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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2839 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The first draft of the player's guide to my new world

woah, sorry, I just realized that I never replied to you and kantos. :(

    I be specially like your take on Goblins as an artificial race.

After I started reading the blog TFG linked me to, I got to thinking about how I could play with their artifical origins more. I'm trying to make each race neither evil or good, because I don't really buy into that. Cultures might be, sure, but not races. So I needed to figure out a way to hammer home that these aren't traditional Goblins while still keeping them the high energy little balls of chaos that make them so much fun to play.

I've decided that Goblins were once dogs that have been magically raised up and made intelligent huminoids. They're super smart, but they also see the world from a point of view closer to dog than man. They'll eat anything, love to play, only kinda understand property rights, refuse to poop without finding the perfect place, ect. They're also distrubing to look at, and tend to be driven to the edges of society.

    Maybe add a few more paragraphs for each race.

I'm trying build it up slowly. Change it, add in more, and then get input. See what bits people find interesting, and what bits they don't. That way I hopefully won't build it all up only to realize I want to change something fundamental. I just showed the first draft of this to yall, but the next one is going to my players too.

    Maybe talk about how they interact with each other? For example, are there whole blood humans or orcs who resent the half orcs? If so, how does this resentment play out?

It isn't really in there yet, but I'm planning on outlining this sort of stuff when I talk about the nations and their cultures. I'm not too sure why you couldn't get my website to work (net stuff isn't really my forte), but I should be able to throw a pdf of the next version onto Dropbox if you'd like to read it.





user-inactivated  ·  2838 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I'm trying to make each race neither evil or good, because I don't really buy into that. Cultures might be, sure, but not races.

Neither are cultures. Everyone's necessarily a hero of their own story.

user-inactivated  ·  2838 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You are right, I said that clumsily. I was thinking in terms of Pathfinder and how their setting descriptions handle morality.

I am trying to set it up so there always be some areas where my players will find antagonists, and I'm trying to make it because the cultures are all over the map on values, not because the Goblins are usually described as Chaotic Evil.

user-inactivated  ·  2838 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I am trying to set it up so there always be some areas where my players will find antagonists

You will find a good way in the quote I've provided. Antagonists are not necessarily those opposing the protagonists: they may be chasing after one thing - be it wealth, admiration of one person or the public, perfection in an art or anything else - and, in the process, damage another that the protagonist values greatly.

The antagonists seek whatever it is they seek for the same reason that the protagonist might wish to deny them that: because they believe it, with their whole heart, to be the right thing to do.