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[FantasticDorf]

FantasticDorf: We already have what you describe and the tag is called "caste." Right now it is mostly used for male/female distinctions in the base game, but mods like Masterwork use it for sub-races or clans or classes. (Urok is a type of orc, smith guild is a type of dwarf)

Technically yes, but castes are all the same creature (Quite literally, each male can breed with females of any caste though the cast born will be weighted differently for caste selection the same way male & female are divided up). What i am describing is to procedurally generate a 'caste' that is actually raw different in the same file  (a dark troll cannot interbreed with a plains troll etc) but are treated in the same class as the original creature that has the bulk of the tags required for it to function.

         --> Dark Gnome [Only spawns in evil areas][Might have evil features like claws, horns & red eyes]
Gnome  {
         -->  Mountain Gnome [Only spawns in mountains][perhaps has a longer beard and rougher voice]

Giant animals would be a subspecies of regular animals with [GIANT] etc, a giant dog cannot mate with a smaller dog subspecies but they are both dogs, a giant husky cannot breed with a minature toy beagle because they are subspecies (to take a interpretive approach with this game design idea) rather than a female minature toy beagle giving birth to a giant husky on a weighted chance because they are the same subspecies.

Similar to castes but not quite what i was going for.

[Rubik]

I like the more broad concept of race you are talking about. Its like an expanded caste system, where you delimitate different culture and characteristics to each caste, and who can breed who
But they are all conected(culturally, alliances/wars from the begining, can breed but descendants are sterile, etc.

[Myth]

So hey, I'll make a suggestion and it is a bigger tech tree so that we get some tribal civilizations who are basically stone age still, with bronze and iron age civilizations of the same race with actual different conurbation generators so a northern tribe of human reindeer herders living in tents would form different looking settlements than a southern bronze age civ with adobe buildings.

I really, really like this suggestion. In addition to what has already been said, this could allow more variation in character creation. For example, an adventurer from a primitive civilization should not know how to read, and should not be available in their skills. Clothing available, among other features, should change depending on the level of civilization, but I think part of this is already in the game.

[GhostDwemer]

FantasticDorf, The game does have that sort of thing right now, for Night Creatures, Demons, Titans and Forgotten Beasts.

What you are talking about is 'species" not "race." In real life a giant husky can interbreed with a miniature toy beagle because they are in fact the same species. There will generally be problems if the smaller dog is the mom, though. But they can interbreed and create fertile offspring, unlike, say, a donkey and a horse, which always makes a sterile mule or hinny because they are different (but closely related) species.

Girlinhat was working on a random creature generator a few versions ago but I don't think it's been updated: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=80121.0
Also, Knight Otu made one as well: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91255.0 which is based on the one Sphalerite did for random plants.

[Reelya]

Or if you want to go by genetic differences, there's two races: the Khoisan and everyone else.

Not sure about that. In fact I googled it and it's the exact opposite. Recent DNA research suggests that the belief in long-term genetic isolation of the Khoisan was unfounded.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24988-humanitys-forgotten-return-to-africa-revealed-in-dna/
Basically, Khoisan have Western Eurasian DNA, they emigrated south about 3000 years ago. DNA-wise they have some DNA that's a close match for people in Spain and Italy. So who exactly were the Khoisan? That would be an interesting question if they could backtrack it.

But humans aren't divided into three races at all, genetically speaking. Just saying, race is a myth, scientifically there are no races, there's just humans.

This can't be serious.

"I see dumb people" (well just one).

Even if it's not a mechanic that the player can experience that much, it's still incredible

Actually, it can be much faster than you think. Mutations are a constant thing, and can have drastic changes. Gene Shift is happening all the time as well.

Basically, natural selection + sexual reproduction give the illusion of genetic stability: it weeds out changes and pushes the population genome to a common "optimal" configuration. That optimal configuration depends on the selection pressures. Once a gene pool is near-optimal for current conditions, it basics stabilizes. There might be a better genome elsewhere, but it requires too many genetic changes to get there, and since you're constantly being mixed with your current species, you're always pull back to the local optimal genome.

