I attempted a writeup, but since I'm an RPG-er, I don't really think it's any better.
When given the option to select a main character from a specific race, developers tend to give many different stats and customization options to each race, differentiating them from humans. That's right, that tiger-like design isn't just for show. It gives a boost to your speed!
The option to select a race adds several variables on the gameplay, usually allowing the player to access specific sidequests and align themselves with different factions. The world also invariably reacts differently to the character according to their race, giving separate dialogue options or even triggering a divergent path in the storyline.
As new content comes out, the races will more often than not increase, or even expanded to include more subfactions.
The YKTTW is coming along fairly well, though rather lacking in hats. But it can't really be launched until the subtrope is available to link to.
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
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Lu, I think your write-up focuses even more on RP Gs than mine did. But thank you for helping.
I tried to modify my earlier draft to include Strategy Games:
Happens in three ways:
- You're designing an RPG (either a Video Game or Tabletop). You want more customization options. Your classes are pretty much the standard bunch, so you allow a bunch of races to be selected too. Now player options for creating a character aren't just limited to Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Orc. You can also play a Werewolf, a Cat Person, a Giant Monkey, a Robot, a Giant Robot Monkey, a Dwarf Giant Robot Were-Monkey, etc. These races may be further subdivided into every possible variation.
- You're designing a Strategy Game, and you want to give your player tons of faction and customization options. Throw in a bunch of sub-factions, and you have a real menagerie.
- You have a set of factions in your Strategy Game or MMORPG, and you're now doing a sequel (or, in a Tabletop Game, a new edition). What's a simple way to bring something new to the sequel or new edition? Add in more races! Alternately, you wish to have a subfaction which specializes in one aspect of your Planet of Hats; this leads to speciation of the main faction into two or more subfactions. Editing Lore is always easier than editing Canon.
This is a medium-specific subtrope of Loads and Loads of Races.
Laconic: This game gives players a ton of options when choosing their faction, civilization, or race.
edited 18th Apr '12 4:35:06 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Ravenous Sophovore
Any progress here?
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
Since nobody with the necessary expertise has written a trope description, I will try to figure out where to put the one I wrote .
EDIT: I reread the thread and made a to-do list.
Supertrope: Loads and Loads of Races
Subtrope: Massive Race Selection
1. I started the subtrope page, Massive Race Selection, using the description I wrote above. It can be edited right on its regular wiki page.
2. The supertrope will go on the current page. It is being rewritten in YKTTW. It needs more help and hats before it is fit to “launch” (copypasta back on the original page).
Rather than leave the current description on the supertrope page, I want to copypasta the working description now in the YKKTW, so that the old definition doesn't sit around on the supertrope page attracting confusion.
But I have no clue how to use YKTTW to get enough hats and contributions to complete and launch it. Can somebody please help?
3. Both pages need new images.
4. Massive Race Selection needs to be indexed.
5. Examples have to be sorted. I started this, but those in the subtrope will need splitting into game types, which I know little about.
6. Wicks have to be sorted. I cannot do this alone. I will need help with them, especially from people who know about video games.
edited 10th Jun '12 5:18:28 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
It's super effective.
Just so I understand, does the number of NPCs have anything to do with the three definitions? Or is this exclusively about playable races?
The subtrope is only for playable races.
I suppose that if a game has very few playable races, but tons of NPC races, that it would still qualify for the supertrope. I don't know if inviting such examples onto the page will cause confusion and decay, though.
I did some basic surgery on the main (supertrope) page. It isn't a finished description, but I took out all mention of games and added a link to the subtrope.
edited 10th Jun '12 5:28:22 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Ravenous Sophovore
Any progress with the YKTTW? Do you have a link to it?
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
It's here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=0qxl0jb94yym7vkhkln2jmen
And I asked for help on the YKTTW workstation thread a month+ ago, because I know Zero about making one.
Let's see.... nope, still one hat and no further replies. 
Honestly, the spirit is willing, but the internet is weak. Not only do I not know how to get that YKTTW finished, but I am just confused and lost at this point about what content needs to move where, which pages need to be deleted, what is usable as-written, and so forth. This has been a complicated project and I don't feel I have what it takes to direct it personally, even though I remain willing to help get it done. Also I'm going out of town soon.
May I have permission at least to do this?
edited 25th Jul '12 10:54:24 AM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Massive Race Selection has now landed in TRS because the placeholder description is crappy, and the examples need sorting.
Meanwhile, Loads and Loads of Races is still lingering in YKTTW limbo.
Won't somebody please help me fix these tropes so I can put these threads to rest?
edited 25th Aug '12 10:46:12 AM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
You have my axe.
Just to clarify... Massive Race Selection is just for choices made in character creation, right? If so, RTS games (like Warcraft) and CCGs (like MTG) examples should be cut off...
If that's the new definition, I think I can help.
edited 25th Aug '12 12:56:04 PM by Nasst
In a quest to erase natter from the face of earth.
Thanks!
Earlier in the thread Grakor and Shimaspawn were telling me that it wouldn't be right to limit Massive Race Selection to RPG's only. If RTS is an example of Strategy Game, then the subtrope should probably include those examples. I think miniatures wargaming would also count for that.
With CCG's it's less clear to me that they can fit at all. In Magic The Gathering, at least, only one type of deck strategy focuses on a particular creature type.
edited 25th Aug '12 6:04:22 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Before cleaning up the examples, I think we need a clearer definition.
