Races - more interensting or less?

[Servo]

I started making a really simple game that would be easy for kids to learn. At first, I wanted to stick pretty close to D&D 3.5. I sketched out some concepts for class and race, for example:

Wizard:
Strength: 1
Speed: 2
Magic: 3
Skills: detect magic, identify magic, read magic

Bear:
Strength: 3
Speed: 2
Magic: 1
Abilities: charge, threaten

A wizard-bear character would then have 4 strength, 4 speed and 4 magic. Pretty lame combo - a bear fighter would do much better in combat, even if he couldn't use magic. The problem with this is it would lead to character stereotypes - bears will always be fighters, and fighters will always be bears, which is uninteresting.

This led me to discard the class and race concepts in favor of a classless, raceless point-buy system. Players get 12 points to distribute between strength, speed and magic. You can pretend to be a wizard-bear if you want because your race doesn't affect your stats. This would lead to greater variety, but there's no longer any reason to care.

So, in the case of a simple game, does adding a race concept make the game more interesting or less? Discuss.

 

[Mastermind]

More, but I'm fairly biased against classless, raceless systems (especially for fantasy). The existence of archetypes is a good thing for simple games anyway, the more options they have the more complex the game gets which is counter to its original purpose.

I dunno how helpful this is since I designed this system for a high complexity "elder scrolls killer" that surpasses just about every RPG I've played but I think the basic philosophy behind it can still be used in a smaller, simpler game:

I'll pick two races from my setting, both highly stereotypical: orcs, with high might, resilience, agility and dexterity and high elves with high intelligence, willpower, faith and wisdom. The high elf's mobility attributes are mediocre and his might/resilience are abysmal. conversely the orc's cleric attributes are mediocre and his int/will are abysmal. Attributes are determined entirely by race, though you will be able to get items that boost attribute skill bonuses (but not the attributes themselves) slightly. On top of that their racial skills (high elves have Magic Amplification, which isn't hard to figure out what it does, while orcs have a berserk skill, which also isn't particularly arcane) are also geared towards improving physical prowess for orcs and magical prowess for high elves. On the whole, if given an axe the orc will hit much harder with it than the high elf with everything else being equal. So in terms of making a traditional fighter who beats shit to death on the front line the orc is the better choice. HOWEVER, you can still make a good high elf fighter (even though he probably won't have much in common with the orc). That's because some weapon abilities (feints, in particular) are based on intelligence. So while an orc fighter would brute force his way through an enemy warrior the high elf would employ some finesse (IE: trick enemy to drop his guard as opposed to chopping his arm off). The high elf also gets access to better wand projection weapons (you can use wands and staffs to project blades, axe heads, hammer heads, etc. and use them as melee weapons) on account of his willpower projecting better than an orc's, which have advantages and disadvantages over normal melee weapons. On the magic end, while all spells benefit from willpower, there are spells that draw additional power from other attributes, so an earth magic flying fist spell, for example, would do just as much if not more damage when shot by an orc mage than a high elf one. Additionally, the orc could use heavier shields and armor without penalty on account of their superior might/resilience which would keep them safer in close combat spellcasting where they can make use of better/stronger short range spells.

To take it back to your original system, you could ensure that all races provide something useful for all classes. The bear might be a shitty spellcaster, but you could have a short range firebreath spell that would be dangerous for an elf wizard to cast but perfect for the bear to start off with before mauling shit to death.

 

[TigerKnee]

Try (simple) powers/abilities as racials instead of numbers.

 

[J1M]

Servo, in your example races and classes are not interesting because they serve to provide the player with the same set of outcomes. What you want to do is change it from an optimization problem into a decision. One way to do this is to orthogonally differentiate them. The classic example of this is contrasting two RTS units. An archer and a longbow archer are not orthogonal. An archer and a transport ship are, and result in a larger gameplay space.

With regards to your particular situation, consider what you want a race and class selection to do to a character. For example, a class selection probably determines their role in combat. Traditionally, the use of skills determines how a character performs out of combat. Your game could use race instead of skills for this purpose. Your character system could say that all orcs are good at bashing in doors and all hobbits are good at stealing.

Another traditional axis of gameplay in an RPG is exploration. Since race probably implies an origin, race could be used to describe which environments a character will help the party travel through. An elf knows how to best find food in the woods and a human is welcome in most settlements, etc.

If those non-combat ideas don't apply to your game, consider splitting one axis of the combat out and using it for race differentiation. The simplest example would be movement and/or defenses. Make dwarves move slower and immune to stun, give elves teleport once a day, make hobbits are the only ones who can hide in plain sight, and so on.

 

[Servo]

Try (simple) powers/abilities as racials instead of numbers.

With no numbers at all, I'm not sure how combat would work. Can you give an example?

 

[J1M]

Try (simple) powers/abilities as racials instead of numbers.

With no numbers at all, I'm not sure how combat would work. Can you give an example?

He is suggesting that instead of +2 dexterity you give an ability that allows the character to dodge the next attack. Instead of +2 strength, something that makes the next attack crit, etc.