For those of you interested in my Dream-Quest project but who aren't patrons, here's another public post that you might want to read. As with all my public posts at Patreon, I'm soliciting comments and suggestions to guide me as I develop this game into something that might, one day, be more than just a collection of notes and ideas.
This one really really really depends on you and your underlying ethic for Dreamlands mechanics.
ReplyDeleteIf - philosophically - Dreamlands is the esoterically threaded world of the dreams of mankind, specifically: i.e. it does not contain the dreams of dogs or whales or, for that matter, watermelon, but only the disjointed or loose alliance of the totality of men's dreams, then the dreamborn - primarily and in majority population by a wide margin - ought primarily be human. At most in that case, the other races should be "race-as-class" B/X minorities who are unique in a party of humans.
HOWEVER, if the game is more ecumenical than that, and the realm is the interwoven dream threads of all manner of creature: the dreams of cats, the dreams of dogs, the dreams of dragons and so on, then those born in dreams will reflect their dreamer.
Put it this way: although fantastical beasts and mundane animals do appear in dreams worldwide...so do humans and in much much much greater abundance.
Cats of course! As well as other races friendly to mankind, including ghouls. But I wouldn't include the mysterious Men of Leng. Their dread secrets should remain secret.
ReplyDeleteI (personally) tend towards human-centric campaigns, in any setting. A couple reasons:
ReplyDelete1) players can tend to gravitate towards “special” character types. I think many do so in an attempt to have their character stand out. Additionally, non-human races often have advantages human characters lack. In the end, you get a party that’s a weird mish-mash of non-humans, which then negates the “specialness” of them.
2) non-humans shouldn’t just be caricatures of certain types of humans (dwarves are just grumpy, greedy, gruff, short guys, elves are just lithe, flighty, arrogant people, etc). Non-humans shouldn’t be alien to humanity, in their thinking, goals, culture, etc. Glorantha does a great job of this. In my opinion, it would require a very invested player to take on that role adequately. And moreover, the type of player who feels they must play a “special” character, in order to stand out, probably isn’t the most suited to do that in the first place.
I like to stick to humans and make non-humans rare and altogether different.
That is my general rule as feeling as well, but I like to keep an open mind.
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