Avoiding Fantasy Pitfall

[warlock1971]

I would like some advice from fellow GMs regarding how to avoid one of the classic pitfalls when GMing.

In a classic fantasy setting (I am using the World of Greyhawk) what tactics do you use to prevent all the players from playing elves? With their better attributes it seems a natural choice ... Not that my players are by nature min-maxers, two had never role played before, it just came up at character generation.

As a relative newbie GMing Legend, I am afraid I am missing a rather obvious rule/mechanic or some such. Thanks in advance.

[Old timer]

There is no rule or mechanic so to speak, just common sense, if you dont want a party of all elves, then tell the players you want a more mixed party for this campaign, and explain what the advantages would be, like interactions with some societies would be difficult if all where the same race.
Another option is to just go with an all elf party and see what happens, it might end up a really good campaign, played from the view point of one of races of the world. Mechanical advantage is not a big problem in Legend, one good combat manoeuvre and it can be all over not matter what the in system advantages of that character.

[warlock1971]

Thanks Old timer!

I am enjoying Legend a lot from a rules point of view. Coming from the bloated 3.X rules systems, I occasionally feel like I am missing something crucial mechanics-wise.

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Come up with SETTING reasons why everyone can't be an elf.

So, about a hundred years ago there was the "Elf-Human War" that ended with both sides devastated. Elves are not welcome in Human Lands.

So, your players can all be elves, but there are a lot of places where they are going to have trouble.

[DamonJynx]

Come up with SETTING reasons why everyone can't be an elf.

So, about a hundred years ago there was the "Elf-Human War" that ended with both sides devastated. Elves are not welcome in Human Lands.

So, your players can all be elves, but there are a lot of places where they are going to have trouble.

Whilst racism & bigotry are NEVER good things, it can be useful to influence player choices in situations like this. Players in my Elric campaign chose Melniboneans purely for the mechanical benefits, without considering the fact that pretty much EVERY non-Melnibonean hates Melniboneans. 10,000 odd years of subjugation is fairly hard to forget. I think they began to rue their choices when merchants would charge them 10x whatever they were charging humans, not to mention being disguised for the majority of the time, to avoid unnecessary conflict, is a nuisance.

[alex_greene]

This was not something I was going to cover in The Blood Path, where the race in question was orcs rather than elves - but it seems to me that if your players are choosing supernatural species to play simply for the mechanical benefits of playing such characters, then they're not really thinking about the roleplaying potential.

Their enjoyment of the game may yet be shallow and, ultimately, nowhere near as satisfying as a game where they chose a species so they could explore the culture which came with that species.

Also, it could be more fun if the players chose a species - then played that species out of type, so for example if a player chose a Dwarf - let him belong to a seafaring nation of Dwarf pirates, driven to piracy through generalised prejudice and economic hardship. Then give him a kind of a Greek appearance, to screw with perceptions that all Dwarves have to look like runty little Celts or Vikings.

Same thing if a player wants to be an Elf, but not an assassin, warrior, sorcerer or woodsman. Maybe an explorer, a lawforcer for the (human-run) City or even a diarist with a serialised journal that is printed out in a local weekly broadsheet.

That's my thinking, anyway.

[Fonso]

I would like some advice from fellow GMs regarding how to avoid one of the classic pitfalls when GMing.

In a classic fantasy setting (I am using the World of Greyhawk) what tactics do you use to prevent all the players from playing elves? With their better attributes it seems a natural choice ... Not that my players are by nature min-maxers, two had never role played before, it just came up at character generation.

As a relative newbie GMing Legend, I am afraid I am missing a rather obvious rule/mechanic or some such. Thanks in advance.

We usually play in a classic fantasy setting with many races. I try to balance humans with other races using different methods to roll the characteristics.
Human characters use random roll, but assigned characteristics and the other species use random roll too, but in order. Thereby human characters may have a lesser maximum than elves, for example, but they can be configured better to the player's tastes.

[warlock1971]

Thanks so much for the feedback guys, much appreciated.