. Setting some general cap on the number of races settings "should" have is just dumb.

>>51609487
I have a huge boner for transspecies cultural affinities. Like all the civilized urbanites trade and correspond with each others and sign pacts. They don't necessarily like each others and they have superficially weird customs, but they have things to share and common interests, you know?
Meanwhile there are all sorts of semi-civilized barbarians who respect each others because they have fairly similar concepts of honor plus martial and survival values and they hold the limp-wristed urbanites in contempt and probably coordinate to raid them or resist pacification efforts.

>>51609628
me too, anon.
But then again, my fantasy worlds take deeply from sci fi when it comes to how varied races are. Which is a lot.

>>51609465
Bad goy.

>>51607517
>CONAN vs. MAGIC ROBOTS FROM SPACE
>Assholes (also spain)
>ARABIAN NIGHTS ON CRACK
>DUMB ATHEISTS
>Weirdos

As someone who has never played a campaign set in Golarion. I have to admit I'm kind of intrigued.

>cyberpunk
>evil racists/ anti-transhumanists/ corporations are always the enemy

What if I want to be a fanatical racist neo-christian carving out a slaver kingdom from my cyber-cathedral fortress?

>>51609747
Isn't "corporations are evil" one of the defining features of cyberpunk? Or is your complaint more "why can't I be evil too"?

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>>51604033
Even though it's an agrarian society there is total gender equality and homosexuality is normal.

As a history nerd and faggot: that's not how agrarian societies work

>>51606006
Oh boy! There's enough stupid here to last for years!

>>51609760
>>51609760
>Isn't "corporations are evil" one of the defining features of cyberpunk? Or is your complaint more "why can't I be evil too"?

Sort of both. I wish it was more flexible and not so morally black and white, and it was more just different groups fighting each other rather than Good guys vs Bad. It just comes from playing campaigns and finding the 'bad' factions kind of cool and not being able to join them because it goes against the mythos of the whole setting.

>>51604033
>If you kill them, you'll bed as bad as them!
Still gets me everytime I see it. Sorry, not worldbuilding though.

>>51605972
In SoIaF RPG they gave her 6 fate points because of that.

>>51604843
I've been looking for this since forever.
Do you have the second one?
IIRC he did races and classes.

>>51609736
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Numeria
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Brevoy (poster was retarded because it's pseudo-slavic and the "spaniards" are literally gypsies)
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Jalmeray
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Rahadoum
http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Hermea (merely a social experiment)

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>>51609857
Forgot my pic.

>>51609783
>I'm too much of an autist to function in normal society

>>51609747
Then you're playing an evil campaign or you have no notion of what cyberpunk was about. It's the future of the 80s/90s for a fucking reason.

>world map is slightly modified Europe/Earth map

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>>51609962

>>51609971
this would've been so much better if they didn't fuck up France and Spain

>>51606362
>tfw made a homebrew RPG system with 20+ (monstergirl) races.

>>51609991
I like that according to this map Scandinavia is just as big as the rest of central Europe.

>>51610053
Depends on what you include in "Central Europe", really.

>>51609991
You think that's bad? I'm still trying to process what the fuck happened with Anatolia and the Black Sea.

>>51610078
bah, that's easy, Putin carried them off to Syberia

>>51609991
As the guy who originally made the map, it's because there would be to much blue in the bottom half.
Also, it would be wicked obvious what it originally was.

>>51610103
>Also, it would be wicked obvious what it originally was.
oh and right now it isn't?

>>51609903
back to tumblr

>>51610122
I didn't get it until I got to Italy.

>>51610074
Perhaps "Main land Europe" would be a better way to put it.
Map distortion is great regardless.

>Middle-Eastern analogues all look like stereotypical muslims and live in deserts, despite the wide range of cultures in Middle East, variety of biomes, and variety of styles and sub-cultures even in Islam across the centures

>>51610122
Maybe it is for Europeans. I'm with >>51610142 & didn't notice until Italy. I never scrutinize maps of the other side of the world. It's not like I'm gonna go there.

