[MUD-Dev] Multiple Character Races

[John Buehler]

I'm trying to comprehend the value of having multiple races in a game
world and I'd like to hear folks' opinions here.

Assumptions:

  1. The game world has multiple entertainment experiences to it.  I
  rant about this at

    http://imaginaryrealities.imaginary.com/volume4/issue2/pvp.html.

  2. Players do not like to be required to restart the game experience
  with a new character.  Having the opportunity to create a new
  character and find entertainment should be possible, but being
  required is not desireable.  As an example, classes.  It is an
  irrevocable decision on the part of the player that may not match
  their actual entertainment goals.  As another example, Asheron's
  Call's skill points system.  Irrevocable decisions at character
  creation time.  This assumption weighs particularly heavily when we
  talk about multiple character races.

  3. The character in the game world are completely flexible.  The
  characters adapt to whatever entertainment the player pursues with
  the character.  This is the opposite of having classes.  I want to
  permit as many hybrids as possible.  The immediate reaction I get to
  this idea is that all characters will become completely homogeneous,
  with one 'best' combination of skills.  The counter to that is point
  1 above: multiple experiences.  If there is a spectrum of
  experiences to be enjoyed, then players will pursue their specific
  mix of entertainment and their character will adapt to that mix.

As I mention in point 2, character race selection would undoubtedly be
an irrevocable decision.  In the game world I have in mind, things are
fairly mundane.  There is magic and there are dragons and the usual
stuff like that, but it is presented far more simply.  I say that to
dissuade folks from suggesting that changing race need not be an
irrevocable decision.  Visit the magic dingus and WHAMO, you're an
elf.  I don't think that works well into playability - for my world,
anyway.

So the question is, what does having multiple races buy me?  Here's
what I've heard:

  1. Differences in appearances.  This affords players with the
  opportunity for roleplaying because there is a strong visual
  reminder of the fact that two characters are different.  While true,
  I wonder if that can't be accomplished by les dramatic visual cues.
  Choice of colors, clothing styles, body builds, etc.

  2. Differences in race history.  This permits players to latch onto
  the rich history of one race versus another, again affording
  roleplaying opportunities.  My counter to this is that different
  human groups can have a rich history as well, permitting the same
  roleplaying interactions.

  3. Difference in character capabilities.  This permits one race to
  have modest advantages in one set of entertainment and disadvantages
  in another.  The classic balancing act that so many players
  interested in achievement try to optimize.  I have significant
  difficulty with this argument because it seems to be not a feature,
  but a bug due to my assumption 2 above: players don't want to be
  forced to restart a character.  If I pick ogre as my race and decide
  to get into thievery, I may or may not be able to gain access to the
  entertainment of the world the way I thought I would.  Because the
  ogre is geared towards a certain style of entertainment, I might
  find myself having to discard that ogre - or pursue other
  entertainment as is more appropriate to an ogre.  Why introduce the
  'gotcha' of selecting the right choices at the start of the game
  when you don't have enough information to make those choices?

It may also be the simple answer of: players.  When I have multiple
races, I have more players because that's what players immediately
expect from these games.

All I see races providing as a feature is gross visual cues to let
players know what advantages and disadvantages each character has for
various skills.  The big races are stronger, the little races are
weaker - or whatever.  I don't see a roleplaying gain because
roleplayers will do their roleplaying with a smelly human or an ogre
equally well.  Non-roleplayers might be encouraged to do a little more
(bad) roleplaying because they are running some stereotyped character,
but the majority of their play will be in their 'normal' style of
gameplay.

In the end, we have several games mushed together.  EverQuest would be
a classic example again.  The various classes are each a unique game,
but the characters all share the same space.  When two characters bump
into each other, they compare and contrast the entertainment that
they're getting out of their respective games.  If dissatisfied with
the game they picked, they're forced to either continue to make the
best of it or discard it by creating a new character.  While races
with modest changes to character capabilities is in now way as extreme
as that, I wonder about the resulting value of having races.

Note that if different races do *not* have an impact on gameplay and
they are truly only visual effects, why bother?  Why not go with all
humans and put the graphics team on the problem of human body types
and facial structures, permitting greater depth of the human
experience instead of the breadth of the multi-race experience?

I'm beginning to think that races are like sex, violence and EverQuest
magic.  It's flashing, it's glitzy and it gets customers.  Why would I
want anything less?

JB


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