Player-Created Races

It is the GM’s job to design the racial templates for his campaign.
The rules given here have fewer arbitrary limitations and balancing fac-
tors than do those for creating individual characters, because this is
intended to be a GM’s system, and the GM is free to decide what is bal-
anced in his campaign.
That said, the adventurous GM might allow an especially good play-
er or group to design races for their characters. This can be a major
time-saver for the GM in a campaign that calls for a plethora of non-
human species!
A few tips for GMs who wish to allow player-created races:
• Watch out for abuse. The lack of balancing factors in these rules
makes it possible to create a race that has a significant advantage in
effectiveness over the human race. Do not allow such races – at least,
not as PCs.
• Do not allow abilities (or combinations of abilities) that you do not
want in the PCs’ hands, however balanced they may be. In particular,
keep an eye on exotic and supernatural traits. If a trait is strictly off-lim-
its to all PCs, then the race of the PC should be unimportant.
• Player-generated races work best in game worlds that already have
many different races, because “yet another race” will rarely upset the
campaign. Be sure to have a few ready-made PC races on hand for play-
ers who do not wish to create their own, however – and to serve as
examples for those who do.
• Be leery of player-created NPC races. In most game worlds, NPC
races are supposed to be somewhat mysterious. Mystery is hard to
maintain when the creator is a member of the party!
A member of this race buys a per-
sonal ST 9 [-10], IQ 14 [80]. He then
applies his racial attribute modifiers:
ST+10 gives ST 19, and IQ-1 gives IQ
13.