>>51610122
You would be surprised. Generally people don't realise until they get to Italy, or Britain if they're a bong.

>>51610353
I am European and I posted >>51610142

The fucky relative scale and the rotation really threw me off until I saw specific recognizable shapes like the fjords, Italy's boot and the UK.

>>51610193
>they practice not!Islam and venerate rule63 Muhammad but they're also polytheists
Forgotten Realms was so fucking stupid at times.

>>51604033
>Yes, I have Elves and Dwarves, but they are very different, my Elves are desert-dwelling bug people and my Dwarves are still short, but they are forest-dwelling rock-eating lizards.

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>metaphysics

>ITT people hating on the past settings under the guise of 'worldbuilding'

I understand trying to be unique, but most if not all of your blind hipster rage is absurd. One should not try to stand out just for the reason of standing out. You are basically shitting on world of darkness, planescape, tolkien etc and nothing more

>>51604033
>Thieves' Guild
>Pirates' Kingdom

(yeah-yaeh, I know there've been pirate kingdoms, and some countries' organized crime is very much like thieves' guild, but still)

>>51605046
Gods being assholes also avoids the problem of evil.

>>51610588
Do you take issue with the fact that a Thieves' Guild exists as an actual public guild, or with the concept that thieves would organize at all?

>>51610613
Both.

>Good and Evil are polarising energies that cause the rise and fall of nations
>Monarchs and their kingdoms are always evil
>Theocrats and their temples are always evil
>Republics are based on modern democracy regardless of relative time period and are always good
>In any ethnic conflict, an evil race is wiping out a good race of dindu muffins

>>51610645
Doesn't some kind of organization make sense? Organization would be valuable for planning larger heists, as well as profitable for selling things that you wouldn't want to sell out in public.

>>51610680
Describing organised criminals as a cartel or gang works better than a guild.

>>51610700
I can agree with that. I always figured "Thieves Guild" would just be what they'd call themselves, while the authorities might have a less flattering name for them.

>>51604787
>>guys guys, every myth and conspiracy theory is true!
I toyed around with that idea, then ditched it because players would never discover the intricate mechanism that caused geese kidneys become filled with gold dust.

>>51610645
FWIW, Criminals organizing is really old. Paris' courts of miracles (there were many) were basically thieves' guilds.

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>>51609971
WAIT A MINUTE

>>51610700
"Thieves Guild" just fits fantasy better than "Grove Street Families" or "Third Street Saints".
Gets problematic when it's a continent wide organization and not just random guilds in random cities, not linked to any other.

>>51611404
What am I looking at here

>>51611440
It's a map of europe tilted 90 degrees.

>>51611456
Yeah but so is the post he quoted and I've been looking for differences for the past few minutes now with no success

>>51611404
I'm not following. It's the same pic.

>>51611414
in all likelyhood "the thieves guild" is just a gang name, one among many.
I urge everyone to read up on guilds! If you imagine an ACTUAL guild for thieves that would be incredibly fun!

>>51607113
shit, seriously? where ? I thought I'd read all of his stuff!

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>>51604033
> almost every single major human accomplishment was actually aliens/magic in disguise
This tends to happen in long running settings and its a personal pet peeve.

>>51611601
So Superman is going to San Francisco?

>>51612184
or Amsterdam

>>51609411
See now, you illustrated the problem pretty well yourself:
>Needs Fluff x7
>(In Progress) x5
>only two races are actually written

Even when you write everything else, the fluff will never be as good and developed as if you only had a few races. Another problem is the problem of choice. How many games will you play in this setting? How many characters will there ever be made? Do you really think that each race will get enough attention if any at all (I mean from the players)? Do you really think that if you had fewer races it would somehow made the choice of race less interesting?

>>51609854
http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/text/ch%C3%BCrertises%20/

>>51607502
Three of my continents are "evil" of some descriptor, one is dead, one is full of elves, and the other is where humans come from.

