TNE and Centaurs

[CatharzGodfoot]

Problems can arise when the entire party of halflings want to explore a kobold warren, and the single human is left sitting outside with all the riding dogs.

So is it OK when ONE halfling goes in and leaves everyone behind?

When no one at all is a halfling and NONE of them go in?

When special solutions are used by some or all of the party to allow them to fly or otherwise navigate a bird person city?

Races that cause accessibility problems are a problem. But it apparently ISN'T a problem that is used as an excuse to hack them from the game or we wouldn't have GOBLINS.

Ha Ha, no.

If one halfling goes in while there rest of the party is going 'fuck that', that one player is being a dick, because he's dragging the adventure into a place that the party can't go.

If the entire party can participate in most of the adventure, you're got no problems. If you're the ogre that's too big to fit on the magic carpet in bird city, it really sucks to be you.

[ckafrica]

Or if you go into a small environment for a medium character. All characters will be at a disadvantage in certain environments. Obviously if you are playing on the deserts of the planet of the undying sun that never sets, a character that has light blindness is a bad choice. But the centaur is probably fine in this setting.

I think the difference between setting and campaign is getting blurred. There are stories that could be told in a fantasy setting that would accommodate giants and centaurs. But a back alley and sewers crime campaign would not be good choices for them. I don't see why you would seek to eliminate centaurs and giants from the whole setting just because they would be disadvantaged in campaign possibilities.

[Username17]

In my time working as an EMT I've taken a lot of people in and out of buildings on stretchers. And frankly, it's really difficult because human dwellings are not actually designed for long things. You end up having to really employ tetris skills to get people through corridors and around corners, often literally putting the stretcher straight up and down and bending them down again.

In my current residence you could seriously get a 12 foot humanoid in. It would be uncomfortable and slow getting through my room's actual door, but it could be done. But a centaur could not get in at all. There's a couple of quick 90 degree corridor turns to get to my room and a centaur can't do it under any circumstances. A fucking 4 meter tall dude would have to stoop of course, but the corridor itself is no particular obstacle because he's only twice as thick as a normal man. Hell, there are really fat dudes that are more than twice as thick as a normal man and they get through these corridors just fine.

A centaur is seriously taller than a man and as long as a prone man. It can't deal with corridor turns at all. It can't deal with an apartment, let alone a maze.

-Username17

[ckafrica]

And do we assume that a fantasy game is in open spacious European style buildings or cramped NY tenements (sure it could be both sometimes but generally? And if the maze is a series of 4ft tunnels it's shitty for humans too though halflings are fine.

If you tell your players they are playing in a ram shackled city slum campaign and they want to play an ogre or a centaur you are welcome to explain to them why it's not really a viable choice for that campaign. But if 90% of the mechanics you might use in a city game could also be used in a plains game where both are completely viable why not allow them?

i think that is the pro centaur argument. Not that centaurs wouldn't limit the stories told which centaurs can effectively participate in it, but that simply because they might be put at a disadvantage in certain environments do not make then unviable or undesirable in any campaign that the mechanics would let you tell.

[Username17]

But the Ogre == Centaur bullshit is just that: it's bullshit. An Ogre, frankly even a Fire Giant is not too big to have sex with a hobgoblin princess or get into my Prague apartment. But a Centaur is, simply because of the body mechanics and the nonhuman body plan. A zerg can get into a room despite the fact that it is long, because it can fold itself around corners. A horse cannot.

Different nonhuman body plans are differently difficult. And body plans which are "very difficult" like a centaur are just giving the middle finger to all the other players.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

is not too big to have sex with a hobgoblin princess or get into my Prague apartment. But a Centaur is

A recent perfectly innocent search for "horse inside" with safe search turned off on google images makes me wonder if this is true.

Meanwhile a debate hinging on horses not being allowed in houses and being unable to navigate corners seems...

Well it's a realism argument so its clearly Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

[Crissa]

Look, the only reason horses don't fit most places is that they don't have stereoscopic near sight. So basically, for fine movements, horses are blind. That's a terrible reason to justify taking centaurs out of a game.

Honestly, they're a bit smaller than you seem to think. And more flexible.

