D&D 5E What is the appeal of the weird fantasy races?

[Snarf Zagyg]

A crutch for what? A shortcut for what?

I don't think that RPing Legolas is an offensive stereotype, lol. While I don't like racism even against fictional races (because it's a sign of something worse in that person), I don't think RPing a stock character is the same. Are there not human archetypes that people play into- aka, the boring fighter, a generic action hero, the edgy rogue, and so on? There's no problem that's limited to alternate Races and no merit that's limited to Humans. And even if it is shallow and exaggerated, it IS role playing. You can't say that it isn't.

I don't have to show you a table that's mastered complex Humans because it doesn't matter. You don't have to graduate the Human tier to play another species- I apologize if I am misinterpreting you, but it seems like you're acting on some sort of rule that someone has to put fleshed Human RP first. "Added challenge" smh. This vibe I'm getting is why I'm trying to say that Humans are just another fantasy hat, and are not more meaningful to play. My argument is that any character that can be played is going to be limited in depth, so playing characters with huge cultural variations is one of the few ways to cut through the mire of laziness with a new perspective. You get something different out of playing an Elf than a Human. The depth of your character does not depend on the race, it's the player. If I showed you a table of borderline Shakespearian Tortles, would you be satisfied?

I can concede humans aren't inherently boring, but "they haven't given much thought to the complexity of our existence" is WAY out of left field. For all intents and purposes, the other races are still people with people problems. Thoughts on life, death, what it means to "be," etc. are universal themes of sapient creatures. You don't have to play a Human race to explore real-world existential perspectives.

My original response to you was because you made the following assertion:

"Playing a human is 'normal' because we already know what those shoes are like to walk in, so it's not like you're really broadening your horizons or imagination."

That is, imo, incorrect at best, risible at worst. Humanity is complex and difficult to understand. In fact, I would go even farther; it is all we have to understand in terms of complex intelligent life. All of the 'extreme' RP models we are using- they have a basis in humanity.

So for someone to say that they cannot play a complex human, that they are unable to broaden their horizons or show some imagination when roleplaying a human? Well, that's, you know, your opinion, man.

I am reminded of a conversation I overheard at a restaurant. One person, who was enjoying the excellent sashimi, was complaining about some French food he had the other day, and said (without irony), "What have the French ever done for cuisine, anyway?" ...ahem...

There are perfectly valid reasons to play non-humans. But to say that they offer a roleplaying experience that is not offered by humans is not, in fact, correct. There is an inherent tension in the last paragraph where you are waxing eloquent about the thoughts of life and death of all sapient creatures; wait, you mean humans, right, because humanity is the only sapient creature we are aware of (or, at least, that has a complex system of communication for these ideas- I don't want to slight any pro-dolphin people out there).

Which means that humanoids, demi-humans, aliens, and other IMAGINARY sapient creatures will always be caricatures. Sometimes they can be valuable explorations! Sometimes they will provide people with "rails" and "rules" for their roleplaying (be dour, drink, and have a scottish accent), but these are crutches at best, and caricatures at worst.

It can be fun, but the purpose (if you are into roleplaying) is to explore humanity by emphasizing certain traits. Not to assert that you already know everything there is to know about humanity, and therefore have to make up new sapient critters.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I'm telling you you're looking for evidence that wouldn't be where you're looking, or appear in the way that you'd prefer. I have also explained why there are more posts about the gameplay- it's the only thing that's standardized amongst the whole community, and is the thing that requires the most outreach to understand and discuss. The party's story stays at the table, but a DM watching that story get derailed by a mechanic they don't understand needs a forum post or two. Players handle their stories when they play, because it's not practical or particularly beneficial to make a Reddit post about the whole story of the campaign to ask one question.

I know and have addressed that there are 3ft/8ft tall humans. It is not relevant because Humans don't have attributes that parallel the cultures and all of the other racial characteristics of the alternate species.

Good for Tolkien, and I think that's a valid thing to do too. Fantasy races are a tool for the exploration of ideas.

