What races would YOU like to play as in FF?

[CharlesX]

I wouldn't enjoy an FF where you are a bad guy who is undead or owns slaves (or other heavily evil such as Dark Elf), but being an orc or a troll would be fair game, I think more the reason those haven't been published is the gameplay wouldn't be strong enough. You may vote for up to all answers. By the way this poll is intended for all FF - published, RPG, magazine and amateur.

   This was a hard poll to write and I have probably missed important races. I don't know the races listed in advanced FF. As well, I don't know the varieties of Elf but have simply included one representative of Elf (normally Wood Elf) who are known to be good, and Black Elves, who are representative of those elves who are neutral.

   There's always been a big gap between what races are profitable enough to read in a published FF gamebook and what you might enjoy playing in RPGs and amateur FF.

   As King Gillibran asks below for the sake of clarity Lizard is intended to be Lizard-man.

[schlendrian]

I voted just human. I'm totally fine with reading a "normal" book from the viewpoint of a non-human race, I don't really see the point of playing one in a gamebook. If the difference is just in stats and skills, ok, though that's not really playing a non-human. But if we are talking about races that differ from humans in their worldview and approach to life and problemsolving - well, I don't want to consider: "What choice would a centuries old elf make in this situation?", all the time, I want to make the choice I would make...

[misomiso]

The big miss for FF has been the Dwarf imo.

A Dwarf based Gamebook would be extremely popular with the audience and be something new to explore.

[CharlesX]

Just voted 'other' as well as my multiple other choices, because it might be enjoyable to play an Android.

   Most of the time it is great to play as a human (re: feedback) but OTOH Siege Of Sardath and Phantoms Of Fear where you play an Elf are highly-rated adventures.

[CharlesX]

Aug 17, 2023 22:43:44 GMT misomiso said:

The big miss for FF has been the Dwarf imo.

A Dwarf based Gamebook would be extremely popular with the audience and be something new to explore.

Audiences like to play as stereotypical winners, particularly Americans. Elves are tall, graceful and pehaps fair-skinned, where Dwarves are short, ugly, bearded and grumpy. I don't recall whether Allansia even included Dwarves but you're not encouraged to be one.

   But I agree with you gamebooks and RPGs should stretch and challenge readers\players instead of consistently trying to pander to them - the latter has arguably been what Scholastic has been doing and their strategy has been a failed one. 

[CharlesX]

Aug 17, 2023 21:30:50 GMT schlendrian said:

I voted just human. I'm totally fine with reading a "normal" book from the viewpoint of a non-human race, I don't really see the point of playing one in a gamebook. If the difference is just in stats and skills, ok, though that's not really playing a non-human. But if we are talking about races that differ from humans in their worldview and approach to life and problemsolving - well, I don't want to consider: "What choice would a centuries old elf make in this situation?", all the time, I want to make the choice I would make...

Perhaps that self-consciousness was one of the drawbacks of the generally successful Phantoms Of Fear - you had the ability to cast spells and every single time you could do that, you would merely expend some energy and gain very little. I imagine the author worked chiefly on the basis "being a race that could cast spells might seem cool" rather than the basis "what would an adventurous human being do in this situation?".

[King Gillibran]

Is the Lizard a lizard man or an animal.
I voted for most as I would love some more variaty in who you play.

[CharlesX]

Aug 18, 2023 6:38:05 GMT King Gillibran said:

Is the Lizard a lizard man or an animal.
I voted for most as I would love some more variaty in who you play.

The lizard is intended to be lizard-man, just like as has been done in Battleblade Warrior. Thank you for your input and vote King Gillibran.

[Wizard Slayer]

Aug 18, 2023 5:23:35 GMT CharlesX said:

I don't recall whether Allansia even included Dwarves...

...Stonebridge??

Most of the good races you get some opportunity to play in at least one of the books (as a dwarf in Legend of Zagor from what I remember, haven't reached it yet). Playing a bad race without being bad/evil and not completely contrived is difficult and I think such a book would always suffer in comparison to Creature of Havoc. Maybe something where you're a new and unwilling Vampire trying to lift your curse before you succumb to evil?

