I did not see a golem (correct me if I'm wrong)

Bahhhhhhh.

You're approaching this all wrong.

It looks more like you're quoting a list of deriavitive names for Pokemon than making a solid list of races for an MMO.

Work out your Lore first.

I'd personally prefer if playing a male or a female really changed the game, in terms of stats, story, and interaction with NPCs.

Of course, doing that means the feminists will hate you...

Quote:

Original post by etsuja although I'm not necessarily going to use them all,

Just as an aside, please please stay true on this. Originality is great, unique races and classes make things more interesting, and variety makes a game much more exciting. However, there's nothing more obnoxious than seeing a game that boasts (actually boasts) having 30 different races and 18 different classes to choose from.

For one, it's impossible to maintain balance in such a game (unless your race and class do very little), and I'm yet to see it done in such a manner where it doesn't look really childish (I'm a half-orc half-vampire cleric-hunter!). In my opinion, anyway.

Werewolf.

Duh.

I'll give you a hint you might as well trash those D&D books if you want any chance of making interesting races or lore in general.

Taking the drow/dark elf race and turning them into religious zealots in constant upheaval isn't going to be interesting.

taking the elfs and calling them the natural magicians and artists with long lives that value skill isn't going to be interesting either.

What you need to do to create good fantasy is to understand "Awe".

There is a lot of bland fantasy (yes D&D I am looking at you - despite this I am a D&D player).

A good fantasy race is more than just a look and a name (and a bunch of stats). There is a "cool factor" that is needed to make a good race.

In my curent D&D game I am running, I have used the same stats for the races, but came up with a whole new feel for them by introducing a new description of the races.

For a start, in the 4th edition D&D there is a Race called the Eladrin, which are like a fey Elf, but I have taken this and keeping the powers I have created a race that takes on the appearance of other races, but is actually an immortal spirit people. Because of this ability to look like any race, the other races have a distrust of them.

It has taken the "Elf with new powers" of D&D and turned it into something with an interesting hook.

Now, I didn't do this in the way I am going to suggest you try and develop races, as I am going to suggest an easier way than he one I used:

First of all, start by forgetting all concept of races. Assume that there is one race and the only differences are cultural. This is because it is a good idea to start off with what makes one race actually seem different to the player.

As far as the game mechanics is concerned, the difference between an Orc and a Human is just that they have different stats and a different sprite. As a player, this is also the only real difference between them. So when a player is making a character, they tend to see the different races, not as different races, but as different stats.

So, if you are going to give the player something interesting about the character they are going to make, you have to start with culture. The big problem is that you will have to make these cultural difference come out in the game (how other characters respond, etc).

A lot of games will say there is a difference between the races, but they then have nothing in the game that actually uses that (Neverwinter Nights is an example).

So, the first thing you need to do is develop the cultures of the world.

Step 1) The simple method that can be used is to state at least 3 distinct things about the culture and 1 thing that is contradictory about the culture

For instance:
Culture 1
- War like
- Codes of Honour
- Primitive dwellings

- Traders

So, here we have a war like race lives in Primitive dwellings, but have strict codes of honour, however despite all this they have a strong attraction for trading.

So they might offer themselves out as mercenaries (trade and war), but only for honourable causes. They might be seen as defenders rather than as aggressors. They might also be normal traders in goods, but they would also be trust worthy and not likely to try to make unfair deals, but despite this they could be very good business people.

(note: this is actually one of the races in my D&D game)

Step 2) After you have this cultural brief, you can start looking at how each of the cultures thinks of the other cultures. This defines the typical relationships between members of different cultures.

Step 3) Next, think about the environments you are going to put the cultures into and the typical costumes that they might wear. Remember, though, you are not to think of them as separate races at the moment (although by this point you probably are starting to).

Step 4) If you want, you can go through this whole process again (steps 1 to 3) and create sub cultures for each culture if you want, and you can do this by just modifying a few details

EG: for the Culture 1 culture instead of having a code of honour I might put in that they are sneaky (and make this the contradictory trait), then change the traders into cannibals and finally put then into a different environment like the desert.

Step 5) Once that has been done, you can start to think of them as separate races. To do this think of something that personifies your race and then write that into their physical description. For example, the culture I have been describing in the examples would be physically strong, so they might be tall and/or broad shouldered or even have some kind of natural armour (even if this has no impact on the game stats).

Once you ahve all this done, you can start to look at abilities that they might have that fits with their descriptions.

By the way, this is a very simplified version of the process and a lot of detail work will need to be done for fully fleshed out races, but this should be a good place to start.

wolf people
fish people

intelligent plants

people who only live in dreams


mechanical people

fungoids

Quote:

Original post by wodinoneeye people who only live in dreams

Ooh. I like that one. Although in an MMO setting it would require that other races have dreams or be able to access the dream world, or it would be kind of boring playing that race. Not to mention needing a lot more content.

Perhaps a variation could be a race that exists only in the death plane. In a game where other races go to the death plane before they can resurrect, its less of a major setting change to construct ways for the race to meet other races. Both are possible with a rich enough setting, though.