Este hombre siempre me sorprende. Bueno, no siempre, pero si una vez cada 3 meses.
On a fantasy RPG character sheet, you will often see a lot of space to fill out things like age, height, weight along with details like hair color, eye color, home country, birthday, sibling rank. More often than not, these are cosmetic details that has no influence on character creation — and on the rare cases they do, it is a minor adjustment. Even gender typically has little to no effect on character creation. However, race is enormously important. Even among games that try to distance themselves from Tolkienesque fantasy, the result is that you have a new set of races like cat-people or inventions like Gnorl — but race is still the key trait of your character.
Given that this is fantasy with magic in the world, I think that there are many more possibilities for the important divisions among characters other than race and profession.
1) The birth date of a character could have an overt supernatural effect. There have been a few RPGs that have modifiers for this, such as the sun sign in HârnMaster or the moon phase in Werewolf. Take this more centrally, though, and the difference between a Taurus and a Pisces could be as great as the difference between an elf and a dwarf in Tolkienesque fantasy.
2) The place of birth of a character could have an overt supernatural effect, in a fantasy world where the lands themselves were alive and magical. Rather than a race of pixies, it could be that everyone born in the forested highlands can see in the dark and speak to birds.
3) The religion of a character could create an overt difference in everyone rather than being only a small modifier for priests. Worshiping the thunder god might make anyone stronger and grant protection from weather. Worshipping the earth god might increase constitution and improve other senses, but penalize sight.
4) Sibling rank could be central, exaggerating the stereotypes of such influence. For example, I played in a homebrew campaign campaign created by Robert Ellis based on fairy tales where sibling rank was vital. An eldest child was always a born leader, while the second was thoughtful and skilled, and so forth.
The point is that there are a host of possibilities for fantasy beyond race. For those designing fantasy games, don’t just ask “what should the races be in my fantasy world?” Consider further possibilities beyond races, bloodlines, or tribes.
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Me pregunto, a un nivel antropológico, si este tema de la raza que le pusieron los yankis a los juegos de rol, no tendrá que ver con su obsesión por ellas. Y después, lamentablemente, toneladas de juegos han copiado sin mirar el mismo concepto, sin pensar en variantes como las que acá comentan. En SAS a veces hemos comentado qué cosas saldrían, el día de mañana, de una corriente latinoamericana de rol, y creo que el tema de las razas, al menos inconcientemente, no sería algo elegido por todos. O a lo mejor me voy de tema.
Varias veces me pregunté qué hacer con ese apartado de datos personales, pero nunca encontré una respuesta válida para mis difusas inquietudes. A lo mucho, tirando palos de ciego, puse algo en Nocturna, pero de casualidad. Ahora tengo una brújula mucho más afinada, la verdad es que me resultó muy interesante y constructivo.
Me ha recordado el párrafo del nacimiento a una definición que hice para las personalidades de una partida de rol en vivo en Rol Negro donde cada personaje estaba influenciado por su signo de nacimiento, pero que los demás no sabían la fecha del resto, solo la suya.
Entre la documentación que se les daba, había una especie de dossier con recortes e informes entre los que se incluía un horóscopo con pistas.
Todos humanos, claro.
Además lo que me hace gracia es que se confunda el término razas con especies. Y que se mezclen culturas con especies.