And I refute your claim due to its innate bias. "Humans in funny hats" is really coming across like standard personhood is not achievable by other species on their own. Races in DnD don't act like Humans with minor variation, they act like people, which is a common ground between all DnD Humanoids. I'm saying, if you take "personhood" as the base of everything rather than "Human," that's how every race is just a hat, even Human. No matter what, you're just picking mechanics and lore, looking to pick an experience. It's fine if Human is your default choice for DnD, but that is very much your choice/preference, not some sort of objective norm. From how I've read your comments, it sounds like you're giving preferential treatment to one option for no reason in your evaluation of the Race options.

If a character is deep, then they're no longer a silly hat. A shallow Human is just as much a costume as is a shallow Tabaxi. It's a bad character that's a silly hat, not specifically an imperfect nonhuman race character. To close, playing a silly hat isn't even a bad thing- I'm only saying it because that's the term you're using to rank PCs.

The only mind you have is a human mind. The only experience you have is a human experience. As you said yourself, even if you are playing a different human, you would still be a "human in a funny hat" and nothing more.

 

[oreofox]

That's very convoluted.

Such an amazingly profound statement with so little purpose.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Such an amazingly profound statement with so little purpose.

Sorry.

How about...wow that's a really complicated! From what you wrote in the description of you character I gathered that you took alot of different levels of different classes!

 

[Crit]

The only mind you have is a human mind. The only experience you have is a human experience. As you said yourself, even if you are playing a different human, you would still be a "human in a funny hat" and nothing more.

I appreciate your acknowledgment of my point, but there still seems to be a disconnect.

Those first two statements open up discussion to a whole different beast, but I'll try to be short.

The idea of the real-world human experience is something that exists as an axiom. Anything a human experiences is "the human experience," so whatever. In RPG's, we're not going that far because it's not feasible to do on the level we're talking about. I would define the human experience as "personhood" more than our specific anatomy ("physical" humanity), because as you've acknowledged, that's inconsistent and therefore should not be a measure. So playing any sapient species is an exploration of humanity because it's about thoughts and feelings, but also adding on Lore and significant culture and anatomical changes.

Now that we're down to it, my problem with what you've said is that I got the impression that you're dismissing players who make certain choices arbitrarily, despite them being no more incorrect in reality than your preferred choices. If every character and race is a silly hat, then why make a comment about it with that tone and context?

"Human in a silly hat-" to clarify, are you referring to the player, or the race being derivative?

 

[Maxperson]

Let me think... for 5E we've had (IIRC):

Human: 5
Dwarves: 5
Elves: 5
Tieflings: 3
Dragonborn: 2
Firbolgs: 2
Goliaths: 2
Halflings: 2
Half-Orcs: 2
Aarakocra: 1
Gnome: 1
Half-Elf: 1
Lizardman: 1
Tabaxi: 1
Tortle: 1

If you count Human, Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings only as the "common" races, I think it works out to exactly 50/50. Funny, huh?

We haven't played that many campaigns. I think we're at

Humans: 4
Dwarves: 3
Elves: 2
Tieflings: 1
Halflings: 1
Half-Orcs: 1
Gnomes: 1

 

[Crit]

My original response to you was because you made the following assertion:

"Playing a human is 'normal' because we already know what those shoes are like to walk in, so it's not like you're really broadening your horizons or imagination."

That is, imo, incorrect at best, risible at worst. Humanity is complex and difficult to understand. In fact, I would go even farther; it is all we have to understand in terms of complex intelligent life. All of the 'extreme' RP models we are using- they have a basis in humanity.

So for someone to say that they cannot play a complex human, that they are unable to broaden their horizons or show some imagination when roleplaying a human? Well, that's, you know, your opinion, man.

I am reminded of a conversation I overheard at a restaurant. One person, who was enjoying the excellent sashimi, was complaining about some French food he had the other day, and said (without irony), "What have the French ever done for cuisine, anyway?" ...ahem...

