A Cry for Help (TableTop RPG Race Ideas)

[Schadrach]

Or instead you could have a parasitic race that possesses the bodies of others.

I'd had an idea like that I'd planned on including in a D&D game that didn't pan out.

In my case they were psionic microbes that functioned as a hive mind (via short range telepathy, meaning that multiple infected in physical proximity can function as a single hive mind, though they generally present a single personality per body). Upon infecting a host, they would speak to it telepathically, basically encouraging it not to seek treatment, and posing as a beneficial symbiote (granting the infected various psychic powers, which could only be utilized by the microbe while infecting a host, and required both to consent to usage [the microbe would pretty much allow anything not outwardly harmful to either microbe or host]).

It would then start consuming brain tissue, replacing it with more of it's own (who would in turn emulate the tissue that had been consumed). The infected took a small hit to mental ability scores while this process was going on (the microbe generally claimed this was to configure the hosts new powers and was temporary, while the reality is that it was caused by the microbes being suboptimal at interfacing with host brain tissue [also temporary, because eventually there isn't any host brain left]).

Over time, the powers become stronger (because the colony is larger) and the mental ability score penalties fade (because there's no host brain left). At this point, the original character is effectively dead, but hasn't realized it. Essentially whatever was "him/her" originally is essentially running on an emulator attached to her/his original body. This turns out badly if they later get raised or similar, because they've been dead for much longer than was apparent.

Interestingly, the microbes generally continue to emulate the original person despite it not being necessary, because it makes it easier to hide and infect others. Usually, they keep infection related activities hidden from the emulated personality, supplying it with false memories to avoid suspicion, not because they can actually stop them at this point if suspicious, but because they are useful as a mask and a mask that thinks it is the truth is the best mask of all.

 

[Joos]

...
Dude, do you even small races?
(Better, invert basic beliefs. Make a "Small" race that has high strength.)

Wombat-men.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Psychic Robot Underground Lizardmen! Let's call them Lacerites, just so we have a name.

Long ago, during your lore's version of the Cambrian, the Lacerites lived on the surface and had an advanced society based around the use of psychic powers, which took the place of electronic technology. Mass communication, high education, and scientific progress were all achieved through the use of telepathy. And everything was swell.

As the world cooled, The Lacerites retreated from their cities to more easily heated underground settlements. Although their culture above ground wasted to nothing, Lacerite society continued to thrive for thousands of years, thanks to their telepathic link. But as other races took hold on the world above, the psychic noise of their primal minds polluted the Lacerite mental network. Settlements found themselves isolated behind the mental walls of mammalian nations.

The Lacerites considered themselves above the primitive races that had replaced them, viewing other intelligent species as little more than vermin to be pushed aside. The ancient Lacerites donned heat suits and psychically enhanced weaponry and emerged from their caverns to exterminate the perceived threat. But their tacticians woefully underestimated the numbers of those who now occupied the world. The emerging Lacerites were obliterated by primitive armies with bronze swords and leather armor, primitives to whom the Lacerites and their inconceivably advanced weapons were just more monsters to hunt down. Lacerite settlements were burned and looted wherever they were found, and since their tools were useless without psychic powers, all their artifacts were destroyed.

Only one Lacerite settlement now remains, sheltered by the mountains of an ancient volcanic rift valley. The inhabitants of this settlement had abstained from their culture's failed purge of the surface world, but now the call goes out to reclaim the remaining artifacts and records of Lacerite society from the primitives, by any means necessary. The surviving Lacerites recruit volunteers who extend their minds into artificial bodies equipped with powerful armaments and resistant to the cold above. Thus protected, they venture out among the new races of the world to resurrect their dead empire.

GAMEPLAY CHARACTERISTICS
-Lacerite technology is handcrafted and powered by the psychic power of its users. Thus, the mechanical Lacerites can craft or obtain new body parts to improve their performance.
-Lacerite mechanical bodies are resilient to environmental hazards, but can be destroyed by intense heat or electric shock like any other complex technology.
-So long as some piece of a mechanical Lacerite remains after its destruction, the mind of the occupant can be implanted in a new body. If the body is wholly destroyed, the mind of the Lacerite is dispersed by the psychic background noise of the world, effectively killing them.
-Lacerite mechanical bodies lack the precision of organic frames and complex manual tasks may be beyond them
-Likewise, the bodies are designed to work with Lacerite psychic weaponry and cannot employ mundane arms with the proficiency of other races.

 

[ajit256]

Psychic Robot Underground Lizardmen! Let's call them Lacerites, just so we have a name.

GAMEPLAY CHARACTERISTICS
-Lacerite technology is handcrafted and powered by the psychic power of its users. Thus, the mechanical Lacerites can craft or obtain new body parts to improve their performance.
-Lacerite mechanical bodies are resilient to environmental hazards, but can be destroyed by intense heat or electric shock like any other complex technology.
-So long as some piece of a mechanical Lacerite remains after its destruction, the mind of the occupant can be implanted in a new body. If the body is wholly destroyed, the mind of the Lacerite is dispersed by the psychic background noise of the world, effectively killing them.
-Lacerite mechanical bodies lack the precision of organic frames and complex manual tasks may be beyond them
-Likewise, the bodies are designed to work with Lacerite psychic weaponry and cannot employ mundane arms with the proficiency of other races.

Sounds like these guys would be cozy in a sci-fi setting.


