Celebrim
Legend
I'm happy to play anything that a DM has thoughtfully crafted.
However, as a DM, it's not really my personal preference because my love of Science Fiction also gives a me a great love for The Alien as an vehicle for exploring the issue of what it means to be Human and as such I really wouldn't want to give up non-human characters.
However, I would like to see just one published setting that really highlights non-humans as alien, sets up the constrasts of the experience of that race with the experience of being humanity, and builds some depth into itself. Too often I see races used purely as mechanical options created to fill mechanical niches or which are merely 'Personality as Race' tropes having no real depth or which are merely shallow Star Trek style 'Humans with Different Bumps On Their Foreheads' and no real exploratory value beyond the assumption that everything which is intelligent and not a monster is also human. Or worse, even the monsters are merely human along with such once avant garde but not seriously over done tropes as 'humans are the real monsters'.
At the same time though, the race has to be accessible enough that a human can actually relate to it. It's a tough balance, and I've never seen a setting really pull it off (though obviously, I'm trying to do it in my homebrew).
However, as a DM, it's not really my personal preference because my love of Science Fiction also gives a me a great love for The Alien as an vehicle for exploring the issue of what it means to be Human and as such I really wouldn't want to give up non-human characters.
However, I would like to see just one published setting that really highlights non-humans as alien, sets up the constrasts of the experience of that race with the experience of being humanity, and builds some depth into itself. Too often I see races used purely as mechanical options created to fill mechanical niches or which are merely 'Personality as Race' tropes having no real depth or which are merely shallow Star Trek style 'Humans with Different Bumps On Their Foreheads' and no real exploratory value beyond the assumption that everything which is intelligent and not a monster is also human. Or worse, even the monsters are merely human along with such once avant garde but not seriously over done tropes as 'humans are the real monsters'.
At the same time though, the race has to be accessible enough that a human can actually relate to it. It's a tough balance, and I've never seen a setting really pull it off (though obviously, I'm trying to do it in my homebrew).
