>Humans are a jack of all trades master of none race
This is such a tired concept. Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has? Elves live forever and are superhuman perception and agility. Dwarves are STRONK and also live for a long time. Orcs are also STRONK, but stupid and violent which gimps them from forming functional societies on a large scale. But Humans? They are just there for us not to feel completely alienated from the world and have something in common with it.
So in line with humans being at the center of every setting and being the writer’s favorites why not just say they are favored by the gods who help them in their endeavors? Why are humans the most numerous and widespread of the civilized races? Because the gods like them! Why do humans seem to overcome impossible odds and come out victorious in the end? Because the gods like them! Why do they seem to master trades and arts that take the others centuries to perfect in short timespans? Because the gods like them!
In the end you still sort of get a jack of all trades race, but the system could just give humans various bonuses that help them be good clerics and paladins.
Name five settings.
Bonus point: name five systems.
D&D, Pathfinder, WFRP, GURPS, Middle-Earth Roleplaying
Dark Sun, Golarion, The Old World, Fallout, Middle-Earth
>He calls the Warhammer world 'The Old World'
Secondary confirmed
Age of Sigmar has been around long enough that its jus Warhammer now. Frick it has its own old grogs, too. You're getting old.
No, I'm referring specifically to games set on the continent colloquially known as 'the Old World.'
>Secondary confirmed
No one cares, secondaries are based. Cry harder incel
I would frick that
I would frick that
I would frick that
That is all. Thank you gentlemen.
A cat is fine too?
Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Fragged Empires (implied), Shadowrun...
Star Wars, K.O.T.O.R., Fragged Empires (implied), Shadowrun...
(And I play mostly human in all of them.)
Humans are good at four things:
-Humans excel at growing corn. Humans fricking love corn.
-Humans are unbothered by direct sunlight. Most fantasy races can't handle long sun exposure and are near-sighted in bright light.
-Humans have remarkable stamina. This means they can sleep for 3-4 hours, work 5-8 hours in the hot sun, force march, jog, and get healing surges.
-Humans are idiot savants at Black Magic. Humans have an odd and unhealthy obsession with Necromancy & Demonology that just isn't seen in other species. Humans empathize and romanticise the nihilistic tragic existence of Undead, and constantly sympathize with the repugnant and self-destructive behavior of Demons. They're very good at seeing the good in the bad.
That's it. That's Humans.
>Name five settings
>Bonus point: name five systems.
I'll try to do both.
Azeroth from Warcraft, The continent of Tellene in Kingdoms of Kalamar Hackmaster's, Athas from Dark Sun Dungeons & Dragons, Kingdom of Death... From Kingdom of Death (Dunno what their setting is called. Lantern?), and Trudvang from Trudvang Chronicles/Adventures/Legends.
>Humans excel at growing corn. Humans fricking love corn.
Yeah but americans aren't human
Corn is a generic term for cereals. Read a book.
Hey dipshit, you know what the word "corn" means in every Western country in the world besides America?
GRAIN. Do you think "Corn" is a fricking Indian word, you dumb c**t, no that's Maize, which is what all of the actual humans call Maize because that's what the people who invented it called it and also everyone else, not the generic word for ALL GRAINS
Do you know what kind of person doesn't know this? An American. Why are you complaining about Americans, American?
You absolute fricking moron, corn is literally maize and grain is literally grain
If he wanted to say grain he'd say grain
'Corn' was a generic term for grain before it eventually was applied specifically and only to maize.
Was
Concession accepted.
This homie is still using 18th century terminology.
corn means maize, corn doesnt mean grain, grain means grain.
As a non-burger westerner, I have NEVER heard of the word 'corn' being used to describe a general grain. Corn is a type of grain.
Think of it like this:
All frickwits like you (corn) are idiots (grain).
Not all idiots (grain) are frickwits like you (corn).
Corn is literally just grain in Nordic languages, literally Cornmark is just "Grain Field" its pretty common talk in the countrysides.
Nobody cares. Corn is corn.
>>Hey dipshit, you know what the word "corn" means in every Western country in the world besides America?
>
>GRAIN.
LMFAO? No, it means corn dumbass. Like the stuff you stick in your dumb ass.
>Humans have an odd and unhealthy obsession with Necromancy & Demonology that just isn't seen in other species
Such an overlooked theme on /tg/, yet you see mostly humans turning into lichs and vampires. Humans sit in the right spot between longevity and short lifespans to both fear and embrace death enough that they should more readily turn to the dark arts.
to all the americans sperging out about corn only meaning maize. what the frick do you guys think cereal grains were called before the romance term, derived from the god ceres, entered english with the norman invasion? hint: barleycorn
also check this link https://www.etymonline.com/word/corn
that said i like (You)r, as in the guy im replying to, attributes. would add something about throwing things tho as i could see orcs, dwarfs or other broader chested races having as much trouble with it as great apes do. another thing could be hope or self delusion.
humans rule most fantasy settings because the authors are human but an in universe explanation could be the mix of stamina and hope. an orc might be stronger and a dwarf will have better weapons, hell an elf is definitely the more skilled fighter, but none of that matters after youve had to march for a day. it matters even less when youve been at war for 100 years, the original human generation all dead and yet they refuse to give up. worse still if you manage to subdue and occupy the humans only for them to refuse to accept their lot in life.
fast forward 300 years and while kobolds, orcs and other enslaved races have become docile subjects of the great elven empire, the humans have just started the 11th general slave uprising led once again by trusted scribes who had never shown any insubordination before.
in the end humanity hopes, hopes against hope and against all proof to the contrary that this time will surely be different. surely theyre the best race, surely they can outsmart demons, surely they will not fall to the undead curse and if at first they dont succeed? well they will try again. expecting, hoping for things to turn out better this time
that said, have i ever told you the defintion of insanity?
TBF, WoW had specific specie abilities for humans, and very few species couldn't Jack-of-all-Trades.
Literally every single American one.
Non-American ones however are fun. You should try.
Name five non-American systems and I'll think about it
Hard mode: No Anglo sphere shit at all
Gemini
Dzikie Pola
Dračí doupě
Cadwallon
That Brazilian anime one (something with Jade in title)
>Settings
Star Wars
Star Trek
Traveller
Warhammer
Literally every D&D setting
>Systems
Star Wars
Star Trek
Traveller
Warhammer
Laterally every D&D edition, including clones
>Literally every D&D setting
Wrong. Humans in Birthright tend to be divinely touched more-so than any other race, even the elves.
