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In tabletop role-playing games, the character race represents the people to which a player character (PC) or a non-player character (NPC) belongs. “People” is to be taken in the wider sense, ethnic group or specie. It can be a fictitious race from a fictional universe, or a real people, especially in case of a history-based universe (even if it has a given level of fantasy), e.g. Call of Cthulhu (Sandy Petersen, Chaosium, 1981), Boot Hill (Brian Blume and Gary Gygax, TSR, Inc., 1975) or Bushido (Robert N. Charrette and Paul R. Hume, Tyr Games, 1979). The term “race” is even wider than the usual meaning, as it also includes extra-terrestrial beings, vegetal beings — e.g. the Aldryami in Glorantha (Greg Stafford, RuneQuest, Chaosium, 1978), the Sylvanians in Fantasy Craft — and robots — e.g .Artificials in Fantasy Craft or the Forgeborn-Dwarf-forged optional race in 13th Age (Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, Pelgrane Press, 2013 in games-2013).

This notion is also present in most fantasy or science-fiction works: novels, comics, video games (especially role-playing video game), board games, LARP, etc. The transmediality is obvious in case of consistent universes, e.g. the Middle Earth or the Star Wars universe. However, this article is restricted to the noton in tabletop role-playnig games.

Not all work use the term “race”: in Tunnels and Trolls 7th ed. (Fiery Dragon Productions, 2005), Ken St. Andre uses the term “kinship (kin)”; the term is “Spezies” (species) in Das Schwarze Auge V5 (Ulisses Spiele, 2014, and “éthnie” (ethnical group) in EW-System (Christian Grussi et al., Ewtraodinary Worlds Studio, 2005).

In the heroic fantasy games, the races are usually humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, immaterial being (spirits, ghosts), etc. The main influence is the work of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Some fantasy or steampunk games also involve “articicial creatures” (alchemical homunculus, golems, mechanical creatures).

In science-fiction games, especially space opera and cyberpunk, the races are humans, extraterrestrials, mutants, cyborgs, transhumans, robots et artificial intelligences (AI).

In some universe, it is possible to have mixed-race characters. For example, in Dungeons and Dragons (Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, TSR, Inc., 1977), it is possible to play a half-elf (breed of a human and en elf) or a half-orc (breed of a human and an orc).

History

A fundamental notion from the beginning

The first role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons (Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, TSR, Inc., 1974), stems from the wargame Chainmail (Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren, Giuidon Game, 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 Donjons et Dragons are strongly inspired by the fantasy literature of the 1950's-1960's. It thus includes the tolkienian archetypes, but the game makes a difference between:

• the races that can be played as player characters, the so-called “playable races”: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings (initially called hobbits), half-elves and half-orcs;
• “monsters”, which can only be non-player characters, and which are by name opposed to the player characters: orcs, gobelins, kobolds, trolls, ogres, gnolls, etc.

In the first science-fiction role-playong game, Metamorphosis Alpha (James M. Ward, TSR, Inc., 1976), it is possible to play humans and mutated creatures.

The fisrt fantasy game that with the tolkienian conventions is RuneQuest (Greg Stafford et al., Chaosium, 1978): it is possible to play a duck (sic!), nut also takes into account the cultural background: primitive, barbarian, nomadic or civilised. As opposed to Dungeons & Dragons, the character is not defined by “basic bricks” (race and class, see The race, a brick of the character below), but by a list of skills (what the character can do); the cultural background defines the basic value of the skills. The race is thus less important in a functional point of vue (how the character can interact with the fictional world), but more important in a mimetic point of view (roleplay).

In 1983, Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game allows for the first time to play “monsters”, i.e. a player character can be a goblin or a kobold.

Generic races

The first books of the first role-playing game, Donjons et Dragons, do not describe any particuliar universe. It outlines a kind of generic universe inspired by popular fantsay novels such as Conan the Barbarian (Robert E. Howard, 1932), the saga of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (Fritz Leiber, 1934) or The Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954); the universe is described through the game (magic, gods, fantasy races). When the rules talk about elves and dwarves, these are barely described :

TSR Hobbies assumed anyone nuying 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 conection with Tolkien's stories.

— Ronald Mark Pehr, A Change of Hobbit

The player thus has to pick from his own knoledge of other works, particuliarly in what is now called the “geek culture”; according to Isabelle Périer,

is a concision tool — it allows to get very fast in the middle of the action — and an opening towards variations — you can then play with the stereotypes.
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— Isabelle Périer, “Role-playing games: another form of youth literature?” (Le jeu de rôle : une autre forme de littérature de jeunesse ?)

