CF: "Monster" races (was Re: promotion ramps)

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

This monstrous players thread is getting kinda strange.  Not that
there's anything wrong with strange, mind you.  I just think we need
to draw a line somewhere between expanding our options and being just
plain silly.  Green slime players?

If you thought mages were unbalanced, try playing a dog, or a mouse.
And putting them on the same list as titans?

If we were talking about a purely role-playing game, or even primarily
role-playing, any race would be fine, but we're talking about
Crossfire.  Right now it's almost 100% hackenslash, and although
several people have expressed a desire to move toward a mixture of
role-playing and mindless slaughter, I haven't seen any proposals to
go far enough for this.

Player races have to be equivalent.  Humans are usually the standard,
and whatever advantages any other race has over humans is balanced by
disacvantages.  Some types of monsters just don't make good players,
like mindless slime, ghosts that dissolve when they hit something,
mice that die if you step on them, and titans that are just way too
powerful to even try to balance against a level 1 human.

Some of the more powerful races could be options for humanoid players
to somehow become, like liches and angels.  Those transformations
would make good quests.  

If we eliminate the following categories:
- natural animals:  too limited
- mindless goo:  just doesn't work
- ghosts:  extremely short lifespan
- big, powerful monsters that can't reasonably evolve from any level 1
monster
- multi-square monsters (at least for now, maybe later...)

We still have these for additional player races:

Beholder - No reason to change the name or the picture to make a 1st
level version to start with,  It just doesn't start with all its
abilities, or its complete and permanent immunity to magic.

Demon (Imp > Demon)

Dragon (Hatchling > Baby) - Frost, fire, lightning, or poison (Baslic)

Gargoyle, Gnoll, Goblin, Ogre, Serpentman, Troll - Easy.  They're
humanoid.

Skeleton (Skeleton > Skull?)

Vampire - This should be a disease, like Lycanthropy.

Zombie (Zombie > Wight)

That's only three more non-humanoid races, in addition to the two we
currently have.  More than most games have.  If that's not enough,
make up some more, but I think that's about all we can take from our
current set of monsters.

-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 dave@Straylight.org
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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