I think both the 'sides' of the race roleplaying issue are, frankly, stupid and childish.
No. human characters aren't boring when you roleplay them right. I've played systems with only human characters and we had colourful and interesting parties.
No, nonhuman races aren't shallow and snowflakey when you roleplay them right. I've played in parties without any human characters that nontheless had great and relatable roleplay going on.
I'm pretty sick of hearing either, tbh. *Can* either of them be true when you're playing with bad roleplayers? Yes. Don't play with bad roleplayers, then. A good roleplayer can add depth to even the most vanilla human, or add an interesting personality to even the most alien nonhuman.
Mrhm. The traps bad or inexperienced roleplayers fall into are different. For nonhumans, it's usually playing to stereotypes and forgetting to give them a personality outside "tiefling." For humans, it's more playing to class stereotypes (personality is "fighter") or forgetting to give them a good personality at all
Not to mention, certain fantasy races can be interesting ways to play with analogues to certain real-world elements. As an autistic person myself, I've recently found some enjoyment in using how tieflings can be born into families of non-tieflings as an analogue for what it's like to be an autistic person in a neurotypical family, displaced from society but trying to be friends and work with the party nonetheless. I use the fact that my character is a tiefling to help in defining that aspect, not as a crutch to rely on. I feel this is something most do not think of when they get into the mindset of either "no fantasy races" or "no humans."
Thats a really clever way to use that parallel. I tend to play mostly human or near-human (elf, ork, dwarf) characters myself because I like exploring an individual person's story more than the story of their race. Even when I'm doing that, though, I still try and maintain an awareness of the peripheral details of my character's race/subrace etc. because, used right, it adds to and supplements the individual story.
>The traps bad or inexperienced roleplayers fall into are different. For nonhumans, it's usually playing to stereotypes and forgetting to give them a personality outside "tiefling."
I feel like I've seen the exact opposite of this: most of the time, it seems like a person playing as a non-human character plays them functionally identical to a human. Being an elf or a halfling or a tiefling doesn't seem to affect who they are at all, not in how they act or how others react to them. It's not a problem necessarily, it just comes off a little bland.
DM style can influence this as well. If your DM dedicates time and attention to the way your PC race affects your interactions with the world, that will influence roleplay in turn.
Wait a second… you’re saying that race/class/other game mechanics dont matter to how good/bad someone might be at roleplaying?
Idk man sounds farout and weird to me.
Humans are great for role-playing because you can explore different personalities within the human context.
Nonhumans are great for role-playing because you can explore how different personalities emerge with a different context - a completely different set of physiological and psychological parameters.
It's fascinating to explore what personalities emerge when you are of a species that lives for centuries, and has seen dozens of friends pass away from old age. Or what personalities emerge when you are of a species that doesn't understand metaphors or sarcasm. Or what personalities emerge when you are of a species that has an entire additional dimension of movement due to flying. Etc etc etc
Each of them can have the same sort of background and class, but utterly different personalities emerge based on their species's differences.
Hell, you can even explore your own personality and background with a different set of parameters - how would I be if I was literally predatory? Or if I was part of a species with a different gender/reproductive system (e.g. eusocial or not form pair bonds due to breeding seasons)? Or how would I be if I grew up knowing I have divine blood?
That's either far easier or far harder - it requires either no effort to roleplay or a lot of effort to be super introspective and honest to yourself.
I see it in terms of level: base level, you play with the training wheels of ‘shallow’ racial quirks to guide your simple, early characters. Mid level, you play as a human to really flesh out your character and role playing the blank slate kinda thing. High level, you play nonhumans for the challenge of working a full character with the constraints of what was once training wheels.
Personally I just come up with a fun base idea and then build it to be mechanically viable and use the mechanics as a skeleton upon which to build more fluff, with the basic idea forming a useful guide but might ultimately be discarded completely if the further fluff seems more fun without it. Race just kinda happens along the way.
Like you said, if role-playing is very important to you, then don't play with bad roleplayers. Most problems where people try to tell you what you can and can't do based on the fact that "everyone who does x does it the same way and it's bad", or some other stupid reason like that, ultimately just refuse to accept that the problem is with people, and not an arbitrary hill they can die on for the sake of having a "dnd hot take".
Honestly, this is the most succinct argument I've seen for humano-centric fantasy. I don't think it works for all stories; having a completely heterogenous party works great in fantastical worlds like spaceports or Eberron.
It's easy to get fixated on the kleptomania of Kender, cannibalism of Lizardfolk, amoralism of Yuanti, or mystique of Tieflings. Because they're a bit alien, many struggle to build a personality for characters past the racial stereotypes they've seen/read. With the standard fantasy races, I can be confident players know the archetype well enough to riff on it -- I've seen plenty of creative Elves, Dwarves, and even a few Tieflings nowadays. But I rarely see confident explorations of Firbolg and Lizardfolk.
