Pinkie's Brew, full effects...

I oddly enough gotta admit I kinda like the racial barrier... (I know, weird arn't I?) But I would not object in ANY way to removing it at all and if anything I would only give my support to such an action. And now to look at how the game system will look without the barrier. (I've not really had much a reason too look until now)

EDIT: After looking at it... I really like it and can't wait for the Pony Tale's system to be retooled to match. :3

The only thing I don't like about these ideas is the idea of earth ponies and pegasi casting spells. That doesn't really make any sense.

elfowlgirl wrote:The only thing I don't like about these ideas is the idea of earth ponies and pegasi casting spells. That doesn't really make any sense.

With the right flavor, ANYTHING can make sense. XD

Yeah, looks nice. Ouch on all 5 utilities needed for good flight.

elfowlgirl wrote:The only thing I don't like about these ideas is the idea of earth ponies and pegasi casting spells. That doesn't really make any sense.

Flavorwise the spells would either be brewed up through potions, the player would be some strange exception to the normal rules (players are special by definition, it might be nice to be the one earth pony with a talent for magic and something of a curiosity) or the ability in question would be reflavored to longer be magic (pinkie pie certainly seems to be able to teleport).

Ramsus wrote:Yeah, looks nice. Ouch on all 5 utilities needed for good flight.

Neat. And yeah, I think having the racial trait of flight equal to 2 utility talents is probably pretty fair. In general, characters in non-flying races tend to dabble in flying (flavored as contraptions with low maneuverability or a slipshod spell). One player actually did take all 5 talents for ace flying though, and he had a lot of fun with it too. =)

And looking that "It's Almost Like Flying" is giving me ideas for a new talent... One that'd be like sorta like a multi-use version Dazzling Wings that comes with a big drawback to doing while flying, but flying itself is fine.

*runs off to make it and put it in the Everypony Talents thread*

I have some decidedly negative things to say about breaking down the racial barriers entirely.

I'll only bring them up, though, if I make these suggestions and no one seems at all agreeable to what I'm saying. Because, to be blunt, it's a bit of a long-winded essay kind of defense, and I only drop that kind of thing as last resort.

Firstly, and my preferred suggestion: I'm all for mostly making everything an Everypony talent. However, I think we should keep certain skills that specifically do nothing but advance certain racial traits (like Ponykinesis -> Advanced Ponykinesis) restricted to those races only, and not let other races have access to racial traits as utility talents. Other than that, anything goes. Personally, I like this idea the best. It maximizes the number of options a character gets to choose and lets races that are supposed to be special continue being special without any sort of paranoia or sadness that some character or another is going to be better at shapeshifitng than your Changeling, who was specifically born for the task of shapeshifting and therefore has that racial utility as an intrinsic part of the character.

Secondly, if no one likes my firstly idea: Could we perhaps, as an alternate rulebook or alternate set of rules, keep things the way they are in, again, an alternate version of the rules? This would allow the greatest freedom of all; allowing players and GMs the choice of whether or not they want the racial restrictions to apply. And before you say "well who's gonna choose that option"...well, I would.

I don't think that's actually something we have to worry about. I don't think Stairc meant we were going to let people take other race's racial traits. So non-changelings still can't shapeshift and non-unicorns still can't TK (except they can by using It's Witchcraft but, then they have to actually roll for it and the higher TK abilities will probably involve DCs that are really dang hard). I think Flight is the only racial feature people want to be widely accessible and Pegasi and other flying races are getting effectively two bonus Utilities there. Mind you I personally wouldn't object if there was some way for anyone else at all to get weather crafting but, that probably won't happen.

Well, if you're right, that's awesome and I fully support this endeavor. [/sincerity]

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:Well, if you're right, that's awesome and I fully support this endeavor. [/sincerity]

Oh no APW used true sincerity... *runs and hides for it's the end of the world!!!*

It looks like the only non-flight racial traits that have upgradable talent paths are the pegasus ones already discussed (and mostly agreed to make widely accessible it seems) are the unicorn's ponykinesis and the changeling's disguise DC. As for the changeling, I'm not sure why ponies shouldn't be able to impersonate others. We already have the popular, "art of the dress". As for the unicorn, is letting others access a form of telekinesis really that big a deal compared to flight?

