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A few years back in a conversation with Chris and a few other GM types over builds and races and such, I was told that it was possible to take any path/discipline/race and role play it is I wanted if the build better fit the concept than what was intuative. At the time I belive we were talking about priveledged warrior knights and orcs, who are typicaly seen as savage or common at best.

Is that policy still in place? In particular could I use a warrior path and dwarf racial discipline but play it as a orc? I ask as I am trying to gather the orc tribe back together *winks*

in the case of RACIAL Displines, no. You have to phyrep the race to which they belong.

in the terms of all other disciplines, yes you can say your knight is an assassin or what ever you want.

That is unless a GM says otherwise.

Why the departure from the standard RP policy? As long as the player is in full racial gear for the race the PC is set up for, if they feel a racial discipline fits the concept better than the named one, shouldnt the rule be "role play it as you want to", like it has always been?

I believe there is a missunderstanding. Travis is saying that you cant take the orc discipline and then call yourself an elf.

Yes the skills are mostly independant of the RP.

On a philosophical level I would take everything into account when looking into a character.

a Privileged orc does not act the same as a privileged Human or even more so a privileged Elf.

For example, a savage Elf would probably come off pretty high faulting to a privileged Orc.

Also of note..Conan the Barbarian was constantly referred to as a thief.

In the end I don’t “judge” how a person decides to RP their character, but the world will act in typical ways so an orc RP’d like an elf will probably not get much love from any Orc NPC’s. As for example Warf acting all human like never got respect from his own people.
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No misunderstanding, travis was clear as was the passage under racial disciplines in the rule book.

My question was, why are the racial paths now exclusive to race they are labeled as when the boons never were? In fact the boons can be chosen by any race, so you can now have an orc with flee or an avianna with press. Seems to be counter to the general RP philosophy the GMs have worked by in the past.

I was told that the boons are now open to everyone because they didn't like the fact that every elf had to have the channel racial skill, etc.

As far as I know, the new Racial disciplines on the other hand, are there to convince players to actually use racial makeup.

The reasoning came off as being with the old way about 25% of the characters races' were ever adequately phys-repped by their respective players, so they would sweeten the deal with the +1 LP (over the new base of '1' for every race, ) and give out special race-only disciplines that could only be taken by people with racial costuming.

So for instance, a racially costumed Avyana would end up with a base '2' LP over the old '1', and access to a unique discipline that would be refused if they never wore their makeup.

Wyrmwrath wrote: My question was, why are the racial paths now exclusive to race they are labeled as when the boons never were?

Up until last year (or maybe the year before), racial boons were exclusive to individual races (Avyana got Flee, Elves got Channel, etc.), and it had been that way for a long time.

From what I understood, there was an "issue" (perceived, or real) where people were choosing races for their bonuses, and not really caring about actually playing the race, or putting the effort into costuming their race (make-up, prosthetics, garb, etc.) There are some examples I can think of, where the GMs should have, or did, remove racial boons because of very poor costuming in recent years.
So the choice was made to make the boons available to all races so that people could play the race they wanted (hopefully well), and still get the boons they wanted.
... and then it was decided to give individual races a "racial extra" again, resulting in the Racial Disciplines... which has the same issues (folks potentially taking a race for the Path and not putting enough effort into playing/representing that character) that the Boons had, only more complex.


But, basically, what it comes down to is that some things are Race-Only. If you want the Elf Racial Discipline, you're going to have to play, or at least phys-rep an Elf (Unless you get very special permission from the GMs, and probably with a really good reason for it too) Just like Boons were until recently.[/i]

((Racial Discipline = Racial Path, if I got it wrong.))

I belive the problem stems from RACE ONLY classes and abilities.

to be completly balanced everything must be available to everyone, when boons were turned into essence boons this was a great step foward. . .then there was a leaping backflip in the wrong direction as race specific disciplines were released.

the racial disciplines should just have been made into general disciplines, and the races should have been there for those that want to and choose to RP and phys rep the race properly.

as it stands, people will do the minimal racial requirements to get skills, people dont like it, but its not there fault

in the end. . .DISGUISE

to be completly balanced everything must be available to everyone,

I cant agree, but thats because you think balance has to do with what builds a PC can make when its actualy about the staff making sure the builds are kept in check inthe proper manner through RP and making sure all skills have their time to shine.

then there was a leaping backflip in the wrong direction as race specific disciplines were released.

