Not really a fan, since all that does is in its own way recreate the awfulness of the previous installments Class system and at the same time put players who want to play a certain way at a disadvantage, for no other reason other then a false sense of diversity. It doesn't fit in-universe, and it really makes no sense when you want to play a Altmer warrior from the warrior caste/Direnni and can't for some inexplicable reason not pick up as quickly as a Nord or Orc.

Passives would be a good idea, but more adhering to each cultural quirk then some overarching racial issue. Unless the ability in question is metaphysically ingrained in the race itself, its otherwise sort of nonsensical.

None of the content should necessarily be blocked out because of race, though there should be in a few instances in miscellaneous quests that unless you're some big, famous hero, someone might not trust you to do a certain task because of their predisposition towards your race.

My meaning was more that, as an incentive to play one race over another, flat skill bonuses aren't very enticing while a bonus to advancement is. I concede that that's still not very conductive to roleplaying.

Oh lord...

Provide one example outside of ESO, where all armors have to be equal because aesthetic.

Although, aesthetic=/=function in the main series. It never has--look at the goofy high-tier armors in Skyrim. For all we know their style of armor could be inferior to, say, the Orcs, who could have perfected the style (and of course they were once Altmer).

They only had one armor in the base game. One. Compared to their home game where they had armors in all weights.

They came in both weights, like they did in Morrowind, surprisingly.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Knightly_Orders

So you're starting to see the problem here?

Yes! I love the separation of characters based on background (race and class).

Roleplaying, when you look at it, is a set of rules to follow in order to play your character as a character. Look at the rolplaying threads and you will see all these "restrictions" players put in place to "limit" what their character can/can not do.

Why do Paladins abhor torture? Because that is how they are.

Why do Mages svck at hand-to-hand? Because they spend their time studying books on Arcane Magic, not Bruce Lee's books on martial arts.

Everyone gets 24 hours in a single day. Their background (race and class) dictates to them how they spend those hours. If a society is "mechanically inclined", their "magical studies" will suffer. A lot of "new RPG players" just do not get this aspect of RPGs. They want to BE everything and DO everything with one single character. And because they have massive numbers, they are ruining RPGs, in my opinion.

My basis for "judging games" is based NOT on how much I can accomplish with one character (single playthrough), but rather how many times I can play the game with different characters and have totally NEW experiences with each one. Race and class differences make this possible for me

Did I go too far off topic?

I guess if one looks at the game from say, mid-level to the end, racial abilities have very little meaning. For me, who likes to create players and then journey through a world with them and watch them grow, the beginning is very important to me. Sometimes, those "restrictions" can be a motivation for overcoming them leading the character down certain paths

Except that doesn't really have anything to do with your race, even in the beginning. You'd have a point if Skyrim had a decent character development system, but the previous entries more or less outlined how your character would grow right from the beginning of the game, more or less, and deviating very little from that point. Even in the beginning, stats are meaningless due to the fact that your Attribute selections easily made a certain races lack of whatever attribute essentially null, along with Major/Minor skills quickly overcoming your races base skills.

You're more talking about character design quirks, as opposed to how the idea of Racial selection should operate and whether or not it should have a statistical backing on how your character grows and develops. None of the games thus far have ever really hindered that aspect of play, even if I find that they are easily shattered once examined at length. I'd rather see a much larger variety when designing characters and actually having my choices of RPing depicted in-game for the most part, as opposed to trying to circumvent the base Skill/Attribute allocations. There really shouldn't be "restrictions", because we're creating a character in its entirety from the ground up, as opposed to being handed a Inquistor or Hawke with a pre-defined background and history. The racial niches only exist so that they can give a player whose new to the series an idea of the different kind of characters they can build, and that's about all they really need to do.

But race and class are such clunky ways to achieve that starting identity. They are often superficial and forced, with next to no nuance, no in-universe representation, and contribute more to mono-typing than they do to unique identities and characters. They offer base line gameplaychanges early on, but don't serve to establish any sort of lasting identity or character.

Class and Race, as they have been used, are simplistic, dated concepts that hold back real character identity and depth. Clinging to them because they elicit nostallgic association with tabletop RPGs is counter productive, when we are at a stage where REAL individuality and characterization is easier than ever. And it is nostalgia, because neewer models allow for objectively more options, with fewer restrictions and the same amount of work. The old model is flat out inferior.

They might feel like being forced to remove racials for TES VI just by finding this thread.

Anyway, I think racials should remain in place, but gain improvements and follow the lore of the characteristic traits of the ten races. For instance, the Argonians should retain passive waterbreathing and both poison and disease resistance (for some reason they dropped poison resistance for Skyrim, probably because they thought it OP if they also have Histskin), Khajiit should retain their nighteye ability, Altmer should retain some kind of bonus regarding Magicka, etc.

