D&D General Do Your Human Characters Match Your Ethnicity (etc)?

[Eyes of Nine]

I get too self-conscious about blatant stereotypes and bad accents to enjoy myself. So it doesn't matter if they "look" different (being elven or halfling or whatnot); ultimately they are more or less like my own culture.

This, for me.

In terms of gender and sexuality - I about 50% play women (I am cis-male) but don't actually explore what that means. In the one game of D&D that I am a player, sexuality and gender almost never come up. In fact I have never defined my sexuality in any D&D type game.

I DM/GM most games though, and of course have to play all sorts of characters.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's a good point. I DM more than I play, and that probably comes with a certain amount of comfort playing whatever sexuality or gender, at least for some people. I was pondering character gen for myself in a serious way this week, for the first time in years really, and I was looking at Changelings, who are gender fluid, and I didn't have a single thought about whether I was comfortable with the idea, I just went straight to building concepts personas across the spectrum. I don't think that would have been the case so much when I was younger though, and more unreflectively cis-male.

 

[ccs]

Do your human pcs tend to look like you?
No. Most are younger. All are better looking, & in much better shape than I'm in (or have ever been). Those who're older are along the lines of what I wish I'd look like, but will not achieve - for starters not of them are balding.

Do they usually match your;
ethnicity: Yes, assuming "some degree of Caucasian" counts.
sex: Yes - Other than when DMing I've never made a female human.
gender: Yes
sexual preference: Yes

How often do you play characters who don't? Feel free to include non-D&D human characters in your discussion.
Other than when DMing, in this century, I've only got 3.5* Female characters of any type in any system.
2 Halflings (a Warlock & a Barbarian), 1 Tiefling (a PF Divination Wizard), & 1 1/2elf(?) Sorcerer(?)Warlock(?)Sorlock(?)* All 4 are female hetero.
The 1/2elf only counts as .5 of a character atm because she's a concept waiting for the right D&D/PF game. Mechanically she's a 1/2elf but doesn't have stats yet & her class isn't set beyond "caster, not a Cleric/Druid/Wizard". Sorcerer will probably end up the best fit. The hard parts done though - I know who this character is, what makes them tick, & (generically) why they've taken up the adventuring life. I even have a mini.

The last 5 characters I've played;
Current - Bree Burrfoot: Female Halfling chainpact Warlock 5e (or Summoner in PF1). Caucasian. Hetero (though NA)
Current - Jack'son: Male Human Rogue. Caucasian, Hetero (though it's not likely to matter)
Zarbag: Male Goblin Sorcerer (PF2). Green skin & based on Night Goblins/Moon Clan Gitz from Warhammer if that means anything to you. Hetero, but it never came up.
Gojira: Male Dragonborn Paladin (5e). Green DB, though he breathed fire. Hetero, but NA
Karzouk, the Almighty: Male 1/2elf (mechanically) Transmutation Wizard (5e/PF). Varisian, so Caucasian-ish. Played as though he were a human. Hetero, though it never came up.

 

[Torquar]

White Male here. I rarely play human characters, but I do tend to play the races that are close to human appearance (Half Elf, Elf, Aasimar etc). I seem to have a bias against the short races, and I'm flat against animalistic races like Tabaxi, Leonin, Dragonborn though oddly not Yuan-ti or Shifters.
I play about 50/50 male/ female, though my female characters do tend to be quite tomboyish.
Most of my characters are white or close to it with few exceptions depending on the Campaign. I recently played Reya Mantlemorn through Descent into Avernus, probably my first Black character.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I recently played Reya Mantlemorn through Descent into Avernus, probably my first Black character.

I think I will play a Black character next time I create a character for a D&D game. I may check in with the Black player in my group - who I am sure will say "Don't be a dick, don't do racist naughty word, don't be an idiot". But still I'll feel more comfortable after checking in.

 

[Hussar]

I think I will play a Black character next time I create a character for a D&D game. I may check in with the Black player in my group - who I am sure will say "Don't be a dick, don't do racist naughty word, don't be an idiot". But still I'll feel more comfortable after checking in.

Y'know, at the end of the day, it's kinda heartening to see that this sort of conversation is being had. Beyond all the fighting and bickering back and forth, I think if we drill down to individuals, most people are taking "don't be a dick" to heart.

 

[Mercurius]

Interesting how skin color and ethnicity often get mixed up or conflated. They aren't the same thing.

As for myself, the bottom line is that I play whatever I feel like playing, and what suits the campaign context--which usually doesn't involve real-world ethnicities, only (maybe, less so if I'm DMing) vague Earth analogues. I usually play characters of my own gender, but not always; usually of my sexual preference, but sexuality almost never figures significantly,in my campaigns--as DM or player--not because I find sex distasteful, not at all (I'm a Scorpio, after all ;0), but because I don't go to role-playing to explore sexuality and don't find it all that interesting in the context of ttrpgs.

That said, there are patterns in the characters I tend to play, but they are more thematic and ideological, not tied to racial or ethnic or gender demographics. I often mix some kind of aspect of my personality and accentuate it, but there are no absolutes; sometimes I'll play someone very different than me for the RPG experience.

 

[the Jester]

One time I asked how people here were with Humans that had skin and hair colours that no human in this world have naturally (such as dark grey or blue skin or natural green or blue hair), along with mixtures of features that are plausible in our world but not likely common at all (like East Asians with naturally blonde hair).

Oooh, good tangent!

Back in 1e, one of my players would irregularly but commonly make characters and draw them with odd/unnatural skin tones- one guy was green, one was metallic copper, one was metallic bronze, just to mention the three that I remember off hand.

One of the human ethnicities in my game has tinges of another, extinct, nonhuman race (the Peshta) mixed into its blood, and sometimes comes out with a green tint to their skin.

 

[Fenris-77]

I prefer the Skittles approach to human skin color.

 

[cbwjm]

Normally if I'm playing human I'm playing an idealised version of me, though seeing the artwork for Teferi in the later MtG card sets has me wanting to make a wizard based on him.