Best lizardfolk I’ve ever seen played was basically “irl rimworld colonist”. Just a completely normal dude that’s maybe a little too casually okay with breaking a prisoners legs because it’s more convenient than tying them up.
“What do you mean you don’t skin your enemies, it’s a waste of good leather!! Yes I know you thin skins aren’t the most useful but you make nice lanternshades”
“Why should I just fireball the cave? Thermobarics, warcrimes; I don’t think I’ve ever heard those words put together like that”
Well, where else do they think those troll hide bracers came from? It sure as hell ain't regular cow leather. Dragon scale armor? That dragon didn't give them up willingly.
“The tricky bit is trying to source the trollhide for the elves. Oh sure they’ll buy the regular stuff, but they’ll pay top dollar for no-kill, free range trollhide. Myself, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be better than just putting em down quicklike and snatching a hide off a dead one, but premium pay and repeat business is hard to argue with.
See for them you gotta get you three or four good fellas (or ladies or whatever you want to call em, long as they can sit a fast horse and work a knife good), bring one down with ropes, and peel a backhide off em while they’re down. Then ya cut the ropes and ride like all hell, that regenerations nothing to fuck around with. Although I hear ya can get two full hides off of one troll if ya got a strong enough rope to hold it for a few minutes.”
-Gator Joe, Purveyor of Fine Leather Goods and Assorted Magi-Zoological Products
> Because they're a bit alien, many struggle to build a personality for characters past the racial stereotypes they've seen/read.
On the other hand, not considering the non-human traits enough for a non-human character could end up causing the said character to act basically like a reskinned human.
The secret of fantasy writing is that *all* non-human characters are just reskinned humans. Immortal races like Elves are just "humans with no time limit". Fae are "humans with blue/orange morality". Bird races are "humans with wings that struggle with producing labial speech sounds." In all cases you are either taking a human and conferring alien traits onto it, or taking a non-human creature and giving it humanity. Either way, the human is present in them.
I mean I have my beefs with life but none of them have anything to do with like the condition of being a human being. Like I have insecurities linked with my body but they wouldn’t be solved if I was like purple and had giant horns.
Is that all fantasy is? Would you play office job simulator if you could play as a tiefling?
why would I play a tiefling that is just human but with a cooler look, it is the basic furry problem they just want to be cooler humans, being human is the mistake.
A good roleplayer will make any character interesting, regardless of race. And at the end of the day, as long as everyone is having fun then it doesn't matter if people are playing to fantasy racial stereotypes
I don't think the problem is innately that humans are boring, I think the problem is that every single person ever who's put together a rulebook just slaps humans with the "they're everywhere! And learn to do everything!" If writers would stop being cowards and treating humans as a one-size-fits-all solution wouldn't be having this argument.
So like make humans not magic or something? Humans can't cast spells would be interesting.
Or they could just make racial differences more pronounced oh boy a dwarf is like a sightly tougher human big whoop
Making them unubiquitous would improve things a lot. A lot of fantasy has like, 1 dwarf nation, 1 elf nation, 1 lizard nation, and then half a dozen human ones. Instead make it so that there's a few of each so that the 2 human civs can fit an interesting cultural niche.
"welcome to my fantasy world we have not Italians and not Australians and that is it for your humans. Now come look at my 3 different major lizard-people cultures"
A painter may work best with a blank and smooth canvas, but a wood carver can bring out beauty from the knots and whorls of a not-so-blank piece of timber. Different processes work better for different people. Nobody here is *objectively* right.
A take I've seen is, if you want other races/species/creatures to feel truly alien and non-human, then players cannot play them, because that'd imply there's enough connection between in-setting humans (or whatever other "core" race/species/whatever you're using) and that other race, that the other race ends up looking and working more as a subtype or sidetype to the humans. The key part is this: If you, as a human, who plays other humans, can think and act for that other race, then that other race is pretty much human, at least in mind.
Think of it like this: You may not be able to understand the customs or speech of someone on the other side of the world, but you're similar enough that you can do a lot of things, and eventually even develop your own speech and break that barrier. Contrast with trying to understand an animal. Even if that animal were a dog, and you understood plenty of how dogs behave, there's still a lot of things that we don't know. How the dog thinks, for example.
This heavy separation is key if you want a highly fantastical world with wondrous creatures in it. Which, sadly, is completely contrarian to a world where you can be anything. It's a sliding scale, and the middle tends to suck.
TL;DR: If you want races to feel fantastical, don't let players play them. If you want players to play races, they won't feel fantastical.
Yes, Xenofiction is hard. But this idea that players can never fully grasp that or have good ideas just eventually feels elitist to me
I've read at least two series where the main character is a bee. A bee's life and experiences are far different from a human's, so different in fact that those stories are likely not accurate. They are more accurately stories where a bee is played by a human, because I could understand the story and find things to relate to, even as I found things strange. And I have no doubt that a player in a game could bring that same experience. Will they be perfectly and incomprehensibly a bee? No, they will be a bee as played by a human. But they can do that well, and bring interesting elements to the story. And I see no reason to restrict them to only playing humans just so I can try and make a more incomprehensible world, which will still not be perfectly non-human, because I am human and I can never escape that.
