Character race

History

The first role-playing game, “original” Dungeons & Dragons (1974), stems from the wargame Chainmail (1971). Chainmail was especially designed to include fantasy races. The race is therefore a core notion present at the very beginning of the role-playing games.

The races in Dungeons & Dragons are strongly inspired by the fantasy literature of the 1930s-1960s. It thus includes the Tolkienian archetypes, but the game makes a difference between:

In the first science-fiction role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha (1976), it is possible to play humans and mutated creatures.

In 1975, Tunnels & Trolls allows for the first time to play “monsters”, i.e. a player character can be any race, including possibly a “monster”, but the races are not described in this game; in the 1979 solo adventure Goblin Lake, the player character is a goblin. The 1983 game Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game also allows "monsters" as PCs (e.g. goblin or a kobold), and these races are described in the same way as the “non-monster” races.

The first fantasy game that breaks with the D&D conventions is RuneQuest: the “elves” (Aldryami) are vegetal beings, it is possible to play a duck [sic], but the game also takes into account the cult (pantheon and system of beliefs such as animism) and the cultural background of the character's people: primitive, barbarian, nomadic or civilized. As opposed to Dungeons & Dragons, the character is not totally defined by race and class, but by a list of skills (what the character can do); the cultural background defines the basic value of the skills, and the cult the access to magic. The race is thus less important in a functional point of view (how the character can interact with the fictional world), but more important in a mimetic point of view (roleplay). The “basic bricks” of the character are more flexible (see § The race, a brick of the character below).

Generic races

The “original” Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D), and the first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons manuals (AD&D), do not describe any particular universe. The universe is only described through the game rules (magic, gods, fantasy races), and it outlines a generic universe inspired by popular fantasy novels of the 1930s-1960s. The race is essentially a list of capabilities—functional part—and a rather thin description that is often limited to the visual appearance, with an illustration, and some elements of moeurs—mimetic part (see § Function, mimesis and roleplay below). The way the race takes place in the fictional universe is described in optional books, the “campaign settings” or “world books”. The race is thus mainly a “functional tool”, a set of functions that the player can implement in the adventure: the elves can see in the dark, and in OD&D hobbits can only be fighting men. The Player's Handbook also provide a table of “Racial preferences” and racial restrictions to the alignment, i.e. some races are intended to behave in a given moral way.

TSR Hobbies assumed anyone buying D&D knew what Hobbits are, there was no real description and the only reason they seemed to have been included was to reinforce the game's connection with Tolkien's stories.

The player thus has to pick from his own knowledge of other works, particularly in what is now called the “geek culture”; according to Isabelle Périer, PhD in comparative literature:

[this intertextuality] is a concision tool—it allows to quickly get into the middle of the action—and an opening towards variations—you can then play with the stereotypes.
French: [Cette intertextualité] est un outil de concision — ça permet d'aller au cœur de l'action très vite —, et une ouverture vers la variation — après on peut jouer avec les stéréotypes.

Race-driven campaign

In 1989, Jean-Luc Bizien creates Hurlements (French for “howls”) in which players characters are “errants”, “wanderers”, i.e. were-animals that form a caravan. The race of were-animals, and their relationship with the humans, become the main subject of the adventures, and not only a functional element or a flavour to the universe. Other games are then published, where the race of the player characters is itself the main topic of the adventures, especially Vampire: The Masquerade (1991) and Nephilim (1992)

Depiction of real peoples

As aforementioned, some campaign settings are based on real world events, and thus depict real peoples. The way the people are described can be problematic and may sometimes be considered as offending. For example, French articles · criticised the way the Soviets were depicted in The Price of Freedom (1986).

Game design

According to Coralie David, in role-playing games (as well as in youth literature), the characters are defined by “bricks”; they are in fact “syntagms of fictional paradigms” (French: syntagmes de paradigmes fictionnels). This makes the immersion of the player (or reader) easier, as anyone can build his own character in a way that is consistent with the fictional universe.

[As they describe various archetypes,] the authors of Dungeons & Dragons draw paradigms, the gears and bricks that compose them. It is possible to play Hobbits, Elves, Humans [… The players] will use bricks to build their own characters. The characters will be in fact structured like a set of gears that are both fictional and ludic.