I'm just asking. Not sure at the moment.

If we give people access to those we're going to need to do it for all racial features (that do anything, +1 Utility obviously isn't a Utility you can take). Personally I don't have a problem with that but, then races are more pre-gen archtypes than actual solid things because at that point you might as well be allowed to say "Well, I want to start with Flight and TK and don't care about Weathercrafting or an extra Utility." and make that character. Which then means we have to actually balance the racial traits to each other (or divide them into Greater and Lesser traits that more or less balance to each other and give each race a fair balance of those, etc.). As Flight, being equivalent to two Utilities, is better than Unicorn's base TK or their extra Utility (assuming you wanted flight) and on top of that they get Weather crafting. So Pegasi have the equivalent of 3 Utilities/Racial features to Unicorn's 2. This isn't much of an issue if you can't take other race's particular features but, as soon as you can they have to actually balance out more or less.

Though, I don't see it as a huge issue since if we remove the Utility feature divide we already have to re-tool almost all the non-pony races anyway, so looking over the three pony races isn't really that much more work that needs to be done.

Ramsus wrote:If we give people access to those we're going to need to do it for all racial features.

Why? It would only be the ones that have utility talent progressions that we'd have to give access to - as it'd be weird to have only 5 or 6 race-specific talents for 2 or so races in the game. It's just avoiding that which would be the reason to make them accessible via extra talent costs.

Then we're going to lose a lot of flavor for each of the races... That's partly what I like about the racial barriers, they add to making each race FEEL different from each other a lot more.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

Ramsus wrote:If we give people access to those we're going to need to do it for all racial features.

Why? It would only be the ones that have utility talent progressions that we'd have to give access to - as it'd be weird to have only 5 or 6 race-specific talents for 2 or so races in the game. It's just avoiding that which would be the reason to make them accessible via extra talent costs.

There are utility talents, at least unofficial ones if not official ones, for weather crafting as well. So at very least you'd have to make that accessible too. At which point you have most of the unique race features accessible to everyone already and there's no reason not to just make all racial abilities accessible. Even if you just added weather crafting to the list of racial features acquirable by everypony, it would mean Pegasi no longer would have unique abilities so much as a head start in those specific ones. Unicorns would be the same as the only unique thing they have currently have is TK, which you're also talking about making accessible, so then you have to actually balance them to Pegasi. And once you do that you have to balance Earth Ponies to both and so on for every race.

So yeah, if you're going to open up more racial features than just Flight to everypony then I think we'd be better off with a modular racial trait list that's separate from Utilities, if only so it'd be easier to balance the races to each other. Probably separated into greater and lesser traits and give people like 3 or 4 points worth of those, with lesser costing 1 point and greater costing 2 (or something like that). Then if people want more racial features a simple Utility of "gain 1 racial trait point" that people can take multiple times suffices instead of having to make a half dozen or so right now and another one every time a new race or racial trait is invented. And we don't have people burning all their normal Utilities on Flight or such because they committed the unspeakable crime of wanting decent Flight, weather crafting, and TK or shapechanging.

If you don't want to open racial traits up like that and make races be a "choose your own mechanics and flavor it however you like" experience then it'd be best to make flight the only racial trait accessible to everypony. Otherwise you're giving completely random races the shaft while others remain inexplicably unique and/or quite easily stronger or weaker at random just because we were being too lazy you try and balance them to each other at all.

Pros for keeping Racial barriers: It makes it so that picking a race is a descision of significance. Unicorns get magic, Pegasi can change wether, earth Ponies break the fourth wall, etc.

Cons: It makes people pigeon-holed into specific races if they want specific types of characters.

...hoo boy. Watch out everyone, this one gets a little emotional. And a lot long.


What exactly is it that makes unicorns special if everypony gets telekinesis (and magic?)?

What exactly is it that makes changelings cool if everypony gets access to their specific brand of shapeshifting?

What exactly is it that makes pegasi radical if everypony can use weathercrafting?


