(not so) New Races & New Race Moves

Reptilian Fighter
- Your scales are as hard as metal. Take +1 armor.

Reptilian Druid
- You can shapeshift in and speak with any reptile. You also can breath underwater and live happily in extreme hot environments.

Reptilian Ranger
- Choose a poison. You secern a poison with the same effects. You are totally immune to its effects, it's not dangerous for you to use and you can produce 1 use of that poison every time you make camp or recover in a steading.

Cambion Fighter
- You feed on pain. When you deal damage with your signature weapon, you also heal 1 hit point.

Cambion Thief
- You are one with shadows. Take +1 when acting in or from total darkness.

Cambion Wizard
- You have access to blood magic. When rolling a result of 7-9 on casting a spell, you can choose a fourth option: you suffer 1d6 damage that ignores armor.

Dwarf Thief
- Take +1 to Trap Expert when in underground environments.

Halfling Bard
- You could teach etiquette to a king. When approaching a new civilization, ask your GM what its social rules demand. Take +1 forward when acting on the answer.

Well, as always, please feel free to comment, critique, and insult me.

I like them, though I'm not familiar with Cambions. I've thought about making other Racial Moves for the classes, or making a list of "generic" Racial Moves that could be plugged into any class playbook.

Well, cambion = son of a demon (usually a male incubus) and a human. Merlin was a cambion. I didn't like tieflings and their fire fetishism (and usually, I LOVE flame-casting characters in fantasy gaming).

About generic race moves, I think they could be best produced as compendium classes. Like, the "Spellsinger", for elves that use both sword and magic.

I didn't like tieflings and their fire fetishism (and usually, I LOVE flame-casting characters in fantasy gaming).

When did tieflings become fire-fetishists? D&D 4?

Sure, let's try this!

Orc Fighter

Terrifying : When using the parley move and threatening to do violence, roll+str.

Orc Thief

Splatter : Add to the backstab options "Shock or disgust any onlookers."

Somethings to consider, when thinking about race moves.  Including a race in a class says some powerful stuff about both the race itself (Orcs have Fighters, obviously, but do they also have Rangers?  Do they have Wizards?  What do these things tell us about Orcs in the world?) and about the class, too.  From a setting standpoint, it's important to understand first how that impacts the world - what it says about Clerics in general that humans and dwarves can take up that role but nobody else can.  Does that mean Elves have no gods?  Does it mean halflings are spiritual but not religious?  Why are humans the only Paladins?  etc etc.  It's not an arbitrary choice but a setting statement.

From a mechanical standpoint, the race moves do one of three things - illustrate skill (giving an easier chance to successfully accomplish a particular task) illustrate difference (breaking the rules by allowing stuff like rolling with a different stat, using cleric spells when you're a wizard, etc) or illustrate options (broadening an existing move to encompass new options at various levels - new questions for Discern Realities, etc etc). 

Often, the mechanism is the last thing we'll come up with when determining a race move.  Remember that the race moves (plus any race-related tags for equipment or whatever) are the only way, before the game begins, that players can learn about the races of the game.  They need to paint a broad, interesting picture you can start from.

Yep. Beside my love for savage lizardmen and wicked half-demons, I utterly needed a Dwarf Thief. I mean, the dwarf trapmaster concept it's too cool to not have one in my settings! Also, it sort of reflects what dwarves could be in older editions (I don't remember actually their abilities at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they had some sort of exploring skills. Also, in heroquest the dwarf was the trapfinder!)

When did tieflings become fire-fetishists? D&D 4?

Yep. I love tieflings in D&D 4e, but I need a break from all that fire.

Sure, let's try this!

Check out Interrogator from the fighter's level 2-5 moves. However, it's interesting... Mind if I give the orc a try?

Orc Fighter
- When you suffer damage, take +1 forward to damage.

Orc Cleric
- When you heal someone with Cure * Wounds spells, you always double the dice rolled to heal and inflict a debility of your choice on the target.

Orc Ranger
- Your animal companion is the tainted, dire version of the standard model. It has +1 ferocity.

I don't like much the concept of an Orc Thief so I passed on that one.

