Comments on: GM Assigned Roles

By: Human? Who the HELL wants to be Human? « Dice Monkey

Human? Who the HELL wants to be Human? « Dice Monkey — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:01:15 +0000

[...] so I have two cents to put in on the subject of role players and being human characters. I have a response, but I think people in general may agree. Here’s the short and [...]

By: dicemonkey

dicemonkey — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:21:54 +0000

I also ban Cereans in my Star Wars games. The idea of Dan Akroyd the Jedi is just ridiculous to me.

By: Swordgleam

Swordgleam — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:39:55 +0000

In my current game, my only rule was this: Absolutely no dragonborn. I hate them for personal reasons, and more importantly, they don’t fit with the setting. No dragonborn, period (unless you have a really, really good reason and decent puppydog eyes).

Unsurprisingly, my initial group of four included two dragonborn. The first dragonborn was easy – he liked the idea of dragonborns being an outcast race, and playing a character trying to redeem them. Explaining away the second one without interfering with the first was substantially harder, but I worked with the player and we ended up with a great concept that has already led to some fun intra-party conflict.

Since there’s two dragonborn in the party, diplomacy is a lot harder. Also, armor sized for them is not going to fit the elf or the tiny asian paladin, so swapping equipment around is a no. The players get to do their thing and be the race they wanted, but as a result, they have to worry about some things normal parties take for granted. On the other hand, the story is much cooler as a result of the challenges they now have to deal with.

By: Brent P. Newhall

Brent P. Newhall — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:12:07 +0000

The question is, what’s the reason for these particular roles?

I have no problem choosing a particular role and having fun with it, as long as the GM’s made it clear why these roles are important to this game. If it’s just because the GM likes a particular race, I’d be less happy.

By: bonemaster

bonemaster — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:35:51 +0000

I understand your issues. I think players trying to find the weirdest thing to play is very common. In many DnD games I played, my character was the only human (and there by the only weird thing)

I’m not sure how your players are going to react, but you need to set some ground rules. The pilot debate is one that is common in many space based RPGs. Take Traveller, most games assume that there will at least be one person who can pilot and one person who can be an engineer in a group. The group makes sure they have the skills cover somehow or else they don’t get to go anywhere. Is this heavy handed, maybe, but the players need to know that for them to have FUN, a little give needs to be in order.

Roll with the odd races does have some issues of course, but you should role play up the issues with having an completely Alien group. My Star Wars information is failing me, but I’d assume some humans may have certain prejudices that might make it hard on an all Alien party.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:47:02 +0000

Is there a reason you want to control their choices? Adventurers are unusual by definition, so I’m not sure representativeness of the galaxy at large (or even the dominant species of either the Republic or Empire) is that good a reason. But if you think it is, then why not make them roll to see if they are non-human? If, say, you think 50% of the party ought by rights to be human, at least you can let them flip a coin…then if they all wind up non-human you can at least be reassured this is a statistically atypical crew.

You might also consider whether there is a reason in the setting that humans do most of the flying about and fighting. If, for instance, the only affordable (non-custom-made) equipment for pilots and gunner stations come from factories that mass-produce them for humaniform species then you could say that it’s fine if they want to be a Hutt, but they have to live with the drawbacks of being a Hutt in a Human-centric world….