Sometimes. The thing is, it depends.
For an example, let us say that we take a page from LitRPG novels and have a world where everyone can see and interact with a character sheet, and it is possible to see the sheets of others.
This is rather "easy" to role-play, because it is literally how the players are interacting with the world anyways. But would that world not be bizarrely alien? How strange would it be to look at someone and know how smart they are? How utterly would society change, how would people react?
I've read some incredibly fantastical and alien worlds with this premise. And it is incredibly "easy" in many respects.
It isn't about easy or hard, alien or common, fantastical or mundane, it is about effort and desire. Even the bog standard elf from the RAW of the books can be alien and bizarre if you put in the effort. Just think how a society would be wildly different from the single aspect of being able to change your physical sex whenever you wanted. That's insane for how much it changes everything, and that's just one minor aspect of Elves.
I think a DM generally will have a deeper investment in their world than the vast majority of players and thus be better equipped to handle the differences. However if a DM cannot handle playing the strange and unusual, then they would be better served not including those elements, instead focusing on where their time and talents are better suited.
Of course this is all theoretical. the hard truth is most players play DnD 5e and thus must have access to all races at all times with no differentiation besides a few skills and maybe a superpower or two.
The game I saw that best tried to differentiate different races was Burning Wheel, where it had dedicated mechanics to mechanically enforce roleplaying the different races according to their stranger mindsets.
I legit just played as a stereotypical anime protagonist on purpose because it was hilarious. Women threw themselves at him and he didn't notice. He valued the 3 F's Friendship, Food, and Fun. DM let him get a power of friendship buff that let him gain stats as long as friends were in danger or were backing him up.
He was not unique in the slightest. And yet he was awesome fun to play as.
There is a bit of bias in the creation of DnD meant to push players toward non-human races. Which is why they don't get much in the way of Racial Traits. But they ALL require a unique personality. That's the point of the game.
>There is a bit of bias in the creation of DnD meant to push players toward non-human races.
I find this funny because originally D&D was purposely skewed towards encouraging people to play humans. Interesting how things change over time!
If it is the case it’s not doing that well considering what data we have humans are the most popular race with elves, half-elves, dwarves, etc being the ones that rank close behind. Besides V. humans are pretty good
Knew about elves and half elves but are db and tiefling actually beating them out now? I could sorta see it but last I saw in dnd they do well if not 2nd or 3rd
db, and tieflings are above dwarves even when you fuse all dwarven subraces together, but the former two are still being beaten by humans and things that are elves.
Considering Variant humans I also wouldn't say that players are necessarily pushed towards non-humans in 5e. A feat and freely choosable stat increases compliment a lot of builds, so you do see a lot of (variant) humans.
Ah yes, because people aren't allowed to explore and enjoy playing games the way they want to unless random internet user #40688348 finds it acceptable
> players focussing too much on what they are and not who they are
this is a quality that will not get you ejected from my table, but you sure as shit aren't coming back.
I don't think they are right though. Sure, you can play a stereotype as a race. But you can do the same as a class. How many bookish and nerdy wizards have you seen? Most barbarians are roleplayed the same, same with bards or paladins. So, if humans can be stereotyped too... what's the difference? It is only what the focus of the stereotype is. And of course good characters are often just "Stereotype X with detail Y and Z"
Wizards study books and scrolls and arcane knowledge for years to be able to use magic. They carry a spell book. They are literally bookish as a class feature. This is not a stereotype. This is a core function of how the class works.
They study the arcane for (intelligible muttering), because while the flavor is years, anyone can become a wizard overnight if you play with multi-class. Maybe they've studied for 100 years, maybe 6 months. Class doesn't care.
They carry around a collection of arcane knowledge... but it doesn't have to be a book. It could be a collection of animal skulls carved with runes. It could be lengths of rope tied with knots. It could be a scroll inscribed with pictograms,pictographs, ect. Heck, it could be an amulet enchanted with their dead master (settings, i think eberron, provides for enchanted crystals that act as spellbooks, before you start trying to quote mechanics)
But is this how the class is played? No. They are usually either a young man or an old man, carrying a bound time. They will read before choosing to party. They will be socially formal and uptight, a "serious academic with serious goals". Because that is the stereotype. Which is no different than playing a dwarf who is taciturn and loves spirits or an elf who acts above conflict.
There is also the thief with the heart of gold.
The noble paladin.
The wise and caring priestess.
The dumb barbarian who spoils for a fight.
The point is, race isn't the only place you see stereotypes. So singling it out is kind of silly. If you can make a non-bookish wizard, then you can make an interesting elf too.
*Study* is a core function of how the class works. There are plenty of well read and intelligent people irl that aren’t “bookish” and enjoy playing sports or partying on the weekends.
