[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Oh, I agree that it doesn't matter to some people, and I think having some sterotypical fantasy write ups ala Magic World makes sense if BRP is going to be a generic RPG.

That was all I was saying really; the reason you see quite so many vanilla offerings is that for many people they simply make it easier to use the material.

I think some detailed non-generic races would be nice, and wouldn't hurt those who don't care about races or worldbuilding. Giving GMs some new races that they may or may not use doesn't force them to world build. More like the opposite. Right now, BRP has nothing out, so any GM is forced to either start worldbuilding, or buy a setting and convert.

Quite true. I'm just not sure that the more specific you make a race, the less overall utility it has. A generic, troll-like race is applicable to a lot of worlds; if you elaborate them to the degree of the Uz, you start running into some corners that can catch on things.

I just don't want to see BRP turn into yet another LoTR clone. Lots of other RPGs do that already, and one more isn't going to make a big splash. Besides the BRP rules aren't geared toward "high fantasy" anyway. I think it's better suited towards historical or mythicic historical settings or "dark & gritty" fantasy worlds.

I largely agree, as you may gather from comments I've made elsewhere. When I'm thinking of high fantasy, I don't tend to look to RQ.

I think that was partially due to a lack of options. If all you owned was RQ, and you wanted to run some sort of elf, all you had were the RQ3 elf stats. Considering just how xenophobic most RQ cultures are, including the non-human ones (more like ESPECIALLY the non-human ones) it's no surprise that non-humans didn't get a lot of detail in many original RQ settings. I think CoC's Deep Ones probably made the top 5 list for "friendly to humans" in BRP! Race relations in RQ were not nearly as good as in most RPGs.

Well, if there's a dominant theme in Glorantha, its mythic conflict; it just happens to be that that conflict is _particularly_ pronounced with nonhumans (and they get along _fabulously_ with humans compared to how most of them get along with each other).