The race, from the tool to the subject

As aforementioned, in the rulebooks of the first role-playing games, the race was essentially a list of capabilities — functional part —, and a rather thin description that is often limited to the visual appearence, with an illustration, and some elements of moeurs — mimétic part (see Function, mimetism 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 wass thus mainly a “functional tool”, a set of functions that the player can implement in the adventure.

In 1989, {{Link}} is ambiguous. Please use a more specific template. 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 becomes the subject of the adventures, and not only a functional elent or a flavour to the universe. Other games are then published, that also use the principle od race-subjetc of the adventures, especially Vampire: The Masquerade (Mark Rein•Hagen et al., White Wolf, 1991) and Nephilim (Fabrice Lamidey and Frédéric Weil, Multisim, 1992).

Game design

Function, mimetism and roleplay

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

• what he can do in the fictional world, his “functionalities”;
• who ha is as a fictional person: his social status, his look, his habits, his past, etc. which wa call here his “mimetic part”

In role-playing games, there is a balance between functionalism and mimetism, 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 doat that game table? How can I interact with the world that surrounds me? All this is transcripted by a lst of characteristics or attributes Furthermore, given mimetic wrapper: who I am, what my name is what is my past life There is a balance; the balance is found, in my opinion, whe the mimetic part echoes to the functional part. For example in Vampire: The Masquerade, you have main traits of personality, called “Nature”, and when you play according to your nature, you earn points of Willpower that allows tou to make beter dice rolls.

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— Isabelle Périer, “Role-playing games: another form of youth literature?” (Le jeu de rôle : une autre forme de littérature de jeunesse ?)

The race, a brick of the character

Selon Coralie David, dans la littérature de jeunesse comme dans les jeux de rôle, les personnages sont définis par des « briques » ; ils sont en fait des « syntagmes de paradigmes fictionnels », qui facilitent l'immersion des lecteurs et des joueurs, en permettant facilement à chacun de se construire son propre personnage de manière cohérente avec l'univers de fiction.

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

— Coralie David, Jeux de rôle et écriture fictionnelle

Le peuple, en fournissant un « jeu » de paramètres prédéfinis (paradigmes diégétiques), de caractéristiques — au sens large : caractères physiques, culture, valeurs morales, rapports sociaux — constitue une de ces briques. La systématisation du monde fictionnel (c'est-à-dire la vision du monde de fiction comme un système cohérent) en briques apparentes facilement identifiables, auquel participe la notion de peuple, est un moteur de l'interactivité et du partage, mais aussi de la création imaginaire de la part du récepteur de l'œuvre (lecteur ou joueur démiurgique) ; cette construction des personnages par briques est un mécanisme important d'un certain nombre de jeux, mais aussi d'œuvres littéraires pour la jeunesse.

References

1. Template:Cite article
2. PhD in comparative literature, Stendhal University (Grenoble, France), see "Périer Isabelle (docteure en littérature comparée)". LPCM (in French).
3. Périer, Isabelle (2014-09-24). "Le jeu de rôle : une autre forme de littérature de jeunesse ?". La littérature de jeunesse dans le jeu des cultures matérielles et médiatiques : circulations, adaptations, mutations (in French). Paris 13 University. pp. section III-3 Intertextualité et stéréotypie (25:22–32:10).
4. Davis, Graeme; Dowd, Thomas A.; Rein•Hagen, Mark; Stevens, Lisa; Wieck, Stewart (1991). Vampire: The Masquerade. White Wolf. ISBN 0-9627790-6-7.
5. Lamidey, Fabrice; Weil, Frédéric (1992). Néphilim (1st ed.). Multisim. ISBN 2-909934-00-4.
6. Périer, Isabelle (2014-09-24). "Le jeu de rôle : une autre forme de littérature de jeunesse ?". La littérature de jeunesse dans le jeu des cultures matérielles et médiatiques : circulations, adaptations, mutations (in French). Paris 13 University. pp. section III-2 Le personnage (20:42–22:10).
7. ^ voir la conférence de Coralie David Jeux de rôle et écriture fictionnelle. on YouTube, section I Univers systématisé (5:04–5:29, 7:21–7:44) et section II Structuration paradigmatique des univers fictionnels dans les œuvres de jeunesse (7:44–8:53, 10:45–13:11), Université Paris 13, colloque « La littérature de jeunesse dans le jeu des cultures matérielles et médiatiques : circulations, adaptations, mutations », 24 septembre 2014

See also

• Character race (Dungeons & Dragons)
• Fantasy race