-Crissa

[ckafrica]

But the Ogre == Centaur bullshit is just that: it's bullshit. An Ogre, frankly even a Fire Giant is not too big to have sex with a hobgoblin princess ... But a Centaur is, simply because of the body mechanics and the nonhuman body plan.

Let's hope this doesn't lead to links to prove otherwise...

The ogre point is not bullshit. They suffer different environmental problems than a centaur but it still suffers environmental problems. If I going to run an adventure that takes place in a vietnamese language center the ogre just ain't gonna fit up the stairs. We can all imagine situations where nearly any biological is inconvenient. Sure the centaur's is perhaps more acute but it does not preclude them from having stories told about them.

You have not addressed the issue that in nearly any fantasy setting you could easily have a campaign take place in environments that are compatible with Centaurs. And the mechanics that would allow a centaur would be not much different then allowing a person to ride a horse. Seriously what mechanics would hinder you from running a centaur?

So if a gaming group comes to a concensus that they are going to play a TNE campaign nearly exclusively outdoors to accommodate their friend's centaur fetish, are you seriously going to tell them to play another game instead?

Edit: A horse length in racing terms is 8ft.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Honestly, they're a bit smaller than you seem to think. And more flexible.

-Crissa

Centaurs or horses? Because little centaurs would actually be pretty cute, and much more convenient. Horses, on the other hand, are really quite huge. There are bigger ones and smaller ones, but they're all pretty big (real horses, that is; not minis or ponies).

Llama people would be totally doable, for example. They're sure-footed, and they're already really front-heavy. They're also pretty light: I've been trampled by a llama and it didn't even hurt.

[Avoraciopoctules]

When I think of centaurs in RPGs the first thing that comes to mind is Shining Force.



I don't see too great a width/length difference here.

- - -



A bit more obvious here, but things look designed to work for both centaurs (who make up around 3/4s of the soldiers) and humans.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Thank you all for responding. On to your points:

I was under the impression that being a centaur creates an undue pressure on the entire environment, inconveniencing the party at many a turn. If it's difficult to get a horse somewhere, then it's difficult to get a centaur in it. This is a character that has a non-insignificant amount of influence over the entire adventure design just by being.

Stop pretending that it's OK to play a character who can't go anywhere that the rest of the team has to dismount to go. We're not talking about how a character who is always mounted is somehow inherently unbeatable on a grassy field because they can't be dismounted or something. We're talking about how a mounted character has to dismount. Like all the damn time to like go inside and shit.

You can't require the fucking adventuring world to be handicap accessible just because you personally think ponies are sexy.

What does a centaur do when the party needs to go into a tight area?

Yes, you are all correct in stating or implying that at least some horses cannot go into places that humans can go. Fortunately for us, centaurs do not, in fact, exist. They do not exist in the same way that bird men do not exist. Because of his weight, a real life bird man would need to have a wing span so large that he could not enter many buildings. He would have underdeveloped non-wing limbs that would incur significant strength penalties. He would not be able to hover in one place. He could not fly in hallways with less than a ~30 foot diameter.

And yet, we want bird men. So how do bird men accomplish these physically impossible real world tasks in a fantasy setting? They do so by having a specialized physical structure, possibly formed by magic, which allows them to do these things. The exact same thing can be true of centaurs. If you can allow radically impossible bird men, you can allow bendy centaurs.

Catharz’s comment about Llama’s is apt. Also note that there is as much physical variation in horses as there is in humans. See: Radar and Thumbelina.

Also, for the record, I have never played a centaur in a game in 9 years of playing Dnd, and I have no desire to. But many, possibly most players (including me) want to play a nonstandard Pc at some point.

---

You can have characters that are tauroid, or at least mantoid in shape. Sure, whatever.

YES. Thank you. So, do you agree that some set-up for Pc specific alternative body types is possible in TNE?

[Username17]

Centaurs are, properly speaking a full sized horse where the horse head is replaced with a full human torso. It's completely ridiculous. The fact is that centaurs in Greek history all died out when the major cities started up, because they simply aren't compatible with civilization centers. The ancient Greeks knew this and so do we.