How about this: The Pain-makers
These guys would be an offshoot of Genghis Khan and his band. The race and physical characters can differ, no problem. The specialty of this race is that they are a slaver race who stuff their victims inside siege engines and iron suits where the victims are tortured in the most ghastly ways possible. The pain of the victims powers these automatons to create chaos. However, if the victim were to die, the automatons would instantly shut down. I think this creates a nice mechanic where these guys inflict a lot of damage but are extremely vulnerable. A sort of high-risk, high-reward scenario.

I'm thinking of the models and I think these would make pretty sick units to look at, with the bodies of the victims hanging out and perhaps besieging their opponents to end their pain.

Oh, and while having a good thematic connection to the story is a must, I do believe that a couple of kick-ass races do go a long way in bringing out the flavor of a game. Remember, a good 'take-away' is what keeps the project in the minds of the audience.

 

[lordmardok]

Honestly, Sentay, too many Tabletop RPGs today are populated with a strange and illogical collection of meta-human races. A common assumption is that you need to cover all your bases with different nerd obsessions and have Elves and Cat People and Dragon People and Dwarves ETC. To me this is harmful to the lore of the world after a while. Especially in game settings like Pathfinders Golarion or Faerun the world gets so incredibly crowded and over-run with different races that it becomes silly. How many intelligent species are there on this one planet?

My advice, make Humans the only playable race in your campaign setting. Honestly, look at the world around us are Humans not varied enough? There are so many campaign settings out there that are over-run with meta-humans that Humans Only is really one of the only ways to make your game setting feel unique. Instead focus on creating lots of different ethnicities and varieties of human and make them all unique and interesting.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. It's difficult to distinguish oneself from the plethora of games and I know it seems like having a massive crowd of different races is a good idea. Same with having tons of classes and abilities. My advice is to look at a game like Dungeon World. This is a game that has broken the idea of a Tabletop RPG down its most basic elements and created an incredibly fun system with it. Obviously you can't do that here because DW already did but the idea is to try NOT to make the world as complicated as possible.

Instead of making a ton of races, maybe instead work on the world and determine what races would fit. You don't necessarily have to go wholly with Torque2100's idea of all-human if you don't want to but don't make races just for variety's sake. Make races that fit within the landscape of the system you're creating.

 

[Rayce Archer]

How about this: The Pain-makers
These guys would be an offshoot of Genghis Khan and his band. The race and physical characters can differ, no problem. The specialty of this race is that they are a slaver race who stuff their victims inside siege engines and iron suits where the victims are tortured in the most ghastly ways possible. The pain of the victims powers these automatons to create chaos. However, if the victim were to die, the automatons would instantly shut down. I think this creates a nice mechanic where these guys inflict a lot of damage but are extremely vulnerable. A sort of high-risk, high-reward scenario.

I'm thinking of the models and I think these would make pretty sick units to look at, with the bodies of the victims hanging out and perhaps besieging their opponents to end their pain.

Oh, and while having a good thematic connection to the story is a must, I do believe that a couple of kick-ass races do go a long way in bringing out the flavor of a game. Remember, a good 'take-away' is what keeps the project in the minds of the audience.

So like a whole army of Penitent Engines?

In more of a wargaming scenario, that adds a lot of potentially cool mechanics. Kill the smaller number of slaver leaders and their war machines fall upon each other in a frenzy of suicidal bloodlust; kill the occupant with one well-placed arrow and a heavy-hitting enemy becomes so much scrap. If the machinery is fueled by pain, then presumably said machines would also grow stronger and stronger during the fighting until the occupant was killed?

 

[ajit256]

In more of a wargaming scenario, that adds a lot of potentially cool mechanics. Kill the smaller number of slaver leaders and their war machines fall upon each other in a frenzy of suicidal bloodlust; kill the occupant with one well-placed arrow and a heavy-hitting enemy becomes so much scrap. If the machinery is fueled by pain, then presumably said machines would also grow stronger and stronger during the fighting until the occupant was killed?

Hit the bull's eye, you did! The Penitent Engines are perfect. The one-shot-kill scenario was a major reason for their existence but I had not considered having slavers among the army! Like you said, the slaver leaders can form something like the Tyranid Synapse. His death would force the nearby squad to take a morale roll. Additionally, the constant screams of the victims will cause most enemies to take a morale hit when facing them!

 

[axillarypuma]

Okay so I'm most of the way through my passion project's development (tabletop RPG), and your input was very helpful last time (should every race be able to be any class) so I'm asking you people of the escapist do you have any neat ideas for strange or unusual rpg races that you'd be willing to share.

Stuff / tropes I already have covered
======================================
elves
high elves
big beefy bruisers
shadow people
cat people
golems
fish people
angels
multi-limbed race
ghost like race / wraith
======================================

As someone already mentioned, don't add races just for the sake of diversity, But IF you're going to add them all, make sure you explain why that race exists in a way that makes sense within the lore you're creating (I don't know if I worded that right)and make sure that they play or feel different from each other not just aesthetically, but different from a gameplay perspective, so that even if its the same class, it plays differently between races(the difference can be big or small, that's up to you).

This is just my opinion though, I'm not really familiar with tabletop rpgs.

As for the original question, since the theme is more medieval than anything, nothing really comes to mind, if you're interested in something futuristic I'll give you a suggestion.

Good luck with your project mate, I hope everything turns out well!

 

[iLikeHippos]

I think it really depends on what kind of world you are developing for your tabletop game. Having a race that interacts with the world around it works out best, and always finds a role (say you have a jungle world, so you include a goblin race that loves burning the trees down or a treant/beast/elf race that worships the jungle and gains whatnot for being exalted with it).

If possible, could we know what the theme behind it is? Otherwise, any suggestion I could make would probably be a pot-shot at best.