D&D as humanocetric ... or not?

[Chaosmancer]

That doesn't move the needle very far from the claim "all Orc deities are deities of war" other than this Luthic one, who I've never heard of otherwise.

Breaking things and being strong? Sounds like war to me.

Disease and death? Yep, war fits there too as those two things often directly result from war.

Sneaking around and stabbing people in the back? War again, only this time more cold war than hot war.

One could even argue that Luthic's "continuing the Orc race" holds elements of war, given what I've heard about Orcish courting rituals...

Very possible, though I'd say that if we go that route, most gods are gods of war. Kord (being strong), Talona (poison), Tymora (good luck in battle), Oghma (knowledge wins battles), Gond (crafting weapons of war), Mystra/Boccob/Wee Jas/ (magic is used in war), Vecna (secrets are a big part of war), Pelor (medical corps) ect ect ect.

Got to make a cut off somewhere.

 

[Azzy]

No, but that'd be an excellent name for one of his clerics!

Yeah, but Bud the Wise is not nearly as favored by his god as Guinness the Stout or Killian the Red.

 

[tomBitonti]

I'm thinking the sense of EGG's statement is a bit different than "what races are or should be available to play". Instead, what he seems to be saying is that the dominant political forces are humanocentric, with the consequence that other races are subject to flat out discrimination, and that players would need to take that into account if they wanted to play a non-human PC.
But, a world which has overt discrimination outside of thinly drawn cases (drow, beholders), is ugly, and, in my opinion, not one that most gamers would want to play in.
The whole topic is off-putting, and that leads to the change in sense of the statement. That is, the change to consider what races are allowed.
Thx!
TomB

 

[Eltab]

Bud the wise?

His primary disciple became known as Bud the Wise-er

 

[Voranzovin]

A few years ago I DMed a game where there were no PC humans or demi-humans at all--instead, I worked with the players to come up with unique creatures for them to play. The setting might be described as a bit Dark Crystal-ish in that pretty much everyone is a muppet and the world is full of whimsical creatures of all kinds, although the civilizational and technological level is a lot more 17th century then whatever the Dark Crystal is.

We ended up with creatures that were like a cross between a halfling and a monkey, giant dog-riding yetis, and otter-folk.

It took a few sessions for the players to catch on to the descriptions of the savage orc tribes they'd been fighting. In this setting, orcs have hair on their heads (and sometimes faces) but not the rest of their bodies, which is quite odd to any of the races they were playing, and orc skin varies from dark brown to pink....

I'm inclined to say the EGG's comments come from a very, well, EGG perspective--since I do not, in fact, feel like I have to work out every detail of a setting to produce a fun game for my players, I did not, in fact, find the challenges of DMing an "all monster" party insurmountable.

 

[HarbingerX]

I'm inclined to say the EGG's comments come from a very, well, EGG perspective--since I do not, in fact, feel like I have to work out every detail of a setting to produce a fun game for my players, I did not, in fact, find the challenges of DMing an "all monster" party insurmountable.

I'd read his statements at their face and in context. When he wrote that people were still just learning D&D and it's very good advice to make your world humanocentric since, as he states, we are humans and it's much easier to do the fantasy and magic bits if we're not always worrying about all these different races and how their societies would work.

40 years on, everyone who's playing has been exposed to a lot more fantasy and have seen more portrayals of non-human societies, so might have more success running a campaign with a more fantastical setting.