D&D 5E What's wrong with a human-centric fantasy world?

[Li Shenron]

As no nothing fantastical left about them, I think the main issue is most people expect Middle Earth's Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits(es), but it's up the player/s and the GM's description of the race in his world.

I am not a Tolkien expert at all, but actually this feeling I'm talking about in this thread came back to me once more after watching the latest Hobbit movie, which gave me a very different feel about demihuman races.

"The Battle of the Five Armies" -> Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Orcs are not as rare as provoking awe: everybody seem to take their existence pretty much the norm. But all of them live secluded somewhere else, and stick to their kind most of the time, except in times of war against common enemies. Furthermore, looking at the size of the "armies", it seems possible there is not that many of them in the world.

"Dungeons and Dragons" -> everywhere is full of Elves, Dwarves and Halflings (but also Gnomes, Half-orcs, Dragonborn, Tieflings... for fear than any player's PC is treated unfairly?). Even an apparently small percentage as 5% of race X in a town is actually a lot more than in Tolkien. It seems to me there just isn't anybody living within other races territories, just very temporary visitors at most.

There are also strong tendencies in D&D to "humanize" non-human races as much as possible, for instance by assuming all of them have authorities, economy, laws, technology, professions etc. similar to humans. I am not sure, but I didn't get the feeling that Tolkien reveals much about those aspects, and if you don't reveal/explain too much then you can actually imagine they are completely different.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't see anything wrong with it.

The real issue is the DM. Human centric worlds are harder to make interesting as if requires more work to make the different human cities, cultures, and governments different.

On the other hand, human centric worlds make it easy for DMs to "cheat" and copy real world countries and cultures. Once that happens it takes more DM skill to keep the fantastic element.

(Brimland is the "English", Moley is the "French",Bonita City is "Spain" as a city state, The Mugars at the "Germans", zzzz).

Once you do that, only skilled DMs cab keep the wonder and you have the same boring feelings as "kitchen sink" worlds.

 

[aramis erak]

Humans Are Boring.

Mind you, in the right setting, Humans are perfectly fine. But for the most part, I play D&D to experience the fantastic over grim, gritty realism... and that usually means non-humans.

I love the diversity in many different not-really-diverse societies.

Demihumans are just as boring.

If not played well, sure.

Player skill can make the boring rock, and the rocking great into a total flow of excrement.

One of the more memorable campaigns I ran (it only made level 4) was an all halfling party under 3.0E... quite the hoot, actually. Another (similar) campaign, using a non-D&D engine, was 3 gargoyles (or as they insisted, 1 gargoyle and 2 gargoys...), playing on some very thick stereotypes...

Yeah, because we wouldn't want players to decide how their PCs behave. That would be too much BadWrongFun.

If one awards, as is suggested in Cyclopedia, 1/20 of a level for good RP every session, the Elf whose best buds with the dwarves shouldn't get it, and should be told why.

It's carrot and stick... people do what gets rewarded, and if you reward (and announce why) the good RP bonus based upon the combination of class, race and character history, you tend to get general compliance.

Yes, it's basic educational theory... it's also part of games theory, and part of certain periods of RPGforge theory... and especially part of Burning Wheel HQ's design approach, and to a lesser extent, 5E's design.

See, the reward for good RP is a free "I want to use my Inspiration Advantage"... and that makes for a feedback cycle. The guys who do play what's there, and what's in the race profile, they get to do wilder stuff more often with success. And then, because they don't have it to spend, they do something "ethnic" or "backgroundy" to get it back.

 

[gweinel]

Thats the reason in my current campaign I actually don't have other playable races but different human cultures with cultural traits and feats. It works as intented.

 

[delericho]

I want to try and push these non-human races out of the common and restore a tiny little bit of wonder about them, not jeopardize a player's desires. What would be wrong with this?

Nothing whatsoever if that's what you want - provided you can get your players to go along with it.

Of course, if you're hoping to see WotC provide a published setting that does this, you may be in for a very long wait...

 

[Minigiant]

Demihumans are just as boring.

Demihumans with no unique history or flavor are even worse.

And that's the issue. Copycats.

There have been so many "human centric with stereotypical demihumans on the outside" worlds in tabletop, board games, video games, novels, TV and movies. Many people are bored with it and many times the creator do nothing interesting.

Now the same is happening with "kitchen sink" fantasies (mostly due to mmorpgs, wargames, and single player video gaming). This is why the big games in fantasy gaming DUMP lore on you nowadays.

So the onus is put on the DM to unboring the world

 

[Evhelm]

I am not a Tolkien expert at all, but actually this feeling I'm talking about in this thread came back to me once more after watching the latest Hobbit movie, which gave me a very different feel about demihuman races.

"The Battle of the Five Armies" -> Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Orcs are not as rare as provoking awe: everybody seem to take their existence pretty much the norm. But all of them live secluded somewhere else, and stick to their kind most of the time, except in times of war against common enemies. Furthermore, looking at the size of the "armies", it seems possible there is not that many of them in the world.

I think you're right about this. Tolkien goes to great lengths to commission a world where the differences between the sentient races have been a cause for enmity and fear (rather than, for example, the Star Trek idea of IDIC). That's not to say that Tolkien's races aren't designed to work in harmony--they are--but the Melkor/Morgoth influence on the world means that even within a race there are splinters, rather than combines. Hence, different nations of men, different nations of elves, and different clans of dwarves.

"Dungeons and Dragons" -> everywhere is full of Elves, Dwarves and Halflings (but also Gnomes, Half-orcs, Dragonborn, Tieflings... for fear than any player's PC is treated unfairly?). Even an apparently small percentage as 5% of race X in a town is actually a lot more than in Tolkien. It seems to me there just isn't anybody living within other races territories, just very temporary visitors at most.

