Sometimes non-humans are rare in the setting and, while they exist, hold an almost mystical status among humans. Maybe the non-human races are super isolationist. Maybe humans in the setting are super isolationist.
There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick."
Anyone who uses the term 'freakshit' is an autist generally. The post implied ANY non-human is freakshit. We'll hit the point that people will say hobbits are freakshit despite just being short guys.
>say something moronic >get called a moron >'ah yes, it must be everyone else who's seething'
Getting negative feedback shouldn't automatically make you think someone is correct.
freakshit is a forced meme that's why. If you weren't paying attention it might look like a common meme on this board, but it was mostly one guy and a few others dumb enough to think his spamming was multiple people.
Same with the storyshitting guy. Who might be the same guy. A complete lack of imagination with these words too. Just put shit after a word and then talk like it's a bad thing because you said it was shit.
The dumbest thing about this forced meme is that it used to just be specific races or furries, and now it's everything that isn't human-male-fighter. But given this board has regular threads to hornypost about goblins and various other creatures and fantasy races, that's how you know it's an insignificant minority of nogame shitposters who actually think "freakshit" is a real thing.
Yeah, I was in an OSR game for about seven years that had that setting conceit, that the nonhumans were pretty hard to find, and we couldn't play as them until we'd encountered and "unlocked" them. By the time we'd done that, people were invested in the human-dominated world and we didn't have that many attempts at nonhuman PCs ultimately.
>Sometimes non-humans are rare in the setting and, while they exist, hold an almost mystical status among humans. Maybe the non-human races are super isolationist. Maybe humans in the setting are super isolationist.
Based >There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick."
Cringe
>There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick." >non-autistic reason >uses the word 'freakshit'
Well said, if freaks want to shit up the table they can go to a different game.
Protip: None of them run games and when they try to, they fall apart in 2 sessions. Turns out homosexuals can't even stand each-other for long.
>Agh, freakshit is everywhere, all games are freakshit, that's why I can't get a game >b-b-but freakshit don't have games
this provides me deep laughter
I mean, I understand not wanting to play with obnoxious degenerate freaks, but instead of trying to indirectly drive them away by banning furgay fetish races, why not just not invite those degenerates to your games?
that’s directly quoting basedgod on the definition of based, newbie
2 years ago
Anonymous
>nuh uh, me and my ESL friends claim it means something else
jesus christ, so it's just nigtalk?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>doesn’t know based comes from lil b >doesn’t know it’s nigtalk >calls someone else esl
frick off, pablo
2 years ago
Anonymous
>mental submissive using degenerate ESL babble trying to call anyone else pablo
lol
2 years ago
Anonymous
back to r/whereveryoucrawledoutof, zoomer tourist
2 years ago
Anonymous
>I'm not a tourist, I'm just using nigtalk I picked up offboard. Also, I'm VERY old, it's why I talk exactly like all the zoomers using degenerate terms
lol
2 years ago
Anonymous
>offboard
your newbie is showing
2 years ago
Anonymous
>I'm not a newbie! Trust me, I come from Ganker or Ganker!
lol
2 years ago
Anonymous
>coming from a board older than /tg/ makes you a newbie
lol moron
the oldest /tg/ posters came from Ganker and /b/
2 years ago
Anonymous
>come from Ganker
newbie.
also, >the oldest come from /b/
Yeah, and I don't spam the memes I picked up there because that's some offboard homosexualry.
2 years ago
Anonymous
confirmed post kittenmod newbie larper
2 years ago
Anonymous
What, surprised I came from /b/?
It's almost as if I've developed the ultra mature ability to not shitpost with the memes from other boards.
you'll develop it once you hit 15.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>so new the post goes over his head completely
shocking
2 years ago
Anonymous
>nooo, I don't believe you're older than me >now please get out of my way as I spam zoomer offboard memes
lol
2 years ago
Anonymous
confirmed post kittenmod newbie larper
What, surprised I came from /b/?
It's almost as if I've developed the ultra mature ability to not shitpost with the memes from other boards.
you'll develop it once you hit 15.
>so new the post goes over his head completely
shocking
>nooo, I don't believe you're older than me >now please get out of my way as I spam zoomer offboard memes
lol
I mean, I understand not wanting to play with obnoxious degenerate freaks, but instead of trying to indirectly drive them away by banning furgay fetish races, why not just not invite those degenerates to your games?
social reasons, like, if you know a furgay that would otherwise join and you want them out, then this would be a way to get them out of the table without any of the fallout.
If recruiting online, it's just easier.
If you know a furgay well enough to invite them to a game you know them well enough to have an adult conversation with them and just ask them to not bring their fetish into the game.
No, no, I know the pretense, I'm just being a little facetious because THERE ARE people that just have to play their one concept, and try to hammer it into your setting with zero adjustment. And frick 'em, Jesus.
Like, you can form a "there no [A] here because of [B] circumstance", at varying specificity. I think that makes sense. It happens in every setting; there's nearly no reason for every location in your setting to have perfect representation of every race.
Sigh, I'm playing a 5e campaign right now set in the bronze age and one of the other players had a tantrum because he wanted to be a warforged artificer with a gun. He's forty. Jesus
I think this is probably my biggest problem with DnD. Like sure you -could- do something besides high-fantasy quasi-Europe with every imaginable splatbook allowed but you'd have a fight on your hands.
So I want a system that conveys a specific setting right out of the box, whether that's L5R for Japan etc.
People who always know what they want to play before hearing the setting are always like this. And every time in my experience it was a build they either found online or have been theory crafting for a long time, and not a character at all.
>Is there a reason for doing this that isn't autistic?
Attempting to evoke a certain flavor. If you want to make the world feel like a Conan story or Ancient Greek myth you don't allow non-human PCs because the protagonists of those stories were all human (or close enough, depending on how "human" you think someone with supernatural ancestry is).
>Or is it just a meme?
This pretty much. Human only campaigns are extremely rare and i know this is /tg/ and people love to ignore reality and 90% of the shit people complain about are pretty benign and are only used for proxies of more core issues but that's the truth and not only are they rare but people are scared of essentially weirdos being in their games and they think that playing non-humans is some perfect litmus test to root em out. The problem with this is that if the dm has any kind of discernment of character the weirdos would've never gotten in so people can do what they want so long as they don't frick over other people. Playing as non-humans is fine but the major issue is balance. Like some races having a fly speed is a major advantage over others that could warrant a ban. But this is only like a minor fix with some encounter changes and banning only like 2-3 races
That's a really weird way to try and reframe demanding to be shoehorned in as your "speshul wace".
The only one going against the group here is the gay who insists he gets to be some kender, glitterelf, or other setting defying queer shit.
Cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug.
I mean my entire point is that if the people at the table don't care then it isn't an issue and having a human only campaign is a rare concept. My exception was a balance issue which is still varies from table to table. Obviously if there's a core theme that you're going for then sure banning certain things is fine but that just loops back to my original point of people needing to be fine with it which obviously if it goes against the setting people wouldn't be.I don't know why you're so vehement about not wanting people to do what they want if everyone is fine with it at their table. I mean do what you want i guess but it seems like you're arguing just to argue.
Question:
Why complaining about a baance in a cooperative game? I would get it if TTRPGs were competitive, but they aren't.
As for vetting - you vet players, not their characters, if the goal is to aviod weirdos. The real goal of "all human campaign" is meming about being edgy, while not playing anything.
How is it edgy? Well, it isn't, but in the mind of morons pushing it, they are "going against the globohomosexual freakshit weirdo trends and thatr's based", aka they are fricking moronic and fighting with things existing in their heards.
Balance matters because without relative power balance the party can't function cohesively. I once played a very OP character, and tend to power game and number crunch; the other players went with sillier or more conventional ideas. 90% of fights were decided by my charging and melting things one by one every turn while being all but immune to damage. If the GM wanted to make it a challenge for me, the rest of the party would be killed before they had a turn. If he continued balancing it for them, then I would do all the work and it got boring.
They are rare in DnD perhaps, but in a game set in a setting with prevalent human population and nonhumans being rare and usually not fitting with campaign theme it's not that rare even if nonhumans are playable. Here are games I played human-only campaigns in: > L5R > WoD as mundanes or hunters > Warhammer 40k > 7th sea
Yea thats true i just assumed when he talked about the intentional decision on the DM side to remove the ability to play certain races he was refering to systems where you can play races other than human.
If the setting or part of the theme/subsetting the campaign would make it strange for there to be non-humans there, but this applies to very few situations. Of course there are plenty of cases where setting and theme preclude specific niche races or might encourage others, but there are almost none which wouldn't permit elves and dwarves.
There's a number of reasons. > There's only humans in the setting > The setting is in the middle of a race war > The system falls apart once you add demihumans or aliens into the mix and you're trying to run a game here
The majority of Victorian speculative fiction did not feature non human entities in the role of protagonist. Since my games are based upon these works I follow the notion, though admittedly if one made an exceptionally convincing argument I might allow for a single Irishman amongst the party.
Because I have personally only ever played with one person who could manage a character that wasn't just a different color human. If you want to act like a human, have human motivations, make human decisions for human reasons, then just play a human. Other races in my games aren't human.
This is the core of it. 99% of the time when people want to play a non-human non-freakshit character they either want the mechanical bonuses or they want to be part of a very different interesting culture. If you make your human societies feel interesting, then people will want to be a Kennurian or a Logashi instead of an Elf or a Dwarf. If they just want the +2 dex then don't tie stats to races, or make them breeds of Humans. I've never seen someone play an Elf because they wanted to explore the concept of roleplaying someone who lives 10x longer than everybody else. Then you get weirdoes that just want to be a Human in a costume (cat-person, tiefling, any other furry, etc). Every part of your character should be an essential part of your roleplaying.
The only way to sort of handwave away every race acting like humans if you have some moronic multi-cultural Burger King Kids Club world where every city is full of every race and nobody bats an eye when a party consisting of an Orc, a Demon, a Warforged, an Owlman and an Elf show up in the middle of some shitty hamlet with 40 people living in it.
