On Origins and Species
Something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, and something that has been mentioned a few times, is “Alien Origins” in Uncharted Worlds. The thing is, there will be very few “Alien” Origins in Far Beyond Humanity, for one simple reason: Origins are not about species. They are about society.
By-and-large, Origins are dictated by the social, cultural and economic realities of a character during their formative years. And while an alien may come from a different society with different cultural mores and values, we see a rough approximation of the careers repeated, or closely enough that we can make an equivalence.
The only time that Origin will not describe a childhood is in situations where the character in question has not had a childhood, where the character has not been exposed to a cultural reality. They have not been shaped by the slow, complicated process of learning and growing through societal exposure.
For example, one Origin that I will be including is the Robotic Origin. The character is explicitly programmed and designed a certain way by their Origin, rather than implicitly shaped by their environment during a receptive “youth” phase. Same goes for the Grown Origin; be it cloned or phytomorphic, as these characters go through an accelerated maturation, reaching “adulthood” too quickly to be affected by a societal Origin. What they lack in a lifetime of societal learning (i.e.: lacking a usual Origin skill), they make up for by having a unique design, function or abilities (species Origin skill).
So how do you make a creature of a species if you don’t have an Origin? Simply put, in 99% of cases, a xenosapien (intelligent humanoid alien) doesn’t differ enough from a human to warrant special rules. This is especially true in Space Operas, where most aliens are simply reflections, exaggerations or inversions of certain aspects of humanity, with odd skin patterns and/or exotic foreheads.
Simply state the species of the character and then choose Origin/Career/Career as normal. The minor differences in biology will make for interesting side-notes, rather than being decisive traits. Even when a particular species is characterized as being particularly strong, fast, etc, such things are not of a magnitude that would affect play, though it might affect descriptions.
Ugh. I can’t wait for this to come out
/sub
I’ve got to mull this one over a bit more, before I can intelligently comment.
Well said. Species is often just color in RPGs.
So, at first I wanted to argue with this, and I will admit, I still have a visceral flinch reaction to using what I’ve found to be the worst way of representing aliens in SF – forehead latex and skin paint, and then pretending, ‘Oooh, they’re so different!’
No, they’re bloody well not, they’re obviously Terran primates. I find the idea of using a background of panspermia (humans are everywhere) far more interesting that the handwave of ‘well, shucks, every ecosystem just happens to produce, well, things identical to Terran primates!’
(Yes, I know it’s a limitation of SFX budgets. Good writing works within those limitations. And it allows the exploration of cultural differences, which is, much of the time, the point. The throwaway line of Spock’s ‘green blood’ makes my brain hurt.)
But what about, you know, non-human aliens? Take one of my favorite settings, Traveller. Okay, we’ve got human panspermia – the Ancients grabbed humans, modded some, and spread them around. But wait, what about Vargr, Aslan, K’Kree, Hivers?
Vargr – not quite as strong, a little faster in a sprint, better sense of smell, and significant cultural differences (fluid charismatic hierarchies).
Aslan – taller, stronger, built-in claws, and significant cultural differences (strict gender roles, land-seeking).
K’kree – quadruped, better smell, worse vision, and…significant cultural differences (militant genocidal vegetarianism, claustrophobic gregariousness).
Hivers – no vocal language, radial symmetry, different young-rearing strategy, significantly larger than humans, and…wait…significant cultural differences (manipulation, voluntary ‘clubs’ as government and society).
It’s not that the physical differences are unimportant – they’re very important, but they’re mostly just important visual cues, costuming, if you will. Me, I’d give each race one slight advantage and one slight disadvantage, using humans as baseline.
But in the end, one of the most important things to note about the Traveller races is not any particular capability, but that they’re not human, at all. ‘They don’t think quite like us’ is not well represented, for the most part, with game mechanics, but with how the player portrays the effects of the social upbringing of the character, and how they react to situations, people, and events.
But what about really alien aliens, like, say Mass Effect‘s Hanar? They’re floating Yodas with tentacles. The real difference (outside of the culture) is how hard it is for them to get equipment.
But what about having cool powers? Hey, that’s awesome – come up with something neat for each race, and have at it! Just be sure to give your baselines something to balance it out. I’m still not quite sure how I’d represent Traveller psionics yet – I’m not much for the ‘fictional positioning’ argument for something that literally breaks the rules of physics, at least a little bit. But whatever the balance is, the really stark differences in the setting between Imperial humans and Zhodani humans are…cultural.
Phytomorphic? Panspermia? Thinking organ hurting now … 🙂
One question – I don’t recall if languages are covered in the rules. Are they? That’s certainly something that would set species apart.