There are also strong tendencies in D&D to "humanize" non-human races as much as possible, for instance by assuming all of them have authorities, economy, laws, technology, professions etc. similar to humans. I am not sure, but I didn't get the feeling that Tolkien reveals much about those aspects, and if you don't reveal/explain too much then you can actually imagine they are completely different.

Tolkien does go into some detail on this, but as you have intuited, I think he goes to some lengths to alienate the races from one another; he describes them both in terms of their similarities to humans and in terms of their differences. I think he hinges a lot of it on the lifespan of the various races. By granting elves literal immortality (i.e. no natural/old-age death) he sets them wildly apart from short-lived humans. Dwarves are an interesting case in that they straddle the line: long-lived by human standards, but still incomparable to immortals. Hobbits...well, hobbits seem to be a less developed idea (ironically). They do live longer than humans, but not by much?

At any rate, the different life-spans create different lifestyles. Some off the cuff thoughts on this:

Elves have forever to do things, so they tend to be meticulous, serene, and aloof. An elf's life is worth a hundred of any "lesser" race's lives because a single elf can outlive all one hundred of that lesser being's lifespans stacked end to end. Elves have the capacity to look at other race's lifespans the way a human looks at a fruit fly: they live too short a time to really develop into "personhood". (Not that this is the default elven view, but that they have the capacity to see it this way.)

Dwarves have centuries to build, perfect, and train. They're not a "chosen" race and have none of the hopeful qualities associated with humans or elves. Their values are ingrained in them: a love of beauty (that can turn to greed), a love of strength (that can turn to power-lust), and a love of kin (that can turn to xenophobia). Add a few centuries of life to each of those values and you get traditions that cover every aspect of dwarven life.

Humans are the odd ducks in that they (a) die and (b) that death is considered a "gift" because they'll have some strange role in the world-to-come (whereas elves and dwarves will not). Their short lifespans make them jealous/admiring of the grandeur and depth of culture in other races. Human nations that survive tend to emulate the traditions of the elder races but with distinctly human twists.

 

[KarinsDad]

If one awards, as is suggested in Cyclopedia, 1/20 of a level for good RP every session, the Elf whose best buds with the dwarves shouldn't get it, and should be told why.

It's carrot and stick... people do what gets rewarded, and if you reward (and announce why) the good RP bonus based upon the combination of class, race and character history, you tend to get general compliance.

Yes, it's basic educational theory... it's also part of games theory, and part of certain periods of RPGforge theory... and especially part of Burning Wheel HQ's design approach, and to a lesser extent, 5E's design.

See, the reward for good RP is a free "I want to use my Inspiration Advantage"... and that makes for a feedback cycle. The guys who do play what's there, and what's in the race profile, they get to do wilder stuff more often with success. And then, because they don't have it to spend, they do something "ethnic" or "backgroundy" to get it back.

Meh. BadWrongFun roleplaying police. Lots of them here on this forum.

Once in a blue moon, I do something totally out of character just for the fun of it. It sometimes results in some of the best laughs at a table. If I had a carrot and stick DM, I'd laugh at him. I'm at the game to have fun. If my roleplaying of my PC in a non-expected or non-traditional manner bothers the DM, he needs to get a life.

 

[Grainger]

I don't like the "kitchen sink" feel either, especially in terms of historicity. I prefer to pick a period, and stick with it. So, no Renaissance weapons, no chainmail and plate in widespread use at the same time, etc. What I've been careful to do is come up with alternatives to banned equipment that keep character classes in balance - so although chain is the best armour in my game, heavy armour users can use "better quality chain", which is - in crunch terms - equivalent to splint, plate, etc. This way I have a different flavour, but retain the game balance. That said, if I was more experienced in running a 5e game, I might play with the crunch aspects - but at the moment, I thought it best to keep it as vanilla as possible.

In terms of fantasy races - I tend to design in quite human-centric terms, as I use real medieval settings as my basis, but I still allow fantasy races, so my players have the choice I might want. The game world is very human-centric, though - with demi-humans somewhat pushed to the edges (players can play them, but most NPCs will be Humans). I'm running a post-Norman-conquest type of setting, but the "Normans" are Elves - giving a racial aspect to the social elite of Lords and Kings who are in charge of the country. Doesn't stop there being plenty of powerful Humans, and there are increasing numbers of Half-Elves around, due to intermarriage...

That all said, I think it's really great to pare D&D back. Settings like BECMI's Hollow World*, or AD&D's Dark Sun really give a unique flavour, while still feeling like D&D. As long as the players are forewarned about the setting, and they enjoy it, of course. If they are the sort to outright demand that all the PHB options are available, then it'll be problematic. But IMO players should have some faith in their DM to come up with an interesting game. I know some DMs might insist on odd rules interpretations that nobble a character class, and irritate fans of that class, but if it's all up-front, problems should be minimised.




*Hollow World severely curtailed magic, for example, rendering many spells unusable. It also made undead much more powerful, and significantly changed up which weapons different classes could use. Was it balanced? I don't know, but it was fun. I could understand if some spellcasting fans were a bit irked, though.

 

[Grainger]

Meh. BadWrongFun roleplaying police. Lots of them here on this forum.

Once in a blue moon, I do something totally out of character just for the fun of it. It sometimes results in some of the best laughs at a table. If I had a carrot and stick DM, I'd laugh at him. I'm at the game to have fun. If my roleplaying of my PC in a non-expected or non-traditional manner bothers the DM, he needs to get a life.

I don't know about other DMs, but if a player did something out of character, but was a highlight of the game, I'd give them advantage anyway. It should be about contribution to the game, not the DM's idea of whether the player is playing their own character correctly (yes, I've been told by DMs in the past that I wasn't roleplaying my own character correctly, and disagreed with them).