>If you want to act like a human, have human motivations, make human decisions for human reasons, then just play a human.
This has always been a moronic nonsense argument. We are human, and every character envisioned by a human no matter how alien will always have some baseline level of anthropomorphization because that is necessary for something to be any sort of actual character.
If you ignore all the lore and in-universe culture of the race you are playing, including in weird settings where humans are different, then you really shouldn't be at the table. Ignoring every part of the setting to play the worst version of video game combat is just a waste of your and everyone else's time. While almost everything is made from the human experience in tabletop, the difference should be what stands out. Also, HYTNPDND?
No, it's the most rational argument against it. If Race X is just a human in all ways but aesthetics, it shouldn't exist UNLESS it is the proxy replacement for Humans in the setting.
This is very silly though. We are surrounded by complex non-human social structures constantly. Not as complex as humans themselves, but plenty complex and scalable. Other great ape's interactions are not just 'Human but X', they are distinctly not human even if we see similarities.
No, it's the most rational argument against it. If Race X is just a human in all ways but aesthetics, it shouldn't exist UNLESS it is the proxy replacement for Humans in the setting.
Or the interactions in other complex social animals, such as Dolphins.
We look at the social make up of the Druid Peak Pack for example.
The Druid Peak pack was the most visible, popular, and aggressive wolf pack in Yellowstone. The original five members of the Druid Peak pack — #38 and #39, dad and mom, and female pups #40, #41, and #42 — were once part of the powerful Besa pack from Fort St. John in British Columbia and relocated to Yellowstone’s acclimation pens before being released in April 1996 in the park’s scenic Lamar Valley. The nearly treeless Lamar Valley is often considered Yellowstone’s most prized hunting grounds and the most visible wolf territory in the park. On this public stage, the soap opera atmosphere that seemed to engulf the Druids would come to characterize the group.
By the end of 1998, the Lamar Valley Druids had seven members, and a growing reputation for conflict. The constant harassment of female #42 by her sister, #40 (who did not breed with her father, #38, she just became the ruling female), earned #42 the nickname “Cinderella” by the Yellowstone researchers, but Cinderella finally reached the ball in 2000, after a violent turn of events that put her at the head of the pack. She and the other female members of the pack, tired of #40’s brutal leadership, turned on and killed her. At least three litters were born to the liberated females, and 20 of the 21 pups survived. The Druids were now 27 members strong and became the largest pack in Yellowstone. In 2001, another 10 pups were added to the group, and the 37-member Druid pack became the largest wolf pack ever documented in North America.
The drama of the Druids aren't human, and will never be human, but their social jockeying shows distinct societal markings.
[...]
Or the interactions in other complex social animals, such as Dolphins.
We look at the social make up of the Druid Peak Pack for example.
The Druid Peak pack was the most visible, popular, and aggressive wolf pack in Yellowstone. The original five members of the Druid Peak pack — #38 and #39, dad and mom, and female pups #40, #41, and #42 — were once part of the powerful Besa pack from Fort St. John in British Columbia and relocated to Yellowstone’s acclimation pens before being released in April 1996 in the park’s scenic Lamar Valley. The nearly treeless Lamar Valley is often considered Yellowstone’s most prized hunting grounds and the most visible wolf territory in the park. On this public stage, the soap opera atmosphere that seemed to engulf the Druids would come to characterize the group.
By the end of 1998, the Lamar Valley Druids had seven members, and a growing reputation for conflict. The constant harassment of female #42 by her sister, #40 (who did not breed with her father, #38, she just became the ruling female), earned #42 the nickname “Cinderella” by the Yellowstone researchers, but Cinderella finally reached the ball in 2000, after a violent turn of events that put her at the head of the pack. She and the other female members of the pack, tired of #40’s brutal leadership, turned on and killed her. At least three litters were born to the liberated females, and 20 of the 21 pups survived. The Druids were now 27 members strong and became the largest pack in Yellowstone. In 2001, another 10 pups were added to the group, and the 37-member Druid pack became the largest wolf pack ever documented in North America.
The drama of the Druids aren't human, and will never be human, but their social jockeying shows distinct societal markings.
Okay, but hear me out:
No one cares. You are defending other freakshit races being human proxies in all but aesthetic because Dolphins exist, like this is somehow an actual argument in defense to the point.
The point is we can quite literally observe other species that act in ways we consider similar to humans while they are not humans. Your point is non-sensical.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Okay, but hear me out:
Who cares? Bloating a setting with races that are just proxy humans is still just bloat. It's stupid and serves no purpose. No one cares that dolphins share qualities to humans, they just acre that they are cute. That's it. And that's the extent people utilize freakshit races in ttrpg's; hollow and stupid.
2 years ago
Anonymous
If that was true no one would play non-cute non-humans. I don't have a single 'cute' race in my current campaign, but people still play a variety of non-humans.
In the setting non-humans were all created by humans either on purpose or accidentally, and most within the last few centuries.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I've noticed a lot of people have an extremely humanity-centric view of the way the universe works. If we haven't figured out how to do something, no other life in the universe has. If humans do things a certain way, that applies to all life in the universe too. If we've come to a conclusion about something in the universe, then that's the beginning and end of it.
Just throwing it out there.
Nothing wrong with it, classic for a reason.
If I were a GM I would need some very convincing reasons for variations from this. Otherwise go home and cry to your tulpa or anime pillow or whatever.
If game is high fantasy and such a thing is set in stone that humans aren't alone I allow but make it a rarity based on how bizarre the concept sounds.
If it is a homebrew I completely look it over and give the following options.
- You can play for the aesthetic with another hand book race because there is a lot of fricking garbage op shit here.
- Compromise to play where if you really want to play for a certain reason I can overlook one but you WILL take a flaw of some kind to balance that shit out (along with ticking off really idiotic shit)
- Just play with the aesthetic and nothing special. You wanna be a badger folk. Cool. I don't fricking care.
As long as you don't use art that has fricking blushing, ahegao faces, or is very obvious porn you are okay to play.
If you want to play something fricking crazy in a setting that is not super high fantasy and is just normal humans in weird situations sorry but you're human. Just book mark that idea for a different game.
The female barbarian is the closest thing to a normal character, but then the monogoloid had to go and be LOLRANDOM and use a sheep as a weapon. I hate the CR crowd so fricking much, bros. Can we go back 20+ years to when nobody mainstream played these games?
I'm seriously thinking of just quitting TTRPGs. It's never going to be same as my late 90's/early 00's college dorm experience. No fricking cellphones or fake geeks, just friends telling stories together.
The female barbarian is the closest thing to a normal character, but then the monogoloid had to go and be LOLRANDOM and use a sheep as a weapon. I hate the CR crowd so fricking much, bros. Can we go back 20+ years to when nobody mainstream played these games?
It's a way to filter out undesirables who can't have fun unless they're playing a nine-dicked half-ghost half-dragon.
I know you gays want to talk like you're some old guard and CR ruined your hobby, but people were playing like that 20+ years ago. The only thing that's changed is more people are exposed to other ways of playing online over time and it all just homogenized and the less popular playstyles are less talked about.
You can still have groups that play how you like. They happen all the time. If it was ever once the most popular way of playing it hasn't been in ages, so when playing with randoms online or when talking about games online you'll find other playstyles more common. There are all kinds of playstyles that people like and some really niche ideas out there, but most of them realize they're niche and never had it in their head they were the "real way" like you gays do.
CR didn't do jack all they're just riding the most popular wave.
All that is assuming you actually play games and aren't just faking with this 'old guard' posting. If you have a niche playstyle you just describe it in your game pitch when looking for players. Pretending the "humans only" thing even makes sense as a filter is the biggest flag you're just full of shit.
None of them would be allowed at my table. this homosexual shit doesnt work in a dungone full of monsters this is shit you wear to some fancy ball room ballet to impress people with social homosexual shit. my games are about dungeon and fights and getting stronger thru battle. its not some social homosexualary game so these social class queers would die in the first dungeon
>Play Pendragon >A game about Knights in King Arthur's Court. >Play Call of Ch'thulhu >A game about occult investigators set between the 1890's and early 2000's
Not playing D&D is the answer to 99.99% of /tg/ related queries.
We really should just close the board at this point.
The people who makes these threads are nogames homosexuals looking to receive the answers they want and the faux-validation that comes with it by asking specially focused questions.
>A game about Knights in King Arthur's Court.
Literally medieval fantasy. >A game about occult investigators set between the 1890's and early 2000's
Implying dwarfs no longer exist.
>my setting is historical >my setting is low-fantasy >it's a horror game >it's a near-future game >it's a space exploration game >the table has unanimously voted to wienerblock our furgay >I dont have time for your homebrew Mary sue race and you complained that it "isnt fair" that I let others play "unusual" races so I tossed the lot >its a group of all-new players and they have enough to keep track of without racial modifiers and traits
And my favorite >because I say so.
Honestly I get bored roleplaying a human. Yeah I could say "I drag my finger along the captured noble's cheek as I give a toothy smile with a mischeivous stare." or I could instead have more fun with "I drag a pallid claw at the end of my moist, webbed hand along the noble's cheek as I give a carnivorous, fanged smile with a wall-eyed, drooling stare."
Seriously, anything you don't see every day is so much more fun to describe than just some normal dude.
Yeah, but that's not roleplaying dude. It's writing, and it's garbage writing at that.
>As >toothy smile >mischeivous stare
What's a toothy smile? What's a mischievous stare? You're supposed to show and not tell. If you're already *telling* me what things are, then I don't have to do the work and not read your 'roleplaying'. You're not capturing my attention by forcing me to pay attention. You've already solved the problem of engaging with what's happening by telling me what things are.
Besides, you're practically doing the same thing with both races, so all you like to do is describe things in a different way. You're not roleplaying, you're fellating the image you have in your own head and trying to convince us how strong and genuine your feelings are. That's what bad actors do, they're busy with trying to convince people that they feel things, instead of actually feeling things. So by extension, you're not really roleplaying, you're trying to show us how much you're roleplaying.