I wouldnt call it the wrong direction, just counter to the RP theme that has been touted by the GMs from the day I started playing, and therefor baffeling as to the logical reason for the decision.

the racial disciplines should just have been made into general disciplines, and the races should have been there for those that want to and choose to RP and phys rep the race properly.

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Agreed....i know...me agreeing with you when so far we havent is odd...dont let it go to your head!

as it stands, people will do the minimal racial requirements to get skills, people dont like it, but its not there fault

Ok cool we are back to disagreeing. I think GAMERs will do the minimum needed. ROLE PLAYERS go all out with costuming. Fesco is a prime example, as is christin and every white faced race she has ever played, and the gargoyls that Tonia and Eric played(no one tell her I said she was a good RPer I will never live it down). There are many more.

those people that go above and beyond to phys rep or RP do it REGARDLESS as to what bonuses they will get from it.

there are many reasons as to why you dont phys rep your race correctly, some of wich being money and time.

a can garantee you, that if we all had unlimited money, everyone would have awsome costumes, and not because we get a +1 life point out of it, but because looking awsome is fun as well.

to be ballanced everything does have to be available to everyone, becuase if you say these disciplines are available to group A and B, but group A also gets these because they have such and such is not cool.

its the main reason i hate race specific boons, race specific disciplines, and the horrible idea of hidden disciplines.

to be ballanced everything does have to be available to everyone, becuase if you say these disciplines are available to group A and B, but group A also gets these because they have such and such is not cool.


this argument forgets B also gets their own special sauce.


The moral of the story any person can play an orc and get the orc displine. they are available to everyone if you follow the rules. You don't HAVE to. They are a reflection of the phantterian world.

those people that go above and beyond to phys rep or RP do it REGARDLESS as to what bonuses they will get from it

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THAT is exactly my point, they are ROLE PLAYING not GAMING like its everquest or WOW.

there are many reasons as to why you dont phys rep your race correctly, some of wich being money and time

Know how is another reason someone would not do the full out costuming. But none are true good reasons because aside from armor, most can be done easy and cheap if you contact the right person, which means ys jast have to ask around.

a can garantee you, that if we all had unlimited money, everyone would have awsome costumes, and not because we get a +1 life point out of it, but because looking awsome is fun as well.

Well more would but not all because some are gamers that will ALWAYS do the minimum.
The point is Travis, the fact that you can only take the orc disciplione if you play an orc is a 180 degree policy form EVERY OTHER PATH AND DISCIPLINE and the policy that has been in place from day one.

I was just seeking a whyy that decision was made. I was NOT trying to get that altered.

The why of it, as I know it was..

Since the Racial boons were generalized into Essence boons and available to everyone the Racial Disciplines were created to allow a person who costumes and RP's a race extremely well to have the ability to purchase something (in your words) a Gamer could not.

They are meant as a reward for good RP and costuming, essentially like the Racial boons used to be.

however you slice it, giving specific races specific bonuses to encourage people to play them leads to people to do the minimum required to get the bonuses entitled to the race, period.

I am a Gamer, and a darn good one at that, ask anyone i play with, Zeira in fact has been on the reciving end of this one night whilst playing halo
however, i have NEVER phys rep'd a race crappy for the benifits, i have played a human most of the time, i now have a beastman character that i costume and RP with, and im looking foward to showing off my new garb for him sometime this year.

i did NOT play a beastman for discipline bonuses, i did it because i had the good costuming and RP ideas.


if gamers will always do the minimum possible than make everything available to everyone so they can just play humans.
the people who can do a good job playing a race are going to do it anyway.

if you ask Christan why Vaun was a valkyn vi, why she wore a butload of white makeup and roasted in layers of black i doubt she will say "well for the 2 knockout obviously"

if you ask Dallid why he roasted in full plate real armor, when he himself admitted that it maed him less effective in combat because of the weight and ecumbrance, i doubt he will say "for the extra 1 life point, why else would i "

wish i could get nelkie and reid back here to chime in

EDIT
I've already stated that race should be not be tied to any mechanical benefit (in fact, I've already suggested a rule to promote roleplaying one's race without it tied to any such benefit). Causing people to lose their benefit due to improper costuming is a horrid idea.

that was posted by Reid, took me like an hour to find

Its awesome when a person does things for the RP over the mechanics. I give you 3 pipps.

I think such awesomeness should be rewarded.