Fantasy/Sci-Fi Races locked in stereotypes

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**Adeptekon**

I remember when Elf was a class.

**triplegrim**

Taarnak wrote:
odinsgrandson wrote:
I've heard this about DarkSun before but never played it.

I know it has some of its ow races. How does it change up the Tolkien races?

Dark Sun was one of the best alternative settings made for D&D in my opinion.

As far as the Tolkien races:
Dwarves were hairless,still artisans usually (Edit: apparently not usually, just sometimes), but not norse-themed in any way. Also, they had to have a focus for their lives, which if unfulfilled at the time of their death, would turn them into a type of undead. Plus, they could interbreed with humans and produce offspring (called Muls).

Elves were lazy, untrustworthy, scavengers, raiders, and thieves. Edit: Also quite tall 7' -ish and not always good looking.

Halflings are feral, cannibalistic, tribal peoples. Also, if I remember correctly, they are the oldest race in the setting.

The Dragon was an ancient and powerful sorcerer who transformed himself into The Dragon (there was only one at the start).

It honestly was one of the biggest departures from Tolkien-like fantasy that came out of the early (2nd Edition) D&D era.

Edit: One of my absolute favorites. Now I need to dig out my copies of the books...

And Al Quadim had all races belong to the same culture (a polytheistic pseudo islam) which was also kind of inventive and cosmopolitan and made the entire setting feel exotic from the perspective of other Faerûn adventurers.

Birthright also did thr same thing, with evil man hating elves and halflings living in the shadow world or whatever.

**Adeptekon**

I miss Oriental Adventures.

**Strg Alt**

Dysartes wrote:
Strg Alt wrote:
Tsagualsa wrote:
Strg Alt wrote:
This shows how stupid the current management at WOTC is. Abolishing half-races?! Really? Oh sorry, I mean half-species as the term RACE is so offensive! Facepalm! This is just a distraction maneuver to shift discussions from the atrocious microtransactions plans for future D&D. An asinine video game concept for a...Pen & Paper game. Damn, those suits at WOTC must be the sharpest tools in the shed!

I mean, D&D has a lot of work ahead of itself to get near the levels of M:tG nickeling, dimeing, dollaring and sovereigning its customers. Recent experiments with 1000$ (a thousand, this is not a typo) boosters, FOMO-maxing special art sets for hundreds of dollars each quarter, 3-5 'highly collectible' alternate art printruns of already extremely rare stuff included in each set release and other 'dark pattern'-based nonsense have shown that there is a thin, but reliable crust of high-FOMO; almost obsessive individuals with quasi-unlimited pockets that is willing to spend the equivalent of dozens, if not hundreds of normal customers on each and every release. And these people seem to be where they're aiming most of their marketing effort at, because it practically equates to printing money, at least in the medium term.

And these whales are living in the past. You love Fantasy art? You like specific, fictional characters from pop culture? Fine, go to Character AI and put in the required prompts. After trial and error you will receive awesome art for FREE. I did it myself. The only problem at the moment are hands and feet.

Feck that noise - if you want art, pay an artist.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the genie is out of the bottle. People will use AI. A lot. Artists will have to adapt.

**Adeptekon**

LOL I remember when artists were crying about digital media, painting on a tablet instead of with brushes.

**lord_blackfang**

Strg Alt wrote:

Sorry to burst your bubble but the genie is out of the bottle. People will use AI. A lot. Artists will have to adapt.

Adapt to what? Every dolt with internet access being able to steal from them en masse with something as simple as a text query? As you say, that genie has been out of the bottle for a long time

**Adeptekon**

It's the same thing that has occurred every time media gets easier to process. Before you could paint with a tablet without knowing technique it became a worry within the fine or visual arts, prior to that it was commercial art that went through an earlier revolution.

Production art used to be done by hand, go look at ancient White Dwarf magazines and the like. Typsetting, typography all that, used to be measured up and eye-balled before there were Apple computers which took the labor out of it.

What did those poor production artists do? They quit or adapted. Same with music going from analog to digital, and photography as well, people were always bent over change. Claiming it wasn't pure.

Good AI will create like human beings and it does right now. Poor AI is like someone with an Internet connection who copies images into Photoshop to edit or enhance them. No different really.

And besides there's so many ways you can copy that and reproduce right now without AI. Ever heard of "Steal Like an Artist"?

**Altruizine**

Adeptekon wrote:

Good AI will create like human beings and it does right now. Poor AI is like someone with an Internet connection who copies images into Photoshop to edit or enhance them. No different really.

This seems.... generous. As far as I'm aware there is no image-generating AI that could produce anything of value without having been trained on images created by human artists.

**Adeptekon**

Altruizine wrote:
Adeptekon wrote:

Good AI will create like human beings and it does right now. Poor AI is like someone with an Internet connection who copies images into Photoshop to edit or enhance them. No different really.

This seems.... generous. As far as I'm aware there is no image-generating AI that could produce anything of value without having been trained on images created by human artists.

So there's couple types of "artists" here, the kind that I gave an example of: a photoshop hack with an eye for things (granted there are true photoshop adepts) and someone who can natural reproduce imagery they're taking in through a familiar outlet (their hands and a stick) and medium sand, chalk, stones, etc. Otherwise it's exactly what we're doing except the AI has all the images it needs already, no hunting for inspiration for your art assignment. It's probably seen more things than you have.

**Kid_Kyoto**

AI debate is interesting but this isn't really the place

**Adeptekon**

My bad, got carried away thinking I was in one of the other AI topics.

**warboss**

Cyel wrote:
Yup, first RPG I've ever played, Polish 'Crystals of Time' in the mid-90's already had Orcs as the dominating highly-civilised race running a huge empire, where humans were just one of the sub-species.

Do you know of any online resources for that game that explain more about it (whether in Polish or English)?

**Cyel**

warboss wrote:
Cyel wrote:
Yup, first RPG I've ever played, Polish 'Crystals of Time' in the mid-90's already had Orcs as the dominating highly-civilised race running a huge empire, where humans were just one of the sub-species.

Do you know of any online resources for that game that explain more about it (whether in Polish or English)?

https://krysztalyczasu.pl/opis-swiata/ - here, the menu on the left refers to the system ('Kryształy Czasu' in Polish). It's pretty old-school, especially when it comes to its mechanics - a lot of maths! Used to be a lot of fun for us at the time, though

**warboss**

Cyel wrote:
warboss wrote:
Cyel wrote:
Yup, first RPG I've ever played, Polish 'Crystals of Time' in the mid-90's already had Orcs as the dominating highly-civilised race running a huge empire, where humans were just one of the sub-species.

Do you know of any online resources for that game that explain more about it (whether in Polish or English)?

https://krysztalyczasu.pl/opis-swiata/ - here, the menu on the left refers to the system ('Kryształy Czasu' in Polish). It's pretty old-school, especially when it comes to its mechanics - a lot of maths! Used to be a lot of fun for us at the time, though

Thanks and I'll take a look. Is that the page with the races available as I was most interested in that when you mentioned it? I wasn't sure if it would be in the world description judging by the URL.