Holy shit you're moronic. You shouldn't talk, it makes you look stupid. That's not what the criticism of "show, don't tell" relates to at all you knuckle dragging window licker.
By the way, a toothy grin is when someone is showing their teeth in a smile you dumb frick. You'd know that if you ever read a book in your teenaged life
Although I don't outright ban them, I highly encourage my new players to be humans their first few characters. New players often see shiny new race and abilities, and then don't roleplay them as anything but humans with abilities or humans with a personality quirk. Once they get the hang of roleplaying a character I don't meddle in their choices as much.
This has generally resulted in stronger roleplay in my group and when players do choose non-humans they feel non-human.
The other advantage is that they get exposure to the other races in setting culture and behaviour, rather than going in blind. They fit better amongst the setting's dwarves and elves because they've seen the way I do their culture BEFORE they choose to play them.
>and then don't roleplay them as anything but humans with abilities or humans with a personality quirk.
To be fair that's pretty much what all the planetouched demihuman races are.
Humans are also great generalists making them a good choice for newbies as they can play any class effectively. Though any of the core races are also not the worst choices in the world given most people have had some exposure to how elves, dwarves, and the like behave (even if in a stereotypical sense).
>Is there a reason for doing this that isn't autistic?
No, but that doesn't mean they're bad.
People tend to play non-human races because humans are bland. Human societies in the generic fantasy setting are almost always vaguely Western European society and have the same governing structure every time. However, they don't have many cultural idiosyncrasies or peculiarities. In contrast, most non-human races have a set culture to them, which helps guide their characters.
I think players should first try to role-play humans from different cultures and social strata and learn how that works, then try playing non-human races after that. That way, they can treat the race less as a different culture with cosmetics and try to focus instead on playing non-human races as something truly non-human.
However, that also requires DMs put the effort in to make human societies that are politically, economically, and socially diverse, such that players have reason to try out different cultures. Then, and only then, does a human-only game actually work.
>humans are bland >DMs need more diverse human cultures in their game to make humans less bland
How do you sit straight-faced say this as you post a prime example of rich, compelling characters all from a single society? Do you actually think "bland" s a question of culture and not personality? Is your game boring without a bunch of players bumping into each other because they cant decide the proper way to enter a stranger's house, or are your players just not capable of coming up with a personality that isn't based entirely on their tragic backstory X culture?
Honestly.
Other races will always be "humans with funny ears" because the alternative is being "humans with a long list of do's and don'ts and an even longer explanation for why each one is so important for 'muh culture'.
Oh, and one parting insult.
This is the most 5e mentality I've ever seen.
>How do you sit straight-faced say this as you post a prime example of rich, compelling characters all from a single society?
Because that's a real society, and not the cookie-cutter medieval fantasy "society" that 99% of humans in games like D&D exist in. >Do you actually think "bland" s a question of culture and not personality?
Culture and personality will inevitably intersect, because culture shapes how your character views other nations, other races, other religions, and so on.
>This is the most 5e mentality I've ever seen.
5e's milquetoast settings are definitely part of the problem, I can agree with that much.
Humans aren't bland besides cosmetically. Only the most ADHD of people think this. The vast majority of fiction is made up of human characters with wildly different personalities and quirks, some becoming so iconic many people have made copycats and homages. Humans are only "bland" if you put absolutely no effort into being someone you're not. Even a basic b***h peasant from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy should have very different views and outlooks from a 21st century person without magic or monsters to deal with. Not to mention having his own upbringing, ideals, wants and dreams, which will separate him from his next door neighbor to the point they should be entirely different to play.
People who claim that humans are boring or bland are just not putting in any effort into creating a compelling character.
>Even a basic b***h peasant from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy should have very different views and outlooks from a 21st century person without magic or monsters to deal with
And few people play "basic b***h peasants from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy" to character. But many generic fantasy settings give the characters 21st century views and don't expect the PCs to think like anything other than 21st century characters.
>People who claim that humans are boring or bland are just not putting in any effort into creating a compelling character.
People not putting any effort into creating compelling characters are the reason humans are bland, even though they don't have to be. It doesn't change that they are bland in most cases.
Humans aren't bland besides cosmetically. Only the most ADHD of people think this. The vast majority of fiction is made up of human characters with wildly different personalities and quirks, some becoming so iconic many people have made copycats and homages. Humans are only "bland" if you put absolutely no effort into being someone you're not. Even a basic b***h peasant from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy should have very different views and outlooks from a 21st century person without magic or monsters to deal with. Not to mention having his own upbringing, ideals, wants and dreams, which will separate him from his next door neighbor to the point they should be entirely different to play.
People who claim that humans are boring or bland are just not putting in any effort into creating a compelling character.
People who say humans are bland play their non-human characters the exact same way they would play a human character, except it has blue horns and a tail
What?
My last non-human character was literally making a book documenting the fascinating life cycle of humans, and was trying to get data for how the human life cycle produced nobles when enough gold was ingested during the brood process.
yeah.
I'll play 'em still, but it is absolutely often a system and setting default with nothing special or interesting about them.
I can count on one hand the number of times I recall a system -ever- giving them something cool.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's your character. It's your responsibility to make them interesting if that's what you want them to be. If your character must be an anthropomorphic animal to be interesting, then maybe it's you who is bland
2 years ago
Anonymous
>If your character must be an anthropomorphic animal to be interesting, then maybe it's you who is bland
nta, but this is poor reasoning. Yes, non-human races are often a crutch, but that's because they provide you material to work with and help shape your character. It's easy to create an interesting non-human character, since their race's traits and culture provide material for your character to react to, which creates easy depth.
Humans are too often blank slates with nothing to them, so there's nothing to react to and, as a result, every concept for a human can be better achieved through some other non-human character.
For instance, "grizzled mercenary with a heart of gold" makes an interesting base for a character. Even as a human, said character would be good. However, in a generic fantasy setting where humans have no culture, it's better to pick a non-human race. For instance, being a dwarf might add additional depth to the character - now, you have the values of Dwarven society to react to. Has your mercenary's travels caused his views to differ from the normal Dwarf's? Have they confirmed it? Is he treated as a pariah due to his wanderings, or embraced as a long-lost brother?
Non-humans being viewed as superior to humans is entirely a result of poor world-building that doesn't give humans a culture to work with.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>give mechanical and setting explanation of blandness >who cares about that, make them interesting anyway
How about the setting make them interesting, or the mechanics make them interesting?
How about even the most basic game design occur?
Owls in some cultures are often seen as unwise (in India for example). I would say a raven would be a better symbol as they have the intelligence and memory skills to back up the wisdom claim no matter the culture.
>Is there a reason for doing this that isn't autistic?
Dammit Kramer for the last time, we're playing VtM and masquerading as a human is the fricking POINT
You can find reasons to depending on the setting you're doing, but if you're in a basic DnD type setting and using a DnD book and it has races and you're not going all out on unique worldbuilding, then it is just a meme for autistic nogamers.
They saw the memes about gay tiefling special snowflakes and are pushing in the opposite extreme, insisting that humans are the standard of the setting and being anything but standard is bad. Characterization, roleplay, story? No those are bad and lead down the road that has gay multicolored tieflings and furries, therefore you should be the opposite extreme and not, as a sane person would assume, actually in between.
>create things that are obviously fantasy races >place them around the world in a variety of cultural groupings, nations, and ethnicities >call them all human >refuse to elaborate further
No one can stop me. The 7'6" tusked southerners, the noseless blubbery grey skinned equatorials, and the body plate covered hairless thick skinned low landers are all human.
I know a furry webcomic that does that but spells human as Yuman instead as part of the joke. They could have traits that are all kinds of variations of different animals, with the more common ones being rabbit-like, there's a whole armadillo culture in a desert, and then others who just look like whatever like bears, chipmunks, bats, horses, whatever is convenient. But they're all treated like one species. And to make it weirder there are other actual races and creatures but they're most distinctly different while just about any biped will be from that one race, but no actual humans exist on that world, just the yumans.
The comics have some quirks but I gotta hand it to the artist when it comes to world building, they can come up with some wacky stuff and make it actually work.
The concept of "not allowing" non-human races is fake. No one does it. If you are running a setting that only has humans that's your game, the concept of not "allowing" doesn't apply, either the world or just the story for this campaign is about human characters for setting related reasons. You could be using DnD books to run the game but you established it as what you game was about so no one is going to join in and then be upset that they can't play an elf. They GM would have told them the pitch before they even showed up to the game.
I've seen games where by design all the characters are one race, like all goblins, or all elves. That's part of the story and setting, it's by design. No one would consider that other choices "weren't allowed".
So when some gay here says they don't allow non-human characters in their game then they're a nogame idiot full of shit. They're presenting a premise like random people are showing up to their game with a character ready made and no idea what the game is about. They have no idea how these games work and it's telling.
It does. The DM isn't god. If you're there as a group of people to have fun time and collaboratively play a game, then what the players want is just as valid to be in the game as what the DM wants. Just because the DM is the arbiter of what happens in the game doesn't mean he gets to say what's *in* it.
I guess it's a difference in how you approach the game. If you approach D&D as "DM is responsible for everything creatively, and we are 'choosing if we want to play what he's offering'", then yes, you have to shut the frick up and take what the DM is offering you. Instead, consider that *everyone* is responsible for the creative part. Then the DMs role becomes much more different. Then all the DM has to do it 'be' reality. Just like how if we hold an apple and let it go, it falls to the ground, the DM resolves the actions and events between the players and the world at large.
More often than not though, many people attracted to this hobby just 'want a say', and enjoy the power they have when they make worlds or characters, so there's a clash between who wants what and whatnot.
Then 'not allowing' takes place.
TL;DR: if you actually work together creatively, then everyone can do whatever they want and there's no clash and all the DM has to do is play reality in-sessions.
