D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[Kobold Avenger]

I think that'll be downplayed and somewhere like the City of Greyhawk will be filled with all sorts of Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Orcs, Tieflings, Dragonborn, Aasimar and Goliaths along with Humans and other species. It's now an example campaign hub, and makes no sense that species from the PHB are not in the sample starting place. The other places in Oerth will be re-contextualized to fit more with 5e'isms, Tieflings and Aasimar can be worked in with no problem, and I'm sure there's some place in Oerth where a lot of Goliaths and Dragonborn come from.

 

[jasper]

For what races matter now in 5.24 I guess the whole game is humanocentric.

In Madline's voice "its twrue its twrue!"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think that'll be downplayed and somewhere like the City of Greyhawk will be filled with all sorts of Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Orcs, Tieflings, Dragonborn, Aasimar and Goliaths along with Humans and other species. It's now an example campaign hub, and makes no sense that species from the PHB are not in the sample starting place. The other places in Oerth will be re-contextualized to fit more with 5e'isms, Tieflings and Aasimar can be worked in with no problem, and I'm sure there's some place in Oerth where a lot of Goliaths and Dragonborn come from.

Oerth has plenty of giants. Adding another layer to giant society by bringing in goliaths, in a world that is generally only lightly detailed, isn't hard.

And given the history of magical empires in the past, dragonborn being a group of potential soldiers that never saw action before one or both of the great magical cataclysms in the distant past, and only relatively recently emerging from seclusion, is also not a terribly big lift.

 

[toucanbuzz]

A few thoughts.

One, since Roger Moore didn't write the Greyhawk setting, I'd imagine he didn't want to tread on Gygax/Kuntz's original work too much. However, WOTC is not so bound. Moore's concern seemed to be that any new races for players make sense for how Greyhawk was written (e.g. a derro playing as a popular, law-abiding crusader of the Sun God was "illogical").

Two, AD&D's non-human races had all the cool powers. Humans had nothing except unlimited leveling and dual-classing. So, there needed to be hesitation about introducing even more races with more powers. That's why he mentions, in this setting, playing a "dragon" would be out of line (both for relative abilities and the setting itself). I remember a gamer at my table who always wanted to play the next great race, regardless of whether it made sense. Who wouldn't want to adventure with his wemic? It has lion's claws!

I run a human-centric game, and my gamers and I like classic settings where races have very unique niches with rich, well-developed histories, customs, slang, habits, and so on. Dragonlance and Dragon Age are our most recent ventures. Having a plethora of races just to have a plethora of races doesn't appeal to us. Except, maybe corgi wizards. Cause why not...

 

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

I have zero problem with a humanocentric setting (though I generally don't run one). Don't really care how "contemporary players" would feel about it.

I'm sending you this classic t for Christmas. Enjoy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I mean, wemics are pretty cool.

 

[Hussar]

I always found the human centric thing baffling in a game where you have a bajillion race options.

It’s almost like the setting writers couldn’t be bothered actually learning the game before writing.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I should point out that human centric does not mean that things other than humans are rare, it just means humans are the central focus, movers and shakers. The Flanness is dominated by humans and human nations. Non humans are not rare, but don’t have nearly as much influence.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I always found the human centric thing baffling in a game where you have a bajillion race options.

It’s almost like the setting writers couldn’t be bothered actually learning the game before writing.

I think Gygax and others felt forced to include non-human races against their will.

But I agree, settings like Ptolus or Sigil, where the answer to "does this race from this splatbook appear in this setting" is "yes, obviously," makes running D&D games a lot smoother generally.

 

[Parmandur]

I always found the human centric thing baffling in a game where you have a bajillion race options.

It’s almost like the setting writers couldn’t be bothered actually learning the game before writing.

Yet Humans are far and away the most popular choice among players, and a large amount of prominent genre fiction has always been humanocentric, or even human only.

I prefer Dwarves, personally, but Humans remIn popular with Human players and readers.