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Originally Posted by Lady Dragonfly  Given your example, a half-orc should expect difficulties dealing with humans, yes. Would a merchant treat a stinky half-orc grunt (Int 4, Wis 3, Cha 2) and a noble human paladin (Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 18) the same way? No. But the initial reaction would change after our half-orc earned a few reputation points. Or if he looks intimidating enough to get a discount. Perhaps he will not be accepted in fashionable salons even after that but hey, that is a role you play (and there is always a back alley to settle a score). By the same token a noble paladin will not get quests from the thieves and vampires. |
I would take it further than that. A half-orc wouldn't be accepted by either orcs or humans. He/she wouldn't be given an opportunity to earn reputation, or if s/he did, that reputation would fade quickly, based on the suspicion and prejudice of the community. S/he might get in with some of the lowlives of the world, but even they would likely hate the half-orc. Fellowship among thieves only goes so far. Being an half-orc, now: that's something basic, isn't it? So this particular PC might find the only available options being death or running away into the wilderness, living by itself, possibly setting up ambushes for the occasional very small "civilized" party as an easy source for supplies, and just for plain revenge and anger.
We could sanitize this. We could reduce it to stats, and make reputation a constant unaffected by bigotry. We could reduce the scope of time necessary to remove ideas held for a lifetime to a few quests in a few weeks. But that wouldn't really reproduce the problems associated with realworld prejudice in an RPG. Just as giving a female character slightly different stats and expecting her to enter a riverfront dive filled with drunken sailors (great example) without getting anything from propositioned to handled to raped is hardly realistic, either.
So I would opt for choice #4 from your list:
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4. Gameworld reaction is a sum of statistics that should include race, gender, stats/attributes modifiers, social status, reputation/fame, guild affiliation etc. and result not only in scowls/smiles and higher/lower prices but in different dialogue options, quests and NPC attitude.
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If we were honest, though, we should expect some biases to be impossible to overcome, and severely limiting to the PC's progress. Not that any of this would be fun to play, but it would be accurate, and reproducing at least some of it in context might give the player a more grimly authentic experience than the cookie-cutter action RPGs that everybody is turning out nowadays.