Now Phone Lobster's serious plan is to drop the civilization centers in order to make room for centaurs. Crissa's plan is to make Centaurs into some sort of crazy flexible giant ant thing that actually can function in towns. And frankly, my plan is to keep the cities and drop the centaurs. Honestly, centaurs are pretty minor and losing them is no great loss.

The primary concern for getting around in civilization and caves is turning radius, and even a horse shaped creature able to turn in place still has a turning radius that is larger than that of a cloud giant. Mariliths can be substantially "larger" than centaurs and still be more city-adaptable because the snake body turns on a segment length and it can trail around a corner without meaningfully contorting itself.

So, do you agree that some set-up for Pc specific alternative body types is possible in TNE?

Absolutely. The extent of alternate body types is really all that is at issue. Frankly, I find forehead aliens kind of insulting, and I'd just assume get rid of all of them. If every single non-human race had a genuinely different body type in one way or another, that would be great.

But honestly, when it comes to multiple legged shapes, some work:


And some don't:


That isn't a value judgment on the people who want to play centaurs. But it is a value judgment on the people who would force the other players at the table to give up the kind of iconic adventuring terrain that they would have to in order to be able to take the centaur everywhere they ended up going.

Remember folks: in all of mythic history there has never been a centaur adventurer who wasn't a sidekick that occasionally had to be left outside while the adults talked.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Yeah, Cheiron is badass and cool, but there's a reason he lives in the wilderness and teaches actual heroes. Some races need the little lollipop or stop sign symbols from Hero. Vanilla merfolk and vanilla centaurs do not play well with others.

Now if tauric creatures all came with the ability to kick out their animal lower bodies for normal (or normal-ish) human legs, they could function. At that point, though, they seem more like humans with a class than a distinct race.

[IGTN]

Centaurs can still be in, you just need to tag them properly.

Something like: Centaurs are not reccommended as PCs, and DMs are encouraged to ban players from playing Centaur characters, as Centaur PCs heavily restrict the kind of architecture that the adventure can take place in. They are appropriate cohorts (although they will not always be available, and an alternate choice of Feat could be allowed for those circumstances) or mentors. In games that take place entirely outdoors and in larger-sized architecture, Centaur PCs are viable options. A DM should carefully consider the restrictions a Centaur PC would place on the campaign before deciding to allow one.

This is pretty much the D&D status quo, just explicitly spelled out. It allows you have Chiron as a mentor, and visit Centaurland, and even have Centaurs as villains, if you so choose, but also means that a Centaur PC is not going to be stymied by a dungeon, or city, or anything else, because by, as DM, deciding not to ban people from playing Centaurs, you have made an agreement that you're not going to send the PCs into dungeons (at least, not too small for centaurs) and cities (at least, you won't put anything important in the cities).

There are some other types that would also benefit from this treatment (anything aquatic, for instance).

[shau]

And frankly, my plan is to keep the cities and drop the centaurs. Honestly, centaurs are pretty minor and losing them is no great loss.

I think that is the essence of the debate here. I don't want to give centaurs up just because I like centaurs, but because I can't see a way to exclude centaurs and not exclude mounted knights,or Mongols,or Cossacks, or dragon riders, or possibly goblin wolf riders, or many other concepts that people want and are rather common in fantasy. As soon as the architecture is telling people with horse bodies that can't go any further then there is a big stop sign in the middle of the adventure for anybody whose hero is some sort of cavalry. Facing that, I would rather just hand wave the problem of turning space like we do the with the problem of the physics of dragon flight. If giving centaurs a "grow human legs for a while" spell or insisting on very wide corridors works that is okay too.

[PhoneLobster]

And some don't:

You... realise that is a small and manageable horse body right? Check your proportions before declaring it less manageable than your insect-tauric fetish that lacks any scale reference.

I would expect you to try some shit on like pulling out This because your own example does NOT support your ridiculous "horses can't turn corners and aren't allowed inside" argument.

[Username17]

I don't want to give centaurs up just because I like centaurs, but because I can't see a way to exclude centaurs and not exclude mounted knights,or Mongols,or Cossacks, or dragon riders, or possibly goblin wolf riders, or many other concepts that people want and are rather common in fantasy.