What does that divine touch give them? The ability to be the jack of all trades but master of none, and the baseline all other races are measured against.
fpwp
What about not playing D&D?
He didn't even me ruin D&D, you're just completely mindbroken by it.
I guess I win.
> Open player handbook
> Only humans can be paladins, and most specialist wizards.
> Only humans can reach level 20 in any class, not limited by their stats
Wut?
Our specialty has always been our capacity for unimaginable organized violence
Freakshits can't sweat, have claws limiting prehension, and can't develop tech like turbo-autists.
In my sci-fi game, humans had a species bonus to throwing grenades and other objects due to their shoulder rotation.
They were also known for being bureaucratic, with even a human libertarian being considered a rigid gray man.
>bonus to throwing
Y'know, this is actually pretty interesting. Taling advantage in the inherent biomechanical differences between races could lead to interesting variations if your system and setting can handle it, like having an extensive skill list and greatly different body shapes between species. Probably wouldn't work well for elves or dwarves or "human, but-" races, but certainly for having significant differences between more alien shit like tentacle bags, multi-legged insectoid weirdos, and similarly bizarre creatures.
>be humanity
>learn to hold objects, then lob them at things to kill them
>perfects art of flinging rocks
>evolutionary race has just been fricked
Actually, dwarves have a verifiability more limited range of motion then humans do based on biology alone, so it would still work in settings that include them.
>Better at chuckin' shit
>Better at chasin' shit
>Better at digestin' shit
Humans are great at killing things. It's what established their niche. They got better at killing shit and tracking it and chasing it. They can walk absurd distances with little trouble and thus they have a sprawling territory.
But as a species, they lack unity, constantly at war with one another or other species. It's often said that a human paid today to kill your enemy will be paid tomorrow to kill your brother.
That's not really a distinctly human thing however when Orcs and Orgres do much the same.
>they lack unity, constantly at war with one another or other species.
Why would this be a trait for a species that is unbelievably adept at forming new and extremely complex strata of social engagement. It's like...the major thing other than intelligence that makes us so dominant.
Open a history book.
Probably way too late to bring this up, but humans are one of only two species on Earth that can instinctively calculate the arc of something we're throwing/launching from ourselves (the other one, for the record, is archerfish)
It's not entirely unreasonable that humanity's big schtick is "Aiming"
ORCS ARE LE STRONG AND DUMB NI-
won't play your shitty game
>Orcs are weak and dumb and cowardly and treacherous and short and ugly and filthy
Tolkien Orcs are not dumb they're the most technologically advanced race in Middle-earth after the fall of Numenor. Saruman didn't invent gunpowder they did, he perfected it.
Tolkien:
>Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-
hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled
dwarves, when they take the trouble, though
they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers,
axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and
also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help
You:
>Tolkien thought orcs are dumb idiot dumbos
That's a throw-away "wahhhh I had to fight at Ypres this isn't cricket!" line that isn't reflected at all in the novels themselves.
Grom
>It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help
Damn, I don't know how anyone can read this and not recognise that they were meant to be Germs. Germcucks utterly blown out. Tolkien was a legend if only because he created an entire fictional world just to dunk on the worst pest to plague this planet. Based.
Orcs are the most violent warmongering species of all of tolkien writing
They are really smart and creative but only for war machines and torture methods. Thats why you can see them firing crossbow and wearing all kind of halberds during the battle of Deep Helm
>Orcs are the high Int/Low Wis and Cha race
based
What are your orcs like? Oh wait. I don't care because you're not a cultural icon
Tolkuck was a hack and his works have been disastrous for the evolution of the fantasy genre.
I've been reading this lately, and dam has it given me a hatred of Tolkien.
Fantasy was so varied, and now it feels quite flat
>Popular thing bad
Any other contrarian NPC takes you have?
>Popular thing bad
Tolkuck's works are shit because of what
said, it has led to a bland, generic slop of fantasy settings. Every fantasy setting has humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs because if they don't they "aren't real fantasy". Frick that shit, I specifically excluded orcs in my latest fantasy game because I was sick and tired of this set of generic slop.
>Contrarian
>NPC
moronic take.
>the lazy imitators
It's what's accepted as fantasy now, if it isn't a tolkuck clone then it's not real fantasy. This is a shit mindset and tolkuck is to blame (though his works are dogshit to begin with, most boring shit I've ever read).
You don't read much, do ya?
There's plenty of fantasy that doesn't conform to Tolkiens creation, but it's mostly billed as "Speculative fiction" to fool contrarian NPCs like you to read them since you will not read fantasy books.
>HFY - We Will FRICK the Aliens!
But yeah, humanity fricked (and warred, and probaply ate) Neanderthals to extinction - as well as Flores Men and Denisovans.
Ok, in Charwoman's Shadow by Dunsany there is magic - but I can't see that kind of magic being used in RPGs unless players are as creative as the GM.
And most of the time, they aren't.
This is the real answer - rest of the thread is just arguing over Skub.
...and thanks for the tip, anon. Seems good, I'll be checking Jhereg out.
>Idiot gets angry at the popular thing instead of getting angry at the lazy imitators who just ripped off the popular thing instead of going back to drink from the source.
Humans are the jack-offs of all trades but jerk offrs of none.
they have. it's called technology or progress. In most non-dnd setting that's their thing. and even in dnd what the elves accomplished in 2 millenia the humans did in 4 centuries, etc
Elves in DnD literally cast spells so hard the gods had to cap mortals at level9 spellcasting, which is in and of itself already reality shattering.
And technology isn't something exclusive to humans as dwarves and gnomes are also quite adept, if not more adept at it than humans.
Besides, why would you need technology when you can magic yourself anything you want?
Zoomers have never even heard of race as class
Many have, but that doesn’t align with your nihilistic worldview. Also it was gay.
If you 're talking about FR it was the humans of Netheril that did this.
and i also added as an alternative the speed of human progress which is kind of universal in all setting that dont deploy millenia of stasis
Just play Burning Wheel homosexual.
>And they are experts in dipl-
Yaaaawn
>The most widespread and di-
Yaaaaaaaawn
>Can take any cla-
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN
>And can learn any la-
Are you deaf or just stupid?
I'm sorry, i'll just leave you to play with your tentacle blob race that you made to feel different and special.
Hey man it's fine, play the human in the party, watch as you get no focus, no magic kit, no character moments, and no interesting narrative beats because you're the bland, generic, gray slop of fantasy.
