roleplaying human races in rpgs

[lukaszek]

mondblut
I guess one should always tag Irenaeus in such threads.

It started with this:

There you go:
morrowind redguard
higher endurance, lower int. Females got higher personality at the cost of strength

And I decided to expand it a bit, as well as get others to contribute and find same racial coverage in other games.

So again... roleplaying human race in morrowind(choosing this among other elder scrolls titles for various reasons).
Crucial will be the map of tamriel:

Human races live in High Rock(Bretons), Skyrim(Nords), Hammerfell(Redguards), Cyrodil(Imperials).
Now this setup might remind you of something: Europe. It wont be the first fantasy setting basing its world on that continent.
So we have imperial - germans, nords - vikings, high rock - gb and redguards in... france.
Kind of obvious and one can wonder why didnt nottice that before(i know i was).

If anyone wish to say that blacks in 'france' is a bit farfetched, lets look into lore:

It is inhabited by the human race of Redguards, who fled to Tamriel after their home, Yokuda, was destroyed.

There you have it: black refugees fleeing to france to settle down.

Since I start to get lazy and bored Ill go with bullet points for each race:
Blacks:
-

do not share the same blood as the other human races, and they have no known connection with the ancestral Nordic homeland of Atmora.

- they perform mumification on their dead
- higher str and endurance
- lower int, will and personality
- women trade str for personality(getting both to avg values)

Nazis:
- higher personality
- lower agi and willpower
- women trade speed for willpower

Bretons:
- feudal kingdoms society
- lower agi, endurance and speed
- higher int and will
- women trade str for speed
- hate french(were invaded a bit)

Vikings:
- high str and endurance
- low int, agi, personality
- women trade endurance for willpower
- all that crap towards elves and other races you could see in skyrim


Wasnt morrowind the last elderscrolls in which you could encounter racism towards PC? Also Nazis are really boring due to "cultural diversity" and it makes me wonder if Oblivion was doomed to fail just because of region choice and time(after everything was conquered).

 

[an Administrator]

Also Redguards have a bonus for machete skills

 

[mondblut]

I have played Morrowind. Were Skyrim to feature the same base stats, the internet would melt under "redguard lives matter" screeching.

I was primarily referring to good old AD&D(1e?) where females had lower maximum strength, such as in goldbox games. Another casualty to PC craze.

 

[octavius]

How long before the "Orc lives matter" campaign starts in the ever increasing SJW part of the video game community?
"Orcs are treated just like Jews in the '30's and '40s".

 

[baturinsky]

How long before the "Orc lives matter" campaign starts in the ever increasing SJW part of the video game community?
"Orcs are treated just like Jews in the '30's and '40s".

Skyrim had loads of it from the beginning. Usually not with orcs in particular. Windhelm is literal "black lives matter", there is a Forsworn genocide, Nords and Elves are racist against everyone, etc.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Popiel]

Also Nazis are really boring due to "cultural diversity" and it makes me wonder if Oblivion was doomed to fail just because of region choice and time(after everything was conquered).

Yeah, that's why Bethesda are hacks. Cyrodiils are most interesting people in all of Tamriel, like, ever. That was never properly represented in any game, because Oblifail. Let me tell you, these moth-worshipping Cyrodiils are anything but tolerant and politically correct. You just need lore to know that. Praise Pelinal!

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Now this setup might remind you of something: Europe.

It actually doesn't. Like, at all.

So we have imperial - germans, nords - vikings, high rock - gb and redguards in... france.

What are you basing this on, on their culture (cause then this is obviously wrong*) or purely on the geographical position on the map and your Europe analogy? Seriously, how the fuck does Tamriel look anything like Europe.

(*Culturally, Imperials roughly equal Romans, Nords Germans and/or 'Vikings' if you will, High Rock is actually more akin to Medieval France and I'd say Redguards resemble Arabs.)

 

[Popiel]

There are Nords, Reachmen, Yoku/Redguards, Colovians and Nibeneans among major human races of Tamriel. Bretons are inbred menmer, while some Albalics (original men of High Rock) may live somewhere they are irrelevant. There used to be many more men races around (aboriginal men of Morrowind or Hegathe, Kothringi, Keptu etc.), but they all went extinct, because TES is a tale of fall of Man to Mer (elves).

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Popiel]

is there much difference between ancient rome and nazi germany?

