One of the many things that new campaign settings often modify or change are the races of the campaign world. I suspect that this is because many people have got used to the stereotypical elves and dwarves of most fantasy settings and are looking for something different and refreshing, or perhaps they've never really liked these representations at all. I also suspect that this is why many players are drawn to playing monster races - most of the time its fun doing something more interesting or different for a change. After a while of playing with standard races, one's race often tends to blend into the background and become just another statistic rather than something unique and interesting. To remedy that, Rite Publishing have published 101 Alternate Racial Traits for the Pathfinder RPG, a product that presents scores of new racial features to replace or alter existing features, and in some way sculpt a new race that is different from the old flavor and breaks the stereotypical mold in surprising and often innovative ways.

101 Alternate Racial Traits is a professionally presented 17 page pdf product, which contains 12 pages of high quality content. The artwork, layout, editing and writing are all very good, and I was particularly struck how well each racial trait had been written with very clear and concise mechanical rules detail. The product covers most of the major races of the Pathfinder RPG - dwarves, elves, drow, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, humans and halflings - and provides more than a dozen new racial traits and features for each in roughly equal measure. These racial features replace existing racial traits as per the core rules, and allow one to sculpt something a little different, thereby creating something unique, and allowing more creative background writing and character creation. The various racial traits lend them well to creating novel and interesting characters and by virtue of having one of these traits, the character is different and there should be some reason why.

The traits in the product are varied and offer good scope for building interesting characters. A large number of the traits are similar to existing core traits with a subtly different flavor, whereas many others build on slightly different bloodlines or ancestry, thereby providing a different racial flavor. Others still are different views on the races and provide something new to a particular race. I think there is something in here for everyone, although the majority of product is all mechanical rules and very little flavor is provided to indicate how to make the best of the material. Some of the racial traits are quite clever, and I particularly liked those associated with the gnomes, halfling and half-orcs which have lots of roleplaying potential. Overall, a very solid product with tons of useful material for everyone interested in playing a character slightly different to the norm. Good, high quality, product.