Somethings to consider, when thinking about race moves.  Including a race in a class says some powerful stuff about both the race itself (Orcs have Fighters, obviously, but do they also have Rangers?  Do they have Wizards?  What do these things tell us about Orcs in the world?) and about the class, too.  From a setting standpoint, it's important to understand first how that impacts the world - what it says about Clerics in general that humans and dwarves can take up that role but nobody else can.  Does that mean Elves have no gods?  Does it mean halflings are spiritual but not religious?  Why are humans the only Paladins?  etc etc.  It's not an arbitrary choice but a setting statement.

From a mechanical standpoint, the race moves do one of three things - illustrate skill (giving an easier chance to successfully accomplish a particular task) illustrate difference (breaking the rules by allowing stuff like rolling with a different stat, using cleric spells when you're a wizard, etc) or illustrate options (broadening an existing move to encompass new options at various levels - new questions for Discern Realities, etc etc). 

Often, the mechanism is the last thing we'll come up with when determining a race move.  Remember that the race moves (plus any race-related tags for equipment or whatever) are the only way, before the game begins, that players can learn about the races of the game.  They need to paint a broad, interesting picture you can start from.

Exactly this is what makes me think that the poor Dwarves get short shrift in the beta. Humans can be anything--got it. Elves can be nearly anything, Halflings a lot of things.

Dwarves can be fighters or clerics. If you're a Dwarf, you fight, or you fight and pray. That's it.

It reminds me of a guy I once heard critiquing the Klingons: "You can't have everybody in a culture be a warrior. Somebody has to grow the food."

Only two choices for Dwarves, especially just those two, makes them seem to lack depth. So I hope they get a little more love.

It's fairly standard that dwarves can only be fighters or clerics. The thief always felt a little odd for them.

But let's check:
Elves can be bards, druids, fighters, rangers, wizards
Halflings can be druids, fighters, thieves

So, halflings actually have only one more choice than dwarves (and that one only recently added).

Elves indeed have a broader choice, but I feel that bard and druid are a bit out-of-place. The druid choice feels a bit warcraft-ty... less old school.

I wrote up a custom Dwarven Bard that was a mystical master craftsman who traveled the land perfecting his art (and maybe trying to make a buck at the same time). It was cool; I wish I could find my notes on it!

I think it's also a matter of how many adventurers of a given race one could expect to see in a campaign.

Humans? From one to infinity.
Elves? A fair share.
Halflings / Dwarves? Very few if any.

Also: Dwarves in Mentzer have the Detection special ability that basically allows them to detect traps and secret doors (initially with a result of 1-2 on a d6 roll). This is enough for me to demand a dwarf thief! :D

Only two choices for Dwarves, especially just those two, makes them seem to lack depth. So I hope they get a little more love.

The answers (or, really, hints that lead to more questions) you seek, dwarf-wise, are hidden in the monster settings.  That's the other place we really laid down the implied setting.

That said; fuck what we think, right?  I mean, we only wrote the game, you're the ones playing it!  I could totally see Dwarven Thieves, Dwarven Wizards (rune master!) or Dwarven Druids depending on your world and the stuff you want to see in it.  Making race moves when you've already got a good idea of culture and setting is so easy.

That said; fuck what we think, right?  I mean, we only wrote the game, you're the ones playing it!  I could totally see Dwarven Thieves, Dwarven Wizards (rune master!) or Dwarven Druids depending on your world and the stuff you want to see in it.  Making race moves when you've already got a good idea of culture and setting is so easy.

Indeed. Though I'd like to see a little bit more of your thought process in creating racial benefits for classes. You've elucidated some of that already in posts here (and in podcasts, if I remember correctly), but something a little more concrete in the finished text would be nice, especially for those creating their own settings that vary in ways from traditional settings. The way I've been handling it thus far is that the races listed are the ones that get bonuses, based on the fiction of the setting, but any race can actually take that class (without bonuses). But that's just me. I'd like to see more of the thought process behind the rules so that we all can adapt them to the settings we want to see them run in. Overall, I can see the system being adaptable to almost any setting, but more transparency in how the rules come together will help facilitate that.

Did someone ever took a race without bonus in your games?

@Adam: Uh, well look at that! Go ahead though, play around with the orcs! I didn't want to give bonus damage to the orcs because it felt too easy. I really like the "disgust and impress" of the orc thief, I feel like an orc thief is very much of a sneaky thug, a guy who would make an example out of someone. Then again, I've always loved the concept "Brutish and strong thief". Backstabbing with a 2-hander ftw!