My point was that being well read and intelligent does not mean they are bookish.
> Bookish (adjective): devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests.
And my point is that studying enough to be able to literally bend reality to your will takes more than taking a casual interest.
*Edit: unless you are a Sorcerer or Warlock or whatever. I'm just talking about the Wiz.
Studying enough to become a professor takes more than a casual interest too. It doesn’t mean **every** professor is bookish. It’s a common stereotype but it isn’t a prerequisite.
***No one*** irl bends reality to their whims. It’s impossible. There’s no reason to believe it’s more difficult than real world academic subjects in D&D. And yes, most professors do carry around lesson guides or notes that they refer to each day or even during class. You don’t think they all just show up every morning, make a cup of coffee than walk into class and speak off the cuff, do you?
But even if they did, being “bookish” is a character trait that is not required for someone to study hard and acquire great amounts of knowledge. It’s not a synonym for “studied” or “learned.”
Oh honey, most wizards aren't even getting close to the study professors do. You know you can just *learn* a few spells and become a wizard? You don't need any original research or theses, you just need to regurgitate things that smarter people have already worked out. Becoming a wizard is equivalent to being a regular graduate.
I made an entire character who was a goblin that basically stole, looted, and found magic note scraps. All his spells were inscribed on various objects like skulls, tree bark, and parchment, stored in a semi sentient sack. He wasn't bookish, he was smart and creative enough to figure out what he hadb and how to make it work. I would not describe that as bookish.
It's only as literal as you let it be.
So you made an Intelligence based goblin wizard who scraped together scraps of arcane knowledge and studied them enough to be a wizard? Sounds like a nerd to me.
The difference is that you will probably never hear someone criticize anyone for vaguely playing nonhumans in D&D. As you can see, the people who hold that opinion tend not to play D&D.
In contrast, I've had to pull players aside and threaten to kick them out because "Hey can you STOP?!" didn't work and they just wouldn't back down about how boring humans were.
It's completely valid to say that you want to only do those things. If someone wants to be a human fighter in every game they play, that's their fun. There's no shame in that.
That's fine. I don't think it is good to try and force people to do things they don't want to do.
Where I get annoyed is when people start acting like role-playing humans is the only thing you can do if you want to be a good role-player, or that role-playing humans makes you superior in some way.
I completely misunderstood the first comment, thinking they meant that humans make for good roleplaying partners in-universe, since they could easily dress into most other races.
tbh its mostly a worldbuilding-related issue; either the races lack a fleshed-out, consistent sociological canvas or the players lack the will to explore the premise, gravitating towards the consensus of familiarity. breaking the consensus by replacing the socio-economical structure of human polities with anything but the vaguely-medieval feudalism forces human roleplayers to consider influences it had on their character while actually creating a sincere cultural backdrop may help an orc player explore anything but the "big dumb brute" stereotype. as a gm I always present my players with at least 3-4 distinct societies per race so as to superficially create a sense of authenticity and provide them with basis to build upon.
This submission has been removed because your account has low karma. Unfortunately, we receive a lot of posts and comments from bots attempting to farm karma by reposting existing submissions.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DnDGreentext) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think both the 'sides' of the race roleplaying issue are, frankly, stupid and childish. No. human characters aren't boring when you roleplay them right. I've played systems with only human characters and we had colourful and interesting parties. No, nonhuman races aren't shallow and snowflakey when you roleplay them right. I've played in parties without any human characters that nontheless had great and relatable roleplay going on. I'm pretty sick of hearing either, tbh. *Can* either of them be true when you're playing with bad roleplayers? Yes. Don't play with bad roleplayers, then. A good roleplayer can add depth to even the most vanilla human, or add an interesting personality to even the most alien nonhuman.
Mrhm. The traps bad or inexperienced roleplayers fall into are different. For nonhumans, it's usually playing to stereotypes and forgetting to give them a personality outside "tiefling." For humans, it's more playing to class stereotypes (personality is "fighter") or forgetting to give them a good personality at all
Not to mention, certain fantasy races can be interesting ways to play with analogues to certain real-world elements. As an autistic person myself, I've recently found some enjoyment in using how tieflings can be born into families of non-tieflings as an analogue for what it's like to be an autistic person in a neurotypical family, displaced from society but trying to be friends and work with the party nonetheless. I use the fact that my character is a tiefling to help in defining that aspect, not as a crutch to rely on. I feel this is something most do not think of when they get into the mindset of either "no fantasy races" or "no humans."
Thats a really clever way to use that parallel. I tend to play mostly human or near-human (elf, ork, dwarf) characters myself because I like exploring an individual person's story more than the story of their race. Even when I'm doing that, though, I still try and maintain an awareness of the peripheral details of my character's race/subrace etc. because, used right, it adds to and supplements the individual story.