>The DM isn't god.
That's true because DND is for cucks who like to submissively sit by and be told what to do. GMs, on the other hand, are gods and just walk away from groups of choosie beggars. STs are some minor deity that usually require their thralls to like them, so they might be a little more accepting of slack jawed players.
Nah, real kino settings have humans be a small minority species on a nature reserve surrounded by a mighty non-human civilization. You get to be an unga bunga caveman tearing down organized society with nothing but a sharp stick and rage.
I think it's a copout for the DM to not have to work in the racials of the races.
Aarakocra can fly, and that fricks up 'encounter design' because martials can't attack from the floor. Now you have to have magic users or special bow users, and given that that forces the DM to not have control and forced to do things becuase the players chose something, it makes them butthurt and they ban those races.
The trick is to have creativity, and not be a sperg about minmaxing your encounters and numbers. It's a creative and social game, not a spreadsheet. Go play xcom or EVE online if you want to crunch numbers or something.
I just don't like morons who believe playing what they consider to be the most standard thing possible to be a viable personality. People who use 'elf' as a personality are awful. People who use 'human male fighter' as a personality are worse, because they think they're better than the elf-tards.
That's the thing though, you never hear people bemoaning freakshit in humancentric settings. Like you never hear anyone b***h about cybernetics in in a cyberpunk setting.
The evil gods won and all the gay races got genocided. Humans are the only ones left and constantly live in fear of being next while also carrying the favor of these fickle gods.
Here's how this works. The premise immediately fellates the morons in the player group by having evil gods that must be destroyed. Usually players are atheist or atheist leaning so this is an immediate brainworm to get these types in. All the while this premise makes the snowflake races they would also usually play adopt the victim-hood these types usually can't live without. So at the same time, this set up makes these players feel that they can fix the world to be "better" even if they're human, while maintaining a reason for the sparkly races to be bittersweetly unavailable. The whole gimmick is intent to stimulate player tard-neurons by tricking them into a feeling morally superior from the word go, in a sand box you prepared specifically to facilitate the illusion of an inclusive mindset.
As someone who exclusively plays human male fighters, I am constantly finding myself at odds with the table, usually not explicitly but through offhand comments and jokes at my expence. >hey anon, you should take watch, you're used to guard duty right? haha >haha "human male fighter", that's just wild, wow >I'm betting that anon is secretly some crazy creature disguising itself as the most bor-- unassuming creature it can
so it goes. It doesn't matter. I still pick up my longsword and shield, and I still pursue the adventure.
We play OD&D, largely as written (via Philotomy's Musings). The only non-human races we allow are elf, dwarf and hobbit (there was an orc once, who started life as a hireling). They are rare and we keep level-limitations in place, as originally intended. All campaigns are different, so I understand the limitations, whether based on story or simply rules of the table. I find none of this autistic.
Every time I run D&D, the party is 1-2 humans, a half-elf, a brute (orc, half-troll, goliath here), and this one player that always wants to play a fricking gnome/kender/spastic kobold of chaotic-moron alignment, who also searches the internet for munchkinning metagame shit using 10+ books of feats, etc. I would filter him if there was a fifth wheel that was less grating than he.
OK so, let's actually go into some narrative theory for why I tend to run D&D (and D&D-like) games this way.
The game is about exploring dungeons. Going underground takes your PCs away from the familiar world into an alien, and potentially hostile, environment. You need that contrast. The starting town sets a baseline of normality, and the dungeon's strangeness is contrasted against it.
This is what makes the basic activity of exploring dungeons fun.
SO.
We need to establish 'normal' for this contrast to work. This is where the PCs come from, and the PCs themselves. To make this contrast work, we want to keep this to things people will be familiar with: standard medieval European tropes, bits of history they'd remember from school, etc. Keep it mundane and grounded.
The thing is, anything that's *normal* loses its impact if you include it in the weird. If PCs can cast spells, then an NPC in the dungeon who casts spells isn't weird to them, it's *like they are*. If a PC can be a vampire, vampires aren't scary anymore.
So. With that in mind, restricting the normal world, and the PCs that come from it, to humans serves a purpose. It lets elves and goblins and so on be weird again, which makes exploring the dungeon more impactful.
Now, this isn't the only approach you can take, but it works pretty well for the games I like to run.
I'd say I GM about half the time.
I'm in a couple of regular games as a player at the moment (one Changeling: the Lost and one weird gonzo OSR). Plus a couple of larps every few months, the odd 1-shot, and a necromunda campaign. Last game I GMd was about a month ago, and was the sort of thing I described but in a more modern setting.
I dunno, I've been GMing about 15 years at this point, its a formula that works for me.
This is pretty dumb rational especially to apply to D&D. You're basically operating under the assumption that anything that isn't mundane is the exact same.
I never allow non humans for the new players. If they voice discomfort, I tell them that's it's for setting reasons. If they continue to push, I kick them. It's a shit barometer, to see how much of a b***h the new player is. With people I played for some time, anything's a go.
The whole draw to tradityional games is the broad possibilities that aren't available anywhere else. If I wanted to be railroaded into being a human at every turn, I'd just go and play videogames instead.
Depends solely on the setting. For example, if you were doing an Elder Scrolls based campaign, you would only have humans (Nords, Imperials, Bretons, and Redguards), elves (Altmer, Bosmer, and Dunmer), orcs (Orsimer), catfolk (Khajiit), and lizardfolk (Argonians). You wouldn't have halflings or gnomes, for example, as they are not present in the setting.
And generally, I know many DMs don't like, as anon puts it, "half-fey catboy shotas" and other extremely exotic races, but just sticking with the core races should be more than enough to prevent such homosexualry.
>setting is modern day new york >"dm, my character is a polydimensional digimon otherkin and if you reject xer then you're a fricking white male neo nazi!!!!"
lol
Only playable humans has enabled me to do a couple things
>non-humans can be inhuman
I have two or three races that have very alien mindsets and physiology, they're sort of like fair folk in the way you would interact with them. If they're playable, I can't really have that >non-humans can be rare
I prefer for what I'm doing right now to keep humans in focus. Not for any mudcore freakshit whatever buzzword reasons, I just don't really need non-humans around all the time, and when I do have them, they can be more impactful because they're so rare. I had another campaign where the focus was a very cosmopolitan high fantasy city and I went with a maximalist approach to races, like a Star Wars cantina feel, so I'm not opposed on principle to having lots of playable races. If I let the players be non-humans, then because they're so rare, every single interaction they have becomes dominated by "wow you sure are a half-dragon tabaxi-demon-kin, huh". >keeping the race vs monster vs one-off line blurred
This ties into the first two, my minimalist approach means that I don't have to delineate between what is playable and what could be playable but isn't. Like in standard D&D, gnolls are basically people, shouldn't they be playable? When you draw the line at humans vs non-humans, then everything gets a little mixed up and it gets a little hazy. Are the very person-like fair folk people or monsters? Are the imps with their weird little societies people or monsters?
It also lets me introduce more one-off creatures without provoking a "I want to play as that" or worse, a "who cares?". Say I add a man with a wolf's head like the one in Darkwood. Everything non-human is rare, so even something simple like that is unusual. Is the wolfman a monster? Is he a guy who's been changed? Is this another race? Are there more of him? When you have people playing as elves, etc. then you know immediately: this is a monster, if he was a person then he'd be playable
>Like in standard D&D, gnolls are basically people, shouldn't they be playable?
In every edition that they were basically people (1st-4th) they were playable.
It was just 5e that removed them from the player options, and that's due to the rewrite where they're just demon-possessed hyenas.
I think it's more to establish a setting where humans are the most numerous or the most dominant species. Demis are a little more in the background giving them a little bit of mystery back.
There is no one way of doing things, I change it up a lot.
Current campaign is 0 magic beyond players and human exclusive.
There was a deal between higher beings to separate and seal.
Now that's breaking down directly due to my players actions and magic/other worldly creatures are trickling through the breach at an increasing rate. They met their first dwarf yesterday who was just as suprised as them.
It stops the snowflake party. 5E players are really ball about all wanting to be unique special snowflakes. So they all pick weird non-human races like kenku, tiefling, ect. The problem is that when everyone is special, it loses all meaning. The other races just become watered down humans that look different.
When you build your game on a majority human group and a majority human world the non-human races start to mean something.
>"When you build your game on a majority human group and a majority human world the non-human races start to mean something"
Okay but I'm still going to make a non-human PC, and now they're interesting by default by being really out there due to their inherent rarity. Is that what you're saying?
All my games are completely devoid of all humans. If you cannot make an interesting character without just making them a "human but thing + self insert" then you cannot make an interesting human character either and therefore aren't going to play. This logic goes both ways.
>Is there a reason for doing this
The party needs to be a consistent size for forming proper defensive lines. Some 3' tall freakshit ain't gonna be able to shieldwall with 6' chads.
Sometimes non-humans are rare in the setting and, while they exist, hold an almost mystical status among humans. Maybe the non-human races are super isolationist. Maybe humans in the setting are super isolationist.
There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick."
>There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick."
That's an autistic reason
It's usually the autists who want to play half-fey catboy shotas and other similar freakshit.
Anyone who uses the term 'freakshit' is an autist generally. The post implied ANY non-human is freakshit. We'll hit the point that people will say hobbits are freakshit despite just being short guys.
Hobbits have freakshit hairy feet.
>hobbits are freakshit
Yes
>hobbits are just short guys.
Wrong, but most folks would play them that way, and that's precisely the problem with non human races.
>players are moronic and don't read the book
>that's the problem with thing in the book
no, you're just a moron.
freakshit is a Ganker term
all Ganker posters are autists
QED
>Autist can only conceive extremes
no one actually does this outside erp games. but you would know if you actually had contact with the hobby outside 4chins
freakshit sounds like a slur used by an explicitly moronic character meant to mock racists
I didn't realize "freakshit" caused such seething.
Freakshit is cringe.
