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

[Chaosmancer]

I heard a theory that the main reason they "lost" to homo sapiens was less intelligence and more that they had fewer and small groups. Therefore their numbers took bigger hit from raids, disasters and interbreeding.

The main theory I heard was that we out-competed them because they grew up faster than us. Therefore they had weaker social bonds, and couldn't compete with our ability to cooperate.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I completely agree. It was a discussion on how locals would respond to people they may have never seen or even heard of. So I was pointing out that the cantina, that everyone notably notes as having a bunch of races, was there because of circumstance, and it wasn't peaceful.

But I definitely agree a world should be diverse and big. No doubt. Mysteries and wonders. But, if every race lives together, then the races become a homogenous culture. Outside of steep religious isolation, people that live together will share and begin to blend cultures. So in a metropolitan city the culture is the metropolitan city, not the races that inhabit it. That kind of makes the cultural elements of race inside the PHB null and void. Or not. Just food for thought.

There are some heaping helpings of "it depends on your setting assumptions" that should be layered in here. For example,

1. How much racial diversity is there in total.
2. Are these "races" biologically compatible?
3. How far apart are settlements, and how easy is travel?
4. How long have these peoples and settlements been around?
5. How long have these peoples been aware of each other/interacted?

All that said, I'd still disagree that simply living with another culture erases your own. Even in RL metropolises, there are the Chinatowns and Koreatowns, and Little Italy's etc, where the culture is meaningfully different than in the surrounding cities to greater and lesser degrees (And this is without addressing at all how cultures may differ inside their own houses). How much more likely does that become when the races have meaningfully different ergonomic preferences (imagine as a human trying to walk up a set of stairs built for a goblin, and vice versa).

 

[Gammadoodler]

The main theory I heard was that we out-competed them because they grew up faster than us. Therefore they had weaker social bonds, and couldn't compete with our ability to cooperate.

It's hell to lose the competition competition as a result of poor cooperation.

 

[Mecheon]

Who lost?

I'm a descendant of Neanderthals, as are many of the people around me.

You're still a human though. There's some neanderthal DNA in modern humans, sure, but we're still humans

Extinction of neanderthals is still a very up-there topic because we ultimately just don't know and there's a lot of things that could be the cause, but its interesting their ultimate extinction did coincide with a climatic event that, when it occurs later in the fossil history, coincides with massive turnover of human populations. There's no single one event that did them in, its probably a combination of events and a climatic shift at the end

either way, ended up better than the Denovisans in that 'we actually have skeletons of them rather than like, a few teeth'

 

[Minigiant]

The main theory I heard was that we out-competed them because they grew up faster than us. Therefore they had weaker social bonds, and couldn't compete with our ability to cooperate.

Most of the modern theories revolve around Neanderthals being in smaller and fewer groups for one reason or another. So when modern humans and them mated, there was just a whole lot less of their DNA in the pool.

I have asetting that I could never sell to a group that had modern Neanderthals as one of the 6 playable races. They were just humans who traded a language for a tool proficiency statwise. Lorewise, they invented everything but enhanced and innovated nothing due to their lonerism. A player was supposed to roleplay people who constantly get lost in their own mind and tune out society for long moments of time.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You're still a human though. There's some neanderthal DNA in modern humans, sure, but we're still humans

As members of genus Homo, Neanderthals are humans too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I did provide the link. I never said that people would automatically think they were not human, just that it would probably seem odd.

I just thought it was an interesting article and another indication that in many ways neanderthals were better adapted to one specific niche environment than we are. They were probably stronger and better at hunting and living off of the harsh environment that they adapted to which revolved largely around hunting mega fauna. It may well have been our ancestor's flexibility that gave us the edge.

Why does everything have to devolve into an argument and twisted allegations?

What allegations?

 

[zarionofarabel]

My original post.

I have no idea. In fact I still have no idea what the appeal of playing any other race is. We are humans and that's all we can be. To me anyone playing a different race is just a human not so cleverly disguised with a funny hat. Mostly it's just an excuse for mechanical bonuses.

My post reworded to not cause offense by removing offensive terminology.

I have no idea. In fact I still have no idea what the appeal of playing any other race is. We are humans and that's all we can be. To me anyone playing a different race is just a human playing a role. Mostly it's just an excuse for mechanical bonuses.

I have no idea. In fact I still have no idea what the appeal of playing any other race is. We are humans and that's all we can be. To me anyone playing a different race is just a human acting. Mostly it's just an excuse for mechanical bonuses.

I have no idea. In fact I still have no idea what the appeal of playing any other race is. We are humans and that's all we can be. To me anyone playing a different race is just a human engaging in speculation. Mostly it's just an excuse for mechanical bonuses.

I have no idea. In fact I still have no idea what the appeal of playing any other race is. We are humans and that's all we can be. To me anyone playing a different race is just a human Speculative Roleplaying. Mostly it's just an excuse for mechanical bonuses.

Better?

 

[zarionofarabel]

Why is the next step impossible?

Well, all of the models you use as examples were built using things you can interact with. You can't interact with a non-human sentient, so how could you know your model is even remotely accurate?

 

[Gammadoodler]

My original post.

My post reworded to not cause offense by removing offensive terminology.




Better?

Sure. This acknowledges that a human engaging in a role-playing game where the race they've selected is non-human, is, in fact just playing a role. And, this is distinctly different from the players in that role-playing game who choose human characters.