Worlds & Monsters: humans are boring??

[VirgilCaine]

That was supposed to be me, sorry.

 

[WarlockLord]

Although, to put the shoe on the other foot:

Consider an isolated kingdom of humans in the middle of a bunch of dragonborn, drow, tieflings, etc. This leads to tales of demons with night-black skin, darker than any human with piercing red eyes (drow), foul lizard-things (dragonborn), and goat-horned devils (tieflings).

But, yeah, we need humans.

 

[DandD]

Humans still exist. They simply aren't the absolute dominant race in the Points of Light-playsetting that D&D-adventures take place in, and equal to the other fantasy races. And in the end, it doesn't matter to the particular player group. If one absolutely wishes to have a game setting where humans are the most dominant species of the world, they'll still be able to do that. It's not like WotC will send super-secret ninja assassins to your home when somebody doesn't play their idea of Points of Light with more humans than they envisioned.

 

[GreatLemur]

I brought up this quote from Worlds and Monsters in another thread, but I wanted to start its own because I think this point deserves some thought.

A human-populated empire that resembles ancient Egypt, but with mummies in control, is less interesting than a realm ruled by salamanders, lizardfolk, or even dwarves.

Yeah, I did notice that weird and surprisingly dumb line. I don't think it's worth making a big deal about, but it really does sound kind of ass-backwards.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

It's not like WotC will send super-secret ninja assassins to your home when somebody doesn't play their idea of Points of Light with more humans than they envisioned.

What? The Rules Ninja training camp is visible on Google Earth again? Send forth my minions of polyhedral doom, release the giant land attack squid!!!

 

[Scribble]

But now, according to W&M, even in these small regions of civilization humans are no longer the dominant race. The world is not only wild, but also quite alien. Humans are a small fraction of the many races (species?) in a big fantasy melting pot. The reason? Apparently humans are more boring than non-humans.

There's an extremely good reason why humans are most often the dominant race in fantasy worlds: A familiar baseline is critical.

I don't think that they're saying even in the points of light humans aren't dominant... I think what they're saying is that overall, human aren't dominating the entire continent with realm spanning empires and kingdoms full of farmlands...

 

[Christian]

IME with actual real-life humans ... they are boring. Why do you think I started playing these games in the first place?

 

[Counterspin]

I've done just fine without your "critical baseline." Next!

 

[S'mon]

"A human-populated empire that resembles ancient Egypt, but with mummies in control, is less interesting than a realm ruled by salamanders, lizardfolk, or even dwarves."

I was gobsmacked by this statement (of supposedly objective truth?!). The former sounds like a good pulp fantasy idea, immediately evocative of ancient undying sorcerer kings extending their rule to eternity in defiance of nature. The latter is just 'meh'.

 

[Ipissimus]

Hmmm... I see your point, though I think the benefits of less human-centric setting outweigh the downside of not having a baseline.

Personally, I've always thought that walking into a DnD Tavern should be like walking into the Cantina on Tatooine. Dwarf mercenaries plotting over ale in a dark corner under the stairs. A comely Tifling rogue grafting a rich merchant by the bar. An Orc barbarian glaring at passers by daring them to give him an excuse. A Drow noble accompanied by Hobgoblin bodyguards drowning her sorrows. And, hey, why not a Beholder looking to purchase some slaves?

I never felt that was possible until Eberron, and even that setting feels restrictive. After all, in most previous settings the expectation is that the human guards keep all the 'undesirables' out of their settlements with a kill on sight order. And why? They're intelligent, right? Their gold spends just as well. Ok, so they're evil, so's a large section of the human population, they don't get arbatrarily killed.

Ok, so that's a particular example of why I like the idea. The other good thing about the 'points of light' idea is that you can tailor the world to your specifications. You want a kingdom that attempts to control its boarders, surrounded and beset by wilderness at every turn (see the Roman Empire a-la Gladiator), you can. You also have the perfect excuse for the foreign invasion adventure where your PCs have to fight off Hobgoblin Elephant Cavelry since the outsiders come from 'the wilderness'. tracking the army back to its source could also make for a great road trip adventure...

All in all, this is a positive thing for me.