Warriors at the Gate: #26 Another Breed

Remove all ads!

I've been asked to help out with a mod for Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines called "Camarilla Edition" that changes a fair few things in the game, and looks like it could be a bit of fun to work on currently I'm only helping out with the forums but once I've got more time I'm getting started on working on learning the ropes of modding and maybe making my own alterations.

On a IE related note, non traditional races, they crop up everywhere, what's wrong with good old fashioned humans? Or Elves/Half-Elves/Orc/Gnomes/Dwarves? A lot of NPC mods tend to go for unusual races to make up a majority of character depth. Why does she do X? Oh, because she's a Y and that's what Y society is like. While an appropriate response for many ventures of avenues of personality should not be an answer for the majority of their motivation and drive. Why does he do A? Because he's a human. Never really cuts it. The exotic races tend to have an air of mystery, much as "Why is he acting like that?" "Oh, he's dyslexic" "ohh! Okay then." lack of depth of understanding seems to lead to a drive of character and a means of an end.

Now, I am not in any way saying "picking an exotic race is a cop out" far from it, but a lot of the time it requires a lot more effort from the author to write it convincingly and with enough depth to counteract the alien nature of the encounter. There is also the risk of playing OMFG THIS RACE SOUNDS COOL WE'LL DO IT. Um, okay, but playing the race card always seems a little low. Race should be a factor in conjunction with personality not a reasoning for personality or an excuse for behaviour. Race may be an identifier within a culture but it is not the sum of such, likewise there should not be a million pariahs for each race and culture.

A lot of people tar Drow as uninteresting, overdone and tired, the greatest examples of this I have witnessed are pretty much the range of Drizzt clones people play in games, even at LARP events you can gauruntee there will be five or six Drizzt types lined up. The other side are the people trying to 'outdo' the Drizzt clones in a frenzy of "OH YEAH I'M SO BAD" without any motivation, political ideal or depth beyond "Drow are evil, I am Drow!" of course, I do not include Viconia in the lineup, while flighty and often hiding potential, she is one of the better examples of 'reasonable' Drow out there.

Why can't a human be exotic as a half dragon or yuan-ti enchantress? You could go into a bar (in real life) and scope the room for anything that catches your eye, I doubt you would leave with a sigh "not enough limbs for my taste, let's leave this dump", I doubt you make friends of each and every race except your own because you'd rather interact with something interesting than something you already know. While fantasy in some regard is about distancing yourself from reality, a shallow conception can leave you far less satisfied than a game set in modern day earth with excellent depth and still a potential for escape.