The "trick" comes when conditions change. In that case, the old "perfected" genome is not longer optimal. The system maintaining stability (i.e. preventing change) breaks down, and the population starts to move towards a new "optimal" genome. It's this stage in which some scientists theorize that most genetic advancements occur. In the shift, there's room for experimentation, without being pulled back to a "stasis" point (because that state is broken now), and you're unlikely to lose any true improvements because the really good improvements you want to keep work under many conditions. So, the population is going to be pulled towards a new stasis point, and this is going to happen fairly quickly, but there might be multiple incompatible "optimal" genomes within reach. The advantage here, is that many populations can do this same calculation at the same time and explore the different answers, so you have the parallel processing thing again.

[FantasticDorf]

FantasticDorf, The game does have that sort of thing right now, for Night Creatures, Demons, Titans and Forgotten Beasts.

What you are talking about is 'species" not "race." In real life a giant husky can interbreed with a miniature toy beagle because they are in fact the same species.

'Sub-species' to be more precise, basically applying as you point out, the different generated variations (dont forget Vault Angels & were creatures, though weres aren't generated randomly but are selected randomly) via prefixed tags, but having it be accessible. Im aware that crossbreeding of similar creatures in real life, though it might be fatal to the minature toy beagle to birth a giant husky so having each sub species be infertile with other subspecies makes a great deal more sense given that having 50 of each subspecies too could create a messy situation where 10 individuals could spawn a 101 dogs, or animals are intensively bred to create more of a particular breed.

                                                                                Toy dogs, different set of statistics, mostly aesthetic renditions of mutts (yorkies etc)
generic dog (mutt, no real features, a bit like a mule but makes other mutts) {
                                                                                Functional & dangerous dogs, possibly valued a little bit higher, the working breed (alsatians etc)

Normally the route would be to obnoxiously create a new raw, but if you could host it all in the same creature raw, you could have (dog - all) rather than process each individual animal as a separate thing. When you ask for dogs from the caravan you will be asking for the range that they have available (and if dog subspecies are set to biomes, because they are domestic, civilisations can draw a range of differing breeds etc based on where they settle as a example).

Im aware im a little off topic but this COULD be a way to create radical racial spin-offs if the player required it (lazy examples elves/drow elves & dwarves/deep dwarves etc).

[Rubik]

My only problem with genetics in the game would be the difficulty to trace it.
Yeah, we can look at 'most' phenotypes of a dwarf without going to the raws, but it's definitely not user-wise, so you gotta search for a bit If you wanna have certain information of their dna
I 'supposed' that we could get something analogous to a ''dna menu'' in two future cases
Magic experimenting: Because we all wanna be some mad mage creation whole new forms of life
Cattle managing in adventure/fort mode: Toady has talked about selective breeding in adventure mode, as well as mining and farming, and I think he mentioned you would have a certain menu for this, so you'll know what cows give more milk, are bigger, etc.

[rhavviepoodle]

having 50 of each subspecies too could create a messy situation where 10 individuals could spawn a 101 dogs

Perhaps one could even say it might spawn 101 dalmatians

More seriously, what if there were a way to cap the amount of sub-sets of a given monster that were generated? It wouldn't be the most elegant solution, but it would probably fit the bill.

[Rubik]

You are looking at this wrong.
Yeah there are sub-species of animals, and yes, they create different offspring than their parents, but the example of dogs is bad. We basically created all dog races from wolfs, so its a bad example
If Horse-Woman breeds with a human and for some reason they have descendants, their kids would be half human half horse-woman, right? They would have proper definitions telling how different they are from each parent.
Now, this hybrid breeds with a woman, and has yet another son. It is again a hybrid between two species, but its a closer hybrid to humans that it is to horses
For the sake of simplicity, although this is quite the decision, you could simply list the hybrid as human, when his porcentage of ''Horse Dna'' is lower than, lets say, 5% or so.