On the good side, I rather like the idea of a sequel-ish to Demons of the Deep where you play a Mermaid/man trying to save your people from some evil, revisiting a few of the locations and characters (Cyrano, the dragon...) Maybe even a quick visit to the harbour at Port Blacksand...!

[tyrion]

I my youth, when playing d&d, I always played an elf, because they were cool. My son's last d&d game had a tiefling, a dragonborn, a bird guy and someone was seriously thinking of playing a kobold. A kobold for crying out loud.

But years of playing dragon warriors, in which humans are really the only choice, has shown how diverse playing as a human can be, just like in real life. In game terms, you could be a barbarian with the social skills of a half-orc, a wizard with the aloofness of an elf or a fighter with the gruffness of a dwarf.

If the only reason to play a race is because you get a +1 on a stat or hit roll, I think you're missing the point. You don't need to have pointy ears or, God forbid, wings, to be interesting. If you play an elf just like a human who happens to be good with a bow, you might as play a human.

However, there is a challenge in playing different races. An elf or a dwarf (nevermind a lizard man) could be so alien in how they think that humans have difficulty understanding their ideas. How does someone that was alive centuries before you were even born accept your ideas and contributions? Why should such an ancient being even care?

For a gamebook, getting these ideas across is difficult, because there is not much scope for actual role playing. So playing a dwarf just ends up with an adventurer with different rules (like in legends of zagor).

However, after I've said all this, there is scope to use different races as they open up different adventuring opportunities. A flying adventure, an underwater adventure (that's not demons of the deep) or an adventure where you are not a bad guy but are normally considered one (see drizzt from forgotten realms) could all work with different races.

But I voted human.

[Gabe Fandango]

Is the animal a full animal or does it include humanoids transformed into an animal for the duration of the adventure (I once attempted something with the latter...not sure it was full completed). Would be interested to play a book about either.

Anyway, I voted for animal, undead and other. My "other" would be Hamakei. I like the concept and find them rather underdeveloped in FF. And they're magic-users, and I always have a soft spot for having access to magic in gamebooks. Possibly a side effect of Citadel of Chaos being the first FF I read, one of the first things I tend to look for whenever I procure a new FF gamebook was to check whether it has a magic system. Sadly, I'm disappointed more often than not. And often, the few that did have it are either poorly implemented (Phantoms of Fear) or only come into the picture for a small portion of the book (like several of Keith Martin's books).

[CharlesX]

Aug 18, 2023 9:10:55 GMT Gabe Fandango said:

Is the animal a full animal or does it include humanoids transformed into an animal for the duration of the adventure (I once attempted something with the latter...not sure it was full completed). Would be interested to play a book about either.

Anyway, I voted for animal, undead and other. My "other" would be Hamakei. I like the concept and find them rather underdeveloped in FF. And they're magic-users, and I always have a soft spot for having access to magic in gamebooks. Possibly a side effect of Citadel of Chaos being the first FF I read, one of the first things I tend to look for whenever I procure a new FF gamebook was to check whether it has a magic system. Sadly, I'm disappointed more often than not. And often, the few that did have it are either poorly implemented (Phantoms of Fear) or only come into the picture for a small portion of the book (like several of Keith Martin's books).

My intent with animal would be either, being a born one or transformed into one. I agree about Hamakei, they look like a creature out of Jim Henson's Dark Crystal which I've always thought awesome (so similar I fear they might actually get sued if the storyline weren't to be dissimilar).

[kieran]

As I wrote an amateur FF where you play an orc, I feel obliged to vote for that. But really I'd enjoy any of them so long as the writer did something interesting with the concept - how often when playing Sky Lord does one remember one is playing the role of a four-armed alien for instance?

The one on this that intrigues me most is mermaid. I think that would have a lot of potential.

[roidhun]

Always liked the idea of having four arms like the alien protagonist in Sky Lord.

[kieran]

Aug 18, 2023 14:24:55 GMT roidhun said:

Always liked the idea of having four arms like the alien protagonist in Sky Lord.

Well, four-armed is forewarned. Or something.

[CharlesX]

Aug 18, 2023 12:11:20 GMT kieran said:

As I wrote an amateur FF where you play an orc, I feel obliged to vote for that. But really I'd enjoy any of them so long as the writer did something interesting with the concept - how often when playing Sky Lord does one remember one is playing the role of a four-armed alien for instance?

