Probably me, when I said "I don't think you can really define the creativity of a mud by its race selection".
The original poster implied that following a theme tones down your creativity, and that's something I disagree with. It might restrict you when it comes designing races (and other parts of the theme), but I don't see that as a lack of creativity - and it can often require more creativity to make a race faithful to the theme while keeping it fun to play and retaining game balance.
If you see a mud with stock races and classes, then that can imply a lack of creativity in the game in general. But the selection alone isn't really much to go by - it's possible to have a mud with all original-sounding races that are nothing more than labels, or a mud with human, elf, dwarf and halfling which has provided each of those races with numerous background story and unique game options.
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