>>51607245
In my current campaign my party is one amongst many other explorers/settlers/frontiersmen.

>>51607701
"northern" isn't the same as "nordic". The latter means "Scandinavia and the nearby countries that are like cheap knockoff Scandinavians". So in total, Sweden Denmark and Norway (Scandinavia) plus Iceland, Finland, Scotland, and according only to Estonia, Estonia.

>>51604033
>Elves in my setting are called fae, but they're literally pokémon transplanted from another universe
>>No one's figured it out, yet

>The dwarves are basically cat boys/girls that specialize in exothermal(ignition- and fire-based) magic and steam-tech
>>The cat girl in hulk-buster-style steam power armor is still in hulk-buster armor

>Humans are xenophobic and most live in a single massive city that makes up their entire country, like a walled version of Ravnica
>>Their god is the god of strife who loves teaching through life-altering moral tests, and the rest of the races/deities are dangerous as shit/are the reason that monsters exist

>The beast race is a species of 8'-10' tall nomadic wolf people built like gorillas that hunt monsters to make things from their parts
>>Monster Hunters that fight like a cross between Sif and the Boreal Valley Outriders

>The magic race is humanoid dragons that specialize in cataloguing magic and extrapolating its function to modify it to make better spells
>>Their god's afterlife is a fucking library

>>51605330
IT'S MOTHERFUCKING SPECIES
SPECIES
S P E C I E S
NO WAY A LIZARDMAN, A MINDFLAYER AND A DWARF CAN BE RACES OF A SAME SPECIES

fantasy races in general are shit 95% of the time

like, if the only differences are just in culture and extremely superfluous physical traits, just make another culture man, unless you're making *Humans But Better,* in which case, Stop

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>fantasy setting with lots of different races and cultures on one continent
>each race and culture has neat little borders where only they belong and there's never any muddying or crossover where two cultures border each other, almost no border disputes and no cross-contaminating of cultures

>>51605297

Mesoamerican response to Cortez is a great example

>>51612551
Native American response to colonization in general is a good example. Many of them hated each other too much to even warn them that the Europeans were coming, or sided with them against other tribes.

>>51607344
The big problem I have with this whole argument is, while it's a good one, suddenly you have a lot of difficulty explaining why your PCs exist.

Yes, I know not every party is going to be a gaggle of adventurers off to plunder a dungeon, but it bothers me more to have some random dudes be able to level up to god-tier while literally no one else tries to do what they're doing, everyone just happily remains NPCs even when the greatest warriors of the realms start getting outclassed by guys who a few weeks ago were little more than sellswords.

>>51607282
Exalted Dwarves arre also elementally-corrupted Fae.

>>51612509
This is my biggest pet peeve and very few settings do it entirely right.

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>>51609783
Total gender equality, nah. That's something you'd have to handwave because fantasy, at least as far as real cultural examples are concerned. But some cultures, while not exactly condoning homosexuality, looked the other way and allowed it to happen.

There's a huge book on how South Africa used to have young adults 'going hunting' and fooling around, which was allowed because it helped the society as a whole - the inexperienced men would learn intimacy, and would treat their wives better once they were married. And occasionally men would just live together and treat each other like they were married, and everyone just looked the other way. Some cultures down there even had explanations for lesbian women - the idea being that they were a woman with a man's spirit (i.e. a guy who was deceased and got into someone's body) inside of her, and a man's spirit wouldn't want to have a man taking her.

And that's not even taking into account how the Romans and Greeks were pretty okay with homosexuality under certain circumstances. Hadrian had a male lover that he tried to deify after his death.

I get that it sounds like SJW bullshit, and I don't have enough experience with other cultures to be certain on if it was common in Asia or in the Americas. But you can't ignore actual history just because it happens to coincide with the views of modern liberals, just like slavery and child sacrifice and other practices that are disturbing today shouldn't be ignored either.

