D&D 5E Humanocentric Campaigns

[Salamandyr]

I imagine a lot of you, like me, prefer worlds that feel more like Hyborean Earth or Nehwon than Middle Earth. When you're running these kinds of campaigns, do you prefer to require all your players to use the Human race, or do you allow the reflavoring of the demihuman races as types of humans?

For instance, do you let a player who wants to play a short debonair swashbuckler use the halfling race, flavored as a short, handsome human (or some regional ethnicity)?

Or is the preference to just have everyone use the human race stats?

Has anyone worked out rules packages for this kind of thing?

Would anyone else, like me, be interested in a UA or something providing some official rules for getting rid of demihumans while still including mechanical variety?

Or am I just overthinking all this?

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Use stat mods, any relevant skill based bits, lose darkvision, dragon breath etc type abilities thatcher obviously "other". Sure, why not. it's your campaign, do as you feel comfortable.
Bear in mind this topic has come up before and raised some heated debate about the nature ofv roleplaying...

 

[Zelc]

Check out the Rose in the Wind story hour for reskinned races.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...9-2014/page3&p=4738763&viewfull=1#post4738763

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I don't generally reskin races. In a humanocentric campaign (and compared to most modern D&D players, I guess most of my campaigns fall into that category) everyone just uses the human racial stats. It's not any more boring than an all-fighter, or all cleric, etc game. It just causes the players to focus more on the non-mechanical details of their characters, which is kind of fun.

 

[Kobold Stew]

If I were running a anthropocentric campaign, I'd just use the human and variant human.

 

[Greg K]

I don't reskin. I have not, yet, run 5e. When I ran 3e, all humans had to choose a culture which
a) might limit a character's starting class choices or require certain classes to use UA style class variants (e.g. no paladins; sorcerers allowed, but not wizards; no phb rogues, but UA wilderness rogues were ok; no clerics, but allowed Green Ronin's Shaman class (or vice versa), etc.)
b) gave bonuses to certain skills and free ranks in Knowledgeown Culture)
c) for certain cultures, weapons were based upon the 1e Barbarian and David Howery's article, Tracking Down the Barbarian" from Dragon which revised the 1e Barbarian.

In 5e, I would tailor choices of backgrounds and classes. I would also modify some of the classes (armor and weapon proficiencies, skills, and class abilities).... and variant human would be a requirement.

 

[DiFier]

I'm with kobold stew here. Re skinning seems like you are trying to have other races without having other races. If you want humans make humans.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Seeing as I'm someone rarely interested in playing a "humanocentric" (much less running one), I may not really be the kind of person to ask. However, I figure it doesn't hurt to have some input from someone who might actually chafe against the restriction.

Reskinning is nice, in that if someone really appreciates the mechanics of a certain race but doesn't give a hoot about the specific story, you can almost certainly sell the player on some other kind of backstory that will be more relevant to your campaign. That has the twin benefit of giving the player something they want, and giving you an "in" with their character, hooks YOU understand well and can easily make use of. For instance, maybe "dwarves" are really a people from the frozen tundras of the north, trained from birth to fight to survive or to be mystics and seers, thus explaining the weapon skills and wisdom or extra HP. Further, if someone actually did want the aesthetic package (e.g. a player like me), reskinning comes across as more diplomatic and open, since it is (fairly visibly) some kind of actual compromise, rather than being "dogmatic" or "viking-hat" (from the hypothetical player-like-me perspective). If you're trying to pitch the idea, especially to people you don't know (or at least don't know well), it never hurts to show others that you're willing to work with them even if you have clear lines you aren't willing to cross.

Now, that said? Unless you live in an area where it's hard to find players, I'd be genuinely surprised if you couldn't rustle up a group to go for pretty much any campaign concept you can think of, including the "hardline"/"Conanesque" humanocentric one (e.g. Variant Human only, DM strictly controls backgrounds to represent PC cultures, restricted class list, etc.)

I would be interested in seeing what kind of advice WotC would have for this. It's a contentious issue; I'd bet there are several games that either haven't happened or have forced a confrontation because the DM wouldn't allow anything but straight-up humans, and one or more players found that restriction excessive. It's an irresistible force meets immovable object kind of problem, so of course there cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution, but the WotC people have been doing the RPG thing quite a bit longer than I have and might have useful (e.g. nontrivial) suggestions/advice.

 

[SkidAce]

Making the world humanocentric is easy.

Having the group play all humans is harder, because many folks like the iconic racial flavor.

 

[Andor]

It kind of depends on what kind of world you want to portray. If different "races" of humans differ enough to warrant mechanical differences then yes, having reskinned (and probably altered) races is a good way to show it. For example (not intended to be offensive) a race of pygmy people like any of several RW groups might differ enough to warrent reskinning halflings.

Likewise if there are no fantasy races available you could use the design space that leaves behind to show cultural differences. RW Spartans for example with their harsh, militaristic, upbringing might differ enough from other cultures to be worth reskinning dwarves to cover the differences beyond what the backgrounds allow.

In essence it's a valuable bit of game design real estate and if you can harness it to enhance the world you are trying to portray I say go for it. If you think if would be a train wreck of elf fanboys insisting that they are frolicking in the woods in spite of the fact that the racial package was supposed to represent educated and cosmopolitan Myceneans then don't.