Will that be too cheesy...

[Domi]

To make one love interest an aasimar and another - a tiefling? An honorable aasimar, and a roguish tiefling. It's really tempting, but on the other hand does good taste dictate to keep them both human or not? Providing that other two characters are 'unique' races for the setting as well? Should I even be asking this?

[jcompton]

To make one love interest an aasimar and another - a tiefling? An honorable aasimar, and a roguish tiefling. It's really tempting, but on the other hand does good taste dictate to keep them both human or not? Providing that other two characters are 'unique' races for the setting as well?

 

It's awfully obvious. I don't think it's a question of "good taste" or that there's any sort of minimum requirement for pure homo sapiens relationships in any D&D romance configuration so much... but you're definitely going to be fighting against a wall of stereotyped notions when you put "honorable aasimar" and "roguish tiefling" into the mix. The stereotyped assumptions made by the player may tend to drown out whatever unique qualities you put into the character.

 

Should I even be asking this?

 

I think you already knew the answer.

[berelinde]

Character race is just a skillset. So no, I don't think it's too cheesy. If it turns into "I'm honorable/roguish because I'm an aasimar/tiefling," repeated ad infinitum, with no other reason given, then it's too much, but you're too good a writer for that to happen.

[Domi]

Well, my instinct tells me to make one of them plane-touched, but I have a difficulty deciding if I want to write a tiefling rogue or an aasimar paladin more. Or if I should actually leave the exotic race avenue open for the PC instead and make them both vanilla humans That last sounds the wisest, of course, but I am wondering if something so completely unwise may actually work

[berelinde]

Well, if you're going to go for one or the other, but not both, I'd say go for the aasimar paladin. Tiefling rogues have already been done a couple of times, and well. That's no reason not to continue, if your heart is really in it, but nobody's written an aasimar paladin before.

 

But then, character race was always the least important attribute a character could have. Haer'Dalis is a tiefling, but I never even noticed. Neeshka is a tiefling, and it would be hard not to notice, because it's mentioned all the time, but that's probably a better representation of Faerun's acceptance of tieflings than in HD's case.

 

Assuming you're talking about NWN2, here, since I don't think you're going back to IE modding, that whole plane-touched ECL thing is a pain in the behind. If you're leaving it to the player to take that plane-touched heritage, it won't be me. I love aasimars, but losing a level just to get a +2 to wisdom doesn't seem worth it.

 

Still, more depends on how you think of the characters. If you've already got one character pegged as a tiefling and another as an aasimar, you're better off letting them be what you want them to be.

 

It also depends on the prevalence of plane-touched beings in your world. If the blood of the outer planes is pretty common, I'd be suprised at only two plane-touched characters. Cannonically, such people are drawn to a life of adventure, so you'd expect to see a higher percentage of them in that line of work.

[Caedwyr]

I think that if you are going to go for the stereotype, you may as well acknowledge and embrace it. Sure it may be campy, but if it ends up being campy and well done at least it is upfront about where it is coming from.

[Eleima]

Character race is just a skillset. So no, I don't think it's too cheesy. If it turns into "I'm honorable/roguish because I'm an aasimar/tiefling," repeated ad infinitum, with no other reason given, then it's too much, but you're too good a writer for that to happen.

Actually, I think the correct expression in that case would be "ad nauseum", Berelinde!

 

Seriously though, I agree with Jcompton saying that you would "be fighting against a wall of stereotyped notions", but I'm fairly confident that you could pull it off, Domi. I believe you're aware of the traps that need to be avoided when embarking on such a perilous journey, and (warning, Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles fan! ) like Thufir Hawat said, "The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence". I'm full confident that a writer of your stature would successfully navigate those dangerous reefs.

 

But... that's just me!

[cmorgan]

I am probably a minority among players. But the "fun" of the plane-touched characters is wasted on me. I love a good story, with lore-specific ("complete immersion") backgrounds and interesting game-world stuff (the Less Generic NPCs project for Morrowind and your own BG1NPC work). For me, the immediate question is "why does this character *have* to be planetouched?". If it is an Amber-inspired moving into NWN2, cool - her character speaks for itself. If you are recasting mythology with The Dark and The Light, and absolutely need the stereotypes to be brought to the table and actively worked against, well, that is an instant conflict.