>>51607344
>Adventuring has an extremely high mortality rate

This fixes most of your concerns. Why would peasants not choose to become adventurers? High mortality rate. Why would people with class levels prefer official positions to adventuring? High mortality rate. Adventurers are people with a "nothing to lose" mindset -- either because their village burned down, or they are extremely faithful, or they became bards and sold all their dignity away.

>>51612424
Dude, have it ever occurred to you that our biology may not work in a fantasy world? Anyway, even if it does, the reason they're called races is because that's what people in that world call them, because we invented the concept of species in the fucking 18 century you idiot.

>>51608536
The Dwarves (at least in the Hobbit) were suppose to be fantasy Jews.

Once had a huge and powerful nation
Was conquered by an outside force and people who acted like they'd always help just didn't
All its inhabitants flooded other lands in a diaspora
Most work in jewelry or metalworking, while keeping strange customs and languages that they only share with each other
Trying to get that land back would cause a huge war between various factions who believe the land should be theirs

>>51604033
The hilarious thing is most of the time they have that utterly wrong. Tolkiens elves were armor and metal using badasses. Not what a lot of people try to say they are.

>>51609465
>Only have 3 major hominid races
>Brutes, Mages, and Shortmen
>Brutes are Humans, Trolls, and Ogres
>Mages are Elves, Trow, and Witches
>Shortmen are Gnomes, Dwarves, and Goblins
>Interbreeding with race is fine because they're simply breeds of the same species (Humans and Trolls can have children, but Humans and Elves can't)
>Any offspring that DOES happen between the different races are ultra rare and don't live for that long
>Any other human-shaped monster that isn't supernatural in nature is basically just descended from another branch of the primate family tree.

>>51609747
I think you don't understand cyberpunk.
Most of it is about some self-serving jackass cheating the system; not necessarily because its evil (which it is), but because they're out to get something for themselves and fuck "The Man" if they try to get in their way. It's rare to see a cyberpunk hero be an actual selfless crusader.

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>>51606006
I want atheist to leave

>>51613651
Pretty much this. It's hard to be a honest selfless person in a world where everything is marketed and bought and humans are seen as resources only.

In most cyberpunk really the only way to get ahead is being like that.

>>51610193
>thinking anyone designing settings has an actual knowledge of medieval world settings.

Even not!Europe should be overrun with druids tribes with vastly varying belief systems that the superpowerful kingdoms keep trying to wipe out because Palor told them too.

>>51607282
I would an exalted dwarf.

>>51606089
Not true. I remember a setting once where the dwarves had a distinctly Arabic feel to them, even neatly combing, clipping and styling their beards. Rather than dig into the mountains, they carved them away, so their cities were on the surface, but always made from the living rock. Their drink of choice was alcoholic, but either chilled for use during the day, or deeply spiced and warmed for the cold nights. Most made their living as scrupulously polite and utterly ruthless merchants trading fine craftsmanship and exotics for rarer metals and essentials like food when their terraced farming couldn't adequately supply them due to the rivers being fickle little shits.

>>51613731
>Not researching actual history.

I remember the good old days when me and my friends used to stand around talking about random theological and economic concepts of the middle ages and ancient world and how they could apply to settings.

What happened /tg/?

>>51609368
Dude, you're not talking about realism as a whole. You're taking about your own personal strawman generalization of all fantasy novels that refer to themselves as "realistic", saying that they're necessarily synonymous with one subset of realism that panders with things like, "If this were a story, it'd go like this, but instead this is realistic, so it went horribly wrong." and spades of rape and murder. But that's not everything that fits the "realistic" bill.

>>51609554
Because it exists at all is not evidence that it is a cliche. I swear, you fa/tg/uys think literally everything ever done is a trite cliche.

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>>51609962
>the world map fits neatly into a rectangle on all sides
This is only acceptable on an artificial world.

>>51614375
Now that's a descriptive filename if I ever saw one.

>>51613769
The good old days hit page 10 and fell off the board. Last time anyone tried reposting them, newfags rioted, claiming that it wasn't /tg/-related.