Yeah, the plot thickens when the creature has dna from a lot of different species. This can be fixed by making species not interbreed that much, with a variety of ways, so we dont end up with a single very weird species in a couple generations

And you could also limit the creatures that can breed with each other
You can do this in a definable way, which gives more power to the modders, that is using raws to define if a mammal can procreate with another mammal, or things like so (which would make taxonomy more important)or certain creatures with certain creatures only.
Or you can implement a more organic and interesting system, but with less power to the modders, that would be allowing two species to procreate if, by a certain scrypt of proximity based on the creature phisical and chemical raws, the game determines that they are close enough, genetically speaking, to procreate.
For example, elves and humans could procreate, because humans are basically taller elves, but humans couldnt actually procreate with giants (sorry hagrid) because of differeneces of size
This opens a very funny process of testing that is to determine when are two creatures close enough to procreate, and if they do, what comes out of it
Oh, lets not forget about magical powers or innate abilities as flying or venom producing, would they get transmitted or not? would they ne half-half? The game would obtain a very interesting mechanic

[Reelya]

Hmm, it seems there are two ways this could be done. The way that's been presented already:

[CREATURE:HUMAN]
[CAN_MATE:ELF:HALF_ELF:100]
[CAN_MATE:HALF_ELF:HUMAN:50:HALF_ELF:50]

etc etc, which is the more concrete way with more power to the modders. The problem being here that the number of combinations could blow out massively.

You have human->elf, so now you have to code an extra race (half-elf) and two can-mates per race. Plus, the can_mates have redundant information: what if can_mate human->elf is defined, but not can_mate elf->human? Also, if the percentages are programmed in, where do they go, are they replicated, and what do we do about discrepancies? Then, we decide we want Orcs, and Orcs can mate with humans to make a half-Orc, and mate with Elves to form Dark-Elves (just say).
So, just from three base races we have human, elf, orc, half-elf, half-orc and dark-elf, all of whom should be able to interbreed, therefore each one needs 5 "CAN_MATE" lines, which we need to ensure are logically consistent. Add a 4th breeding-capable humanoid species, and you end up with 6 hybrid-types, 10 total creature_types, needing 9 "CAN_MATE" tags each. So we can see modders will soon be cursing the "great power" they have to implement these things.

But you could hand-craft all the mating rules in here, and if the tags were caste-level then you could hack in details such as male donkey + female mare = mule.

There's another possible idea however, and it's possible that both systems could be implemented in the engine, allowing for the best of both worlds.

Another way, which is the "organic" way could be to have the concept of GENUS and/or SPECIES. A nice way to do this might be to make use of a system similar to Creature Variations. The base "type" would be defined in the variations, and it takes a number of parameters - these become the base genes.

And to make things interesting, extra tags could be bundled into "TRAIT" at the creature level. The idea here would be that a TRAIT is a set of one or more Tokens, bundled into a whole. Traits could either have a parameter, or be all-or-nothing. Then, when a hybrid is born, all the parameterized core traits have the regular genetics occur, while for each "TRAIT" from each parent, there's a chance you can inherit each one. e.g. a cross between a medusa and a human would get a genetic mix of regular stats, but the "HAS_SNAKES_FOR_HAIR" trait could be present or absent in the child (additionally, the amount or size of the snakes could be lower).

And then for whether you "are" an elf, that could be social: if you're elf-enough then you're an elf. With enough breeding and numerical traits eventually a human+elf hybrid will be close enough to the normal stat ranges for elf.

[Rubik]

Hmm, it seems there are two ways this could be done. The way that's been presented already:

[CREATURE:HUMAN]
[CAN_MATE:ELF:HALF_ELF:100]
[CAN_MATE:HALF_ELF:HUMAN:50:HALF_ELF:50]

etc etc, which is the more concrete way with more power to the modders. The problem being here that the number of combinations could blow out massively.

You have human->elf, so now you have to code an extra race (half-elf) and two can-mates per race. Plus, the can_mates have redundant information: what if can_mate human->elf is defined, but not can_mate elf->human? Also, if the percentages are programmed in, where do they go, are they replicated, and what do we do about discrepancies? Then, we decide we want Orcs, and Orcs can mate with humans to make a half-Orc, and mate with Elves to form Dark-Elves (just say).
So, just from three base races we have human, elf, orc, half-elf, half-orc and dark-elf, all of whom should be able to interbreed, therefore each one needs 5 "CAN_MATE" lines, which we need to ensure are logically consistent. Add a 4th breeding-capable humanoid species, and you end up with 6 hybrid-types, 10 total creature_types, needing 9 "CAN_MATE" tags each. So we can see modders will soon be cursing the "great power" they have to implement these things.

