Races - Playable vs NonPlayable (and which to use)

[Koniption]

The below comments by Andalaybay......

Let me clarify custom races and whether they are playable or not.

When you create a custom race, you can choose whether it will be playable by the player or not. You can choose to create a custom race to make something unique, like you have done here. You can also choose to create a custom race so that you don't have to worry about the default dialogue. We have a character called the Watcher in tDBC. Well the Watcher was brilliantly voiced by Ibsen's Ghost. But that voice is unique, to say the least. So I created a custom race for him. He looks exactly like an Altmer and has the stats of an Altmer. But I don't have to worry about him switching to the Altmer voice when chatting about mud crabs. In fact, he won't chat about mud crabs at all. He only has the dialogue that we provide for him.

Now in our case, we don't want the WatcherRace, as I called it, to be playable by the player. That's what is meant by a playable race. Simply that it is an option for the player when they choose their race during character creation. It has no impact on interacting with the NPC's created with that race during the game. There is no scripting required to make those NPC's function.

There are a couple of significant impacts when using custom races. Number one is quest creation. If you look at the vanilla quests, you'll notice that one of the quest conditions is:
GetIsPlayableRace == 1.00

Well if you are using custom races and you will be interacting with NPC's from that race in a quest, you can not define that condition! They'll just look at you with a goofy expression on their faces. Basically the quest doesn't apply to them. You only need to omit that condition on the specific quests in which they are involved.

The second impact is that they will not have any default dialogue - at all. If you click on them you will get "I HAVE NO GREETING". So in order for them to work properly, I suggest you give them at least a basic greeting. You will have problems adding topics to them during quest building if they don't have a basic greeting, so it's easier to just give them a basic greeting from the start. If you want them to chat to other NPC's, or each other, you will have to supply a lot more than that.

However other than those issues, you don't need to do anything special for NPC's of custom races to work. If you want them to wear certain clothes, you just add those items to their inventories. You can add clothing and armour. You can instruct them to wear one or the other by using flags in their AI packages, or by explicitly ordering them to equip items via script.

One last caution: if you create a merchant with a custom race and you want to restrict the clothing they can wear, make sure you give the merchant a vendor chest or they will attempt to equip any armour you sell to them that is better quality than what they're wearing already. That's why Enilroth in Anvil wears the armour you sell to him - he was never given his own vendor chest. That will be fixed in the next version of the UOP, apparently.

[AndalayBay]

I'm not really sure my post explains whether to make a race playable or not. That is usually dependent on what you want to achieve.

With a mod like Black Marsh, it might be perfectly reasonable to make some of your custom races playable. The player would use it as he plays the game in Cyrodiil and then when he enters Black Marsh, you could have a "coming home" of sorts, if you wanted to add that dimension to the mod.

I was just trying to explain that custom races don't necessarily need any scripting to make them function properly. I was also pointing out some of the reasons you might use one even though the race doesn't look any different than the original race in the base game. I explained one of those reasons with our Watcher character, even though in all respects, he's really a High Elf. I just didn't want his voice flipping back and forth. But more often than not, you will create a custom race to get a unique look.

Lastly, I was pointing out some of the issues you might encounter when using custom races.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Thanks for the clarification, AB. It's a useful reference point when setting up quests, I believe, since such an effect may be desired. I think that when we set up the Shadowscales we will need to refer to this since they wear a very distinctive suit that, if worn with the mask, requires the normal Argonian snout to be severely shortened and, preferably, for the clothes to be made a permanent addition to the NPC.

[AndalayBay]

You just need to add it to their inventory. The Dark Brotherhood really isn't any different. They all wear the DB armour. And often times we have them remove it when they go outside. So we need to make sure to give them clothes so they aren't all running around naked, although there is one Nord that does... What is it with Naked Nords?*

* there is a quest in Morrowind about that and it's a running joke. It may have showed up earlier than that - I'm not sure. It is part of Elder Scrolls lore now though

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Yes, we had a quest idea along those lines too: [Misk] (Darkmoor) Just cause' I'm naked! .

[AndalayBay]

:lol: Yeah I saw that. It's not a quest in tDBC, just a joke. There's a note from one of the sanctuary managers to another - it's really funny. We have a bunch of little notes like that.