>say something moronic
>get called a moron
>'ah yes, it must be everyone else who's seething'
Getting negative feedback shouldn't automatically make you think someone is correct.
Tism's going to tism.
freakshit is a forced meme that's why. If you weren't paying attention it might look like a common meme on this board, but it was mostly one guy and a few others dumb enough to think his spamming was multiple people.
Same with the storyshitting guy. Who might be the same guy. A complete lack of imagination with these words too. Just put shit after a word and then talk like it's a bad thing because you said it was shit.
The dumbest thing about this forced meme is that it used to just be specific races or furries, and now it's everything that isn't human-male-fighter. But given this board has regular threads to hornypost about goblins and various other creatures and fantasy races, that's how you know it's an insignificant minority of nogame shitposters who actually think "freakshit" is a real thing.
^ This is legit freakshit schizo posting.
freakshit isn't a thing you're just a nogame gay.
Yup, autism
Yeah, I was in an OSR game for about seven years that had that setting conceit, that the nonhumans were pretty hard to find, and we couldn't play as them until we'd encountered and "unlocked" them. By the time we'd done that, people were invested in the human-dominated world and we didn't have that many attempts at nonhuman PCs ultimately.
>Sometimes non-humans are rare in the setting and, while they exist, hold an almost mystical status among humans. Maybe the non-human races are super isolationist. Maybe humans in the setting are super isolationist.
Based
>There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick."
Cringe
>There are a bunch of non-autistic reasons. My favorite one is "freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick."
>non-autistic reason
>uses the word 'freakshit'
Well said, if freaks want to shit up the table they can go to a different game.
Protip: None of them run games and when they try to, they fall apart in 2 sessions. Turns out homosexuals can't even stand each-other for long.
>Agh, freakshit is everywhere, all games are freakshit, that's why I can't get a game
>b-b-but freakshit don't have games
this provides me deep laughter
>freakshit and the people who play it are gay as frick
Only autsits on here care about this
Doing God's work triggering all these furgays.
I mean, I understand not wanting to play with obnoxious degenerate freaks, but instead of trying to indirectly drive them away by banning furgay fetish races, why not just not invite those degenerates to your games?
The most based post in a long time, so naturally, with all that is fair in the world,
fpbp
based
These cowards will never explain what it's based on.
Based means being yourself. Not being scared of what people think about you. Not being afraid to do what you wanna do. Being positive.
That's not what it means, dumbass.
that’s directly quoting basedgod on the definition of based, newbie
>nuh uh, me and my ESL friends claim it means something else
jesus christ, so it's just nigtalk?
>doesn’t know based comes from lil b
>doesn’t know it’s nigtalk
>calls someone else esl
frick off, pablo
>mental submissive using degenerate ESL babble trying to call anyone else pablo
lol
back to r/whereveryoucrawledoutof, zoomer tourist
>I'm not a tourist, I'm just using nigtalk I picked up offboard. Also, I'm VERY old, it's why I talk exactly like all the zoomers using degenerate terms
lol
>offboard
your newbie is showing
>I'm not a newbie! Trust me, I come from Ganker or Ganker!
lol
>coming from a board older than /tg/ makes you a newbie
lol moron
the oldest /tg/ posters came from Ganker and /b/
>come from Ganker
newbie.
also,
>the oldest come from /b/
Yeah, and I don't spam the memes I picked up there because that's some offboard homosexualry.
confirmed post kittenmod newbie larper
What, surprised I came from /b/?
It's almost as if I've developed the ultra mature ability to not shitpost with the memes from other boards.
you'll develop it once you hit 15.
>so new the post goes over his head completely
shocking
>nooo, I don't believe you're older than me
>now please get out of my way as I spam zoomer offboard memes
lol
No seriously, get a fricking room you tards.
you're thinking of irc
On Ganker "based" means "this is the dumbest thing I've heard all day"
fpbp. Based and Humano-centricpilled
FPBP
social reasons, like, if you know a furgay that would otherwise join and you want them out, then this would be a way to get them out of the table without any of the fallout.
If recruiting online, it's just easier.
If you know a furgay well enough to invite them to a game you know them well enough to have an adult conversation with them and just ask them to not bring their fetish into the game.
FPSP
People are buttmad at you because you are right and it touches a nerve. The freakshit recoils. He's been found out.
What if Seinfeld but D&D? Jerry get natural 20
Stop trying to make a kender in my fricking alt-history United States roadtrip nightmare world
Hm, I feel like I should have specified in the OP that I meant settings that normally allow non-human PC options
No, no, I know the pretense, I'm just being a little facetious because THERE ARE people that just have to play their one concept, and try to hammer it into your setting with zero adjustment. And frick 'em, Jesus.
Like, you can form a "there no [A] here because of [B] circumstance", at varying specificity. I think that makes sense. It happens in every setting; there's nearly no reason for every location in your setting to have perfect representation of every race.
Sigh, I'm playing a 5e campaign right now set in the bronze age and one of the other players had a tantrum because he wanted to be a warforged artificer with a gun. He's forty. Jesus
>bronze age setting
>no talos ripoff automata people
>5e campaign
>set in the bronze age
You only have yourselves to blame.
I think this is probably my biggest problem with DnD. Like sure you -could- do something besides high-fantasy quasi-Europe with every imaginable splatbook allowed but you'd have a fight on your hands.
So I want a system that conveys a specific setting right out of the box, whether that's L5R for Japan etc.
People who always know what they want to play before hearing the setting are always like this. And every time in my experience it was a build they either found online or have been theory crafting for a long time, and not a character at all.
>Is there a reason for doing this that isn't autistic?
Attempting to evoke a certain flavor. If you want to make the world feel like a Conan story or Ancient Greek myth you don't allow non-human PCs because the protagonists of those stories were all human (or close enough, depending on how "human" you think someone with supernatural ancestry is).
Usually when I hear that, it tends to be mudcore autism. Then again, you have to be pretty autistic to get into tabletops games.
What's wrong with mudcore?
they always try to do it in D&D instead of a setting designed for this.
>Or is it just a meme?
This pretty much. Human only campaigns are extremely rare and i know this is /tg/ and people love to ignore reality and 90% of the shit people complain about are pretty benign and are only used for proxies of more core issues but that's the truth and not only are they rare but people are scared of essentially weirdos being in their games and they think that playing non-humans is some perfect litmus test to root em out. The problem with this is that if the dm has any kind of discernment of character the weirdos would've never gotten in so people can do what they want so long as they don't frick over other people. Playing as non-humans is fine but the major issue is balance. Like some races having a fly speed is a major advantage over others that could warrant a ban. But this is only like a minor fix with some encounter changes and banning only like 2-3 races
That's a really weird way to try and reframe demanding to be shoehorned in as your "speshul wace".
The only one going against the group here is the gay who insists he gets to be some kender, glitterelf, or other setting defying queer shit.
Cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug.
I mean my entire point is that if the people at the table don't care then it isn't an issue and having a human only campaign is a rare concept. My exception was a balance issue which is still varies from table to table. Obviously if there's a core theme that you're going for then sure banning certain things is fine but that just loops back to my original point of people needing to be fine with it which obviously if it goes against the setting people wouldn't be.I don't know why you're so vehement about not wanting people to do what they want if everyone is fine with it at their table. I mean do what you want i guess but it seems like you're arguing just to argue.
Question:
Why complaining about a baance in a cooperative game? I would get it if TTRPGs were competitive, but they aren't.
As for vetting - you vet players, not their characters, if the goal is to aviod weirdos. The real goal of "all human campaign" is meming about being edgy, while not playing anything.
How is it edgy? Well, it isn't, but in the mind of morons pushing it, they are "going against the globohomosexual freakshit weirdo trends and thatr's based", aka they are fricking moronic and fighting with things existing in their heards.
Balance matters because without relative power balance the party can't function cohesively. I once played a very OP character, and tend to power game and number crunch; the other players went with sillier or more conventional ideas. 90% of fights were decided by my charging and melting things one by one every turn while being all but immune to damage. If the GM wanted to make it a challenge for me, the rest of the party would be killed before they had a turn. If he continued balancing it for them, then I would do all the work and it got boring.
>By yes, I never fricking played a single session of any given TTRPG, how could you tell?
Must be a lucky guess, anon
Or he played a caster in a 3.PF game
They are rare in DnD perhaps, but in a game set in a setting with prevalent human population and nonhumans being rare and usually not fitting with campaign theme it's not that rare even if nonhumans are playable. Here are games I played human-only campaigns in:
> L5R
> WoD as mundanes or hunters
> Warhammer 40k
> 7th sea
Yea thats true i just assumed when he talked about the intentional decision on the DM side to remove the ability to play certain races he was refering to systems where you can play races other than human.
If the setting or part of the theme/subsetting the campaign would make it strange for there to be non-humans there, but this applies to very few situations. Of course there are plenty of cases where setting and theme preclude specific niche races or might encourage others, but there are almost none which wouldn't permit elves and dwarves.
There's a number of reasons.
> There's only humans in the setting
> The setting is in the middle of a race war
> The system falls apart once you add demihumans or aliens into the mix and you're trying to run a game here
The majority of Victorian speculative fiction did not feature non human entities in the role of protagonist. Since my games are based upon these works I follow the notion, though admittedly if one made an exceptionally convincing argument I might allow for a single Irishman amongst the party.
If I did this in a game it would just be because there aren't sentient non-humans in the setting.
Because I have personally only ever played with one person who could manage a character that wasn't just a different color human. If you want to act like a human, have human motivations, make human decisions for human reasons, then just play a human. Other races in my games aren't human.
This is the core of it. 99% of the time when people want to play a non-human non-freakshit character they either want the mechanical bonuses or they want to be part of a very different interesting culture. If you make your human societies feel interesting, then people will want to be a Kennurian or a Logashi instead of an Elf or a Dwarf. If they just want the +2 dex then don't tie stats to races, or make them breeds of Humans. I've never seen someone play an Elf because they wanted to explore the concept of roleplaying someone who lives 10x longer than everybody else. Then you get weirdoes that just want to be a Human in a costume (cat-person, tiefling, any other furry, etc). Every part of your character should be an essential part of your roleplaying.