The one on this that intrigues me most is mermaid. I think that would have a lot of potential.

Think the option of mermaid was subconsciously inspired by a gamebook adventures fail-style ending where you become a mermaid. And one or two CYOAs with similar themes.

   It would also potentially attract a female audience.

[roidhun]

Aug 18, 2023 12:11:20 GMT kieran said:

But really I'd enjoy any of them so long as the writer did something interesting with the concept - how often when playing Sky Lord does one remember one is playing the role of a four-armed alien for instance?

Off the top of my head... I think it's hardly ever even mentioned again after the Introduction, unless you bungle one particular encounter so badly that you get an arm blasted off... and suffer all of just 2 points of permanent Initial and Current Skill Score reduction, because you've still got three more left!

[roidhun]

I also very much like the idea of playing a 7-feet-tall Half-Orc who gets his hulking, tusk-mouthed looks and battle skills from his Orc father, and his considerable brains and cunning from his Human mother, so that he's not only a killing machine, he's also sharp-witted, observant and fatally easy to enormously underestimate!

Oh, and he'd eventually become the professional - and later also the romantic/sexual - partner of a beautiful Human warrior-woman. (Yes, this was inspired by/ripped off from the brief but intense relationship between Conan (Arnold Schwartzenegger) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) in the original Conan The Barbarian movie. )

My provisional ideas for names for these characters are Grognard of the Stunted Tusks (usually shortened to just Grog) and Elena Brightsword, but I'd welcome suggestions for different names!

[CharlesX]

Aug 18, 2023 19:18:38 GMT roidhun said:

I also very much like the idea of playing a 7-feet-tall Half-Orc who gets his hulking, tusk-mouthed looks and battle skills from his Orc father, and his considerable brains and cunning from his Human mother, so that he's not only a killing machine, he's also sharp-witted, observant and fatally easy to enormously underestimate!

Oh, and he'd eventually become the professional - and later also the romantic/sexual - partner of a beautiful Human warrior-woman. (Yes, this was inspired by/ripped off from the brief but intense relationship between Conan (Arnold Schwartzenegger) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) in the original Conan The Barbarian movie. )

My provisional ideas for names for these characters are Grognard of the Stunted Tusks (usually shortened to just Grog) and Elena Brightsword, but I'd welcome suggestions for different names!

Like Grog the friendly, misunderstood Half-Orc in Creature Of Havoc? Actually that's probably just a coincidence  .

[roidhun]

Aug 19, 2023 10:50:39 GMT CharlesX said:

Aug 18, 2023 19:18:38 GMT roidhun said:

I also very much like the idea of playing a 7-feet-tall Half-Orc who gets his hulking, tusk-mouthed looks and battle skills from his Orc father, and his considerable brains and cunning from his Human mother, so that he's not only a killing machine, he's also sharp-witted, observant and fatally easy to enormously underestimate!

Oh, and he'd eventually become the professional - and later also the romantic/sexual - partner of a beautiful Human warrior-woman. (Yes, this was inspired by/ripped off from the brief but intense relationship between Conan (Arnold Schwartzenegger) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) in the original Conan The Barbarian movie. )

My provisional ideas for names for these characters are Grognard of the Stunted Tusks (usually shortened to just Grog) and Elena Brightsword, but I'd welcome suggestions for different names!

Like Grog the friendly, misunderstood Half-Orc in Creature Of Havoc? Actually that's probably just a coincidence  .

D'oh!

I thought the name Grog sounded familiar somehow. But it's been years since I last read Creature of Havoc and I just never quite made the connection, I suppose. Well, thanks for pointing it out. This could well have gotten to be even more embarrassing than it is already!

[bloodbeasthandler]

Aug 18, 2023 8:36:18 GMT tyrion said:

If the only reason to play a race is because you get a +1 on a stat or hit roll, I think you're missing the point. You don't need to have pointy ears or, God forbid, wings, to be interesting. If you play an elf just like a human who happens to be good with a bow, you might as play a human.