This right here is why I don't run regular D&D for new players. I give them a humans-only, low-magic game first, because if you can only make an interesting character if they're a fricking genderqueer demon person who has sex with everything including the source of their magic powers, odds are it's because your actual personality hinges on superficial details about you as a person, and you can't comprehend a person being interesting for any other reason.
TL;DR: You don't play games.
>This right here is why I don't run regular D&D for new players.
Because you want them to play generic, boring slop characters?
>I give them a humans-only, low-magic game first
zzz
>because if you can only make an interesting character if they're a fricking genderqueer demon person who has sex with everything including the source of their magic powers
moronic extremist moment. That's just the opposite end of the scale from straight white male human fighter who grew up on a farm. Neither is interesting.
>your actual personality hinges on superficial details about you as a person
Damn bro is your name Epson cause that's some projection right there.
>you can't comprehend a person being interesting for any other reason
Humans as the catch all race is bland and boring, they should have a niche. Any race can be interesting but they should all have a defined niche to serve as a reference point, and humans lack that.
>TL;DR: You don't play games.
Just played one this morning, projecting nogames. Play another tomorrow afternoon. Got another Tuesday, then run one on Wednesday and the Saturday and Sunday after that. Fricking have a nice day.
If someone told me that every person in your life only pretended to like you and even your mother thought longingly of life before you were born and what could have been instead of the disappointment of what she got, I'd find it impossible not to believe them.
Well yeah, all the other races are explicitly just genetically engineered humans. Besides the squids.
>narrative beats
gayest shit in this dumpster fire of a thread
>Why can't humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
Because they're not magical creatures like the other races
>They are just there for us not to feel completely alienated from the world and have something in common with it.
They're there because the humans are commonly featured in the myths that the fantasy genre is based on.
>So in line with humans being at the center of every setting and being the writer’s favorites why not just say they are favored by the gods who help them in their endeavors?
That's moronic. Gods shouldn't give a shit about humans unless they give more sacrifices than other races.
>That's moronic. Gods shouldn't give a shit about humans unless they give more sacrifices than other races.
It could be for a variety of reasons, but it's sort of the case in Tolkien lore. It's not the worst reason for explaining why they're so prolific and haven't been completely crushed out of existence, especially when there's humans of every moral persuasion out there.
Humans as a race and not a collection of races is dumb as shit.
I agree. But it is genre convention to call humans a race when discussing fantasy settings and not a species
With how big racism is lately, and the whole "orcs are black people" stupidity, maybe we need to move towards using speices instead of race
It's more scientifically accurate too
Humans:
>The only beings that persist after death because they have souls
>Have authority over the Earth and its creatures
>Can actually have unique thoughts and free will
>Can work with iron
>Can tell lies
>Are not born knowing a tongue but can learn any tongue with relative ease
>Are able to have children
>Don't die from shock
>Are animated by the Secret Fire and therefore live tirelessly, can walk all day every day for years
>Get stronger through hardship instead of diminishing
>Possess the senses of taste, smell, touch, color sight, hearing, empathy, direction, storm sense, omen sense, etc.
>Receive prophecy and guidance through their dreams regularly and heal at an incredible pace thanks to the gift of sleep
Humans are dope. If the other creatures in your setting can do all that humans can do that's on you, frankly.
>Humans are a top tier versatile race with the most powerful troops
>have literal angels fighting beside them
Yep so it all goes back to the OP. Literally favored by the gods.
The angels are androids sent to fight demon aliens.
Logistics. Through horsemanship, carrying things, marching far, whatever. Such is the case in LotR as well as HFY shitposts. Logistics is what wins wars you know, and what makes economics work. Its OP as shit.
>dude have you ever heard of LOGISTICS?
Is there a surer sign that someone has their entire personality feed to them by source engine algorithms then sprouting the idea that logistics are some lost mystical art that they've only just rediscovered through watching Foxhole videos?
>NOOO DON'T USE A WORD THAT APPEARS IN SOME RANDOM VIDEO GAME YOU'RE OBSESSED
You people really confuse me sometimes.
This, humans are simply better at organizing. This allows them to be more successful/numerous as a species, have larger kingdoms and what not.
In my game and setting humans begin the game with advantage on any Crafting or Building rolls. Other sapient races don't have the same dexterity as us, cuz thumbs and monkey hands
Humans are the baseline, if they excel at something it doesn’t make them look good it makes everyone else look shit.
>The average human is much stronger than the average elf/orc/dwarf
Why are they such pussies? I’m a noodle armed wimp but am supposedly superior to most darves, orcs, and elves?
>Human are agile
Have you ever seen some people? I doubt anyone else could survive if humans were the upper baseline for agility.
>Humans are smart
Average Elf and Dwarf has an 85 IQ, average Orc has a 70 IQ and are moronic.
I personally like to make humans' thing ambition, in my settings. I think it fits with traditional fantasy stereotypes: elves are long-lived, patient and mindful of the consequences of their actions; dwarves are greedy, but also communal and conservative; orcs are fractious and warlike. Thus, humans can have "ambition" without making the other races look weak, as points out is often the case otherwise.
There are two reasons to focus on ambition. First, I think it can reasonably explain human dominance in a fantasy setting: it makes their societies produce more exceptional individuals, and it makes the societies themselves more prone to expand. It is also thematically interesting, bringing in themes of innovation, hope, hubris, overconsumption, and so on.
Getting a bit more into the weeds, in the game I'm working on, this translates on humans having a mechanical affinity for Fire magic and a cultural one for Death magic (because ambitious and short-lived wizards tend to look into death magic to prolong their own lives).
I like the idea that humans are the relatively short-lived race with the "candle that burns the brightest burns the fastest" idea. They don't live very long compared to elves or dwarves, but they tend to have a bigger impact because they try to make it mean something.
There was also that one thread years ago that was more space-focused, but humanity's "hat" was necromancy and were the one race that not only had access to their own afterlife, but essentially weaponized it and all their technology was basically necrotech.
personally in my setting humans are the ones being whispered of by all other races like crazy outcasts, florida man tier unexpected craziness.
the other races can have explorers and and peculiar individuals but any human can turn out like that, then change their nature on a dime.
they are also the only non-slave race but still in service to the evil god
so in a setting where all others are humbled and scraping by the irrationality of humans is jarring
the kind of schizo attitude you actually see everywhere in human society that you never see in games and films outside comedies or weird stuff.
something something freedom of being and the only race truly chaotic aligned
as you can see from this thread, there is nothing you can make the humans best at that wont upset over half of humanity
Humans are the universal bawd race. This applies to both human males AND females
humans have the ability to either focus on using magic or tools in a fantasy setting, some races can't be, this was fixed in old school fantasy RPGs by limiting races to classes with certain powers but also penalties to other ends. Humans also breed faster than other races.