I'm all for more freedom, but only because in general that means making characters who are more unique and special. Allowing races that aren't these three access to these three's powers is going to make everypony less unique and special, especially members of these three races.

You can't give a changeling's shapeshifting to a pony because ponies canonically can't use the changeling's shapeshifting. That's the changeling's whole shtick, that's the point of their race's existence. Taking away that point isn't going to give people freedom; it's going to remove any reasoning for why anypony would want to play a changeling. It's going to create parties in which the one person who decided to make a changeling anyway is told to stay in the back during persuasion and disguise and stealth because his shapeshifting is worse than the baby dragon's. His shapeshifting, the ability his character was literally born with and has practiced with his entire life, is second to this mockery of chitinless flesh and...

Let me put it this way: why do people play a changeling? (Or a unicorn or pegasus, you can alter the following as needed.) They choose to play a changeling because they've seen them on TV and now they're thinking that changelings are freaking awesome.

"Hey ,the changelings look cool and open up a world of story possibilities, and man oh man I love their powers! That is the best thing about them! I mean...they can change into anypony! And feed off of love! And nopony can tell the difference! That's so cool! I can't wait to play as the party's go-to guy for disguises and stuff, I'm gonna be all conflicted and disloyal to both them and the Queen and I'll be able to stay hidden because I can shift and..." And then they spend the two, three, six hours (new player) needed to make a character. And what do they find?

That everypony, and I do mean pony because everypony's being an Earth Pony, has the exact same powers he has. His character, born to shapeshift, is not only outmatched but potentially outdone by beings who somehow managed to steal away his race's power for their own. I don't know about you, but I as a player would be crushed by this revelation.

That is so, so cheapening to the experience. That player is going to be devastated. That player chose to be a changeling for several reasons, and this, directly or otherwise, destroys every. Single. One. The rules of the game have thus effectively taken away everything that makes his race special amongst the races of Equestria.

Do we really want all the races to be exactly the same? Isn't being a little bit different a good thing? Isn't that the point of letting people play different races in the first place?

It hurts a little to think about, but sometimes it's not just the freedoms, but the limits on what we can do that make us who and what we are. I'm reminded of the movie The Incredibles.

Proc basically makes the same point I'm making just...viewed form a different angle and we certainly agree on stuff.

The question basically is if we want races to have unique mechanics or just be entirely a flavor thing and have "race" just be a modular list of abilities to choose from. It should be one or the other to be the most balanced and fun but, either way is good. In-between is where it gets iffy.

If races are unique then, they have a strong "this is what I do" feel to them and it's hard for you to say one race is better than another because the option to do the thing that other race does is just not an option for you. On the other hand, being able to choose the exact makeup of your races traits and just RP "this is my race and what MY character can do" is also great and if we want to do things that way then it should come out balanced and neat. Doing things inbetween is basically kicking some races in the nuts at random and being able to say some races are better than others.

Flight is so widely desired that I doubt any of us are saying that shouldn't be attainable by everypony somehow. But other racial features don't have this sort of high demand and it's going to cause less trouble if we don't take weird half-measures to make them available to everypony.
Edit: Actually now that I think about it, magic (especially It's Witchcraft style) is also in high demand.

Personally I lean in favor of making races modular just because I personally think it's more fun to make what I want to make without someone else's ideas imposing on me what I can or can't do. And clearly enough people want to be able to fly and/or do magic outside of their race's limitations that I think they'll keep pushing for ways to do so, which outside of a modular setup meant for just that, is going to cause cracks in balance and end up making some races less unique than others because those are the things people voiced loudly enough they wanted to do.

It seems flavor is the only real thing keeping them apart.

Yet... One of the favorite things about the system and particularly in living legends is that the flavor of everything is so fluid. Players bring the flavor, not the mechanics.

That said, we can still distinguish the races with their racial traits. Look at Baby Dragons. Many people call it their favorite race, it's very popular, has a ton of great flavor... And all without race-specific utility talents.

It seems clear you don't need race-specific utility talents to have a race with lots of juicy flavor.

I think what they're saying is that a new player (Like me) Might choose a race based on what they like best and want to be. Like Scales being a baby dragon because dragons are awesome. If an Earth Pony was able to fly and breathe fire better than scales I'd droop like Pinkamina in Party of One.