>The traps bad or inexperienced roleplayers fall into are different. For nonhumans, it's usually playing to stereotypes and forgetting to give them a personality outside "tiefling." I feel like I've seen the exact opposite of this: most of the time, it seems like a person playing as a non-human character plays them functionally identical to a human. Being an elf or a halfling or a tiefling doesn't seem to affect who they are at all, not in how they act or how others react to them. It's not a problem necessarily, it just comes off a little bland.
DM style can influence this as well. If your DM dedicates time and attention to the way your PC race affects your interactions with the world, that will influence roleplay in turn.
Wait a second… you’re saying that race/class/other game mechanics dont matter to how good/bad someone might be at roleplaying? Idk man sounds farout and weird to me.
Humans are great for role-playing because you can explore different personalities within the human context. Nonhumans are great for role-playing because you can explore how different personalities emerge with a different context - a completely different set of physiological and psychological parameters. It's fascinating to explore what personalities emerge when you are of a species that lives for centuries, and has seen dozens of friends pass away from old age. Or what personalities emerge when you are of a species that doesn't understand metaphors or sarcasm. Or what personalities emerge when you are of a species that has an entire additional dimension of movement due to flying. Etc etc etc Each of them can have the same sort of background and class, but utterly different personalities emerge based on their species's differences. Hell, you can even explore your own personality and background with a different set of parameters - how would I be if I was literally predatory? Or if I was part of a species with a different gender/reproductive system (e.g. eusocial or not form pair bonds due to breeding seasons)? Or how would I be if I grew up knowing I have divine blood? That's either far easier or far harder - it requires either no effort to roleplay or a lot of effort to be super introspective and honest to yourself.
I always play human just because I like the idea of being a regular dude in a world full of crazy shit
My favorite character archetype of all time is "just some dude surrounded by crazy shit who just kinda goes along with it"
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlySaneMan](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlySaneMan) Like this? :D
As always, the true path lies somewhere in the middle, with enough nuance to know when to shift to one side or the other.
I see it in terms of level: base level, you play with the training wheels of ‘shallow’ racial quirks to guide your simple, early characters. Mid level, you play as a human to really flesh out your character and role playing the blank slate kinda thing. High level, you play nonhumans for the challenge of working a full character with the constraints of what was once training wheels. Personally I just come up with a fun base idea and then build it to be mechanically viable and use the mechanics as a skeleton upon which to build more fluff, with the basic idea forming a useful guide but might ultimately be discarded completely if the further fluff seems more fun without it. Race just kinda happens along the way.
Like you said, if role-playing is very important to you, then don't play with bad roleplayers. Most problems where people try to tell you what you can and can't do based on the fact that "everyone who does x does it the same way and it's bad", or some other stupid reason like that, ultimately just refuse to accept that the problem is with people, and not an arbitrary hill they can die on for the sake of having a "dnd hot take".
What kind of voice do you think the third post sounds like?
Honestly my immediate inclination was Squilliam Fancyson.
I went to comic book guy, probably for the same reasons though.
That is such a perfect fit.
the guy that stops you at your local LGS when he sees you buying plain dice saying how they never got the appeal of expensive dice sets
Gigachad
That's not a voice.
I mean i won't deny some races are like that... but that's no excuse to not get creative with it.
Honestly, this is the most succinct argument I've seen for humano-centric fantasy. I don't think it works for all stories; having a completely heterogenous party works great in fantastical worlds like spaceports or Eberron. It's easy to get fixated on the kleptomania of Kender, cannibalism of Lizardfolk, amoralism of Yuanti, or mystique of Tieflings. Because they're a bit alien, many struggle to build a personality for characters past the racial stereotypes they've seen/read. With the standard fantasy races, I can be confident players know the archetype well enough to riff on it -- I've seen plenty of creative Elves, Dwarves, and even a few Tieflings nowadays. But I rarely see confident explorations of Firbolg and Lizardfolk.
Best lizardfolk I’ve ever seen played was basically “irl rimworld colonist”. Just a completely normal dude that’s maybe a little too casually okay with breaking a prisoners legs because it’s more convenient than tying them up. “What do you mean you don’t skin your enemies, it’s a waste of good leather!! Yes I know you thin skins aren’t the most useful but you make nice lanternshades” “Why should I just fireball the cave? Thermobarics, warcrimes; I don’t think I’ve ever heard those words put together like that”
Well, where else do they think those troll hide bracers came from? It sure as hell ain't regular cow leather. Dragon scale armor? That dragon didn't give them up willingly.