> PLAP PLAP PLAP GET PREGNANT.
>Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
Because then they can't be LE HECKIN UNDERDOGARINO or whatever the creatively bankrupt gays who play human fighter types prattle on about.
I just make them the artsy race, humans are creative and moreso value the arts above all else. Theatre, painting, music, they are passionate and all about making beautiful music (and I don't just mean literally). Also they're french.
>the X race
Take your AI slop pic and AI slop opinion and put it back in the AI slop general, sloppenheimer.
..pics not ai though
Humans are the vanilla race because you're human.
>oh but this race gets to be the strong race
Compared to what anon? Human experience is the yardstick against which all of the other things are measured because human experience is something you can trust most reader/player/whatever to have. I say most because you evidently have the life experience of novelty-obsessed, fricking algae.
Making humans the best at anything makes the human peak also the setting peak.
>humans are endurance hunters so they're the endurance race
Congrats, every non-human race now has the narrative equivalent of asthma and gets winded doing things humans would consider normal or sporty. Just think about why things are the way they are rather than b***h. Please. I'm begging you.
>Congrats, every non-human race now has the narrative equivalent of asthma
No, they're just not as good when it comes to endurance as humans.
>Just think about why things are the way they are rather than b***h
Because writers and GMs are lazy homosexuals who refuse to break tradition for something interesting and cool.
>No, they're just not as good when it comes to endurance as humans.
Which is by definition pretty shit.
In lotr Rohan are THE horse people, I forget what gondor's thing was because it's been a while since I engaged with that setting.
I think the big issue is it's kind of hard to find a specific niche for humans to fit into. I think about this question a lot mostly in sci-fi contexts because the majority of the fantasy stuff I do tends to have few to no non-humans. But even in sci-fi finding a niche is hard, and I usually end up making humans the technologically superior ones while aliens are anything from cavemen to very early space exploration, or I make humans the ones with the nukes
Nukes are boring
Humans believe in stuff like relgion, conspiracies, honor etc that makes them do reckless stuff, like suicide bombings, fighting when loss is certain etc. That could be a thing. However, I agree with others who said humans should be the baseline. Other species should habe advantages over the human baseline, that are bought with disadvantages in other areas. Also I like my non humans rare, so that they can remain special and unique. If literally everyone is another species, people end up playing like species/races dont really exist and treat everyone lile they are a human most of the time.
If you want an obvious one with the Tolkein-esque races, it would be sailing
>Dwarves already hate leaving mountains, would hate being on the open ocean even more
>Elves wouldn't want to cut down forests to make ships, nor risk a a sudden death due to a storm at sea
Meanwhile Humans have a pretty balanced combination of traits that means they should be good at building and benefitting from ships, both in terms of naval warfare, but more importantly in terms of maritime trade. Even if Orcs build ships, they're just going to use them to raid people, rather than actually establishing a lasting import and export which is how societies grow
Could work in the scope of setting, but it's pretty useless in scope of single adventuring party UNLESS it's some seafaring campaign, but then it would make the human a main character because of how needed they are.
There are no racial traits.
All races are a jack of all trades race.
This works, but you have to have some draw or reason to care.
Humans are our baseline reference for obvious reasons, it's natural for humans to lack a special quirk because other stat blocks only exist in relation to ours.
If you need something though, the Guild Wars setting does what you proposed and humans are inherently more divine than other races. Another take is in Ur Quan Masters, a space opera where they're distinctly not the leader or core of the alliance races, they're treated as the industrial race, and as a result have one of the heavier ships in the game instead of being all-rounders and serve primarily as the productions team for the otherwise multi-species heroes.
Humans are just used as the yardstick to measure every other race by because that's our frame of reference. To give them an area of specialty you'd have to educate people on multiple races and show that they all have one particular trait or quirk in common and humans are the odd ones out.
It would be like having humans in a world of elves as the dominant species where everywhere you go you have different cultures of elves but they're all long lived, pointy eared beings and humans are a short lived race of warlike and industrious creatures. The only good way to do that is to set up the story to focus specifically on the elves and then introduce the humans later after you've built up a point of reference for the reader/viewer/player.
Well no not really because it's been done the other way. Read the Vlad Taltos series. These start from and are almost entirely focused on the viewpoints of Vlad, a human.
In dnd humans are the war inclined race and the short lifespans force them to pull above their weight. They're also outbreeding elves and half elves and driving them out of their homelands.
>Humans are absolutely the best at warfare, developing weapons, and are known for their innovation, creativity, and ingenuity. Few problems remain unsolved when humankind focuses its collective efforts to solve them. Combined with their naturally short lifespans, which ensure a high breeding rate, making their armies both numerous, well-armed, and technologically advanced. Humans are also xenophobic, hedonistic, and wasteful, consuming natural resources in an inefficient manner that depletes entire regions of their bounty within a few generations. As such, humans are widy feared, reviled and shunned, whenever the regional power dynamic allows it to, until the human population of any given area becomes the majority and swiftly devours and usurps the existing government or ruling power.
FTFY.
Essentially sapient locusts. Only a threat of nuclear holocaust stops us from having a third world war.
We are essentially weaker, but smarter version of orcs. And not that we are really above human wave tactics if our fancy supper-accurate technology turns out to be insufficient. So yeah, we're orcs.
>the X race
Human versatility is what makes us so dominant in the irl biosphere, humans were a resident part of every climate in the world exceot the antarctic and under the sea even prior to the industrial revolution, which brings us to the other trait that should characterise humans: ingenuity
>inb4 ingenuity and tech is gnomes or goblins
Go back to WoW with your shitty gay reinterpreted gnomes (who should be forest dwelling nature spirits, not tinkerers) and meme goblins
>OP is a jack off all gays
>This is such a tired concept. Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
Because humans are our reference point. How do you put the longevity or agility of elves into perspective? By using humans as a reference point. How do you put dwarven strength and constitution into perspective? By using humans as a reference point. How is size put into perspective? Humans.