What constitutes a race? This is not as clear as it seems, since the gaming meaning of "race" is very different from the biological meaning.
What about Vampires? Werewolves? Undead? Ghosts?
What makes the problem more complicated is that some games treat some of these as races (So you're a Vampire/Fighter), while others treat them as classes (And then you're an Elf/Vampire).
Another thing we need is a minimum of playable races to constiture "massive" race selection.
And a better definition of what's exactly a "playable race", especially when it comes to strategy games.
Battle for Wesnoth, for example, has 6 factions, that are mainly composed of a race.
There are
- Loyalists (Mainly humans, but there are also mermen)
- Northerners (Mainly orcs, but also trolls, goblins and nagas)
- Knalgan alliance (Mainly dwarves, but also humans)
- Rebels (Mainly elves, but also mermen, humans and woses)
- Drakes (Mainly drakes, but also saurians)
- Undead (Mainly undead, but also humans)
So... When you pick a faction in Battle for Wesnoth... Are you also picking a "race"? And if it qualifies for this trope, how many "races" does it have? Note that some of these races are represented by only one unit in their faction, (the northerners, for example, can recruit only one type of naga unit and one type of troll unit), so gameplay-wise they shouldn't count as a playable race...
You can see how this can become really complicated, but the page needs a clearer definition, or else it will suffer massive misuse.
edited 26th Aug '12 1:10:25 AM by Nasst
In a quest to erase natter from the face of earth.
Here's an idea: would it be better to drop the "race" part altogether and make it Massive Faction Selection?
Also, given that both this thread and the one for Massive Race Selection are covering the same ground, should one be closed down or something?
If this was a trope about strategy games, it would be alright, but the main idea of this trope is races as seen mainly in RPG games. (Where race selection is part of the character creation process).
edited 26th Aug '12 10:56:31 AM by Nasst
In a quest to erase natter from the face of earth.
Werewolves, vampires, sure those can certainly be races. Old World of Darkness and Magic The Gathering certainly treat them as independent races, regardless of their origins (and OWOD werewolves are not born human, anyway)
I'd say Battle of Westnoth has 6 playable races, and that Warcraft III has 4 playable races.
A race can be a separate species, but in fantasy (and even scifi) species are used pretty loosely. They interbreed, they have "subraces" and "subspecies" and strains of magical mutants, etc. The point, I think, is if the work treats them as separate — not just ethnic groups, but separate entities. Dungeons And Dragons, for example, treats Drow as separate from other Elves. They are maybe subspecies of Elves (if you can even use the species concept in a game where absolutely everything, from dragons to animals to humanoids to worms, can mate with everything else) but are treated as separate.
EDIT: It makes sense to have a concrete minimum number for both the supertrope and the subtrope. 15 seems like a reasonable, good #.
edited 26th Aug '12 12:30:50 PM by ArcadesSabboth
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My questions:
- Does the game mearly have a lot of races, or do some have to be playable
- What is a race? Are ethnicities/cultures of the same thing (real life) or different animals or their species (at a zoo)?
- How many?
- Are they just there, or have a role in the game or plot?
My understanding of the trope as it is currently written.
- For the subtrope, they must be playable. For the supertrope, they won't be.
- Ethnicities/cultures don't count. It was agreed earlier in the thread that the real-life use of "race" is totally different from the use in scifi and fantasy. (This is something I oppose changing. The use of the term "race" to mean "separate species" is rather unfortunate, but that's the common useage in speculative fiction.)
- No fixed minimum so far.
- So far there's been no requirement for plot relevance.
edited 26th Aug '12 2:31:21 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
I'm going to note again that it's rather confusing to try and follow both this and the Massive Race Selection thread at the same time, given that both are discussing the same issue.
Agreed.
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
15 is a bit ridiculous. I would say at least five. That's a lot of work to put into programming.
And Mt G wouldn't count because at no point are you selecting a race for yourself to play. You are always a wizard summoning monsters. This never changes. You have only one choice of race to actually play.
edited 26th Aug '12 5:45:14 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
I'd say over five, given the existence of the Five Races trope and how the description specifically differentiates that from this.
What about 10?
Or could the number for the supertrope be higher than the subtrope? Because in Literature and Live-Action TV and so on there are examples with 50, or 100, or hundreds.
For that matter, Tabletop Role Playing Games can have way way more than 15. Old World Of Darkness and Dungeons And Dragons, for example.
It does not seem at all remarkable or tropable, to me, for a tabletop RPG or a book series to have 6 sapient species.
edited 26th Aug '12 6:09:35 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
10 seems fine. It's not much for a tabletop RPG but it is for videogames.
Crown Description:
The games-only subtrope Massive Race Selection now has a minimum number: 6 playable races. Loads And Loads Of Races is the non-gaming supertrope (non-playable races in fiction). Shall this supertrope have a minimum number of races in its definition? What should that number be? Note that the examples and wicks are all over the place. If any number is chosen, cleanup will be necessary. Also, should the description allow the trope to be an Informed Attribute, or should a "race" need at least a little description or screentime?
My draft above was an attempt to tweak the existing description, but since I'm not familiar with video games I did it wrong. This trope needs somebody who knows about video games to write it.
Please, somebody, help.
Otherwise, I'll probably just have to stick my flawed write-up in there, because it's still better than the one there now.
edited 22nd Mar '12 10:33:37 AM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.