Being a Mongol gives you a situational benefit in open spaces and a situational penalty indoors. It's very much like having an ability to ignore storms while shooting arrows - it's something you're essentially losing if there isn't a storm.

Being literally attached to the horse is unacceptable because your character literally can't be played when their mounted combat power doesn't come up. But having a mounted combat power is fine - it's just like any other situational power. And yeah, that means that Cossacks are going to have to be a lot less boned when they can't ride their horses around than they are in D&D right now. But that's not news, or at least it shouldn't be.

Situational Powers: Acceptable.
Situational Characters: Unacceptable.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

I can't see any way to disagree with ITGN.

[ckafrica]

Frank:

Is here any mechanic in TNE that would prevent someone from telling a story completely within centaur accessible locations and would therefore truly deny the feasibility of a centaur character?

Because if there isn't all you're really doing is putting your "I'm the DM and I say so" foot down, which is fine if you are my DM, but you aren't. Surround it with flashing lights saying "use only at DM's discretion" sure but I'm not sure why you are trying to tell people what common fantasy elements they should include in their game.

I mean we're not talking about something which breaks the game, it just inconveniences certain stories.

[Elennsar]

But does having centaurs add to stories?

Either stories that one wishes to tell that could be told regardless or adding new stories.

I'm asking this as a question, because as Frank has pointed out, having lots of races is not necessarily if at all an improvement, so one should not add them lightly.

[Orion]

What Elennsar said.

[Crissa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxQo1qxk2eE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r8i-l63Xak

So, yeah, like the point about dogs?

There's no reason why you can't have centaurs of various sizes. Sure, you can make a case that you shouldn't have Large Ogres or Tiny Faeries - or centaurs of those sizes...



But there's no real reason why classical centaurs - the ones which are just human sized, well a little bit more massy - shouldn't fit anywhere.

Also, horses can rear, so should centaurs. So that would mean they could turn in half their game footprint.

-Crissa

[ckafrica]

It makes people who like centaurs happy. I don't personally care about centaurs much either. Serious what do elves add to the game? Dwarves? Orcs? I hate every last mother fucking one of them right now. I want a game that throws out all old fantasy stereotyped races for something completely new

Look I'm all for a smaller pool of sentients than what is produced in WoTC circle jerk sessions. But frank is saying centaurs break the game so we can't have them. I'm saying ok they're incovenient in certain (maybe most) situations but if my group wants to play a plains game where centaurs are a major race why exactly can't I use TNE to play that game?

I understand that mechanics frame the gameworld. That's good. I respect that. But do they draw out every little detail?

[Username17]

I can't see any way to disagree with ITGN.

I can. And I do.

Every species you add has a genuine cost. The cost is because an actual campaign is of indefinite but ultimately not infinite length. There is actually a finite amount of narrative space. And everything "in" the game is competing for that limited resource.

The narrative you can spend on any particular race increases the depth and evocativeness of the species. A minimal investment gives you a shallow stereotype that actually makes the story worse for its inclusion. I mean seriously:


When you include a race with a STOP on it, you are basically admitting that it will rarely be used if it is used at all, and thus that it will in all likelihood never rise about providing a one-dimensional bit character. And in doing so, it has essentially stolen some narrative space that could have been spent making some other race more memorable. Adding whole species that you will use once and then drop is genuinely bad for the world's depth. You've made things more shallow and forgettable by their very inclusion.

If the announcers in Phantom Menace had been a wookie and whatever it is that Jabba is, the universe would have become deeper and more interesting. But because it was a toss-off two headed muppet that they had no intention of ever using again, the universe itself become more shallow and less interesting.

And that's what you get pretty much every time you bring in a race that has a limited use tag emblazoned on it.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I'm personally sick of the worlds with humans, blue humans (elves), green humans (orcs), short humans (dwarves), hilarious humans (gnomes), another green human (trolls), short green humans (goblins), etc.

-Crissa

PS, who's taller; Heracles or Nessus? Who's stronger? Does the number of legs really matter in any way here?