But you could hand-craft all the mating rules in here, and if the tags were caste-level then you could hack in details such as male donkey + female mare = mule.

There's another possible idea however, and it's possible that both systems could be implemented in the engine, allowing for the best of both worlds.

Another way, which is the "organic" way could be to have the concept of GENUS and/or SPECIES. A nice way to do this might be to make use of a system similar to Creature Variations. The base "type" would be defined in the variations, and it takes a number of parameters - these become the base genes.

And to make things interesting, extra tags could be bundled into "TRAIT" at the creature level. The idea here would be that a TRAIT is a set of one or more Tokens, bundled into a whole. Traits could either have a parameter, or be all-or-nothing. Then, when a hybrid is born, all the parameterized core traits have the regular genetics occur, while for each "TRAIT" from each parent, there's a chance you can inherit each one. e.g. a cross between a medusa and a human would get a genetic mix of regular stats, but the "HAS_SNAKES_FOR_HAIR" trait could be present or absent in the child (additionally, the amount or size of the snakes could be lower).

And then for whether you "are" an elf, that could be social: if you're elf-enough then you're an elf. With enough breeding and numerical traits eventually a human+elf hybrid will be close enough to the normal stat ranges for elf.

Yeah, about half an hour after writing that, I though that both ways could somehow combine,
The names were something I kinda brainstormed in the moment, pls no bully.

There's no need for the first method to force you to create that ammount of races
In my mind, it worked somehow like creating procedural species. The actual method to ''combine'' two races would be hard-coded, and each raw entry for a certain creature would be created each time two creatures procreate to create it. This means that the [CAN_MATE] tag would give power to the modders in the sense that it restricts what hibrids can be created, The racemixing mechanics would always be the same
I really like the thing with the trait tags being added, as it touches a theme I had forgotten to talk about.
Estability/inestability of the new creature. Depending on various situations, such as radiation, genetical inestability, or a divine curse or whatever, we should consider the fact that not all hibrids, even if they come from the same parents, are equal, genetically speaking.
Its an interesting theme, that needs to be talked about. In myths, when two different races are breed out, two different but clear directions are taken. Or a race thats different from both parent races, but homogenously among them is created, or completely different brothers emerge from the mother's womb, even if both parents are the same
normalizing abilities as [TRAIT] tags really helps with this, as each trait could have a percentage to be obtained for the descendant, allowing for some differentiation even in the same race, and giving the vibe that the recently created race is ''unstable'' or exotic, without resorting to castes
With this, you could have a Mix between humans and raven people, where certain individuals obtain wings or feathers, and other just simply have long noses, akin to beaks
This could all be expanded and thought a lot more, but I think we might have created a fairly good method for racemixing to work

[rhavviepoodle]

What if quarter-breeds simply used the stats for the 3/4ths race? At that point there could be a token added to them that says they have elven blood/heritage (or whatever) but it wouldn't actually have a mechanical effect.

But it gets thorny if someone were 1/4 elf, 1/4 human, and 1/2 dwarf. One way of handling that is saying those crossbreeds simply don't happen, as a dwarf likely wouldn't be attracted to someone who epitomizes both humans and elves. Alternatively, make it functionally a regular dwarf, but include heritage tokens for both human and elf. It wouldn't be the most elegant solution, but nor would it be needlessly complicated.

[Rubik]

What if quarter-breeds simply used the stats for the 3/4ths race? At that point there could be a token added to them that says they have elven blood/heritage (or whatever) but it wouldn't actually have a mechanical effect.

But it gets thorny if someone were 1/4 elf, 1/4 human, and 1/2 dwarf. One way of handling that is saying those crossbreeds simply don't happen, as a dwarf likely wouldn't be attracted to someone who epitomizes both humans and elves. Alternatively, make it functionally a regular dwarf, but include heritage tokens for both human and elf. It wouldn't be the most elegant solution, but nor would it be needlessly complicated.

