Race attributes

[Moon_Dew]

I'm not sure how the developers here are going to plan this, but I think each race should have certain attributes unique to each of them. I'm not talking about things like dark-vision or the ability to talk to animals once a day, I mean more like a natural skill with machines or hardiness gained from living in a desert or the mountains; little things that make each race that much more unique, yet still plain enough to suit any style of play.

[Rias]

That's something we've debated multiple times. One fear is that people will pick a race for the mechanical attributes instead of for being a race they're interested in. The other is that it makes assumptions about every person in an entire race of people, and we don't really like doing that. For instance, one might give the "hardiness" bonus to the Nuum for living in the desert, but what about all the high-class pampered Nuum that live a life of ease and comfort due to their servants and their magic? I would think that would make them rather frail, as opposed to hardy.

The only thing in this vein that currently exists is that only Giganti, Faewyr, and Fasa have the options to be of the required height and body build required to wield a totem maul without the usage of Bear's Strength or Bear's Blessing. That's due to their size and build, though, not strictly their race.

[Rias]

I've also never liked how systems like this engender certain standard no-brainer choices, like: "if you're going to be a merc or Dwaedn Wyr, choose Giganti. If you're going to be a thief, choose Hillfolk. If you're going to be a templar, be Viali." Those are the stereotypical choices and many people will pick them with or without bonuses, yes, but if we give mechanical bonuses to further support those stereotypes, it will prevent some people from choosing what's interesting and fun to them, because they'd rather have the best mechanical bonuses from choosing race X instead.

It would essentially penalize people for choosing to walk off the beaten path of race/guild combination.

[Isiaa]

Possibly a variety of choices depending on background? A pampered Nuum would be used to commanding for example while a Nuum who was a farmer would have Hardiness or something similar. A choice of background?

[Jaster]

How about bonuses gained through roleplay? Gasp! The horror! Must we earn everything? Luhlz.

[KianTheArcher]

I do, personally, like the idea of minor bonuses to either starting skills, or the actual learning of skills, based on a background. Mostly because it's a bit odd to make a character that was raised, for instance, by farmers, but doesn't actually have any skill level in farming.

[Slaidh]

I think a background system for starting skills would be cool.

[Rias]

We've brainstormed ideas for sets of starter skills based on background several times, and support the idea. Just never got around to hammering it out and implementing it. Feel free to post suggestions of starter sets, or an elegant way to implement such a system, here in this thread.

[Isiaa]

Well now..Backgrounds are rather complex because you have so many options. So first maybe general, common backgrounds every race would have like farmer, woodcutter, sell-sword etc then maybe a few per race like Nuum Farmer or Viali acolyte or I dunno.

[Vertebrate]

Just let players pick their own background skills. Let them come up with the elegant stories of how they came to have the skills they have at "level 1". It would be consistent with the way most games currently treat gender. (I would find it interesting if gender had consequences in games more often, I also find racial consequences in games enjoyable.)

[Evelyn]

What do you mean by gender has consequences? Not sure I understand... >.>

[Makkah]

Women aren't as badass as men.



::run far far away::

[Evelyn]

Pffff! My arse. xD

[hadesfire]

Woman get plus +5 to their kidnapped roll and men get -5 to their common sense roll XD

[Xyra]

Woman lose all combat abilities if grabbed on the upper arm, while men lose all combat abilities in the presence of a scantily clad female. Also men must be using 'dirty tactics' to hit a woman, because that just isn't done :P

Seriously though, I like the idea of background skills very much. Perhaps something tiny like 10 starting points to a particular skill, along with 10 points worth of double learning with no time limit. The easiest way to do it would simply be to let a player pick whatever skills they wanted, so they could still flesh out their background however they want. If you tie it to race or social standing or whatever, then you fall back to possibly pushing people towards stereotypes. Then again, if it is only a boost at the beginning, it would be easy enough to overcome.

Perhaps in character creation there could be a (skipable) section that would ask you some basic questions about your background. What did your parents do for a living? (Orphan, Thieves, menial laborers, skilled laborers, soldiers, mercs, royalty) Why did you come to the lost lands? (Looking for adventure, convicted criminal, in hiding, wanted to help, followed a dream)

I'm sure there could be others, and it could all be skipped, and the results possibly even changed retroactively, particularly for new characters who don't really know much about the game. Just seeing the options would give the new players some idea of what's going on. "Must be a really bad place if getting sent here is considered punishment for a crime."

Anyway, back to original skills, you could group some up into various little packages of 2 or 3 skills if you don't want people to just pick them outright. Maybe let people pick two packages. Perhaps some could give more skills but at a smaller bonus. Like you could get the 'smith' package and it would give you 5 points in the various forging skills. Or instead you could get 'healer' which would give you 10 points in herbalism and first aid.

You might also want to weigh the individual abilities based on how hard they are to raise. Forging for example requires a fair bit more investment to raise than say herbalism.

Anyway, just some random thoughts on the subject that occurred to me.

[Kunren]

Personally I'd enjoy a system where a background was optional to send out to GMs, but once sent, a GM would personally grant that character boosts/bonuses to that characters skills depending on the quality of the background (does it make sense? Is it well written? Can you tell this wasn't five minutes of easily forgotten hogwash someone threw out? ect.) and the logic behind it ( Man who was born in a farmer family but got sent out to join the guards would get a bit of farming skill perhaps and a bit of combat skill, while a man born in a farm who grew up to be a farmhand but recently left would have more farming skill but no combat skills). This would be a Crapton of work however, and would likely require a GM dedicated to it as his or her personal area of expertise.