It also makes sense for humans to be the "jack of all trades" because we're by far the most versatile creature on Earth which just goes back to humans being used as a frame of reference. The "blank slate" character/race in almost every game is meant to be the customization character/race that you do whatever you want with... just like humans do in real life. This isn't about a lack of creativity, it's about using something we're all familiar with as an anchor point for every other race.
The problem you end up with is that every single other race ends up being humans+. By giving humans their own power you would put them on an even footing with the other races who outdo humans in some way with no aparent drawbacks.
This is a developer and min/maxing issue, not something inherently wrong with making humans flexible. There are plenty of ways to make a jack of all trades race/character appealing.
>other races who outdo humans in some way with no aparent drawbacks.
Most races do tend to have drawbacks to counterbalance their strengths though, unless the race in question is intended to be "overpowered" for lore reasons.
What blatant drawbacks do elves and dwarves have?
>elves are frail and weak
They are not.
>dwarves are clumsy
possibly.
But what else is there?
>They are not.
Humans have +1 strength over them, dwarves and orcs have +2 strength over them.
>But what else is there?
What else do you want or need?
Humans are the Klingons.
They're a proud species of warriors. Humans do war better than anyone else. They're so obsessed with war that in ancient history they created a code of honorable combat called the Geneva Conventions which was important in the shaping of their culture before they became a spacefaring race. It literally defined certain acts as 'war crimes', actions illegal to take in war. Breaching this code of law incenses humans and causes them to fight even harder and more brutally than they already were fighting, even if the 'criminal' wasn't a signatory of the law code in question, a fact the Rigellians learned in the conflict known by humans as the First Interstellar War.
tbh I like the idea that humans are the kinda crazy war race.
>It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way. -- Cormac McCarthy
Because people like it.
I gave humans mastery over fire. All humans have the power to compel, conjure and manipulate flame. Fire is mankind's friend, and the promethean theft of fire is one of the foundational defining events of human history.
>Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
Because every other races are based on humans.
They're specialized humans.
Just don't have races in your game, have different human civilizations that value different human endeavors.
Because humans are the moot point, which is like that because we understand our species better.
If Elves were the moot point, Humans would be "slower but sturdier than average, shorter living and generally good at being social due to their sheer numbers".
I fix this by making humans the exclusive masters of animal husbandry. They're the most widespread race because access to cavalry is a huge benefit for expansion, warfare, communication, and logistics. They also have more red meat and dairy in their diets so they're tall and strong compared to other races.
>Making the European stand-in better than Turks at using animals in warfare
Humans are the stand-in for every human ethnicity in my setting, fantasy creatures are fantasy creatures
>Making the European stand-in better than Turks
YES
That’s a moronic cope. Why don’t orcs or elves use animal husbandry?
Elves live in the forest where it's harder to do it at a actually widespread level and orcs just don't like them horses. They annoy them.
Refined elves have a superior sense of smell and of cruelty - they aren't inclined to deal with the stench of keeping animals or the psychic/physical byproducts of harvesting them.
Dwarves don't want animals shitting all over their nice clean caves nor do they want to deal with the logistics of feeding them or keeping them calm in their halls.
Orcs are just too brutal/clumsy. They don't get enough return from their investment to make it worthwhile for them.
Much easier in those cases to let someone else deal with all that shit.
>Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
But they do. You see it as bad that they are a jack of all trades when in reality it unchains them compared to other races and allows them to be anything and everything you want. Almost like the entire point is for them to be the self-insert protagonists that can break all the "rules" and win at everything when they need to.
I just removed humans entirely from my setting, replacing them with under. Makes for interesting stories.
>This is such a tired concept.
In my RPG, it has a little bit of that in it, but generally, humans typically have higher Charisma than most other races. This, of course, lends to them being able to more easily integrate into other society, socialize better, build stronger/better communities, and ultimately allows them to excel in the art of persuasion which, consequently, gives them an edge economically and politically, which matters more than a lot of basic, standard, physical capabilities such as being strong, or long-lived, or highly dexterous, or even more intelligent.
It is because to ascribe any virtue specifically to humanity as an advantage is necessarily an ideological statement on which people disagree.
If for example I said that the defining "human thing" was being really martial, really good at fighting, I am ultimately saying that human beings have some teleological relationship with war. You can tell a lot about what people really value by what it is they ultimately try to make into humanity's reducto ad perfectum virtue.
I.E., look in any story and see what it looks like when humanity is defined by a characteristic that can be interpreted as a moral statement.
Scientists create new technology, accidentally destroy humanity. Hubris, Pride. A mortal sin.
Humanity destroys itself and overturns the world in war. Wrath, Hatred. Another mortal sin. Fascinating.
Humanity destroys its environment, kills everything beautiful for money, strangles itself. Greed. Gluttony also. Envy?
So unless you're theming the campaign setting intentionally, you are sort of constrained in what you can give humans thematically.
Humans' superpower is that their horny and breed with anything with an even slightly compatible anatomy
My favorite trope has always been that humans are better at war. Sure dwarves are, as a species, better suited to combat, but they're isolationist. They aren't suited to protracted wars either, due to a low population and the aforementioned isolationist mentality. Don't even get me started on the elves. Borderline pacifist in many settings, the few settings they are capable and willing to go to war, they are oft few in number. They are usually too vain and arrogant for the horrors of war humans can inflict, unwilling to sit in trenches at stalemate, or wait out a siege upon their forests. Within the worlds I like to imagine, human commanders are renowned for both their unwavering and unflinching ridgidity in the face of horrendous casualties, but also their wide range of tactics. We are, as a species, so very intimately familiar with war. Note the distinction between mindless violence and war, though. We are not orks. We do not slaughter and butcher and raid without longterm strategy. I mean true war. Armies and campaigns, where the battle casualties may reign in the thousands. A young race does not achieve a seat of prominence in the affair of the world by mediocrity.
That's unfortunately a very common trope in general.
You can find elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins and the rest X which are great at war and planning in various settings.
You can't really make humans significantly better without gimping other races.
War is simply one aspect of long-term planning. If you have ability of abstract thinking and planning, you are generally fairly smart.
If you don't, you're literally a Black person or mentally disabled. This applies to orcs and goblins at best and people still b***h and whine.
In my settings humans are radicals and a part of alliance with notorks and not skaven
Being found by notvulcans after world war 3, they tried to establish a one world government, squashing religion and nationalism. Understandable, since they were greeted with fields of crucified civilians and gulag like camps
Unfortunately for them, humans put up a fierce resistance, and with the help of an ork band and a skaven clan, who saw a potential ally against a “good guys” powerblock, managed to not only exile vulcans, but even capture a few planets. Humans, already radicalised by ww3, shifted to even more extreme ideologies.
