Humans
I need to sit down and write up a rationale for using intelligent animals as PCs instead of humans. Honestly, a good portion of the setting could be used by just making all of the characters primitive humans and using mutants / genetically-alterations to replace the various breeds.
What do I gain by using animals instead of human characters?
Gains:
- Easy identification of races... everyone knows that an Elephant is big and strong and that a Cheetah is fast.
- The potential for amusing in-character misconceptions about what humans are like (but honestly, this could be done with primitive humans, too).
- Ancient humans as a mysterious god-race of unknown capabilities (again, this may be stronger when using animal-PCs, but it could be done with humans, too).
- Ready excuses for a large variety of reasonable "mutations" and sub-races without being hokey about it. It's easy to design a new breed, whereas creating a new subrace of humans would require more thought.
- I get to keep using the artwork that I've already done.
- Easy support for characters without hands (although adding in a race of uplifted Dogs or something who work alongside the humans would be easy, too).
- I don't have to invent a new title. Most characters wouldn't be "Beasts" anymore. I'd probably want to call the game something else. Maybe something with the word Echoes in it. Nuclear Echoes?
Losses:- A potential lack of connection with the characters, just because they're not human.
- A potential loss of audience, because some players hate animal-based games. It could easily end up being stereotyped as "another weird furry game".
- I can't use a ton of already existing post-apoc art because it involves humans.
The game might well be
improved if I drop the "furry" end of it. There's something to be said for a setting with primitive humans who worship a supercomputer and its cyborg underlings, accompanied by a race of genetially uplifted talking dogs.
Posted by Kiz at September 15, 2004 06:01 AM