Most strategy games and role playing games use various races (elves, orcs, dwarves, etc ) that could be played with. Each race offer various abilities, units or other gameplay features. Some games offer minor racial variation which is more like a variant of a race that already exists, they could be called subcultures. For example, in Skyrim, the Nords and the Bretons are just variations of humans. While the Argonian, the Orcs and the Elves are not humans at all.
There are alternatives to using a race system. The most common solution is using factions or subcultures, and making each of them have those special abilities.
The advantage of using races, is that they are known by most people, so when we introduce an Elf in the game, we do not struggle much in trying to figure out what it is. Another advantage is that some special power makes more sense. If you are playing Lizard mens, it makes sense that they can swim easily without using ships. It makes no sense as a faction ability.
There is some disadvantages when doing artwork. For example in RPG, if you want to make character portraits, you have to make it for every combination of race, class and sex. So if you have 5 class and 5 races, that is a minimum of 50 portraits. Sometimes, the connection might be very weak: "Oh! I am playing a Florentine, not really sure what it is, but the bonus are interesting". Also if your game includes arranging marriages like in Crusader Kings, it would be a pain to manage it via different races. Its also more complicated in a strategy game to handle population movement when races has a special abilities, If your territory is composed of 3 different races due to population migration, how to you handle the special abilities. On the other hand, if factions where used, the special ability is more tied to the type of government that the population racial feature.
What are your thought:
- Do you prefer having races in Fantasy Games?
- Is there alternatives to races besides Factions and Human subraces?