Said alliance is basically an (even more) dysfunctional axis. All three species are warriors, but different kind. Orks are physically strong, but dumb, although they have a certain cunning to them that managed to trick even notculture minds. Skaven are weak, but have dangerous experimental tech and willingness to throw troops to their death
Humans are more balanced, they have lots of specialist troops. Tech looks like current day prototypes with various additions. Think abrams x with force fields, aps, cages and weapons Black person rigged to it
Setting is still a work in progress, any questions would be nice. Gonna run a gurps campaign, a band of humans doing rear strikes against fed forces
>Dwarves are STRONK
Most systems give them average strength, they have more constitution in general.
>So in line with humans being at the center of every setting and being the writer’s favorites why not just say they are favored by the gods who help them in their endeavors?
Well then you're just copying Tolkien.
Idea of mine:
>Fantasy setting where human aren't the center of everything.
The plot start with a typical human going on a hero's journey, on the way he meet and band with heroes from every intelligent species.
Together they visit humans city, doing missions and solving problems.
Every time even the primitive tribal civilization are on average better than "legendary human".
Better fighter
Better magician
Better builder
Better trader
Better diplomat
Better culture
Better religion (the human one is made up, other worship the same 3 in-universe gods)
Better drinker
Better leader
Better strategist
...and better Jack-of-all-trade master of none.
Eventually the human is phased out and rarely have an occasion to "lead", every other member of the group typically vote things and agree on plans without him.
The group start noticing the human isn't just superfluous, he slow everyone else, he is self-aggrandizing, still think humans are the center of the world, and don't truly respect anyone not even as rival (he is a sore loser). He disregard any "Chosen of the gods" who isn't human (who have a fake religion, remember)
The human repeatedly point out they are only together thank to him but several of them were already on their way to gather allies, where looking for each others anyway or joined as part of a band.
A little before the final battle which will decide the destiny of everything, they all briefly consider getting a "more honorable" human in the group (to preserve diversity) but remember all the candidates were exactly as self-centered and myopic.
So they try to find a socially acceptable excuse to ditch him, they were still thinking about it when he epically fail a low-level quest on his own. They have him stay in a inn to heal while they save everything and become heroes known for all history as mythological heroes.
They leave a note mentioning that a human (under a fake name) joined their bands but was honorably wounded in a previous battle.
Sounds more like an idea for a novel. Not bad IMO.
I wonder how would we do a setting without humans(at least, not at beginning). Humans generally fit everywhere, so without them, you would have to come up with other races.
>I wonder how would we do a setting without humans(at least, not at beginning). Humans generally fit everywhere, so without them, you would have to come up with other races.
That depend, where does non-human start?
The whole anthropoid creatures with monkey-like face is kinda everywhere.
>Sounds more like an idea for a novel. Not bad IMO.
Thanks, I admit on /tg/ I'm more of a writer passing by.
In the same vein I also have
(short)
Human warrior chosen-by-the-gods fight back the encroaching league of monsters to "restore balance"
He can't understand why each holy place he cleanse allow him to transform into the local monster.
He start getting skeptical the third time he is asked to burn "poorly defended caserns of old & inept veteran warrior and the vile offspring they guarded with their lifes"
...
Eventually he understand and turn full "magical shapeshifting dark warrior" against the "peaceful clerical humans merely seeking to cleanse the world of evil in the name of the one true god, never ever depicted as part of a pantheons of evil"
the statue of the human god was split from the circle and given a sword/shield to make him look like it was killing the other monster
>That depend, where does non-human start?
Tricky one, indeed.
A typical dwarf would be non-human enough as they're of different size and stockier and have generally different set of behaviors.
Elves could work as well, depending on how you make them, but in general they're reserved people whether they're jungle people or fancy mages. Add some weird eyes to go with their ears and we would be good.
A lot of problem comes with the thing that culture/physique of races have to be relatable in some way or they end up being too alien to reader to actually care about.
>novel idea
So the warrior was chosen as evil equivalent of the hero trope? Interesting.
>oh look, those people live in cold climate
>and those eat barfed up fish
>and those are a bit better accustomed to heights
And guess what? They didn't really dominate as human subrace. The one who dominated had plenty of land with mild(but varied) weather so they could multiply like crazy while also being chaotic enough to come up with new inventions(it's why Europeans went ahead of Chinese despite the latter having a lot of headstart in time).
Dwarves having literal underground cities in glacial areas or in mountains at least sounds like something they would do while still being relevant as civilization.
Wood elves could have even more fricked up relationships with nature and still be able to frick shit up.
>If I changed the other races to be better at that adaptation than the real humans are then they would be better at it
yeah, no shit homosexual.
The point I'm making is that humans aren't really that different from each other unless they're some niche case that will be insignificant compared to "ordinary" humans who stick to farming on plains and let the numbers do the work.
There was also point about them being a seafaring race.
Thing is humans aren't good swimmers and sailing was generally a risky endeavor because of that. Once again, having basic intelligence needed to build ships, willingness to take risks and having people to throw at the problem(figuring out sailing in practice) were the keys for seafaring to become possible.
Why would you have your players spend a large amount of time interacting with average people?
Why would they need to talk to turnip farming peasant #1949738 in order to play a game?
Why wouldn't you curate the people they interact with to be interesting people from interesting cultures in interesting places doing interesting things?
There probably are safe, boring places in your game's setting. But why would the party be adventuring in safe, settled farmland where normal people can easily survive, practice traditional agriculture and lead mundane lives in the first place?
>But why would the party be adventuring in safe, settled farmland where normal people can easily survive, practice traditional agriculture and lead mundane lives in the first place?
You could find exceptional humans in dangerous places, but then they would be far in between and thus couldn't dominate the place in first place if other fantasy races existed.
Badlands? Orcs prevail
Jungle that would put the Amazonia to shame? Wood elves
Mountains? Dwarves
Being good at magic? Elves who are smart and live long, so they can research things carefully instead of accidentally blowing up the town or something.
Crafting? Dwarves who as whole race are autistic about making quality things.
If you were to have humans actually dominate in these niche areas, they wouldn't be humans at the core. They got numbers, that's it.
You're repeating your moronic non-point from before so I'll repeat mine.
Then go make all-human fantasy stuff about spesiul humies eating barfed-up fish while we try to go for more creative stuff, thank you very much.