-''You are really beatiful Amede, but I've always wamted to ask, how come you've got those small ears, and you sometimes start throwing tantrums for no reason?''
-''Oh my dear Ekel, that's easy to explain. You see, My mother's mother was a Dwarf, so that's why I have small ears. The tantrum part is because Im not dwarf enough to enter martial trances as they do, so I sometimes become really battly, with the most innofensive things''

I really love that, even if a parentage of a different race gets abstracted enough for the creature to be considered of pure breed, you can still have long-lasting traits from another races.

In the context of stories, genetical laws of dominating genes are substitued by ''the strenght of the blood'' meaning that mundane races' traits get transmited normally, and if they interbreed, those traits are expressed as usual, but if faced to breed more again with a certain race for generations, those phenotypes are expressed as lessed and diminished, as in my example. And eventually dissapear
But divine races that mix themselves with humans, in stories, tend to give them powerful and really over the top abilities, that no matter how much you breed them again with their own kind, never fully dissapear
Think Of a certain clan of humans whose great great great great grandfather laid with the godess of fertility and wisdom. After that, the semi-god that came from that relation had a strong inclination to obtain wisdom (certain boosts to atributes, values, and etc., from birth) and she would remain fertil for all of her life. This semi-god, who represents a new race that could keep on if said goddes had another affair with a mortal and they met, Eventually marries a human and has babies. All of those babies have less from-birth inclination to love and studying than her mother, but as the godess represents a so strong force, her seed will always represent the same things she represents
This means that, no matter how many generation pass, the descendants from that union would always have a fixed inclination to those spheres.

This is amazing because it creates at the same time various tropes, and from a realistic and clean way

1-semi-gods from birth
2-clans/chosen people (they might use this as a reason to make wars and stuff), of certain nature(living in nature, although they are humans, for example)
3-A way were gods can directly affect the transcurse of history, and the unique mechanics and costumes of the game's races, something we actually lack (Its amusing to think of gods having ''moods'' and going to eart to breed)
4-Racemixing with good and bad things, yay

[Grimmrog]

But humans aren't divided into three races at all, genetically speaking. Just saying, race is a myth, scientifically there are no races, there's just humans. Or if you want to go by genetic differences, there's two races: the Khoisan and everyone else. Certainly, the 18th century imperialist categorizations of "Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid" are not only false categories, but very insulting to a lot of people. Just pointing that out so you don't go accidentally insulting someone.

"Ethnic groups" on the other hand, would be an interesting addition to the game, and I'm pretty sure that's what you meant. "Cultural groups" even more so, there's much more difference between, say, a dark skinned steppe horseman and a dark skinned  urbanite (of any era) than between two urban dwellers of any race.

there was a funny meme somewhere which showed the average faces of people around the world and their locations. With in the end showing russian with a putin face. But aside of this "end joke" it was quite a nice one to see how more fluent humans visually are instead of just a few different setups.

However dwarfs already have much characteristics, so even if not explicitely stated as one, you could already manually divide them. By skincolor, and such if you like. They basically already have different thnics by how they think about various things. What the game probably needs is some "discimination". It is just rather natural that people form gorups of equal opinions and may dislike others of a different one. or at leats this being source of problems. So various fortresses existing should probably and slowly changed dwarfes minds and give them a more common ethnic and thinking as they form a group (kinda what integration does) While also migrants should be similary minded and until integration should form preffered subgroups in a fortress. Which can turn into some forms of fun if they isolate themsleves too much or go rebelling or on a crusade vs other thinking ones.

On the basic other side, most fantasy games utilise these feature already with the existing races so maybe it is generally not necessary.
What would be a source for a lot of fun would be multirace fortresses where we can set different politics and allow mix of races like animal man, elves and humans also to settle in the fortress. This could come with some extra benefits as well as difficulties. usually the cultural ones as well as trying to craft now items for different races. Could end in the ultimate fun of a clash of cultures. Or in a multiracial boring drunken Hippy Valley. We already have this a bit with the mercenaries, but it could go further.