Anti Canon Ancestry
Art by Lucas Roussel (it absolutely slaps ass)
“Race” and all of its attendant baggage has rightfully weighed down those coastal wizards in recent years. It behooves any game designer to think long and hard before simply porting in stock fantasy races into a game. Without any other context, harmful tropes, racial essentialism and all manner of bugbears (not the fun kind) will creep into your game. To those who argue, “Orcs aren’t real; racism against orcs isn’t a problem!” I would direct you to a really well-researched history of the racialized past of orcs by James Mendez Hodes. There are various topics within this field that can be and have been explored, but here, I want to talk about how I approach ancestry in the Prismatic Wasteland (the first approach is simply calling it ancestry instead of race, but relabeling is only a first step).
Ancestries are defined collaboratively at the table. My style of running RPGs is highly improvisational and collaborative. During Session Zeroes, I begin to nudge the players to flesh out what it means to be, for instance, a cat-person (rest in peace, Meow Treatkins, wizard and martyr of the revolution). This approach is identical to how Luka described it in his article on Anti Canon Worlds:
“A player was the only Halfling in the party? Now they’re responsible for making up Halfling culture and history. Not up-front in unreadable prose but live, at the table.”
Players’ input on their character’s ancestry may surprise you—and that’s a good thing. Even when my games use the classic lineup of dwarfs, elfs, orcs, who are caked in tropes and baggage, there are basically two directions players will take it. Some players are not very interested in the collaborative world-building and are fine to rely on the standard tropes. Others relish the agency to define the world by defining their character and, although informed by tropes, will develop a history and culture all their own. In a Dungeon World game I ran virtually at the start of the pandemic, a friend played a dwarf paladin. Dwarfs were still stocky mountain-dwellers, but they were also neurotically courteous, disgusted by gnomes (it was later revealed that gnomes were a sort of prototype for dwarves), and obsessed with commerce and free trade. It was a fun character, and the player had fun shaping the world.
Lucas Roussel Again
The Prismatic Wasteland is a science-fantasy setting, and draws on both science fiction and fantasy for the listed ancestries. The fantasy element is that characters might be dwarfs, elfs, halflings, or orcs. However, the sci-fi spin (inspired by the UVG, oft-touted on this blog), is that all of these ancestries are technically “human,” encompassing all descendants of modern humanity, which diverged slightly as they spread across the stars. First, I have players choose their ancestry. I also have a table for those (like me) who would prefer to let the dice decide. Other, non-human ancestries are implied by some of the factions (also determined in Session Zero, but that is a different discussion), and players are welcome to choose those, but the default is to play as human characters.
To prompt player imagination and discussion of the cultures, histories and aspects of their respective ancestries, grounded in an anti-canon history of the Prismatic Wasteland, I provide a d6 table for each ancestry (reproduced below). Each description is enough to spark ideas without boxing-in player creativity. Some combinations may suggest relations between the groups (i.e., Dome Dwellers & Dome Defenders; Lower Class & Upper Class; Warrior Caste & Planetary Invaders).
Alpha text, subject to edits
Ancestries provide player opportunity to contribute to shared world-building at the table, not mechanical benefits. Elfs don’t get +2 Intelligence, nor are they born knowing how to handle swords and bows. Dwarfs don’t have an in-born ability to eat rocks. Elfs are no better at being wizards, and orcs are no better at being fighters. The ancestries are simply what the players make of them. They should be fun and give the players agency. They shouldn’t pigeonhole players or demonstrate racial essentialism. Having all ancestries be essentially human assists in not having to tack on mechanics. If some ancestries could fly or breathe under water, it may be different (N.B.: If orcs are infused with orca DNA, this doesn’t allow them to breathe under water. Killer whales breathe air too).
Any good rule should have exceptions. In the Prismatic Wasteland, there are 96 starting backgrounds a character might have. A few of them call for the character to be a mechanical simulacra of a human. In these cases, their starting ability states:
“MORE MACHINE. You resist poison damage and are immune to disease. In addition, you don’t need to sleep or breathe. You eat metal, drink oil, but rest and consume supplies as normal. Your ancestry is Machine Human.”
Because all backgrounds have starting abilities, I have no qualms with giving a bit of mechanical advantage to the mechanical people of the wasteland. I also am fine not having machine human as an option for ancestry outside of these few backgrounds: focusing on the standard fantasy array of ancestries helps foreground the fantasy elements in a world of ray guns and robots. Striking the right balance of fantasy and science fiction is as important a design principle for my game as striking the right balance of chocolate and peanut butter was for Mr. H. B. Reese, father of the peanut butter cup.
Lucas Roussel once again - the entire bestiary is so inspiring and you should check it out
In Prismatic Wasteland, ancestry doesn’t define a characters, players define their characters (and the world) through ancestry. Hopefully, there were some morsels for thought here, but I actually have a more sinister goal for this blog post. It’s #GoblinWeek! So this is part 1 of my thoughts on ancestries. Part 2 is ALL ABOUT GOBLINS, hopefully forthcoming this very week!
