From: Sandy Petersen (SPetersen@ensemblestudios.com)
Date: Wed 24 Dec 1997 - 19:10:59 EET
Sergio
>Darklands BTW was developed by Steve Perrin, the man that AFAIK created
RQ. In fact I always saw this game as a kind
>of *digital RQ*. It was one of the few computer games I played
extensively.
Actually, the designers of Darklands, in order, consisted of
Arnold Hendrick, me, and Doug Kaufman, all of whom had played RQ. I was
brought onto the project several months after it had begun. My job was
to make the game more fun, and so most of the quests and adventures are
mine, with the rest being Doug's. Arnold did the basic game design.
Playing non-Humans
Andrew Joelson
>You just hit the nail on the head. You can play a troll, and he can be
a functioning member of society (his, not necessarily
>yours), but an elf or a dwarf that would join your group is pretty much
by definition warped/damaged/mad by elf/dwarf >societal norms. These
races are descended from the Man Rune (if that's how you want to phrase
it), and should be able to
>interact a bit more easily.
Now, Andrew, it's not hard to play an elf, dwarf, or troll PC in
a RuneQuest game. Most of my campaigns have included PC elves, trolls,
and dwarfs at some point. Currently one of the players is a minotaur,
who would be even tougher to get into my humanocentric adventures except
that he maintains an illusion on himself so he "just" looks like a SIZ
23 person.
I don't see why elves can't function in human society as easily
as trolls. More easily, really, because elves are housebroken, rarely
eat people or dogs, and aren't ritual foes of many human cults or
societies. Whereas trolls ... I don't think that a PC elf would normally
be planning to spend his or her entire life amongst humans, but given
that they normally live much longer than people, a decade or two of
adventuring isn't totally out of line.
The problem with dwarfs is that most essays on dwarfs have
emphasized what amounts to the classic Nidan Mountains model. Sure many
dwarfs labor forever at the crankshafts of dark satanic mills, but the
lives, goals, and aspirations of these dwarfs are only important because
they help us understand the lives, goals, and aspirations of those
dwarfs which PCs are likely to meet. Let's not forget that there are
plenty of dwarfs who _do_ interact with the surface world. There are
Individualists who might do _anything_. There are Openhandists who are
frequently tasked with the job of interacting amongst humans. And there
are entire colonies of apostate dwarfs, such as the dwarfs in Pavis.
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