Sci-Fi Question: Alien Races?

[3rd Eye]

I'm designing a board/card game with a Sci-Fi theme. The game allows up to six players, so I want to have six competing races in the game but I've got more than six ideas for alien races, and I'm too biased to pick fairly. So I'd like to ask all of YOU to help me choose.

I would've made this a Poll, but Polls only let you pick a single item. I need each participant to pick SIX items -- the six races that seem most appealing to you, and are interesting/cool enough that you might want to play any of those six races in a Sci-Fi game.

You'll find the list of my own ideas below, but please do not feel restricted to this list. If you've got a cool idea for a type of alien race that isn't on my list, please feel free to "write-in" your candidate.
1 - Humans (or Earthlings, or Terrans, or Solarians, or whatever)
2 - Robots (plain old robots not cyborgs)
3 - Octopoids (aquatic, organic technology)
4 - Pachyderms (like a centaur, but with elephantine parts)
5 - Rodents (4 foot tall rat/squirrels)
6 - Reptiles (standard alien lizards, stupid and warlike)
7 - Insectoids (more like ants or termites, rather than bees)
8 - Fungoid (sentient mushroom people)
9 - Crystalline (silicon-based life)

[moriarty777]

Well... in no order of preference:

Humans

Robot

Reptiles

Insectoids

... are all musts in my book.

After that... Octopoids and Crystalline would be cool.

Don't care for option '4' or '5'

Moriarty the Red
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[serleran]

Why not just have them all and allow the game to be played by any combination up to 6?

[3rd Eye]

serleran wrote:
Why not just have them all and allow the game to be played by any combination up to 6?

I considered it; but some of the game's components are race-specific, so the more races there are, the more components the game would need (which would raise the cost).

[Treebore]

3rd Eye wrote:
I considered it; but some of the game's components are race-specific, so the more races there are, the more components the game would need (which would raise the cost).

Won't that limit expandibility?
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[Breakdaddy]

3rd Eye wrote:
1 - Humans (or Earthlings, or Terrans, or Solarians, or whatever)
2 - Robots (plain old robots not cyborgs)
3 - Octopoids (aquatic, organic technology)
4 - Pachyderms (like a centaur, but with elephantine parts)
5 - Rodents (4 foot tall rat/squirrels)
6 - Reptiles (standard alien lizards, stupid and warlike)
7 - Insectoids (more like ants or termites, rather than bees)
8 - Fungoid (sentient mushroom people)
9 - Crystalline (silicon-based life)

1

2

7

8

3

6

In no particular order

[Treebore]

I don't like 3,4, and 2
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[3rd Eye]

Treebore wrote:
Won't that limit expandibility?

Not at all in fact it would help, wouldn't it? Any expansions would include the races that didn't appear in the original; but without race-specific components, an expansion wouldn't contain well, anything except new rules.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, though

[serleran]

Well, technically, if you made new races, you would have to include the rules for playing said races with the existing ones. If, however, those races were in the "core," then any expansion could deal only with how that expansion affected the original... such as new items, or tokens, or whatever happened to be used. Its usually better to have a wide base as the start, and then narrow in with the expansions... but that's just my preference.

Anyway, I think there's a few options missing:

Crustacean

Equine

Mustelid (though you might consider them Rodents, not sure.)

Vine

Incorporeal (ie, an energy being)

Probably some others, too.

[3rd Eye]

Crustacean is a good idea. I like the idea of space crabs and they'd be aquatic, which is good, because it's important to not have all the races be gas-breathers. (I deplore the near-total domination of bipedal, humanoid, gaseous-oxygen-breathing aliens in Science Fiction.)
Equine would be a bit too, ah Swiftian for me. Mustelid would be a good alternative to Rodent. So would Procyon, come to think of it but that's been done before too.
Vine? You mean a plant, right? I considered a plant-based race, but plants seem too passive, somehow. I'm afraid they'd come off like tree-hugging hippies or something. Besides, I can't really imagine plants ever developing true sentience.
(Careful consideration will reveal that the two preceding sentences are functionally identical.)
Incorporeal / Energy Beings aren't quite in the same league as any of the others, are they? Seems like they'd be far more technologically advanced than material beings, so it wouldn't be a fair fight. Plus, because they are incorporeal, they're not likely to have the same goals and desires as corporeal creatures so it would be harder to rationalize them operating in competition with a bunch of corporeal races.

[Stuie]

1 - Humans (or Earthlings, or Terrans, or Solarians, or whatever)

2 - Robots (plain old robots not cyborgs)

3 - Octopoids (aquatic, organic technology)

6 - Reptiles (standard alien lizards, stupid and warlike)

7 - Insectoids (more like ants or termites, rather than bees)

8 - Fungoid (sentient mushroom people)

Giant squirrels freak me out.
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Laudir Agus Mir

[Tank]

I'll order my preferences for you.

1. Humans - just plain necessary.

2. Robots - different than any other choice because they were built by some other race.

3. Insectoids - you can have some cool hive mind thing going on.

4. Octopoids - I like them because they are aquatic, and that makes them distinct.

5. Crystalline - these guys are so remote from all the other races. It would be a shame not to include them.

6. Reptiles - lizards from outerspace! How can you go wrong?

I will say that my preferences might have been slightly biased by Master of Orion II.

[serleran]

Allow me to explain a couple things, per my perspective:

Quote:
Vine? You mean a plant, right? I considered a plant-based race, but plants seem too passive, somehow. I'm afraid they'd come off like tree-hugging hippies or something. Besides, I can't really imagine plants ever developing true sentience.

Yes, a plant, like an ivy or vine, or any other kind of plant-being with long tendrils and potential poison. They would not need to be passive, but could be very aggressive, as some vines actually are, in their means to dominate and strangle out other life forms, or are parasitic in nature, thriving because others do. The way they are represented is how they will be viewed, so yes, they can hug a tree and turn it into a husk of death... as to the sentience: these are aliens, and would not necessarily need to be technically vines, but resemble them. However, you did have fungi on the list, so I thought: why not others?

Quote:
Incorporeal / Energy Beings aren't quite in the same league as any of the others, are they? Seems like they'd be far more technologically advanced than material beings, so it wouldn't be a fair fight. Plus, because they are incorporeal, they're not likely to have the same goals and desires as corporeal creatures so it would be harder to rationalize them operating in competition with a bunch of corporeal races.

They need not be technologically advanced at all. I was considering them being the least advanced, engaging in battles because they wish to posses the technology... to use as a sort of host for them. Essentially, these would be parasites whereas the vines would be domineering exterminators. The major problem with fighting a being of energy is killing it, but that would be their only true advantage (aside from, perhaps, being able to "absorb" technology." It would be a bit like fighting a poltergeist in melee.