D&D 5E Humans Only

[Maxperson]

Wait. Stop right there. I said both ways. It's not a question of who is right or wrong, but of the tenor of the thread in general. And I'm not going to let anyone bend it to be about who is right or wrong to score points.

I'm not even innocent of it, but a huge number of posts here are: 'here's my answer, and here's an indictment of people who say yes/no.'

Other than the racism bits, who indicted the "I'm willing to play humans" side? I don't remember that, which is why I ignored it. It wasn't an attempt to "score points."

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't know. I mean, I'd just kinda...wonder why?

I mean if my group wants to do it, fine, but part of the fun of dnd for me is in being a different creature, not just from a different culture.

Sometimes the better question is 'why not?'

 

[cbwjm]

I'd play an all human game, I wouldn't even need variant human to be an option, standard human is more than fine for me. It wouldn't even have to be a themed game, it could be set in the forgotten realms and I'd still happily play if the DM asked for people to roll up all humans. If it was a new DM trying to get the hang of things, I'd be even more keen of playing just a standard human if they asked so that they can ease into running the game.

 

[Don Durito]

Darkness is a key component to threat in fantasy, and PCs having inherent abilities that bypass it is a real problem for me. Plus, it is a huge pain to remember and adjudicate correctly when different PCs have different kinds of vision. And finally, nothing made me hate darkvision quite like the introduction of the gloomstalker ranger.

Darkvision is a real pain if you're playing around with dynamic lighting on a VTT.

Kind of defeats the purpose.

 

[FrogReaver]

So for anyone that answered no, does this mean there is absolutely no set of circumstances under which you would play an only human campaign in D&D? Or does it just mean you would tend to avoid such games?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sometimes the better question is 'why not?'

I disagree.

 

[Cadence]

I disagree.

It's never the better question?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's never the better question?

Not in the context of reducing available options that people enjoy using, no.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

So for anyone that answered no, does this mean there is absolutely no set of circumstances under which you would play an only human campaign in D&D? Or does it just mean you would tend to avoid such games?

Why would people mean something VERY different from a 'no' to what the original question asked? The original question postulated a campaign with "no other major limitations are presented, and it is going to otherwise be a "typical" D&D campaign of the sort you prefer," and so I (and probably a lot of other people) answered what was actually asked. Tacking 'human only' onto standard D&D is just taking away enjoyable options and variety, so I'd skip it even though IIRC about half of my characters are human. If the campaign had more distinction than 'humans only' I would make my decision on the campaign setup as a whole, though a lot of the ideas being floated don't sound like I'd be interested in them because they're too far from the heroic fantasy that D&D is well-suited for playing.

Also note that the campaign that the OP is now talking about running is not the campaign he asked about initially - he's made it clear that there are going other significant limitations and deviations from anything I'd call standard D&D. If someone told me they were starting a campaign that was human-only but otherwise standard D&D with no other major limitations and then when I showed up they were gutting classes and subclasses and using weird (and more limited) stat options, I'd probably feel like I got hit with a bait and switch, not enthusiastic.

 

[Don Durito]

I always have the temptation to go humans only for a campaign, though I haven't actually done it so far.

These are the main reasons:

• The fictional inspiration for non-humans is very dated for me. Fantasy novels don't have elves and dwarves in them very often any more, and when they do they don't usually fit the category of player characters.
• I often want to run a game in a non-european setting and the Tolkien races fit badly (and Tieflings and Dragonborn are not nessarily any better).
• It's a fair amount of work to rework the D&D races so they fit a new setting, still have a recognisable core, and have something interesting about them. This is a lot of work for an option. In my silk road game I came up with cool fluff about how Tieflings became a nomadic race of Persian influenced traders after the fall of their empire. That work was basically wasted effort because no one chose to play a Tiefling.