However, there is a challenge in playing different races. An elf or a dwarf (nevermind a lizard man) could be so alien in how they think that humans have difficulty understanding their ideas. How does someone that was alive centuries before you were even born accept your ideas and contributions? Why should such an ancient being even care?

For a gamebook, getting these ideas across is difficult, because there is not much scope for actual role playing. So playing a dwarf just ends up with an adventurer with different rules (like in legends of zagor).

Yep, agree with everything you've said. 

There could be a way to force a bit of roleplaying though.
Sword of the Samurai had an HONOUR stat which had an impact on the 'game' part of the gamebook but also reminded you that you were meant to be playing as a samurai. 

So a dwarf who doesn't care about kith and kin or gold or grudges,  or an elf who couldn't care less if the forests are all burned down ... the player's actions could and should have consequences whether in the modification of a statistic or a change in the path the book takes you. 

[a moderator]

Aug 18, 2023 19:18:38 GMT roidhun said:

I also very much like the idea of playing a 7-feet-tall Half-Orc who gets his hulking, tusk-mouthed looks and battle skills from his Orc father, and his considerable brains and cunning from his Human mother, so that he's not only a killing machine, he's also sharp-witted, observant and fatally easy to enormously underestimate!

Oh, and he'd eventually become the professional - and later also the romantic/sexual - partner of a beautiful Human warrior-woman. (Yes, this was inspired by/ripped off from the brief but intense relationship between Conan (Arnold Schwartzenegger) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) in the original Conan The Barbarian movie. )

My provisional ideas for names for these characters are Grognard of the Stunted Tusks (usually shortened to just Grog) and Elena Brightsword, but I'd welcome suggestions for different names!

Halfy McOrcFace?

[Pete Byrdie]

I've chosen human (because it would seem odd not to); what I interpret as merfolk; undead; Other.

I think there are lots of unexplored possibilities in the seas or oceans for a merfolk player to explore, perhaps on a quest to save his people from those evil terrestrial who over fish, throw their rubbish into rivers which dump them into seas, etc. Perhaps a prominent member of the merfolk royal family gets dragged up in a fishing net, and only YOU can save them before they're offloaded at some port to be sold to a sushi bar or something. There might be special water spells to use, new civilisations under the sea, etc.

My thought about undead was the same as has been said above. Being a new undead as a curse that you have to lift, time might give strange undead powers and immunities, magical, sensory and physical, that are both a help and a reminder of what's at stake.

For other, I was thinking, just for fun, a satyr, a hairy stone-age level goatman, probably very agile, but perhaps prone to uncontrollable aggression. Some kind of stat could be used to determine one's ability to control oneself in a given situation.

It's surprising how many of the options in the poll we've already seen in FF.

[roidhun]

It never rains but it pours.

A few days ago I happen to mention here that I have the idea for a Half-Orc character whose name is Grognard, commonly shortened to Grog... and it's pointed out to me that Steve Jackson included a Half-Orc character named Grognag, shortened to Grog, in Creature Of Havoc, which I haven't re-read in many years. Evidently I subconsciously recycled the name and didn't realize it.

Today a friend who's a lot better with foreign languages than I am informs me that Grognard is actually a real word: it's archaic french for a veteran soldier, especially one from the Napoleonic Era! I must have heard the word, forgotten it again and then unwittingly recycled it too.

All right, then... if Grognard and Grog are out, it'll have to be, um, Groknik and Grok?

But... how many other words have I obliviously done this sort of thing with, I wonder?

Are there any existing amazonian warrior-women characters named Elena out there who I'm plagiarizing too? Tell me the worst!

[CharlesX]

Aug 24, 2023 7:11:08 GMT roidhun said:

It never rains but it pours.

A few days ago I happen to mention here that I have the idea for a Half-Orc character whose name is Grognard, commonly shortened to Grog... and it's pointed out to me that Steve Jackson included a Half-Orc character named Grognag, shortened to Grog, in Creature Of Havoc, which I haven't re-read in many years. Evidently I subconsciously recycled the name and didn't realize it.

Today a friend who's a lot better with foreign languages than I am informs me that Grognard is actually a real word: it's archaic french for a veteran soldier, especially one from the Napoleonic Era! I must have heard the word, forgotten it again and then unwittingly recycled it too.

