D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[Baron Opal II]

Very humanocentric, but humans, dwarves, and halflings are all considered "human". As human as we would consider Neanderthals and Denisovians, anyway.

 

[JEB]

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

Yup, many new-to-D&D players in our original 5e campaign started off with human characters.

 

[Voadam]

They're around but the great kingdoms are mostly human.

Greyhawk City is still 80-90% human. The kingdoms are mostly human, but there are bunches of nonhumans and there are some most everywhere.

There's 1 elf nation iirc and places like the Pomarj.

Elven kingdoms include Celene, Spindrift Isles, and if you count the 1e MMII valley elves as the predominant inhabitants, the Valley of the Mage. Most of the elves are in the woods and not international potential kingdoms though. Page 32 has a chart of birthplaces for demihumans and the various woods generally have bigger percentages than any kingdom including Celene.

There are zero surface dwarven nations, but they are mentioned a bunch in the mountain range descriptions.

Pomarj, Bone Marches, and places like the Horned Society and Iuz are big for humanoids. The Scarlet Brotherhood supposedly has humanoid legions being readied for conquest. Most humanoids are in the badlands and not human type kingdoms.

 

[Parmandur]

Elven kingdoms include Celene, Spindrift Isles, and if you count the 1e MMII valley elves as the predominant inhabitants, the Valley of the Mage.

whispers Highfolk, too, and one of the Ulek states whispers

Most of the elves are in the woods and not international potential kingdoms though. Page 32 has a chart of birthplaces for demihumans and the various woods generally have bigger percentages than any kingdom including Celene.

There are zero surface dwarven nations, but they are mentioned a bunch in the mountain range descriptions.

Yeah, basically every wood is crawling with Gnokes and Elves, and Hills and Mountains woth Gnomes or Dwarves. The Hexs each represent a huge space, plenty of room for a Clan Hold or three here or there.

Pomarj, Bone Marches, and places like the Horned Society and Iuz are big for humanoids. The Scarlet Brotherhood supposedly has humanoid legions being readied for conquest. Most humanoids are in the badlands and not human type kingdoms.

Yup, and wirh an open border to the largely undefined Western Oerik, and sea lanes to the South and East...anyone can be coming from anywhere, just about.

 

[Hussar]

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.

But even then, most popular ranks at about 30% or so. That means 70% are non humans.

Which is certainly not reflected in the settings where every town/city/country with a couple of exceptions are human dominated.

I mean Saltmarsh is mentioned. Yet there is virtually no reason for Saltmarsh to be predominantly human. You have a massive forest with strong faewild ties about a day away. You have the Hool Marsh- an area about the size of the Florida Everglades, chock a block with non-humans. You have the Holds of the Sea Barons right there with huge non-human populations. Let’s not forget large populations of aquatic races right there too.

But Saltmarsh is like 90% human? Why?

 

[MGibster]

Which is certainly not reflected in the settings where every town/city/country with a couple of exceptions are human dominated.

Adventurers are weirdos, so I don't expect a party of itinerant mercenaries to necessary match the demographics of any particular geographic area. Players don't really make decisions about which species to play based on what's logical. At least not in my experience. They make those decisions based on what they think is interesting or cool.

And I'm not here to knock that. In most D&D campaigns, you can fit in almost any published species with very little problem. If I put a Gully Dwarf in a Forgotten Realms campaign it probably won't cause a problem for most groups.

 

[OptionalRule]

Races no longer exist in DnD. They're all just skins on the same statblocks.

 

[Hussar]

Adventurers are weirdos, so I don't expect a party of itinerant mercenaries to necessary match the demographics of any particular geographic area. Players don't really make decisions about which species to play based on what's logical. At least not in my experience. They make those decisions based on what they think is interesting or cool.

And I'm not here to knock that. In most D&D campaigns, you can fit in almost any published species with very little problem. If I put a Gully Dwarf in a Forgotten Realms campaign it probably won't cause a problem for most groups.

But I don’t even mean adventurers. Someone else brought that up.

My point is that DnD setting writers, particularly for older settings like Greyhawk, seemed to have fixated on the fantasy idea that the world is just Earth with a bit of fantasy.

Which was fine forty years ago because no one had spent much time actually thinking about it. But now, years later, it’s definitely showing its age. You can’t have humanocentric worlds AND non-human lands and cultures. It doesn’t make much sense. Middle Earth makes about as much sense as a cardboard hammer. We accept it because of tropes

But when we actually start applying any sort of critical thought or logic to it, these worlds fall apart. They make zero sense.

 

[AK81]

I definitely prefer a humanocentric setting. I love the feeling of the familiar going out to explore a strange and exciting world. By humanocentric I don't mean that the world only has humans of course. But that your starting hubs, your villages and towns are mostly human. Then on your adventures you will meet strange and interesting societies of different ancestries with their own unique histories and cultures and influences on the surrounding areas.

What really doesn't fit my tastes is how the modern campaign worlds are presented. Where all the different ancestries are thrown in together as a big happy mix without it having any consequences on how society develops. They are just humans that look weird. Just skins.

I don't mind mixing a couple of ancestries together in a village or town, but then do something interesting with it. If half the town is human and half is centaurs how would that look? Buildings would probably be built different, maybe no second story houses. How would the culture and etiquette of that place be to help incorporate two very different beings. The same could be said of a mix of humans and giants, or humans and dragonborn. Or even humans and elves, although physically similar their enormous differences in aging would have massive consequences. These places wouldn't look like just another human town. They would be different, they would be interesting and fun.

But that's just my two cents. And people prefer different things.

 

[MGibster]

But when we actually start applying any sort of critical thought or logic to it, these worlds fall apart. They make zero sense.

That's D&D in a nutshell to me. I don't really expect any of it to make sense once we start to examine it too closely. It's part of D&D's charm. I might be the odd man out here, but so far as D&D settings go, I'm just looking for something that provides a good framework for adventures. It doesn't much matter to me that it stops making sense when I squint and look too closely.