Skill bonuses based on race are something I'm not so sure on. I think that would depend on what other systems are in place, how many skills there are and what they are, and how they decide on the method on how a player chooses which archetype/sub-archetype to pursue. I think they could potentially do skill bonuses based on races if they can do them based on lore, but this does tend to lead to a lot of debate over which skill bonuses are considered "lore-friendly" and which ones are not. Often this comes down to people complaining about stuff like how Redguards have a bonus to Conjuration despite being described as magic-haters in the lore or how Argonians don't have enough bonuses to "assassin skills" due to the lore of Shadowscales or some ridiculous thing like that.

Some people seem to act like the Shadowscales are the single most important part of Argonian lore when in reality they're a very minor, largely throwaway thing and I don't think they're supposed to be particularly special in how they operate. The lore suggests that they are simply just assassins, not elite ninjas. Admittedly the latter might be cool if true, but the lore doesn't support that idea at all and makes no sense in the grand scheme of things.

Well anyway, the passives and powers (particularly if done better then in previous games) are more important in my opinion because it does help reflect how the races differ, particularly when some races aren't even "human" at all. Skill bonuses might be more interesting if it were based on a player-chosen background of some kind like they did for Daggerfall (though greatly improved on of course). Like I said, race-based skill bonuses have a tendency of being on the controversial side, especially if people find that some of them go against the established lore of a certain race's culture.

Personally, I'd be more of a fan of racial abilities if they improved with level.

I'd also prefer more passives over once-per-day powers.

That being said, I don't think they should be too overpowering for hardwired racial traits, as many others have said.

At the same time, I'd like specifications for background details, which would provide additional abilities/passives. I'd actually love it. It could provide a lot of RP fun. Oh well, I suppose this wouldn't be too hard to mod in, so it's probably not too much of a worry.

In my mod http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57311/? I took the concept of innate racial affinities, so rather than +5's and 10's in skills they get an experience rate boost so they learn those skills quicker. It actually works really well and allows for any character of any race with any background, whilst still giving benefits to race selection. I also reintroduced varied Health/Magicka/Stamina at character creation to aid that sense of variation. All races have the same 300 points between them, and you can overcome it by level five, but it does set the tone quite nicely.

I didn't touch racial powers though, and it's a bit of a double edged sword. Personally I'd like to see a few options at character creation so you can have some control over what powers you'll get, but it seems most people don't like making decisions that early that they can't change (and yet will bleat on about how there's no choice and consequence, but I digress).

I like the fact that certain races are affiliated with certain areas of expertise and having racials play off that is fine. If I'm an Altmer thief that never uses magic I don't find it a problem that my racial is useless, that's a choice of my character to ignore his heritage, and I have to bear the consequences of that; it can make for some very interesting characters when you go against the grain.

I used your mod myself for a few runs in Skyrim. Good stuff, even if I edited the skill rate boosts depending on what I felt was relevant for my character and his/her background, and not so much the race. That and I toned down the general rate at which skills increased, because I felt Skyrim was a little too quick about that in general.

My core problem is there really isn't a verifiable reason why certain characters, depending on how you RP it, would ever have to overcome something they've arguably have been doing their whole lives up until that point.

The Racial based powers never made a whole lot of sense to me for the most part. I mean, some of them didn't even seemed based on Race at all, save the Argonians Histskin and the Khajiiti Night Eye. That stuff is fine, cool, and a biological/metaphysical component of their make up...depending on what sub-species they're in. The rest really just don't make a whole lot of sense from...well, any view point. The Bosmer arguably channeling their unique connection to Y'ffre and being able to bring animals to their aid works, and you could extrapolate the Altmeri lineage giving them a boon in harnessing Magicka, but that's about it.

Passives mostly should stay the same, since they seem more metaphysically/regionally relevant by in large.

The critical difference between racial and class distinctions in TES versus those in other systems such as D & D is that they're not "hard limits" in TES. You CAN advance skills in both swordsmanship and healing, as well as in magic, with the same character. On the other hand, that doesn't necessarily mean that it should come as easily to all characters. If your character is primarily adept at one thing, and slightly less so at another, it should take a little more effort to overcome the weakness, if that's what you choose to pursue.

The distinction between those who play the TES series as role-playing games, and those who play them as action games, creates a problem. The RP'ers want a different experience with each character, to create unique individuals with a set of strengths and weaknesses, often completely different for each character. The Action players want to do it all with one character, and be able to achieve the highest stats in everything, which means that any weaknesses are unwelcome. By that standard, the character should excel at EVERYTHING, not be a "jack of all trades, and master of none", but a "master of all". This fundamental split in the player base is the source of most of the complaints and objections about the game that I see here on the forums. Sadly, I don't see it as entirely resolvable and still maintain popularity with both groups. Granted there's a considerable amount of overlap between those player groups, so many players will still be satisfied with either approach.

Personally, I would favor having some small distinctions made for race, another set for background, and yet another for upbringing. That way, you can have an Orc raised in Cyrodiil by a wealthy merchant family being significantly different from another Orc raised in Orsinium by a family of hunters, yet they'd share a couple of minor characteristics or inclinations by nature of being Orcs. The "all or nothing" approach of using ONLY race, or ONLY background really isn't adequate to do it justice.

