How do you keep up the image of nonhuman races and creatures

It's really hard to do when they are playable races. When it comes to world-building it's good to not have your wold be full-on multicultural. Your average human village shouldn't have seven elves, ten dwarves and two half-orcs in it. Don't get me started on cities. Kitchen sink settings are really guilty of this, but it's convenient for players. Another thing that could really help is going back to race=class, really forcing the player into a particular role instead of using the race as one of the bricks to build that character alongside class, stats and feats. At the same time this race=class should be able to do things that are simply beyond humans. There should be situations where the party can say "good thing we have an elf/dwarf/whatever in the party!"

>>53413516
I don't think I'm a good enough GM/Writer to answer your first question but as for the second one, I don't think so. It's pretty hard to set Elves as mystical and odd to us if your party chums around with one of them. If you had some really good and dedicated roleplayers? Maybe. But they'd have to be dedicated as all hell. Same goes for low key monsters and such, is a manticore or an orc all that weird and evil when you're party cleric is a tiefling and the fighter is a dragonborn?

>>53413821
>It's really hard to do when they are playable races.
This.

>>53413516
This picture is cracking me up.

>>53413516
kek, I just noticed that Gimli is wielding his dwarven army axe

>>53413516
>Mr. Burns in the back

Goddammit, it's like every time you look at this image you find a new detail.

>>53413516
I don't think you can. Familiarity is the natural enemy to those things and being able to play as one is the surest way to get real familiar real quick.

>>53413516
I found Waldo.

>>53413825
>>53414286
I don't know - the elves remained kind of a big deal in Lord of the Rings despite Legolas hanging out in the party, and even in Silmarillion before humans showed up at all. And there were no less than thirteen of the dwarf fuckers in the Hobbit as main characters but it still felt to me like they were something grander than human.

Maybe that's just me, though. Or just Tolkien.

>>53413516
Burning Wheel tries to do this with the emotional attributes, essentially a mechanic which encourages members of a non-human race to act a certain way by giving the player a meta-motive. In play this means your Dwarf is more likely to be greedy, your elf more likely to be a pacifist who sings a lot, and your orc more likely to be a brutal, violent savage.

>>53413516

> How do you keep up the image of nonhuman races and creatures as something inherently wondrous, mystical, and/or dangerous?

It comes down to adjective vs verb.

Adjective - they are X, they have X.
Example: These are elves, they live in the forest. They have copper skin and brown or red hair and green or black eyes. They have keen senses and are agile - many are archers or woodsmen. Close to nature they often have animal companions or druidic powers.

This quickly stops being wondrous because it becomes "people but with X".


Verb - they do X, X is done with Y among them.
Example: These are elves, they live in the forest. They eat raw meat and not much else. They jump through ridiculous hoops to not use anything from the forest they live in, or suffer fate worse than death. This struggle for usable things has resulted in loose property rights that often put them in conflict with others.

This stays notable a lot longer, because every time the activity comes up (and eating is pretty common) everyone is reminded that this one is different.


> Is it possible to do this while still allowing the player party to roll up whatever snowflake characters they want?

Yes. But the players need to be interested in exploring all the things that follow from the difference. And some understanding on what those things are.
Otherwise they will just set up a (magical) workaround and play standard murderhobo.

First remove them altogether. Then put them back, carefully and in an extremely limited manner, ONLY where humans will not be able to work at all: places of high magic or power or mystery, places of darkness and horror, like deep tunnels and haunted woods.

If nonhumans ever stray out of these places, then it's always a unique and hook-worthy event.

>Is it possible to do this while still allowing the player party to roll up whatever snowflake characters they want?

Only if your human players won't mind being upstaged at nearly every turn, thanks to their strange and special abilities.

>>53414366
That's what I meant by dedicated roleplayers. In Tolkien, the elves are never going to do anything unelflike and they'll react to things in an elvish way, same with the dwarves. Players? They'll react like a human, unless, of course, they're dedicated roleplayer. And a elf who is played like pretty much a human kind of takes the magic out the elven race ya know?

>>53413516
By having a clear vision of what you want them to be and disallowing them as player races.

File: 1376817000155.jpg (81KB, 480x663px) Image search: [Google]

81KB, 480x663px

>>53413516
Ideally, the only time you would see more than one or two races in an urban area was when you were in the Underdark, or when you were in an amazingly cosmopolitan area, because the setting made it clear that the elf lands were for elfs and the human lands were for humans.

It's fine if you have a player who wants to be a half-elf, because they might be the only half-elf on the planet. You're a dwarf? That's cool, but every other dwarf lives in this one spot far away so you will be stared at all the time.

Then you can throw in an occasional demihuman and it will be noteworthy.