The only way to sort of handwave away every race acting like humans if you have some moronic multi-cultural Burger King Kids Club world where every city is full of every race and nobody bats an eye when a party consisting of an Orc, a Demon, a Warforged, an Owlman and an Elf show up in the middle of some shitty hamlet with 40 people living in it.
>If you want to act like a human, have human motivations, make human decisions for human reasons, then just play a human.
This has always been a moronic nonsense argument. We are human, and every character envisioned by a human no matter how alien will always have some baseline level of anthropomorphization because that is necessary for something to be any sort of actual character.
If you ignore all the lore and in-universe culture of the race you are playing, including in weird settings where humans are different, then you really shouldn't be at the table. Ignoring every part of the setting to play the worst version of video game combat is just a waste of your and everyone else's time. While almost everything is made from the human experience in tabletop, the difference should be what stands out. Also, HYTNPDND?
No, it's the most rational argument against it. If Race X is just a human in all ways but aesthetics, it shouldn't exist UNLESS it is the proxy replacement for Humans in the setting.
This is very silly though. We are surrounded by complex non-human social structures constantly. Not as complex as humans themselves, but plenty complex and scalable. Other great ape's interactions are not just 'Human but X', they are distinctly not human even if we see similarities.
Or the interactions in other complex social animals, such as Dolphins.
We look at the social make up of the Druid Peak Pack for example.
The Druid Peak pack was the most visible, popular, and aggressive wolf pack in Yellowstone. The original five members of the Druid Peak pack — #38 and #39, dad and mom, and female pups #40, #41, and #42 — were once part of the powerful Besa pack from Fort St. John in British Columbia and relocated to Yellowstone’s acclimation pens before being released in April 1996 in the park’s scenic Lamar Valley. The nearly treeless Lamar Valley is often considered Yellowstone’s most prized hunting grounds and the most visible wolf territory in the park. On this public stage, the soap opera atmosphere that seemed to engulf the Druids would come to characterize the group.
By the end of 1998, the Lamar Valley Druids had seven members, and a growing reputation for conflict. The constant harassment of female #42 by her sister, #40 (who did not breed with her father, #38, she just became the ruling female), earned #42 the nickname “Cinderella” by the Yellowstone researchers, but Cinderella finally reached the ball in 2000, after a violent turn of events that put her at the head of the pack. She and the other female members of the pack, tired of #40’s brutal leadership, turned on and killed her. At least three litters were born to the liberated females, and 20 of the 21 pups survived. The Druids were now 27 members strong and became the largest pack in Yellowstone. In 2001, another 10 pups were added to the group, and the 37-member Druid pack became the largest wolf pack ever documented in North America.
The drama of the Druids aren't human, and will never be human, but their social jockeying shows distinct societal markings.
Okay, but hear me out:
No one cares. You are defending other freakshit races being human proxies in all but aesthetic because Dolphins exist, like this is somehow an actual argument in defense to the point.
The point is we can quite literally observe other species that act in ways we consider similar to humans while they are not humans. Your point is non-sensical.
Okay, but hear me out:
Who cares? Bloating a setting with races that are just proxy humans is still just bloat. It's stupid and serves no purpose. No one cares that dolphins share qualities to humans, they just acre that they are cute. That's it. And that's the extent people utilize freakshit races in ttrpg's; hollow and stupid.
If that was true no one would play non-cute non-humans. I don't have a single 'cute' race in my current campaign, but people still play a variety of non-humans.
In the setting non-humans were all created by humans either on purpose or accidentally, and most within the last few centuries.
I've noticed a lot of people have an extremely humanity-centric view of the way the universe works. If we haven't figured out how to do something, no other life in the universe has. If humans do things a certain way, that applies to all life in the universe too. If we've come to a conclusion about something in the universe, then that's the beginning and end of it.
human male fighter
Just throwing it out there.
Nothing wrong with it, classic for a reason.
If I were a GM I would need some very convincing reasons for variations from this. Otherwise go home and cry to your tulpa or anime pillow or whatever.
if you're playing in a setting with no elves & dwarves & shit, then sure.
If your DM doesn't let you make a 'human' with the stats of a dwarf, though, he's a homosexual.
It's just weird when the 4 human fighters/cleric/paladins working for the church are accompanied by a rainbow arakoa gish warlock.
HE'S A KNIFE-EAR
HE'S A KNIFE-EAR
If game is high fantasy and such a thing is set in stone that humans aren't alone I allow but make it a rarity based on how bizarre the concept sounds.
If it is a homebrew I completely look it over and give the following options.
- You can play for the aesthetic with another hand book race because there is a lot of fricking garbage op shit here.
- Compromise to play where if you really want to play for a certain reason I can overlook one but you WILL take a flaw of some kind to balance that shit out (along with ticking off really idiotic shit)
- Just play with the aesthetic and nothing special. You wanna be a badger folk. Cool. I don't fricking care.
As long as you don't use art that has fricking blushing, ahegao faces, or is very obvious porn you are okay to play.
If you want to play something fricking crazy in a setting that is not super high fantasy and is just normal humans in weird situations sorry but you're human. Just book mark that idea for a different game.
Being the DM and not wanting them is all the reason you need.
Yeah, I'm racist, even against races that don't exist
It's a way to filter out undesirables who can't have fun unless they're playing a nine-dicked half-ghost half-dragon.
My only major gripe with this is whatever the frick the prple teifling and flamingo are wearing.
How is the wieneratiel so much cooler than the rest of the cast?
The female barbarian is the closest thing to a normal character, but then the monogoloid had to go and be LOLRANDOM and use a sheep as a weapon. I hate the CR crowd so fricking much, bros. Can we go back 20+ years to when nobody mainstream played these games?
I'm seriously thinking of just quitting TTRPGs. It's never going to be same as my late 90's/early 00's college dorm experience. No fricking cellphones or fake geeks, just friends telling stories together.
I know you gays want to talk like you're some old guard and CR ruined your hobby, but people were playing like that 20+ years ago. The only thing that's changed is more people are exposed to other ways of playing online over time and it all just homogenized and the less popular playstyles are less talked about.
You can still have groups that play how you like. They happen all the time. If it was ever once the most popular way of playing it hasn't been in ages, so when playing with randoms online or when talking about games online you'll find other playstyles more common. There are all kinds of playstyles that people like and some really niche ideas out there, but most of them realize they're niche and never had it in their head they were the "real way" like you gays do.
CR didn't do jack all they're just riding the most popular wave.
All that is assuming you actually play games and aren't just faking with this 'old guard' posting. If you have a niche playstyle you just describe it in your game pitch when looking for players. Pretending the "humans only" thing even makes sense as a filter is the biggest flag you're just full of shit.
I like the short charcoal gal, she's cute. Not a fan of side-cuts but it works on her.
Never seen Critical Roll. How bad is it?
None of them would be allowed at my table. this homosexual shit doesnt work in a dungone full of monsters this is shit you wear to some fancy ball room ballet to impress people with social homosexual shit. my games are about dungeon and fights and getting stronger thru battle. its not some social homosexualary game so these social class queers would die in the first dungeon
You aren't playing DnD. Most decent RPGs don't even have the option for non-human PCs.
>Play Pendragon
>A game about Knights in King Arthur's Court.
>Play Call of Ch'thulhu
>A game about occult investigators set between the 1890's and early 2000's
Not playing D&D is the answer to 99.99% of /tg/ related queries.
We really should just close the board at this point.
The people who makes these threads are nogames homosexuals looking to receive the answers they want and the faux-validation that comes with it by asking specially focused questions.
It's to be expected, after all, it is summer.
>A game about Knights in King Arthur's Court.
Literally medieval fantasy.
>A game about occult investigators set between the 1890's and early 2000's
Implying dwarfs no longer exist.
Now you're just being difficult.
Bad thread, worse OP.
>Is there a reason for doing this
Yes showing that other races aren't just humans with a cosmetic applier.
>my setting is historical
>my setting is low-fantasy
>it's a horror game
>it's a near-future game
>it's a space exploration game
>the table has unanimously voted to wienerblock our furgay
>I dont have time for your homebrew Mary sue race and you complained that it "isnt fair" that I let others play "unusual" races so I tossed the lot
>its a group of all-new players and they have enough to keep track of without racial modifiers and traits
And my favorite
>because I say so.
players struggling to roleplay human being can't be trusted with anything more outlandish
Honestly I get bored roleplaying a human. Yeah I could say "I drag my finger along the captured noble's cheek as I give a toothy smile with a mischeivous stare." or I could instead have more fun with "I drag a pallid claw at the end of my moist, webbed hand along the noble's cheek as I give a carnivorous, fanged smile with a wall-eyed, drooling stare."
Seriously, anything you don't see every day is so much more fun to describe than just some normal dude.
Yeah, but that's not roleplaying dude. It's writing, and it's garbage writing at that.
>As
>toothy smile
>mischeivous stare
What's a toothy smile? What's a mischievous stare? You're supposed to show and not tell. If you're already *telling* me what things are, then I don't have to do the work and not read your 'roleplaying'. You're not capturing my attention by forcing me to pay attention. You've already solved the problem of engaging with what's happening by telling me what things are.
Besides, you're practically doing the same thing with both races, so all you like to do is describe things in a different way. You're not roleplaying, you're fellating the image you have in your own head and trying to convince us how strong and genuine your feelings are. That's what bad actors do, they're busy with trying to convince people that they feel things, instead of actually feeling things. So by extension, you're not really roleplaying, you're trying to show us how much you're roleplaying.
Holy shit you're moronic. You shouldn't talk, it makes you look stupid. That's not what the criticism of "show, don't tell" relates to at all you knuckle dragging window licker.