Also, don't forget to take the AI stuff with you.
>Tricky one, indeed.
>dwarf
>elves
Staying with the classic I see.
I'd argue the first step toward "non-human" would be to escape this Tolkien tyranny.
Even if you stray away from 2 eyes, nose, mouth you can still get human to relate. We aren't mere meat-automaton.
...that or take the games Spellforce3, it make great effort to have every factions stand on their own. in Fallen god, Trolls are the one playable faction and even the "evil god" is more about having as many species competing -violently- than plain killing.
>novel idea
>So the warrior was chosen as evil equivalent of the hero trope? Interesting.
It's... not really what I was hoping to inspire. He is a "chosen of the god to bring balance". But it was actually chosen of the gods PLURAL, to solve the imbalance that the humans turned into genocidal bastards.
It would be implied the (never seen) human god, chose him along the other, because it knew he would turn against humans.
I suppose I'm the one who is too comfortable with human-like races. I like dwarves a bit too much, I guess.
>novel
so so a human is being used to stop humans from killing everything, right? And that human was picked because he would rebel
>novel
Basically yes the gods plural did chose a hero predicting he would protect the real victim no matter how hard it is since he'll then be hated both side. It would also be implied at the end the "church" who ignored their actual texts to wage this war would crumble from the realization since their warrior was unmistakeably powered by divine power (and they would try to portray him as corrupted or stuff).
Only problem with this setup is that the gods are essentially enforcing the status quo when usually you would have the species make their destiny and empower the god. I guess I can still play that part by saying the human-god is weak because of their shits.
Anyway that's all for this off topic.
>Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
It's bigger souls, that's their special trait. It also explains why most supernatural shit goes after them to get their souls. But you play soulless games.
Humanity is the most warlike civilized race. They're as willing to wade through blood and dead friends as an orc is, or even more. They've never been the 'jack of all trades,' they prosper because they're smart and willing to fight to the last man in all things. Something other civilized races aren't inclined to do and the less civilized are either too warlike to build up their numbers or too inept to match humanity.
Sci-fi where humans are feared can work really well for that. See Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge where alien archaelogists come to Earth.
There was a pasta from anon where human make FIRST CONTACT and discovers they come from a region of the galaxy where every other civilization go completely insane. Instead of fighting misconception the human just roll with the meme of looking nightmarish.
Different story: Imagine a galactic council full of prey species who don't even think carnivore are capable of creating civilization.
TL;DR on that topic
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/aliens.php#preytact
Or the 3 chapter the author wrote
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/14843/prey
>Why are humans the most numerous and widespread
They breed like rats compared to other civilized races.
This is why you can also can get humans who ca be great at something other races are good to begin with: the numbers game.
This dynamic exists because humans are the baseline, you moron. Elves are not objectively long-lived; they're long-lived relative to humans. Dwarves are shorter than humans, orcs are stronger, etc etc. When the system of comparison is
>how does this race differ from humans?
then the baseline race is going to seem boring by comparison. The solution to this "problem" is recognizing that this in goong to be an inherent part of any setting designed by and for humans, rather than trying to invent some dumb magic bullshit to make humans "special".
In theory shouldn't elves be the jack of all trades and humans the hyper specialized race? They live a really long time, and are often are potrayed as not being very passionate, this should give them a lot of time to have multiple hobbies we never have the sense of urgency to seek perfection. By contrast humans live a comparably short time, but have autism, they have to hyper invest in one career because they simply don't have the time for anything else, and they want to have a legacy when they drop.
Could be. Elves are few, but got a lot of time to learn a bit of everything while humans are numerous, but usually have time to learn only one thing well. Of course, there are people like Leonardo da Vinci who learned many things, but they exist in history books for reason - they were EXCEPTIONAL, outright an unicorn on scale of human species.
If you want an actually decent player character who doesn't feel like mary sue- an elf will work great. Human are too mediocre in general to excel at anything above any other race without it feeling like a miracle. They're just numerous and smart enough to use that to their advantage.
>and are often are potrayed as not being very passionate
Even shitty D&D mentions that they can be focused and relentless.
You are right about elves potentially using their long lifespans to learn a lot of different skills, whereas a human would be better off focusing on mastering one skill. But there are plenty of specialized, driven and passionate elves in many settings anyway.
Saying elves are just lazier or not as passionate doesn't make humans better, it just makes your elves dumber.
>ai-homosexual
I see.
Alright, sure, make them more passionate. The only issue is, for most crafts, there's only so much you can practice an art before you start getting diminishing returns on it. A sword can only be so sharp, and a cutting technique can only improve oh so much. A craft that lasts our lifetime is like watching a tik tok video to them. After awhile, I'm sure the adhd ridden Elves must get quite bored. Even some infinite theoretical like discussing philosophy or arguing over tabletop games can only be talked about so many times before it becomes the same few tired conversations stuck on repeat ad millennium.
Also did you want more slop?
Just say elves are autismos that dedicate their long lives to mastering austistic hobbies like playing musical instruments, painting, dancing, playing tabletop games or building model trains.
An elf that chooses to specialize in something is going to master everything about it
Humans are the worst race. They are not the best at anything, they're not the second-best at anything. They're not the worst at anything either by an even larger margin, but that's not something to brag about. The closest thing they have to claiming fame is that their souls are the most delicious among natural races.
The answer is that mankind IRL is diverse as frick. They have hyperspecialized monocultures adapted to living in moronicly extreme climates. There are people who can live in houses made of snow in the arctic subsisting off of nothing but seal meat, there are ching-chongs that have weird symbiotic relationships with diving birds that barf up fish for them to eat. There are people that live in incredibly hot, dry, and harsh deserts. There are little Sherpa homies in the Himalayas that can carry all of your shit up to the top of Mt Everest in a denim jacket and be unphased by the weather and the lack of oxygen while you need an O2 tank to walk five feet.
Companies like WOTC and Paizo are full of people who believe human beings are blank slates because of their own personal (Marxist) politics. Their belief is that external appearance is irrelevant fluff that is reflective of nothing innate and internal. We're all the same on the inside and all of our behavioral differences are culturally imposed. That isn't true, in fact it is fricking moronic, but it's why they would never mechanically reflect human diversity and adaptation in a TTRPG.
What's really funny is that they are now projecting this belief system onto creatures that are not human and did not evolve. In Forgotten Realms exist because Gruumsh stabbed Corellon one time and his drops of blood became fricking elves. They share nothing in common with human beings, not a single genetic ancestor, they should be entirely innately different. But so warped by the brain disease of antiracism are these people that they must project this onto magical beings made of godblood. They can't have stat differences, everyone must be able to choose their stat bonuses. It fundamentally undermines the setting.