Care to give an example? I can agree that race/class is certainly clunky, but I can't think of any games with a more nuanced option that I've actually liked or felt made a significant improvement that wasn't marred by even more significant flaws.

Dargor and Lachdonin, I did not forget about your posts. I just could not think what to say, for you both had great points

Then I read:

...and he expressed how I felt so much better and concisely. Thanks for that Kovacius

I'd argue that Kovacius is coming at it from a completely different angle. Most of what he said has more to do with how some people tend to choose how to play their game, as opposed to exactly what Racial stats should be doing or how they effect the overall game. Specifically, I'd note this point right here.

This in particular is not a racial based problem, but rather the much broader issue of Skill and Character development. The two aren't always mutually exclusive, but this particular topic usually serves within its own grounds for discussion that Race just doesn't really apply. To that end, the only thing I find worth mentioning is this.

This is where passives come in. While an Argonian, depending on location and place of birth (And whatever the Hist want to do with them), would most likely retain their quirks of being able to breath under water and the like, unless they're a seperate sub-species within there. An Orc would always be resilient to wounds and damage, the Altmer would always be resistant to diseases, ect ect. Those things actually have something to do with their own race. The question becomes what, if anything should be done to make our choice give slightly more meaning to it. To that end I'd say actual decent world interactions where people and places may react different to us as a person would be one of the more important, whereas giving us hardlining Skills that we don't have a say in managing is a poor decision unless the game offers us a decent variety of sub-cultures that we came from.

Racial stats I'm ok with as far as satisfying "lore" and "reason", since I read the so-called "races" as primarily cultural differences anyway. Sure, argonians and altmer might look kinda different... but I can always ignore that in a single-player game. Incidentally, this is why racial stats are not consistent between games: culture isn't.

Gameplay-wise, I do tend to feel pigeonholed though. Partially a subconscious tendency to always min-max characters.

When making a personal mod for "balancing" races in Oblivion, I found that stats weren't too hard an issue (just normalize speed for height, decide on an "average" stat value, and give smaller differences above or below to three or four stats per race) but deciding on racial powers that weren't unbalancing but would still actually get used was pretty much impossible.

All I can say with any certainty about racial stats is I'm glad as heck they got rid of the gendered differences. No reason why half a race should be actually a different race.

I think you're looking at 2 distinctly different features here. I do not think Argonian "water breathing" is a learned thing from their culture, but an actual physical ability, simply by being Argonian. The same may be said about the Altmer command of their magicka and being able to regenerate it at a much faster rate when in desperate need.

The Nords "frost resistance" could just be from where they hail from, so a Nord raised in Cyrodiil may not have this ability. That would be more of a cultural thing than a racial one. Others, like Breton's Dragonskin could very well be a learned thing, not a DNA thing

It does get tricky and TES has not been very consistent nor deep about why the racial differences are there.

Well, you could easily argue that the Nord's being created on the Throat of the World and all is partially a reason why they're so resilient to the cold, and resistance to lightning based attacks from their connection to Kyne. The Breton's dragonskin is out there though, especially since the Altmer are actually more sensitive to Magicka due to their highborn nature. Radical exposure to Daedric/freaky elements in High Rock I guess, though the Breton's are so sporadic in lineage its a null point.

I would argue that race matters quite a bit in TES lore. Ideology has (retroactively?) affected biology, just as it has affected geology, history, and the natures of the divines. The ehlnofey all used to be the same race (except Argonians, those cads!), but then their beliefs changed them all. And probably not just how they look.

If Akatosh and Alkosh and Alduin and Auriel are all just as real as each other, I see no reason why races shouldn't retain their passive racial abilities. Resistances and bonuses are consistent with Tamriel's nature.

Most powers* and all skill-related stuff is silly, though. A Dunmer is born resistant to fire, but is not born with an innate knowledge of destruction (and certainly not with an innate knowledge of how to summon a ghost!).

*Adrenaline Rush might be an innate thing. Who knows?

The Nords, Redguards, and Orcs racial powers are pretty atrocious. None of those abilities are really racial, and are something that almost any character should be able to learn themselves. Tiber's Nordic Berserkers should well be able to go...well, berserk. Those types of abilities should be regulated into character based perks (separate from the Skills), since I can't even think of a good reason why any particular character can't learn those specific traits.

And yeah, even though you could argue that Nord's War Cry is some vague vestige of a Thu'um based ability...I never really saw it that way. To me, it takes Morrowind's description of the Nord's (Generally making the other races uncomfortable in how quickly a Nord is willing to throw their life away in battle) and giving that some representation in-game. Personally I'd give it the ability to buff yourself/inspire your ally while demoralizing your opponents and incurring a debuff on them as opposed to them just running for the hills, but that's just me.

In the off chance we get character based Perks outside of the Skill perks ala Skyrim, I'd actually personally think there should be some culturally specific perks available for them. You actually get the best of both worlds, since you can effectively take and leave whatever abilities you may or may not want. Even better if they are relevant to the sub-cultures within those parameters as well.

Good points. There are some races where players can view the "advantage" either way