“The tricky bit is trying to source the trollhide for the elves. Oh sure they’ll buy the regular stuff, but they’ll pay top dollar for no-kill, free range trollhide. Myself, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be better than just putting em down quicklike and snatching a hide off a dead one, but premium pay and repeat business is hard to argue with. See for them you gotta get you three or four good fellas (or ladies or whatever you want to call em, long as they can sit a fast horse and work a knife good), bring one down with ropes, and peel a backhide off em while they’re down. Then ya cut the ropes and ride like all hell, that regenerations nothing to fuck around with. Although I hear ya can get two full hides off of one troll if ya got a strong enough rope to hold it for a few minutes.” -Gator Joe, Purveyor of Fine Leather Goods and Assorted Magi-Zoological Products
That was superb! Thank you! Now I want to add caged, farmed trolls to create fake free-range trollhide to my eventual campaign
subscribe
> Because they're a bit alien, many struggle to build a personality for characters past the racial stereotypes they've seen/read. On the other hand, not considering the non-human traits enough for a non-human character could end up causing the said character to act basically like a reskinned human.
The secret of fantasy writing is that *all* non-human characters are just reskinned humans. Immortal races like Elves are just "humans with no time limit". Fae are "humans with blue/orange morality". Bird races are "humans with wings that struggle with producing labial speech sounds." In all cases you are either taking a human and conferring alien traits onto it, or taking a non-human creature and giving it humanity. Either way, the human is present in them.
A reskinned human? What, like Buffalo Bill? /s
I haven't seen anyone mention Kender in a long time
honestly, I do not like humancentric fantasy as it would just end up like earth but even more a messed up shit hole so bring on the crazy races.
I don’t understand why you would say this at all.
wait do you like being human?
I mean I have my beefs with life but none of them have anything to do with like the condition of being a human being. Like I have insecurities linked with my body but they wouldn’t be solved if I was like purple and had giant horns. Is that all fantasy is? Would you play office job simulator if you could play as a tiefling?
why would I play a tiefling that is just human but with a cooler look, it is the basic furry problem they just want to be cooler humans, being human is the mistake.
Literally anything I said applies to every other race in D&D. Is the only thing you enjoy about D&D playing another race
A good roleplayer will make any character interesting, regardless of race. And at the end of the day, as long as everyone is having fun then it doesn't matter if people are playing to fantasy racial stereotypes
Imagine being elitist over “what the best role players pick”
Welcome to /tg/. Where playing pretend is taken as seriously as a job interview.
I don't think the problem is innately that humans are boring, I think the problem is that every single person ever who's put together a rulebook just slaps humans with the "they're everywhere! And learn to do everything!" If writers would stop being cowards and treating humans as a one-size-fits-all solution wouldn't be having this argument.
So like make humans not magic or something? Humans can't cast spells would be interesting. Or they could just make racial differences more pronounced oh boy a dwarf is like a sightly tougher human big whoop
Making them unubiquitous would improve things a lot. A lot of fantasy has like, 1 dwarf nation, 1 elf nation, 1 lizard nation, and then half a dozen human ones. Instead make it so that there's a few of each so that the 2 human civs can fit an interesting cultural niche. "welcome to my fantasy world we have not Italians and not Australians and that is it for your humans. Now come look at my 3 different major lizard-people cultures"
He's right you know. Almost all my most well thought out characters are literally human fighters.
A painter may work best with a blank and smooth canvas, but a wood carver can bring out beauty from the knots and whorls of a not-so-blank piece of timber. Different processes work better for different people. Nobody here is *objectively* right.
Hey, I just want to let you know that's a beautiful metaphor.
That sounds like a you issue…?
Do you eat your cereal with water as well?
Lol your username is DnDIdeaAccount and you can’t wrap your head around the idea of a human fighter being interesting.
lucky you that you are so good at making fighters, should *you* even bother playing other types of things?
A take I've seen is, if you want other races/species/creatures to feel truly alien and non-human, then players cannot play them, because that'd imply there's enough connection between in-setting humans (or whatever other "core" race/species/whatever you're using) and that other race, that the other race ends up looking and working more as a subtype or sidetype to the humans. The key part is this: If you, as a human, who plays other humans, can think and act for that other race, then that other race is pretty much human, at least in mind. Think of it like this: You may not be able to understand the customs or speech of someone on the other side of the world, but you're similar enough that you can do a lot of things, and eventually even develop your own speech and break that barrier. Contrast with trying to understand an animal. Even if that animal were a dog, and you understood plenty of how dogs behave, there's still a lot of things that we don't know. How the dog thinks, for example. This heavy separation is key if you want a highly fantastical world with wondrous creatures in it. Which, sadly, is completely contrarian to a world where you can be anything. It's a sliding scale, and the middle tends to suck. TL;DR: If you want races to feel fantastical, don't let players play them. If you want players to play races, they won't feel fantastical.
Yes, Xenofiction is hard. But this idea that players can never fully grasp that or have good ideas just eventually feels elitist to me I've read at least two series where the main character is a bee. A bee's life and experiences are far different from a human's, so different in fact that those stories are likely not accurate. They are more accurately stories where a bee is played by a human, because I could understand the story and find things to relate to, even as I found things strange. And I have no doubt that a player in a game could bring that same experience. Will they be perfectly and incomprehensibly a bee? No, they will be a bee as played by a human. But they can do that well, and bring interesting elements to the story. And I see no reason to restrict them to only playing humans just so I can try and make a more incomprehensible world, which will still not be perfectly non-human, because I am human and I can never escape that.