LoganAura wrote:I think what they're saying is that a new player (Like me) Might choose a race based on what they like best and want to be. Like Scales being a baby dragon because dragons are awesome. If an Earth Pony was able to fly and breathe fire better than scales I'd droop like Pinkamina in Party of One.

Exactly. Hawklings in Living Legends have a huge advantage when it comes to flying. They gain the first 2 utility talents worth of flight training for free. They have a massive head-start in flying, and are easily better at it than any other race. However, it doesn't prevent someone who wants to play a minotaur with a jetpack from enjoying themselves.

Again, though, if everypony has access to those talents, then flavor or not what makes those three races special?

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:Again, though, if everypony has access to those talents, then flavor or not what makes those three races special?

LoganAura seems to think, like many people, that Baby Dragons are special. In fact, many call it their favorite race. I've seen a lot of baby dragons crop up in games. Clearly, they manage somehow - so it's got to be doable.

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:Again, though, if everypony has access to those talents, then flavor or not what makes those three races special?

LoganAura seems to think, like many people, that Baby Dragons are special. In fact, many call it their favorite race. I've seen a lot of baby dragons crop up in games. Clearly, they manage somehow - so it's got to be doable.

You're a tad mistaken on what I meant by that. I meant that if something did what I was known for, canonically, BETTER than me I'd feel extremely bad.

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:...hoo boy. Watch out everyone, this one gets a little emotional. And a lot long.


What exactly is it that makes unicorns special if everypony gets telekinesis (and magic?)?

What exactly is it that makes changelings cool if everypony gets access to their specific brand of shapeshifting?

What exactly is it that makes pegasi radical if everypony can use weathercrafting?


I'm all for more freedom, but only because in general that means making characters who are more unique and special. Allowing races that aren't these three access to these three's powers is going to make everypony less unique and special, especially members of these three races.

You can't give a changeling's shapeshifting to a pony because ponies canonically can't use the changeling's shapeshifting. That's the changeling's whole shtick, that's the point of their race's existence. Taking away that point isn't going to give people freedom; it's going to remove any reasoning for why anypony would want to play a changeling. It's going to create parties in which the one person who decided to make a changeling anyway is told to stay in the back during persuasion and disguise and stealth because his shapeshifting is worse than the baby dragon's. His shapeshifting, the ability his character was literally born with and has practiced with his entire life, is second to this mockery of chitinless flesh and...

Let me put it this way: why do people play a changeling? (Or a unicorn or pegasus, you can alter the following as needed.) They choose to play a changeling because they've seen them on TV and now they're thinking that changelings are freaking awesome.

"Hey ,the changelings look cool and open up a world of story possibilities, and man oh man I love their powers! That is the best thing about them! I mean...they can change into anypony! And feed off of love! And nopony can tell the difference! That's so cool! I can't wait to play as the party's go-to guy for disguises and stuff, I'm gonna be all conflicted and disloyal to both them and the Queen and I'll be able to stay hidden because I can shift and..." And then they spend the two, three, six hours (new player) needed to make a character. And what do they find?

That everypony, and I do mean pony because everypony's being an Earth Pony, has the exact same powers he has. His character, born to shapeshift, is not only outmatched but potentially outdone by beings who somehow managed to steal away his race's power for their own. I don't know about you, but I as a player would be crushed by this revelation.

That is so, so cheapening to the experience. That player is going to be devastated. That player chose to be a changeling for several reasons, and this, directly or otherwise, destroys every. Single. One. The rules of the game have thus effectively taken away everything that makes his race special amongst the races of Equestria.

Do we really want all the races to be exactly the same? Isn't being a little bit different a good thing? Isn't that the point of letting people play different races in the first place?

It hurts a little to think about, but sometimes it's not just the freedoms, but the limits on what we can do that make us who and what we are. I'm reminded of the movie The Incredibles.

Bumpity Bump Bump Bump. Thank God, I thought I was the only one who felt this way about this (though from the Pegasus POV). Now I don't have to say anything but "I agree". 100%.

Don't change the races or the way their talents are allocated.