I would support pretty much any change made to this trope - it's a classic case of an overly-broad name.
Rabid Fujoshi
I noticed a lot of tropes are deemed 'video game tropes' that are universal. People get on to the Anime fans, but the gaming tropes are just as bad, if not worse IMO when it comes to Fan Myopia.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Actually, lots of gaming tropes are assumed universal by people who miss what the gaming trope is actually troping. What they tend to mean is that videogame tropes tend to lack universal super tropes a lot.
This trope is a game mechanic trope of giving options to character creation. It's only applicable to Video Games and Tabletop Games that let you pick a race at character creation.
What is universal is the missing Super-Trope of having lots of races in the work.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Makes sense to me. In fact, it sounds like a possible subtrope of Fantasy Kitchen Sink.
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
It's not just limited to fantasy - something like Star Trek having every other star system be home to its own variety of bumpy-headed humanoids seems like it should count as well.
edited 4th Jan '12 3:05:56 PM by nrjxll
Rabid Fujoshi
Is this about having lots of races in a VG or about having lots of playable races in a VG? The first is universal, the second is video game specific.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)
It's the latter. The missing supertrope causes misuse for the former.
Rabid Fujoshi
So I guess the obvious thing is to spin off a super trope. And maybe do a trope transplant with the name, or change the name to Loads And Loads Of Playable Races.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)
I think a trope transplant really is our best bet here. The name for this one does sound like it's the supertrope.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
I see the Awesomeness.
Massive Race Selection for the current trope?
Fight smart, not fair.
Ulkomaalainen
Then it should be made clear for the sub-trope what exactly it is that constitutes a "Race" - as the introduction now says, it is not about options alone, since classes are explicitely excluded (with races making up for a lack of classes), while the examples are filled with combinations (Small World board game) or different distinctions (Civilizations for the Civ IV computer game).
Batman
I've got a question. Isn't the "race" part a bit confusing too? After all race can refer to the competition where you try to be the fastest. Would changing it to "species" hurt?
There are no heroes left in Man.
That would completely confuse everyone as for whatever reason, when they're humanoid they are referred to as races where as species seems to be reserved for non-sentient beings. It's a trope in an of itself and it has a large part to do with the fact that humanity has many different races.
It would also be complete inaccurate as it's very common for works to have many different races and only one species.
So yes, it would hurt. It would make it less clear and less accurate.
edited 6th Jan '12 8:07:38 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Batman
Ok, it's just that the term race has more than one meaning and it should be clear which one we are refering to.
It's English. That's true of any word we use for anything.
Batman
Race is used too much for the competition, other words may have more than one meaning but they're usually restricted to one. I think I remember another TRS, something about The Great Race, where the meaning was brought too, so I just wanted to know if there was some way to swap it to prevent problems.
Rabid Fujoshi
Well, we could go with 'species' but when it comes to video games and the like 'races' is the term more often used.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)
The tendency of fantasy (though science fiction does it a lot as well) to refer to nonhuman species as "races" has bothered me for years, and seems emblematic of a mindset of treating nonhumans as funny-looking human cultures that I dislike. But it is the norm, and I think it's best if we just go with that.
On a related note, is this meant to be fantasy-specific the way people keep implying? Or can science fiction count as well?
Rabid Fujoshi
I think sci fi should count.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)
Sci-fi can count as well, but it also has fantasy's tendency to call them Races in all but very hard Sci-fi.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
I noted that, but it's not really relevant - I was just making the point that, while the usage of "races" this way is indeed inaccurate and annoying, it's common enough that it's unlikely to confuse anyone. My question as to whether this can include SF was simply because people keep referring to Fantasy Kitchen Sink and other things that sound like this might be fantasy specific.
Yeah, this usage of "race" has long irritated me as well, but "species" seems to be used less often in this circumstance.
What about PC Race or Player Race?
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Loser
Game mechanic of giving options to character creation (25)
- Adylheim
- Age Of Wonders
- Ascendancy
- Asherons Call
- Blood Bowl
- Cantr II (Aversion)
- Changeling: The Dreaming
- Dark Sun
- Dawn of Worlds
- Dungeon Crawl
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Earth Eternal
- Eberron
- Eden Eternal
- Eon
- EverQuest
- EverQuest II
- Faery Tale Online
- Final Fantasy XII
- Five Races
- Forgotten Realms
- Galactic Civilizations
- Gaming Steve Universe
- Ironclaw
General idea of having many different races in a work (24)
- Aerith and Bob
- Agarest Senki
- Always Chaotic Evil
- Ambiguously Human
- Angband
- BIBLE
- Classical Mythology
- Crapsaccharine World
- Cthulhu Mythos
- Dark Fantasy X
- Dioxine
- Enor
- Ethical Slut
- Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes (on a general index of fantastic species tropes and Evil Counterpart Race is listed
- Flash Gordon
- Gameplay Tropes
- Gas Mask Mooks
- Godquest
- Hindu Mythology
- Humans Are Warriors
- Humanx Commonwealth
- Hybrid-Overkill Avoidance (not much context)
- Inheritance Trilogy
- Innocent Aliens
Other (1)
- First Australians (talks about the existence of a variety of real world cultures)
Unless I made a significant mistake in that wick check, there seems to be about a 50% misuse rate, much of which is misuse for the supertrope. That being the case, there is now a page action crowner for this trope here
. Feel free to add options as you see fit.
vigilantly taxonomish
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?
This is now a medium-neutral supertrope going through YKTTW with a new, better definition: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=0qxl0jb94yym7vkhkln2jmen
The the video game subtrope is now Massive Race Selection.
See the end of the thread for current discussion about requiring a minimum number and/or minimum description of races.
See bottom of page for the vote.
Original OP:
The core idea of lots and lots of sapient races doesn't necessarily require them to be playable. Indeed, a game could have the former and not the latter. But obviously anything that isn't in some way a game can't have the latter.
So either the description should be changed to make it broader and reflect that it can apply to non-game fiction, or else the examples and wicks need trimming.
edited 12th Nov '12 10:20:07 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.