By the way, a toothy grin is when someone is showing their teeth in a smile you dumb frick. You'd know that if you ever read a book in your teenaged life
Humans are the only race
ITT: Freakshitters defending freakshit.
Although I don't outright ban them, I highly encourage my new players to be humans their first few characters. New players often see shiny new race and abilities, and then don't roleplay them as anything but humans with abilities or humans with a personality quirk. Once they get the hang of roleplaying a character I don't meddle in their choices as much.
This has generally resulted in stronger roleplay in my group and when players do choose non-humans they feel non-human.
The other advantage is that they get exposure to the other races in setting culture and behaviour, rather than going in blind. They fit better amongst the setting's dwarves and elves because they've seen the way I do their culture BEFORE they choose to play them.
>and then don't roleplay them as anything but humans with abilities or humans with a personality quirk.
To be fair that's pretty much what all the planetouched demihuman races are.
Humans are also great generalists making them a good choice for newbies as they can play any class effectively. Though any of the core races are also not the worst choices in the world given most people have had some exposure to how elves, dwarves, and the like behave (even if in a stereotypical sense).
>Is there a reason for doing this that isn't autistic?
No, but that doesn't mean they're bad.
People tend to play non-human races because humans are bland. Human societies in the generic fantasy setting are almost always vaguely Western European society and have the same governing structure every time. However, they don't have many cultural idiosyncrasies or peculiarities. In contrast, most non-human races have a set culture to them, which helps guide their characters.
I think players should first try to role-play humans from different cultures and social strata and learn how that works, then try playing non-human races after that. That way, they can treat the race less as a different culture with cosmetics and try to focus instead on playing non-human races as something truly non-human.
However, that also requires DMs put the effort in to make human societies that are politically, economically, and socially diverse, such that players have reason to try out different cultures. Then, and only then, does a human-only game actually work.
>humans are bland
>DMs need more diverse human cultures in their game to make humans less bland
How do you sit straight-faced say this as you post a prime example of rich, compelling characters all from a single society? Do you actually think "bland" s a question of culture and not personality? Is your game boring without a bunch of players bumping into each other because they cant decide the proper way to enter a stranger's house, or are your players just not capable of coming up with a personality that isn't based entirely on their tragic backstory X culture?
Honestly.
Other races will always be "humans with funny ears" because the alternative is being "humans with a long list of do's and don'ts and an even longer explanation for why each one is so important for 'muh culture'.
Oh, and one parting insult.
This is the most 5e mentality I've ever seen.
>How do you sit straight-faced say this as you post a prime example of rich, compelling characters all from a single society?
Because that's a real society, and not the cookie-cutter medieval fantasy "society" that 99% of humans in games like D&D exist in.
>Do you actually think "bland" s a question of culture and not personality?
Culture and personality will inevitably intersect, because culture shapes how your character views other nations, other races, other religions, and so on.
>This is the most 5e mentality I've ever seen.
5e's milquetoast settings are definitely part of the problem, I can agree with that much.
>Even a basic b***h peasant from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy should have very different views and outlooks from a 21st century person without magic or monsters to deal with
And few people play "basic b***h peasants from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy" to character. But many generic fantasy settings give the characters 21st century views and don't expect the PCs to think like anything other than 21st century characters.
>People who claim that humans are boring or bland are just not putting in any effort into creating a compelling character.
People not putting any effort into creating compelling characters are the reason humans are bland, even though they don't have to be. It doesn't change that they are bland in most cases.
Humans aren't bland besides cosmetically. Only the most ADHD of people think this. The vast majority of fiction is made up of human characters with wildly different personalities and quirks, some becoming so iconic many people have made copycats and homages. Humans are only "bland" if you put absolutely no effort into being someone you're not. Even a basic b***h peasant from a cookie cutter medieval fantasy should have very different views and outlooks from a 21st century person without magic or monsters to deal with. Not to mention having his own upbringing, ideals, wants and dreams, which will separate him from his next door neighbor to the point they should be entirely different to play.
People who claim that humans are boring or bland are just not putting in any effort into creating a compelling character.
People who say humans are bland play their non-human characters the exact same way they would play a human character, except it has blue horns and a tail
What?
My last non-human character was literally making a book documenting the fascinating life cycle of humans, and was trying to get data for how the human life cycle produced nobles when enough gold was ingested during the brood process.
Is it your opinion that humans are bland?
yeah.
I'll play 'em still, but it is absolutely often a system and setting default with nothing special or interesting about them.
I can count on one hand the number of times I recall a system -ever- giving them something cool.
It's your character. It's your responsibility to make them interesting if that's what you want them to be. If your character must be an anthropomorphic animal to be interesting, then maybe it's you who is bland
>If your character must be an anthropomorphic animal to be interesting, then maybe it's you who is bland
nta, but this is poor reasoning. Yes, non-human races are often a crutch, but that's because they provide you material to work with and help shape your character. It's easy to create an interesting non-human character, since their race's traits and culture provide material for your character to react to, which creates easy depth.
Humans are too often blank slates with nothing to them, so there's nothing to react to and, as a result, every concept for a human can be better achieved through some other non-human character.
For instance, "grizzled mercenary with a heart of gold" makes an interesting base for a character. Even as a human, said character would be good. However, in a generic fantasy setting where humans have no culture, it's better to pick a non-human race. For instance, being a dwarf might add additional depth to the character - now, you have the values of Dwarven society to react to. Has your mercenary's travels caused his views to differ from the normal Dwarf's? Have they confirmed it? Is he treated as a pariah due to his wanderings, or embraced as a long-lost brother?
Non-humans being viewed as superior to humans is entirely a result of poor world-building that doesn't give humans a culture to work with.
>give mechanical and setting explanation of blandness
>who cares about that, make them interesting anyway
How about the setting make them interesting, or the mechanics make them interesting?
How about even the most basic game design occur?
"Human-only" is basically just another way of saying "no-games".
In that pic what would gandalf be?
A raven
A Human, carefully and gently walking alongside.
If anything an Owl. Symbols of wisdom n whatnot, start as Barn Owl, become one fo those snowy white owls later.
Owls in some cultures are often seen as unwise (in India for example). I would say a raven would be a better symbol as they have the intelligence and memory skills to back up the wisdom claim no matter the culture.
The standard fantasy races bore me and I'm too lazy to make race templates.
>Is there a reason for doing this that isn't autistic?
Dammit Kramer for the last time, we're playing VtM and masquerading as a human is the fricking POINT
You can find reasons to depending on the setting you're doing, but if you're in a basic DnD type setting and using a DnD book and it has races and you're not going all out on unique worldbuilding, then it is just a meme for autistic nogamers.
They saw the memes about gay tiefling special snowflakes and are pushing in the opposite extreme, insisting that humans are the standard of the setting and being anything but standard is bad. Characterization, roleplay, story? No those are bad and lead down the road that has gay multicolored tieflings and furries, therefore you should be the opposite extreme and not, as a sane person would assume, actually in between.
>create things that are obviously fantasy races
>place them around the world in a variety of cultural groupings, nations, and ethnicities
>call them all human
>refuse to elaborate further
No one can stop me. The 7'6" tusked southerners, the noseless blubbery grey skinned equatorials, and the body plate covered hairless thick skinned low landers are all human.
I know a furry webcomic that does that but spells human as Yuman instead as part of the joke. They could have traits that are all kinds of variations of different animals, with the more common ones being rabbit-like, there's a whole armadillo culture in a desert, and then others who just look like whatever like bears, chipmunks, bats, horses, whatever is convenient. But they're all treated like one species. And to make it weirder there are other actual races and creatures but they're most distinctly different while just about any biped will be from that one race, but no actual humans exist on that world, just the yumans.
The comics have some quirks but I gotta hand it to the artist when it comes to world building, they can come up with some wacky stuff and make it actually work.
it's for you
The concept of "not allowing" non-human races is fake. No one does it. If you are running a setting that only has humans that's your game, the concept of not "allowing" doesn't apply, either the world or just the story for this campaign is about human characters for setting related reasons. You could be using DnD books to run the game but you established it as what you game was about so no one is going to join in and then be upset that they can't play an elf. They GM would have told them the pitch before they even showed up to the game.
I've seen games where by design all the characters are one race, like all goblins, or all elves. That's part of the story and setting, it's by design. No one would consider that other choices "weren't allowed".
So when some gay here says they don't allow non-human characters in their game then they're a nogame idiot full of shit. They're presenting a premise like random people are showing up to their game with a character ready made and no idea what the game is about. They have no idea how these games work and it's telling.
>the concept of not "allowing" doesn't apply
It does. The DM isn't god. If you're there as a group of people to have fun time and collaboratively play a game, then what the players want is just as valid to be in the game as what the DM wants. Just because the DM is the arbiter of what happens in the game doesn't mean he gets to say what's *in* it.
I guess it's a difference in how you approach the game. If you approach D&D as "DM is responsible for everything creatively, and we are 'choosing if we want to play what he's offering'", then yes, you have to shut the frick up and take what the DM is offering you. Instead, consider that *everyone* is responsible for the creative part. Then the DMs role becomes much more different. Then all the DM has to do it 'be' reality. Just like how if we hold an apple and let it go, it falls to the ground, the DM resolves the actions and events between the players and the world at large.
More often than not though, many people attracted to this hobby just 'want a say', and enjoy the power they have when they make worlds or characters, so there's a clash between who wants what and whatnot.
Then 'not allowing' takes place.
TL;DR: if you actually work together creatively, then everyone can do whatever they want and there's no clash and all the DM has to do is play reality in-sessions.
>The DM isn't god.
That's true because DND is for cucks who like to submissively sit by and be told what to do. GMs, on the other hand, are gods and just walk away from groups of choosie beggars. STs are some minor deity that usually require their thralls to like them, so they might be a little more accepting of slack jawed players.
>GMs, on the other hand, are gods and just walk away from groups of choosie beggars
I don't understand this.