All right, then... if Grognard and Grog are out, it'll have to be, um, Groknik and Grok?

But... how many other words have I obliviously done this sort of thing with, I wonder?

Are there any existing amazonian warrior-women characters named Elena out there who I'm plagiarizing too? Tell me the worst!

The reason Creature Of Havoc and you would use the name Grog might be because it has a good ring about it, which would also be why it might have been an archaic word.

   OTTOMH I can't think of many people called Elena, except for the wife of the late evil dictator of Romania, Elena Ceauseascu (don't quote me on the spelling).

[vastariner]

Aug 24, 2023 7:11:08 GMT roidhun said:

 

Are there any existing amazonian warrior-women characters named Elena out there who I'm plagiarizing too? Tell me the worst!

Eleanor the Enchantress...

[Pete Byrdie]

Aug 24, 2023 7:11:08 GMT roidhun said:

It never rains but it pours.

A few days ago I happen to mention here that I have the idea for a Half-Orc character whose name is Grognard, commonly shortened to Grog... and it's pointed out to me that Steve Jackson included a Half-Orc character named Grognag, shortened to Grog, in Creature Of Havoc, which I haven't re-read in many years. Evidently I subconsciously recycled the name and didn't realize it.

Today a friend who's a lot better with foreign languages than I am informs me that Grognard is actually a real word: it's archaic french for a veteran soldier, especially one from the Napoleonic Era! I must have heard the word, forgotten it again and then unwittingly recycled it too.

All right, then... if Grognard and Grog are out, it'll have to be, um, Groknik and Grok?

But... how many other words have I obliviously done this sort of thing with, I wonder?

Are there any existing amazonian warrior-women characters named Elena out there who I'm plagiarizing too? Tell me the worst!

The word Grognard has made it into gaming circles, too, apparently to describe a veteran gamer. In my experience, if you're looking for a fantasy name, archaic words are a great source. Especially if they have a meaning that fits the character. I'd happily use Grognard.

[schlendrian]

"grogner" means muttering, grumbling, and "grognard" was, during the French Revolution, a funny-derogatory term by young soldiers for the old veterans, always complaining about the youngsters. With time, it became an honourable term for veterans, especially soldiers of the Old Guard.

[CharlesX]

Aug 18, 2023 8:36:18 GMT tyrion said:

I my youth, when playing d&d, I always played an elf, because they were cool. My son's last d&d game had a tiefling, a dragonborn, a bird guy and someone was seriously thinking of playing a kobold. A kobold for crying out loud.

But years of playing dragon warriors, in which humans are really the only choice, has shown how diverse playing as a human can be, just like in real life. In game terms, you could be a barbarian with the social skills of a half-orc, a wizard with the aloofness of an elf or a fighter with the gruffness of a dwarf.

If the only reason to play a race is because you get a +1 on a stat or hit roll, I think you're missing the point. You don't need to have pointy ears or, God forbid, wings, to be interesting. If you play an elf just like a human who happens to be good with a bow, you might as play a human.

However, there is a challenge in playing different races. An elf or a dwarf (nevermind a lizard man) could be so alien in how they think that humans have difficulty understanding their ideas. How does someone that was alive centuries before you were even born accept your ideas and contributions? Why should such an ancient being even care?

For a gamebook, getting these ideas across is difficult, because there is not much scope for actual role playing. So playing a dwarf just ends up with an adventurer with different rules (like in legends of zagor).

However, after I've said all this, there is scope to use different races as they open up different adventuring opportunities. A flying adventure, an underwater adventure (that's not demons of the deep) or an adventure where you are not a bad guy but are normally considered one (see drizzt from forgotten realms) could all work with different races.

But I voted human.

I imagine playing a Chaotic PC would be a lot of fun, probably even more for younger kids, but perhaps not so much for the other members of the party who'd be constantly worried about getting their fair share of treasure, getting sold out, getting instantly attacked because they have a bad guy in the party, a bad guy PC wanting to start fights even with knights, passer-bys and shopkeepers, not to mention good guys...

   I would think a creature that starts out as undead rather than say the nuanced Warhammer FRPG system where your necromancer develops afflictions over a campaign is a touch out-there.

[evilwizard]

I would like to play as an EVIL WIZARD of course!