Are you retarded...?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Telengard]

To short-shrift what would require pages and pages of text (followed by even more Codexian drama), the Roman values and technological superiority that everyone talks about are from the period of the Roman Republic, following a very different set of concerns and values to what would come later. The Rome that everyone knows, thanks to the Bible, is Imperial Rome - which is the decadent version that occurs well past the decline and fall of the Republic. And that decadent version is the one that is so oft compared to Nazi Germany, usually improperly. That version, well past its prime, survived on ill-paid mercenary soldiers - who it should be noted, oft ended up being unloved immigrants to Rome proper. Thus leading to the frequent comparisons with modern US.

EDIT: for instance - the Visigoths who 'destroyed' Rome were actually mercenaries fighting for Rome that Rome one day chose not to pay for services rendered. Mercenary companies live on that pay, so when they weren't paid they up and sacked Rome, but only to a degree to which they were owed, and they were actually careful about which buildings they sacked.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

So we have imperial - germans, nords - vikings, high rock - gb and redguards in... france.
Kind of obvious and one can wonder why didnt nottice that before(i know i was).

If anyone wish to say that blacks in 'france' is a bit farfetched, lets look into lore:

It is inhabited by the human race of Redguards, who fled to Tamriel after their home, Yokuda, was destroyed.

There you have it: black refugees fleeing to france to settle down.

Hammerfell is a stand-in for North Africa: vast deserts in the interior, some mountains, and most of the population living along the coast. The names and architecture seen in Hammerfell inTES2: Daggerfall are vaguely Maghrebi Arab. In the later games taking place in locations other than Hammerfell, they did seemingly turn the Redguards into generic blacks (or perhaps African-Americans) in Morrowind and Oblivion, but apparently turned them back into Maghrebis in Skyrim.

Spoiler

 

[deuxhero]

Note there are no Asian races and none of the usual suspects complain.

Which is interesting because the First Pocket Guide to the Empire mentions "Akaviri surnames are rare and prized possessions among the Cyrodilic citizenry of today, and there are trace facial features of the Akaviri in many distinguished Cyrodilic families" which would be easy to add to the options for "Asian" features in Imperial character creation, but Bethesda knows jack about their own lore.

 

[Kahr]

Cause it's made for the murican market, where Asians are none of the "classic" ethnic groups. They're the real "immigrants" of the USA.
Like the indians in UK, the turks in Germany or the maghreb people in France. Neither of those is in a video game. (Thank god!)

 

[an Administrator]

How about Orcs?

 

[Kahr]

Why are there no indians in Tolkiens books?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Kahr]

are there any nonwhite humans in Tolkien books?

No, as it is intended to be THE english hero saga. The Song of the Nibelungs for the english.
(There's also pretty few (sand)niggers in that, time to cultural enrich it... 2016 - We need a modern version of the Song of the Nibelungs)

 

[Commissar Draco]

Atmorans are Aryans with branching into Romans (Nibeans) Slavs (Colovians) Nords (Scandinavian Germanics), two sub-types of Bretons (Reachmen are wild Picts like Celts) and Imperialized French like Bretons from Dagerfall and Redguard which are like negro moors... they are most alien from the others and don't really belongs in Tamariel not being from Atmora like rest of humans were and invading the lands which belonged to Orcs and Nedic (Aryan) populations (Berbers) who lived there.... they killed of the former and assimilated the latter. Asians are obviously Akaviri although original Cirodil had SE Asian vibe... Jungle, Rice paddies and Moths worshiping Monks.... but now retconed into Renfair English larping Romans as seen in XIX century. And obviously Elves are Khazarians and other tribes of Jews and want to see Nedic humans dead.

 

[Space Insect]

are there any nonwhite humans in Tolkien books?

Various races bring enough diversity. Only when someone start including blacks question emerges what about other colors

The Haradrim are non-white.

 

[Commissar Draco]

are there any nonwhite humans in Tolkien books?

Various races bring enough diversity. Only when someone start including blacks question emerges what about other colors

The Haradrim are non-white.

Only those from Deep Harad also the Variags are mongol like Azns.

 

[Theldaran]

are there any nonwhite humans in Tolkien books?

There are, but they're ibul.

You've got the Southron, who are blacks, and the Easterners, who are chinese.

Due to the turn of the millennium affairs, the Southron were depicted in the Decipher TCG a little bit... differently.

 

[Shaewaroz]

This reminds me of a tabletop RPG campaign I played with friends years ago. Since we were complaining about not having any other races in our Scifi campaign, our DM had the great idea to give base stats to all different nationalities in the world. I don't remember all the juicy details but I remember that Irish were totally OP. Obviously this was before SJW became a thing.