French: [En décrivant différents archétypes,] les auteurs de Donjons & Dragons dégagent des paradigmes, les rouages et les briques qui les composent. Il est possible d'y incarner des hobbits, des elfes, des humains [… Les joueurs] vont utiliser des briques pour construire leurs propres personnages, qui vont être en fait structurés comme un ensemble de pièces d'engrenage qui sont à la fois fictionnelles et ludiques

Thus, the race is one of these bricks, as it provides a set of predefined parameters (diegetic paradigms) and of characteristics—in the broad sense: physical characteristics, cultural background, moral values and social relationships. The fictional world is built as a consistent system made of “exposed” bricks that can be easily identified, and this promotes creativity and sharing; it also promotes the imaginary creation by the player (or reader).

The race itself can be made of “sub-bricks” the player can choose, e.g. in After the Bomb 2nd ed. (2001), the player can build his own race by a combination of a basic animal race and mutations.

Function, mimesis and roleplay

As aforementioned, a character is mainly defined by two things:

The functionalities are often a set capabilities and impairments which the game designer try to keep balanced. In some games, the choice of a given race has a cost in generation points, to reflect the advantages a race can give.

In race-driven campaigns, the functionalities can play a central role. For example, in Cats ! (La Mascarade) (2010), the PCs are cats, with the following consequences:

4: The cats have powerful powers, but always in a feline point of view.
5: Cats can hardly understand the way humans understand things.
6: The domestic felines do not have an opposable thumb!
7: What is easy for a human is complicated for a cat.

French: 4 : Les pouvoirs des chats sont puissants, mais toujours rapportés à une optique féline.
5 : Les chats ont du mal à comprendre l’esprit humain.
6 : Pas de pouce préhenseur chez les félins domestiques !
7 : Ce qui est facile pour un humain est compliqué pour un chat.

This influences the decisions of the player, i.e. the roleplay. In some games, the race has an influence on the choices made by the player. The influence can be prescribed by descriptions of the cultural background: the “Racial preferences” in AD&D impels the character to behave in a given way with other characters, and each cult and culture in RuneQuest Glorantha describe the way the character sees the world. In some other games, the influence on choices is impelled, and sometimes enforced, by the rules.

Some game designers consider that creating a rule to induce a role-playing choice is suitable:

In role-playing games, there is a balance between functionalism and mimesis, that is to say that at the beginning, a character is functional: he knows 1. How to fight or 2. How to chat up people […] What can I do at that game table? How can I interact with the world that surrounds me? All this is transcribed by a list of characteristics or attributes […] Furthermore, [we impose the role-playing character to have a] given mimetic wrapper: who I am, what my name is […] what my past life is […] There is a balance; the balance is found, in my opinion, when the mimetic part echoes to the functional part. For example in Vampire, you have main traits of personality, called “Nature”, and when you play according to your Nature, you earn points of Willpower that allows you to make better dice rolls.

French: Dans le jeu de rôle, on a un équilibre entre fonctionnalisme et mimétique, à savoir qu'un personnage de jeu de rôle, à l'origine, est fonctionnel : il sait 1. Se battre ou 2. Baratiner des gens […] Qu'est-ce que je vais faire autour de la table ? Comment est-ce que je vais agir sur le monde autour de moi ? Tout cela est retransmis par des listes de caractéristiques ou d'attributs […] Par ailleurs, [on impose aussi au personnage de jeu de rôle] une certaine enveloppe mimétique : qui je suis, comment je m'appelle […] quel est mon passé […] On est dans un équilibre, l'équilibre étant à mon avis trouvé lorsque le mimétisme renvoie à du fonctionnalisme. Par exemple dans Vampire, vous avez des traits de caractère principaux, qu'on appelle la « Nature », et quand vous jouez votre Nature, vous regagnez des points de Volonté qui vous permettent de faire de meilleurs jets.

Some other consider that such rules limit the freedom of choice of the player and impedes the immersion:

Typically, if you want to create game situations where the players don't know whether their characters are losing their minds, or whether this NPC is actually going to betray them, you shall make sure not to tell them. This means to make sure that what you envision for your game to be played is not that obvious, or that there is no explicit statistic that will let them know for sure what is going to happen next. [...] Indeed, some issues are much more well addressed through play if they are not explicit or if they emerge during the play without being felt as mandatory.

French: Typiquement, dans un jeu où on veut créer une dynamique où les joueur se demandent si leurs personnages sont fous ou si tel ou tel PNJ vont les trahir ou pas, il serait bien malvenu de ne laisser aucun doute à ces sujets, que ce soit par une vision trop explicite ou une statistique trop évidente. […] De fait, certaines thématiques parlent d’autant plus fort en jeu qu’elles sont tues ou ne sont pas obligatoires.

For example, in many role-playing games based on medieval Japan, the notion of honour is specific to the Japanese people (“race”); it is handled in different ways: