D&D General What are humans?

[DEFCON 1]

I do like the ideas given that humans only specialize by individual and not by species, that because of their shorter lifespans they don't care as much about natural resources (since they won't be on the earth long enough to suffer the consequences from exploiting it), but are also masters of trade because they need to get the things the other species have as quickly as possible. So without the time to master things that dwarves, elves and the like have, they just trade for it. This also goes along with the idea that they are willing to shack up (and have children) with virtually anyone.

 

[fuindordm]

I do like the ideas given that humans only specialize by individual and not by species, that because of their shorter lifespans they don't care as much about natural resources (since they won't be on the earth long enough to suffer the consequences from exploiting it), but are also masters of trade because they need to get the things the other species have as quickly as possible. So without the time to master things that dwarves, elves and the like have, they just trade for it. This also goes along with the idea that they are willing to shack up (and have children) with virtually anyone.

For some reason this perspective reminded me of the racism present in Lovecraft's stories.

What if the other races view humans and their gods horror and revulsion? What if they see humans as a primitive race, lacking the ability to even plan long-term and insiduously diluting the purity and bloodlines of their superior cultures?

I don't think I'd want to play a campaign in that world but it is certainly a twist. In Greyhawk demihumans are tolerated by the human majority because they are largely not a threat. But to elves and dwarves, humans would most definitely be a threat.

 

[James Gasik]

Nah. Halflings explicitly don't have wanderlust (Bilbo, Frodo, and other Tooks are called out for being weird about that--they really do mean it when they say "adventures make one late for dinner"), and "individual specialization" seems pretty orthogonal to their stuff.

Halflings are homebodies who adventure for reasons other than adventure in most cases, with the wanderlust-y types being an abnormal deviation, just as, for a totally random example, elves and dwarves don't get along because of their origins and their divergent perspectives, apart from a few special exceptions.

If "family" is the only thing making the two similar, then humans, halflings, dwarves, dragonborn, (half-)orcs, and a handful of other things are all "the same" as well.

You're thinking of Hobbits, not Halflings.

 

[Aldarc]

For some reason this perspective reminded me of the racism present in Lovecraft's stories.

What if the other races view humans and their gods horror and revulsion? What if they see humans as a primitive race, lacking the ability to even plan long-term and insiduously diluting the purity and bloodlines of their superior cultures?

I don't think I'd want to play a campaign in that world but it is certainly a twist. In Greyhawk demihumans are tolerated by the human majority because they are largely not a threat. But to elves and dwarves, humans would most definitely be a threat.

If I were to make human a threat to other races, it would be less about blood purity and more about humans throwing the environment out-of-whack everywhere that they go: e.g., burning down forests and plains for farmland, strip-mining mountains, causing extinction events for fauna, using magic for environmental exploitation, etc.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What if the other races view humans and their gods horror and revulsion? What if they see humans as a primitive race, lacking the ability to even plan long-term and insiduously diluting the purity and bloodlines of their superior cultures?

That certainly could be an interesting way to look at it for a setting, wherein Humans are like cockroaches to the other species-- kinda gross, keep showing up, turn over a rock and there are thousands of them because they breed like nobody's business. They certainly serve a purpose-- they are willing to get into everyone else's business, so they can be the conduit between people who don't want to sully their own hands (goes along with the AD&D speciesism wherein dwarves and elves did not ever want to interact with each other)-- but are seen as a necessary evil.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I were to make human a threat to other races, it would be less about blood purity and more about humans throwing the environment out-of-whack everywhere that they go: e.g., burning down forests and plains for farmland, strip-mining mountains, causing extinction events for fauna, using magic for environmental exploitation, etc.

It would certainly be an interesting way to set up and look at a potential setting-- Humans not being the central protagonists like they are in most created settings, but rather are the fringe species just based on how they behave and act. They should still have their overwhelming numbers like they do now... but to have a setting where the elves and/or dwarves are seen as the primary species or the eyes through which we look at the campaign world... the Humans are just these tall, lumbering goons that just take and consume, leaving devastation in their path. But they aren't bad people... they just don't know any better. But unfortunately individual Humans won't experience the consequences of their actions so they don't tend to think about what their actions do to other people or their own future generations.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You're thinking of Hobbits, not Halflings.

View attachment 365624

Still doesn't sound to me like wanderlust. That sounds like trying to get-rich-quick so you can then settle down and turn a small pile of money into a large pile of money.

 

[Shardstone]

Humans are prime material plane elementals, like dragons snd mangos,

 

[Aldarc]

It would certainly be an interesting way to set up and look at a potential setting-- Humans not being the central protagonists like they are in most created settings, but rather are the fringe species just based on how they behave and act. They should still have their overwhelming numbers like they do now... but to have a setting where the elves and/or dwarves are seen as the primary species or the eyes through which we look at the campaign world... the Humans are just these tall, lumbering goons that just take and consume, leaving devastation in their path. But they aren't bad people... they just don't know any better. But unfortunately individual Humans won't experience the consequences of their actions so they don't tend to think about what their actions do to other people or their own future generations.

In Monte Cook's Diamond Throne setting for his Arcana Unearthed/Evolved game, humans were the most widespread species, but the land was ruled by giants,* who became rulers after defeating the land's previous demonic overlords. The entry for humans even says that other races view humans as "self-interested" and "short-sighted."

Part of the meta-conflict for the setting is that dragons, who ruled the continent before the aforementioned demonic overlords have come back now, and they want their lands back, believing that the giants broke ancient treaties by being there. So in some ways, humans are kinda just there.

* AE giants shrunk themselves down to the larger end of medium sized through magical ritual, and they have the option (i.e., racial levels) to return to their original sizes.

 

[Cadence]

My concept for generalized humanity, in contrast to other species options like elves, dwarves, dragonborn, etc. is:

Wanderlust.

One of the things that seems to have distinguished homo sapiens sapiens from our neighbor subspecies like neanderthalensis and denisova is that our populations wandered. A lot. Sailing across the horizon simply because there was a horizon to sail across, even though that was often a dangerous or lethal proposition. Some anthropologists and paleontologists even think this is part of what made anatomically modern humans succeed so well.

Humans are also excellent persistence hunters, have a ferociously strong pack-bonding instinct (seriously, we'll personify damn near anything), and frequently see so many patterns in nature we may as well have a species-wide case of apophenia.

So, I'd make "Wanderfolk" represent these characteristics. Greater endurance (perhaps a resistance to Exhaustion or similar mechanics), an easier time using diplomacy and insight in ways that relate to other species, and superior investigation skills with a slight propensity to see more than is really there (e.g., perhaps a 1/SR advantage on Perception, but worse consequences for failure, or partially wrong/mixed fact-and-fancy answers even on a success if you roll doubles.)

I'm fine with preserving the "get a bonus feat" thing, as that's a perfectly reasonable choice and dovetails at least a little with the above.

By comparison, dragonborn, who develop more quickly than humans and thus lead longer adult lives, and who have to spend far less time, y'know, worrying about pregnancy and such? They're much more about building grand and tall, rather than seeing what lies beyond the horizon. They have far less pack-bonding and far more friend-(or foe)-making interest (both are gregarious but for different reasons), and dragonborn are physically stronger and heal faster, but don't have the hours-on-end endurance humans do. Clan and legacy are everything to the typical dragonborn, while most humans are rather more individualistic; not that there aren't exceptions, of course, but these are the general trends.

Wanderlust
Individual Specialization
Family

If we were going for a novel, instead of something we wanted to put widely in the minds of players of all ages in game, would two more be:

Tribalism (xenophobia, racism, social hierarchies)
Breeding isn't stopped by the tribalism