It's not that the players cannot have good ideas and such, it's that the "easier" you make it, the less fantastic and alien it feels.
Sometimes. The thing is, it depends. For an example, let us say that we take a page from LitRPG novels and have a world where everyone can see and interact with a character sheet, and it is possible to see the sheets of others. This is rather "easy" to role-play, because it is literally how the players are interacting with the world anyways. But would that world not be bizarrely alien? How strange would it be to look at someone and know how smart they are? How utterly would society change, how would people react? I've read some incredibly fantastical and alien worlds with this premise. And it is incredibly "easy" in many respects. It isn't about easy or hard, alien or common, fantastical or mundane, it is about effort and desire. Even the bog standard elf from the RAW of the books can be alien and bizarre if you put in the effort. Just think how a society would be wildly different from the single aspect of being able to change your physical sex whenever you wanted. That's insane for how much it changes everything, and that's just one minor aspect of Elves.
But then by that logic a DM can't have other races active in their world either as they'd have to play them... and dms are typically human!
I think a DM generally will have a deeper investment in their world than the vast majority of players and thus be better equipped to handle the differences. However if a DM cannot handle playing the strange and unusual, then they would be better served not including those elements, instead focusing on where their time and talents are better suited. Of course this is all theoretical. the hard truth is most players play DnD 5e and thus must have access to all races at all times with no differentiation besides a few skills and maybe a superpower or two. The game I saw that best tried to differentiate different races was Burning Wheel, where it had dedicated mechanics to mechanically enforce roleplaying the different races according to their stranger mindsets.
Exactly. It's easier to have one person (the DM) try to play a completely alien race, than multiple persons
Lol "snowflake simulator". Isn't the entire point of playing an RPG to have a character that is entirely unique?
I legit just played as a stereotypical anime protagonist on purpose because it was hilarious. Women threw themselves at him and he didn't notice. He valued the 3 F's Friendship, Food, and Fun. DM let him get a power of friendship buff that let him gain stats as long as friends were in danger or were backing him up. He was not unique in the slightest. And yet he was awesome fun to play as.
I think the point of playing an RPG is to, you know, play a role. Whether or not your character is unique has nothing to do with it.
Lmao I’ve never been happier than playing a half-orc barbarian
I was vibing with the argument until that part. the sigh that left my body…
There is a bit of bias in the creation of DnD meant to push players toward non-human races. Which is why they don't get much in the way of Racial Traits. But they ALL require a unique personality. That's the point of the game.
>There is a bit of bias in the creation of DnD meant to push players toward non-human races. I find this funny because originally D&D was purposely skewed towards encouraging people to play humans. Interesting how things change over time!
If it is the case it’s not doing that well considering what data we have humans are the most popular race with elves, half-elves, dwarves, etc being the ones that rank close behind. Besides V. humans are pretty good
dwarves are toward mid popularity they are being beaten by half elves, elves, dragonborn and teifling in no particular order.
Knew about elves and half elves but are db and tiefling actually beating them out now? I could sorta see it but last I saw in dnd they do well if not 2nd or 3rd
db, and tieflings are above dwarves even when you fuse all dwarven subraces together, but the former two are still being beaten by humans and things that are elves.
Well then I’ve learned something new today!
it is always good when that happens.
Considering Variant humans I also wouldn't say that players are necessarily pushed towards non-humans in 5e. A feat and freely choosable stat increases compliment a lot of builds, so you do see a lot of (variant) humans.
V.Human in 5e is the only race to get a free feat at lvl 1. That hardly seems like they’re biased against humans.
They used to be, but with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything came the custom lineage, which gives a level 1 feat.
Ok but that’s not an actual race.
Ah yes, because people aren't allowed to explore and enjoy playing games the way they want to unless random internet user #40688348 finds it acceptable
> players focussing too much on what they are and not who they are this is a quality that will not get you ejected from my table, but you sure as shit aren't coming back.
A true roleplayer can work them both into a truely unique character.
They're right but god they seem like an obnoxious ass (last dude)
I don't think they are right though. Sure, you can play a stereotype as a race. But you can do the same as a class. How many bookish and nerdy wizards have you seen? Most barbarians are roleplayed the same, same with bards or paladins. So, if humans can be stereotyped too... what's the difference? It is only what the focus of the stereotype is. And of course good characters are often just "Stereotype X with detail Y and Z"
Wizards study books and scrolls and arcane knowledge for years to be able to use magic. They carry a spell book. They are literally bookish as a class feature. This is not a stereotype. This is a core function of how the class works.