There are perfectly valid reasons to play non-humans. But to say that they offer a roleplaying experience that is not offered by humans is not, in fact, correct. There is an inherent tension in the last paragraph where you are waxing eloquent about the thoughts of life and death of all sapient creatures; wait, you mean humans, right, because humanity is the only sapient creature we are aware of (or, at least, that has a complex system of communication for these ideas- I don't want to slight any pro-dolphin people out there).

Which means that humanoids, demi-humans, aliens, and other IMAGINARY sapient creatures will always be caricatures. Sometimes they can be valuable explorations! Sometimes they will provide people with "rails" and "rules" for their roleplaying (be dour, drink, and have a scottish accent), but these are crutches at best, and caricatures at worst.

It can be fun, but the purpose (if you are into roleplaying) is to explore humanity by emphasizing certain traits. Not to assert that you already know everything there is to know about humanity, and therefore have to make up new sapient critters.

When already taking the step to simulate the idea of other sapient species in a setting, I think the idea of humanity changes to incorporate the personhood of non human species, from Elves to aliens. Acknowledging this means that real-world humanity can be tackled from different angles, even though you don't play a human character. I believe this topic will become relevant in regards to alternative life forms soon enough (artificial "humans", those with different genes and anatomy, digital things), as well as those extinct (Homo sapiens' relatives), so I already consider "humanity"/personhood to be more than our species anyway. I failed to properly communicate this earlier, but this is the context I was operating within.

I feel caught between two points that I can't word correctly. It's both, "every character is a caricature" and "any character with sufficient depth and consideration can be exempt from this categorization."

No one can know everything about any topic, especially not something large like personhood. I don't think RPing other creatures does anything other than let you tackle personhood from another perspective.

To rephrase other things, in regard to picking a race, I meant that we are familiar with the superficial details of playing a Human, so trying out life with a shell or horns and a tails is worthwhile because it's a big step that we don't usually get to try. If I'm going to double down on "everything's a costume" then why show up to a Halloween party dressed normally? (an oversimplification but I'm not going to look for a better metaphor. I know Human can simulate every actual human which is incredibly varied, etc.) Regardless of what you choose it's a personhood experience, so why not explore it with pointy ears and 200 years of magic school?

Either way the point I'm trying to get to is that there's a clear rationale for playing niche races, which is equally valid to playing the rest of the races.

 

[prabe]

I'm involved in three 5E campaigns, running two.

The campaign I'm playing in has
Human: 1
Elves: 2 (one wood, one high)
Gnome: 1
Dwarves: 2
Dragonborn: 1

The first campaign I'm running has
Human: 1
Elf: 1
Half-elf: 1
Gnome: 2
Goliath: 1
(retired character: 1 tortle)

The second campaign I'm running has
Elves: 4 (3 wood, 1 high)
Dwarf: 1
(retired character: 1 firbolg)

 

[nevin]

In some games I think people just want to play something different, and if that's thier motivation that's fine. However in my experience Most people that want to play the way out there races are simply people that don't want to be team players, or are soley motivated by min maxing in the game. Those players I deal with by making sure they tend to stay behind the curve of the rest of the party in magic items acquired. If your playing a special character with lots of special abilities, Bob the Fighter is going to get more magic items or DM specials to balance you two out. The most extreme thing I ever did was give the fighter a +2/+5 intelligent sword of Drow slaying because of the pain in the ass rogue that was pissing me and his party off. It could see invisible creatures and capture the spirits of Drow so they couldn't be ressurected. The rogue only made one more game after that. I'm sure he tells people what a bad DM I am but the campaign went so much better after that.

 

[Richards]

Here's the PC racial breakdown for the last five standard 3.5 D&D campaigns I've been in (3 as the DM, 2 as a player):

Human: 15
Elf: 5
Dwarf: 3
Half-elf: 3
Half-orc: 3
Gnome: 2
Halfling: 1
Lizardfolk: 1
Tiefling: 1

Of course, one of the humans, one of the elves, and the tiefling were all the same PC over the course of his adventuring career (and he ended up as an NPC vampire after that). This is with a group of pretty much the same players for all five campaigns (there are nine of us total, but not all nine played in each of the campaigns - my granddaughter only participated in one campaign, for example).

Johnathan