>Human Biodiversity DnD
>1000 human races
>elf
>dorf
>hobbit
>bantu
because making humans fantastical makes them less human and just another fantasy race, removing the grounding and thus the point
duh
sometimes they're the only ones who can use the True Deep Magic or the only ones who get the True Forever Afterlife though, even in Tolkien
Dragon Quest X is predicated on the premise that humanity is actually way rarer due to the Dark Lord and his minions hunting them down out of fear of their royal line having power over time magic.
You actually start off as a human and die defending your village, only for the gods to smile on you and let you reincarnate in another dying person's body of a different tribe.
Perhaps not jack of all trades, but I like the idea that humans are the goodenuff race. The taurus of racial abilities, to use a firearms comparison. Or like
Human specialists are never ever going to be able to compete with the big boys, but its a lot easer to get a human captain, tinkerer, or diplomat on board as compared to a insectoid gene-warrior, mindreading empath, or savant-engineer. Or they might have random skills that no sane race would ever teach to someone in that role. Why the frick would your hired human datamonkey randomly know how to treat serious wounds, you leave that shit to the professionals.
because the human perspective is inescapably the one closest to our own and everything else orbits it. everything will be an extrapolation of the human subject as a median. Therefor its intuitive, and it takes an active attempt to combat it, and if you do, you must pick whichever arbitrary quality that is inordinate to some hypothetical median, which is still fundementally based on the human perspective to get to whatever point. Its possible, but it is an out of the way excersise that takes more leaps of logic to say that we are the strong race, the smart race, the weak race, the slow race.
whats the quote, “Man is the measure of all things”?
Because they are the center point all other races radiate outward from. Each fantasy race is an caricature of human qualities and/or cultures. They are the standard used to measure the other races.
og/ older D&D already gave Humans the ability to actually just level forever and get gains (this is supposed to represent human ambition and drive to succeed paired with shorter lives), while all other races have to stop pretty fast. They also can be any class while the other races are limited, and no one else but humans can be paladins.
So that's an in game mechanic that strongly differentiates humans, besides world building where humans are just way more numerous than elves and dwarves.
I like the idea that humans are the prolific inventors/artificers
I'm personally kind of a fan of the idea that humans, while starting with a much lower floor than races like Elfs and Dwarves, they take to power much better than other races do.
If a human and an elf both learn magic, the human gets better at magic much faster. If they both turn into vampires, the human vampire gets a much bigger (relatively speaking) power boost from it. Divine blessings? Mutagenic powers? Necromancy? Same deal.
Humans start at a relatively low baseline, but their ability to grow and improve in relatively short periods of time lets them begin to outcompete races that have much longer lifespans.
Why do you always compare them to elves. I never heard about a master smith human outsmithing dwarves, the very same race you at least mentioned in your post, or being stronger and more durable than a dwarf. You always have to one-up elves.
Because elves are one of the two most common fantasy races. You are reading too much into this.
So are dwarves.
Now give me some HFY fanfiction where humans oh so beat dwarves in everything.
>Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
You mean like no level caps?
So in my setting, humans do have a special feature. Humans are the only intelligent creatures to be able to safely handle both iron and silver. Every other sentient creature and all magical creatures no matter what their intelligence level is poisoned by either silver or iron. Elves hire human mercenaries in my world specifically to arm them with iron and steel weapons as iron is highly toxic to elves. You can think of this in the same regards as if you were stabbed by a knife made of arsenic.
are a jack of all trades master of none race
>This is such a tired concept.
I disagree, I actually love it. Ask a dwarf and human to smelt a sword and the dwarf wins easy, but ask them to create spell scrolls and the human wins. Same for everything else that the dwarves aren't known for in your setting.
Humans are the baseline because they're understandably a protagonist race that we're familiar with. Other races are defined by how they differ from what we as humans know of our own race.
In Dungeon Meshi humans have an edge in overall endurance. Although Dungeon Meshi is also more honest about different advantages having tradeoffs.
>halflings have very keen senses, but it makes them on edge because they have to parse way more info
>elves long lives completely fricks their sense of time and warps their perspectives compared to the shorter lived races and they simply do not build muscle the way other races can.
>dwarves are very strong for their compact frame but if a dwarf isn't actively doing something then he's probably sitting down and recuperating. They don't do well with low impact, long term activities like walking.
No one is really 'human but higher dex' or something.
>why not just say they are favored by the gods who help them in their endeavors?
My setting doesn't have gods.
>Long ago before the great dawn, a lowly human, small and withered, snuck into the Great Stage and stole away Solners flame.
>Ashamed and tormented, the very sun faded and dulled, for without fire how could there be light? And soon Solner could no longer bear the pain and humiliation and thus ceased to be.
>This lowly human, forever in defiance of the order looked up to the sky and demanded light. And so there was. Prometheus, lord of the flame. Or Prometheus, thief of embers depending on who tells the tale.
>And for this insolence he was cursed so that his days shall never match the Gods chosen of elves nor dwarf, but instead be burned away like the flame they had stolen and suffer a great deal of disease and hardship.
>In the modern era, Humanity as a whole has mastered the art of flame magic and fire. In their short lives they make effort to burn as bright as possible, often eclipsing that of their racial counterparts while bolstering their own numbers quicker than that of their peers so that their flame may never fade.
>Poisons, venom, and illness often sweep through their condensed towns and villages, but in short order leaving large swaths of dead, but the survivors always more resilient than the last. Plagues that would eradicate entire elven cities or dwarvish holds with even the best healing magics available can have mild effect on the average human who struggle with healing magics on a racial level.
>Risen in defiance of the gods and with a short lifespan and high ambitions, Humans often have working and cordial relationships with the darker elements of the world despite being harbingers of light. They often sympathize with and work with the undead and are more proficient in necromantic arts as well.
>This symbiosis of flame and undeath is causing something to stir, and whispers are sometimes heard from turning gears.
Ape-thing throw rock good.
> Why can humans have their own special quirk that no other race has?
I always like the "Humans are diplomats" thing Star Trek and games blatantly ripping off Star Trek got going on.
Never seen Star Trek. How exactly does it handle that idea?
All alien races are one-dimensioonal morons hard coded to hate each other so humans can point out obvious things and everyone be like woah.