 

But for once I actually (mark this down - it may be a first) respectfully disagree with berelinde. I would actively avoid the specialty races unless there is something about the story that demands it vehemently.

[Domi]

It also depends on the prevalence of plane-touched beings in your world. If the blood of the outer planes is pretty common, I'd be suprised at only two plane-touched characters. Cannonically, such people are drawn to a life of adventure, so you'd expect to see a higher percentage of them in that line of work.

 

My background for the outsider races (gensais, aasimars and tieflings) is different from the FR's, and they are just considered to be abnormal humans (same goes for the dwarves). 5% of the total population, I would say. The concentration around the PC will be abnormal.

 

I see your point in regards to the tiefling rogue vs aasimar paladin. If I decide to go with just one, I will go with the paladin.

 

Caedwyr, that's exactly what I was trying to say, only in a more lame way.

[berelinde]

I'm not sure we do disagree, cmorgan. I'm saying that if she wants to make the characters plane-touched because she has envisioned them as plane-touched, she should go through with it, and never mind what anybody else may say about it. It's always best to go with the gut, there.

 

On the other hand, if she wants to make the characters plane-touched just to make them interesting, or just to have plane-touched characters in the campaign, they could just as well be human, both of them. I'm not big on using gimmicks to make a character different.

 

OK, maybe you're a little more emphatic than I am about it, but I think we're kind of saying the same thing.

[Domi]

But for once I actually (mark this down - it may be a first) respectfully disagree with berelinde. I would actively avoid the specialty races unless there is something about the story that demands it vehemently.

 

No, the race of those 2 NPCs has no bearing on the story. The other two, dwarf and gensai are plot-important and world-building related. But i am cutting down on the racial variations severely, leaving only humans and plane-touched as valid races in my littl' world (and dwarves are special). My outsiders are not extra-planar though, they are all elemental, including the tieflings and aasimars.

[jcompton]

It's kind of difficult to give you any sort of useful insight when you're being so cagey about exactly what this is.

 

You're hinting that it's some sort of bespoke setting, yet it's still got off-the-shelf D&D races (which apparently behave in rather off-the-shelf fashions in that tieflings are roguish and aasimar are noble), etc.

 

If you weren't clearly labeled as "Domi" I'd suspect this was just a ploy to get some buzz going. But that's not your usual style, so I'm confused.

[Domi]

I am just trying to build a relatively original setting in the constraints of an NWN2 toolset. I really like the outsider races, and wanted to make a world where they play a prominent role, instead of going with the usual elves-dwarves-humans trio with 10 more races on the side. So, I would define it as a D&D world with limited race selection. Since it is based of the toolset, so the bonuses/preffered classes will be assigned as per FR, it probably makes sense to keep the stereotypes too.

[BigRob]

I think if the Teiflings and Aasimar fill roles in this setting akin to those of the demi-humans in FR and other D&D worlds (and are about as common), then it's not too cheesy to have two romancable NPCs of those races available. It might be better if there were also a "basic" human romance available as well, but I think it'll come across as OK.

 

 

The stereotype thing is another question altogether, but even if they are within the standard stereotypes for their races (and given what you've hinted, that might not be the case), they can still be interesting characters. Assming nothing is repeated either ad infinitum, or ad nauseum.

[Domi]

Nope, their races won't really be a strong plot point, in other words, I won't make a parallel between 'I am a tiefling, so I had to become a rogue' thing. I am also tring to depart as much as possible from the 'planes' concept, and make the races as 'localized' as possible. In other words, all non-vanilla humans are just 'freaks', there is no concept in my littl' world that an aasimar is 'better' than a tiefling or a dwarf.

 

Oh, and there is a short basic human 'romance' available in the start. It just ends very quickly

 

Heh, yeah, I think I just won't have the ability to repeat anything ad nauseum!