Much more common to face prejudice for simply wanting to play a human
It's a Fafnir and Grey Mouser/Conan the Barbarian game. Custom Lineages are allowed if you need your build to have a specific set of bonuses.
Non humans are fine but they should always be a deviation. Never the norm
Nah, real kino settings have humans be a small minority species on a nature reserve surrounded by a mighty non-human civilization. You get to be an unga bunga caveman tearing down organized society with nothing but a sharp stick and rage.
I think it's a copout for the DM to not have to work in the racials of the races.
Aarakocra can fly, and that fricks up 'encounter design' because martials can't attack from the floor. Now you have to have magic users or special bow users, and given that that forces the DM to not have control and forced to do things becuase the players chose something, it makes them butthurt and they ban those races.
The trick is to have creativity, and not be a sperg about minmaxing your encounters and numbers. It's a creative and social game, not a spreadsheet. Go play xcom or EVE online if you want to crunch numbers or something.
I just don't like morons who believe playing what they consider to be the most standard thing possible to be a viable personality. People who use 'elf' as a personality are awful. People who use 'human male fighter' as a personality are worse, because they think they're better than the elf-tards.
An all human setting. A system where race isn't as important for character customization as 5e. Story reasons.
Sorry not sorry Dave, you can't play a 400 year old e-girl catgirl in our age of sail pirates campaign
Do we know the same Dave ? Cause I knew a Dave who Would play similar characters (replace cat girl w/ vampire for variety)
If the GM wants a certain tone for their game that would be spoiled by a fantastic creature heavy party, that's up to him
I mean most of the pond scum around here is only dubiously human, so.
I don't like them
If said system/setting doesn't allow for non-human player characters I suppose, simple as
That's the thing though, you never hear people bemoaning freakshit in humancentric settings. Like you never hear anyone b***h about cybernetics in in a cyberpunk setting.
Well to be fair you never hear people bemoaning freakshit who play games in the first place so...
Yes, the "freakshit" characters will be found in settings where they belong, that is correct
The evil gods won and all the gay races got genocided. Humans are the only ones left and constantly live in fear of being next while also carrying the favor of these fickle gods.
Here's how this works. The premise immediately fellates the morons in the player group by having evil gods that must be destroyed. Usually players are atheist or atheist leaning so this is an immediate brainworm to get these types in. All the while this premise makes the snowflake races they would also usually play adopt the victim-hood these types usually can't live without. So at the same time, this set up makes these players feel that they can fix the world to be "better" even if they're human, while maintaining a reason for the sparkly races to be bittersweetly unavailable. The whole gimmick is intent to stimulate player tard-neurons by tricking them into a feeling morally superior from the word go, in a sand box you prepared specifically to facilitate the illusion of an inclusive mindset.
As someone who exclusively plays human male fighters, I am constantly finding myself at odds with the table, usually not explicitly but through offhand comments and jokes at my expence.
>hey anon, you should take watch, you're used to guard duty right? haha
>haha "human male fighter", that's just wild, wow
>I'm betting that anon is secretly some crazy creature disguising itself as the most bor-- unassuming creature it can
so it goes. It doesn't matter. I still pick up my longsword and shield, and I still pursue the adventure.
The fact that you're playing a fighter is far more offensive than the fact that you play a human
classic for a reason bud
things that never happened for 500 alex
We play OD&D, largely as written (via Philotomy's Musings). The only non-human races we allow are elf, dwarf and hobbit (there was an orc once, who started life as a hireling). They are rare and we keep level-limitations in place, as originally intended. All campaigns are different, so I understand the limitations, whether based on story or simply rules of the table. I find none of this autistic.
It's just a meme.
Every time I run D&D, the party is 1-2 humans, a half-elf, a brute (orc, half-troll, goliath here), and this one player that always wants to play a fricking gnome/kender/spastic kobold of chaotic-moron alignment, who also searches the internet for munchkinning metagame shit using 10+ books of feats, etc. I would filter him if there was a fifth wheel that was less grating than he.
OK so, let's actually go into some narrative theory for why I tend to run D&D (and D&D-like) games this way.
The game is about exploring dungeons. Going underground takes your PCs away from the familiar world into an alien, and potentially hostile, environment. You need that contrast. The starting town sets a baseline of normality, and the dungeon's strangeness is contrasted against it.
This is what makes the basic activity of exploring dungeons fun.
SO.
We need to establish 'normal' for this contrast to work. This is where the PCs come from, and the PCs themselves. To make this contrast work, we want to keep this to things people will be familiar with: standard medieval European tropes, bits of history they'd remember from school, etc. Keep it mundane and grounded.
The thing is, anything that's *normal* loses its impact if you include it in the weird. If PCs can cast spells, then an NPC in the dungeon who casts spells isn't weird to them, it's *like they are*. If a PC can be a vampire, vampires aren't scary anymore.
So. With that in mind, restricting the normal world, and the PCs that come from it, to humans serves a purpose. It lets elves and goblins and so on be weird again, which makes exploring the dungeon more impactful.
Now, this isn't the only approach you can take, but it works pretty well for the games I like to run.
>for the games I like to run.
Do you find yourself running a lot of these games?
I'd say I GM about half the time.
I'm in a couple of regular games as a player at the moment (one Changeling: the Lost and one weird gonzo OSR). Plus a couple of larps every few months, the odd 1-shot, and a necromunda campaign. Last game I GMd was about a month ago, and was the sort of thing I described but in a more modern setting.
I dunno, I've been GMing about 15 years at this point, its a formula that works for me.
This is pretty dumb rational especially to apply to D&D. You're basically operating under the assumption that anything that isn't mundane is the exact same.
A mix of both.
I never allow non humans for the new players. If they voice discomfort, I tell them that's it's for setting reasons. If they continue to push, I kick them. It's a shit barometer, to see how much of a b***h the new player is. With people I played for some time, anything's a go.
Yeah you don't like freakshit.
The whole draw to tradityional games is the broad possibilities that aren't available anywhere else. If I wanted to be railroaded into being a human at every turn, I'd just go and play videogames instead.
Depends solely on the setting. For example, if you were doing an Elder Scrolls based campaign, you would only have humans (Nords, Imperials, Bretons, and Redguards), elves (Altmer, Bosmer, and Dunmer), orcs (Orsimer), catfolk (Khajiit), and lizardfolk (Argonians). You wouldn't have halflings or gnomes, for example, as they are not present in the setting.
And generally, I know many DMs don't like, as anon puts it, "half-fey catboy shotas" and other extremely exotic races, but just sticking with the core races should be more than enough to prevent such homosexualry.
>setting is modern day new york
>"dm, my character is a polydimensional digimon otherkin and if you reject xer then you're a fricking white male neo nazi!!!!"
lol
Only playable humans has enabled me to do a couple things
>non-humans can be inhuman
I have two or three races that have very alien mindsets and physiology, they're sort of like fair folk in the way you would interact with them. If they're playable, I can't really have that
>non-humans can be rare
I prefer for what I'm doing right now to keep humans in focus. Not for any mudcore freakshit whatever buzzword reasons, I just don't really need non-humans around all the time, and when I do have them, they can be more impactful because they're so rare. I had another campaign where the focus was a very cosmopolitan high fantasy city and I went with a maximalist approach to races, like a Star Wars cantina feel, so I'm not opposed on principle to having lots of playable races. If I let the players be non-humans, then because they're so rare, every single interaction they have becomes dominated by "wow you sure are a half-dragon tabaxi-demon-kin, huh".
>keeping the race vs monster vs one-off line blurred
This ties into the first two, my minimalist approach means that I don't have to delineate between what is playable and what could be playable but isn't. Like in standard D&D, gnolls are basically people, shouldn't they be playable? When you draw the line at humans vs non-humans, then everything gets a little mixed up and it gets a little hazy. Are the very person-like fair folk people or monsters? Are the imps with their weird little societies people or monsters?
It also lets me introduce more one-off creatures without provoking a "I want to play as that" or worse, a "who cares?". Say I add a man with a wolf's head like the one in Darkwood. Everything non-human is rare, so even something simple like that is unusual. Is the wolfman a monster? Is he a guy who's been changed? Is this another race? Are there more of him? When you have people playing as elves, etc. then you know immediately: this is a monster, if he was a person then he'd be playable
Depends on the setting.
>Like in standard D&D, gnolls are basically people, shouldn't they be playable?
In every edition that they were basically people (1st-4th) they were playable.
It was just 5e that removed them from the player options, and that's due to the rewrite where they're just demon-possessed hyenas.
I think it's more to establish a setting where humans are the most numerous or the most dominant species. Demis are a little more in the background giving them a little bit of mystery back.
There is no one way of doing things, I change it up a lot.
"Non-humans must be aliens" is a fallacy.
Current campaign is 0 magic beyond players and human exclusive.
There was a deal between higher beings to separate and seal.
Now that's breaking down directly due to my players actions and magic/other worldly creatures are trickling through the breach at an increasing rate. They met their first dwarf yesterday who was just as suprised as them.
Kino so far
Because im running a generic space opera game and i dont have time to write new races into my setting. You can play as a human or a robot.
It stops the snowflake party. 5E players are really ball about all wanting to be unique special snowflakes. So they all pick weird non-human races like kenku, tiefling, ect. The problem is that when everyone is special, it loses all meaning. The other races just become watered down humans that look different.
When you build your game on a majority human group and a majority human world the non-human races start to mean something.
>"When you build your game on a majority human group and a majority human world the non-human races start to mean something"
Okay but I'm still going to make a non-human PC, and now they're interesting by default by being really out there due to their inherent rarity. Is that what you're saying?
Plenty of fantasy settings only have humans, my dude.
All my games are completely devoid of all humans. If you cannot make an interesting character without just making them a "human but thing + self insert" then you cannot make an interesting human character either and therefore aren't going to play. This logic goes both ways.
>Is there a reason for doing this
The party needs to be a consistent size for forming proper defensive lines. Some 3' tall freakshit ain't gonna be able to shieldwall with 6' chads.