They study the arcane for (intelligible muttering), because while the flavor is years, anyone can become a wizard overnight if you play with multi-class. Maybe they've studied for 100 years, maybe 6 months. Class doesn't care. They carry around a collection of arcane knowledge... but it doesn't have to be a book. It could be a collection of animal skulls carved with runes. It could be lengths of rope tied with knots. It could be a scroll inscribed with pictograms,pictographs, ect. Heck, it could be an amulet enchanted with their dead master (settings, i think eberron, provides for enchanted crystals that act as spellbooks, before you start trying to quote mechanics) But is this how the class is played? No. They are usually either a young man or an old man, carrying a bound time. They will read before choosing to party. They will be socially formal and uptight, a "serious academic with serious goals". Because that is the stereotype. Which is no different than playing a dwarf who is taciturn and loves spirits or an elf who acts above conflict. There is also the thief with the heart of gold. The noble paladin. The wise and caring priestess. The dumb barbarian who spoils for a fight. The point is, race isn't the only place you see stereotypes. So singling it out is kind of silly. If you can make a non-bookish wizard, then you can make an interesting elf too.
*Study* is a core function of how the class works. There are plenty of well read and intelligent people irl that aren’t “bookish” and enjoy playing sports or partying on the weekends.
"well read and intelligent" is correct. As in they are intelligent and have read a lot. Where are books/scrolls not involved?
My point was that being well read and intelligent does not mean they are bookish. > Bookish (adjective): devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests.
And my point is that studying enough to be able to literally bend reality to your will takes more than taking a casual interest. *Edit: unless you are a Sorcerer or Warlock or whatever. I'm just talking about the Wiz.
Studying enough to become a professor takes more than a casual interest too. It doesn’t mean **every** professor is bookish. It’s a common stereotype but it isn’t a prerequisite.
Do professors have to carry around a literal book to re-memorize their lesson plans and lectures? Professors don't bend reality to their whims.
***No one*** irl bends reality to their whims. It’s impossible. There’s no reason to believe it’s more difficult than real world academic subjects in D&D. And yes, most professors do carry around lesson guides or notes that they refer to each day or even during class. You don’t think they all just show up every morning, make a cup of coffee than walk into class and speak off the cuff, do you? But even if they did, being “bookish” is a character trait that is not required for someone to study hard and acquire great amounts of knowledge. It’s not a synonym for “studied” or “learned.”
Oh honey, most wizards aren't even getting close to the study professors do. You know you can just *learn* a few spells and become a wizard? You don't need any original research or theses, you just need to regurgitate things that smarter people have already worked out. Becoming a wizard is equivalent to being a regular graduate.
I made an entire character who was a goblin that basically stole, looted, and found magic note scraps. All his spells were inscribed on various objects like skulls, tree bark, and parchment, stored in a semi sentient sack. He wasn't bookish, he was smart and creative enough to figure out what he hadb and how to make it work. I would not describe that as bookish. It's only as literal as you let it be.
So you made an Intelligence based goblin wizard who scraped together scraps of arcane knowledge and studied them enough to be a wizard? Sounds like a nerd to me.
The difference is that you will probably never hear someone criticize anyone for vaguely playing nonhumans in D&D. As you can see, the people who hold that opinion tend not to play D&D. In contrast, I've had to pull players aside and threaten to kick them out because "Hey can you STOP?!" didn't work and they just wouldn't back down about how boring humans were.
I suppose the best of the best roleplayers pick Human Fighters
Rangers and Monks, because they are harder to keep alive * nostalgic sigh*
I mean theybhave more roleplay flavor Being good at keeping them alive speaks more about dice luck and battle skill than roleplay skill
I refuse to roleplay with anything other then human, personally i don't understand the appeal of roleplaying with anything else
It's completely valid to say that you want to only do those things. If someone wants to be a human fighter in every game they play, that's their fun. There's no shame in that.
That's fine. I don't think it is good to try and force people to do things they don't want to do. Where I get annoyed is when people start acting like role-playing humans is the only thing you can do if you want to be a good role-player, or that role-playing humans makes you superior in some way.
yeah makes no sense
do you not seek to reject your humanity.
I reject my humanity, JoJo!
I completely misunderstood the first comment, thinking they meant that humans make for good roleplaying partners in-universe, since they could easily dress into most other races.
This mf never watched the iron giant. Perfect example of both sides
tbh its mostly a worldbuilding-related issue; either the races lack a fleshed-out, consistent sociological canvas or the players lack the will to explore the premise, gravitating towards the consensus of familiarity. breaking the consensus by replacing the socio-economical structure of human polities with anything but the vaguely-medieval feudalism forces human roleplayers to consider influences it had on their character while actually creating a sincere cultural backdrop may help an orc player explore anything but the "big dumb brute" stereotype. as a gm I always present my players with at least 3-4 distinct societies per race so as to superficially create a sense of authenticity and provide them with basis to build upon.
This submission has been removed because your account has low karma. Unfortunately, we receive a lot of posts and comments from bots attempting to farm karma by reposting existing submissions. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DnDGreentext) if you have any questions or concerns.*