Are Mages A Race?
"Nor, in my experience, is it usually about race - often it's down to the individual, and a person could have the capacity for magic without their parents having it, or at least without being from a distinct racial group within their species - be it because of the stars they were born under, the whims of the gods, random chance, proximity to leylines during conception, etc. There's a lot of fantasy settings out there where there's nothing in particular that locks of anyone from becoming a mage - some might have more talent, but anyone could learn form study. There's also a bunch where only certain people could ever learn to use magic, but among such settings many of them that has little of nothing to do with ancestry, and the ones where they'd be considered a distinct race are not a huge percentage, in my experience. Even when the ability to use magic is passed down by blood, I've usually encountered that concept in settings where they aren't a distinct racial group, but simply certain members of the general poupulus who happen to have some common ancestry with some powerful wizard/dragon/etc sometime in the past. Certainly, the situation as presented in the OP doesn't seem remotely standard, and I'd find it abnormal enough that I'd do a double-take and make sure I read it right - particularly since having Elves and Mages separately indicates that elves couldn't be mages, which flies right in the face of a common fantasy stereotype. What species would these mages be, in this theoretical setting, given that the other "races" you've listed all sound like species? What do the other members of that race do, and why aren't they on the list? What it comes down to is that Mages are commonly defined by something they do (use magic), which to some extent is where the comparison with real-world racial groups falls down. If a Jew spends his life in a profession that his ancestry and religion is irrelevant to (not opposed to, just that the two have no particular relation) - say, he becomes a blacksmith, and is really good at it, then he's still a Jew. But if Mages are a 'race' in the same way, and this gives them the ability to use magic on some level, then that should mean that a mage who never learns how to use magic and chooses instead to become a blacksmith and earn a living by this mundane means, if he never casts a spell in his life - most people wouldn't consider that person to be a 'mage' because the common definition of the word is someone who uses magic, not someone from an ethnic group that has the potential to use magic, whether they do or not. But if Mage is a race, then that blacksmith who's never used magic is a mage, because what he does doesn't change what race he is. You yourself show this when you say "If "Mage" were a race, then it wouldn't make sense to talk about people "becoming" a mage - in that case "people who have the ability to become mages" might be a race, but "mage" itself clearly isn't. Last edited by Mark_GGG on Feb 13, 2014, 7:39:40 PM
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"I stand by saying it's nonstandard and not what most people would expect, but it does (or at least can) make sense as much as any other fantasy setting, and there are settings like this. In Harry Potter it's arguable that wizards are a race - they're clearly a district cultural group from muggles with their own societies, heritage and so on, and magic is in general passed down in bloodlines. There are still some magic-users who are born to muggle parents, I believe (I'm only passingly familiar with the books beyond the first one myself, but have friends who are very into them), which might or might not be a point against depending on how you're defining "race". Another example would be the Middle-Earth. Gandalf isn't human - he's a wizard (well, Istari, but they're known as wizards to other races), a divine being with magic powers sent to middle earth to help it's inhabitants combat Sauron. The Wizards of Middle Earth are explicitly a different kind of being to the other races, despite superficially resembling men. (Again, someone more into this would be able to give a better overview - I'm a fan of Tolkien's works but haven't delved nearly as deep as some people, and it's been a long time since I read the Silmarillion) I still say, based on a lifetime of consuming probably far more fantasy media than is good for me, that it's by no means "standard" as suggested in the OP, and especially in the context of choosing a race for a video game as suggesed I think it would seem odd to most people, but it's certainly something which has been done, and can make sense for a setting. Last edited by Mark_GGG on Feb 13, 2014, 10:45:40 PM
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"While accurate for differing real-world definitions of race, the problem with this in the context of a game is that in a game, you generally can't do that. In a situation like this: "you're picking one from the list - you can't be both race A and race B in game mechanical terms in almost any game I can recall other than the card game Munchkin, and that only with a specific card for being a half-breed (which in other games might be it's own separate race - e.g. Half-elves in D&D aren't mechanically considered to be both elves and humans, but to be half-elves). So if you wanted a character which was both an elf and a mage, as you suggest should be possible (and I agree), then what would you chose, given this selection you posted? Hence, games tend to use the term race in the context of exclusive groups - you can't be of multiple races. And since people will care about what species their character is, if the choice of race isn't specific to that, then there needs to be a separate choice for species (unless there's only one playable species). Even if you're going to do a game where that's not the case, that's the default assumption of most gamers when asked to pick their race - that they pick one. Add to that that the term race is commonly used to mean species in fantasy gaming and you're setting yourself up for extra confusion here, particularly when all the other listed options are like that, and mage is the odd one out. So really, I think what it comes down to is that "This seems so odd as to be almost comical, for the reasons listed above - the first four clearly seem to be using race to mean species and are priming me that that's how it's used here, and the last clearly doesn't fit. And unless there's a very clear thing saying "pick one or more of these races" for this hypothetical game, then I can't be an elf and a mage, which adds to the seeming silliness of this setup. But, if instead a game promoted me to choose a race from a list more like:
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