D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[Micah Sweet]

And the aliens that do have prominent roles tend to be literal humans in funny hats (Togruta, Twi-lek) but that's because face paint and fake head-tentacles are more convincing than trying to make complex masks emote or using CGI characters like Jar Jar.

The prequel main characters were mostly human too. I don't buy the technology argument. You just don't see many fantasy stories that dont feature at least one (and usually multiple) prominent humans unless that's the whole point of the story.

 

[ezo]

My games usually aren't humanocentric really. The "typical" Tolkien races are always present and have great kingdoms, powerful influential leaders, etc. Humans are not the only "movers and shakers".

Even monsters can have prominent, important roles in various regions, for good or evil.

In one campaign we ran, we had an entire continent of the "animal head" races, a la Zootopia, and all the PCs of those races came from those lands.

In my current campaign, I have a Land of Giants, where all the giants migrated from and the giant beasts come from their as well. Even the trees are larger than normal, and the tallest mountain is (not surprisingly) located there, too.

In most games I run, only about 25% of PCs are human. I can't even think of the last time I had two human PCs in the same group...

 

[MonsterEnvy]

It’s a minor trading post that serves as a cover for smuggling and other criminal enterprises. It’s not important.

Iuz’s realm does not produce enough food to feed all its citizens, so it relies on imports for the rest, and Saltmarsh is one of its major suppliers.

The minions of Iuz have only rarely come into direct conflict with Keoland, and its ongoing war with Keoland’s rivals makes the nation an acceptable trade partner in the eyes of the king. The emissaries from Iuz pay on time and they buy shiploads of fish at once, so no one inquires too closely into the captain’s sepulchral voice or her penchant for wearing gold jewelry etched with grim designs.

No it's just a legit trade operation. The Crown wants to turn the town into a major trade center as well.

 

[Remathilis]

The prequel main characters were mostly human too. I don't buy the technology argument. You just don't see many fantasy stories that dont feature at least one (and usually multiple) prominent humans unless that's the whole point of the story.

Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon sure, but the prequels had CGI characters like Yoda and Jar Jar (for better or worse). However, there has been a major backlash against fully CGI characters due to them looking "fake" or "videogamey" so practical effects went back into vogue, and unfortunately prosthetics and masks don't emote very well. And once you get into TV (even streaming) budgets, you kinda end up back into Star Trek level "human with fancy Halloween makeup" levels of alien design.

Compare any of the live action Star Wars shows to Clone Wars/Rebels style animated shows and you'll see how many more unique alien designs get used.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon sure, but the prequels had CGI characters like Yoda and Jar Jar (for better or worse). However, there has been a major backlash against fully CGI characters due to them looking "fake" or "videogamey" so practical effects went back into vogue, and unfortunately prosthetics and masks don't emote very well. And once you get into TV (even streaming) budgets, you kinda end up back into Star Trek level "human with fancy Halloween makeup" levels of alien design.

Compare any of the live action Star Wars shows to Clone Wars/Rebels style animated shows and you'll see how many more unique alien designs get used.

Quite true, but even there you more often than not see humans front and center. In Rebels half of the main cast was human, for example. Lots of humans in the clone wars too (often the same ones). Ahsoka is a human with orange body paint and a stripy hat. Again and again, unique alien designs, even when budget and tech aren't an issue, are supporting and supplemental to human or almost-human characters.

 

[Azzy]

I knew I missed some elven places, Highfolk and the Duchy of Ulek. Good catch.

There's also Sunndi which is a human-majority country with an elven ruler.

 

[Azzy]

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.

Agreed. D&D is and, IMO, should be a fantasy simulator, not a reality simulator.

 

[kigmatzomat]

It’s a minor trading post that serves as a cover for smuggling and other criminal enterprises. It’s not important.

Saltmarsh is a tier 4 location in Keoland (Niola Dra -> Gradsul -> Seaton -> Saltmarsh). I mean, size-wise, Seaton & Saltmarsh are both in the same class of 2k-5k community, but Seaton is the military and political seat.

Saltmarsh could be a tier 3 as it is located on a border, doesn't suffer from Seaton's plagues, has a river that could carry trade and seems to have a deep water harbor given the ships that dock there.

Turn it around; imagine if another regional power set up a base in Saltmarsh. It's prime foot-hold territory too good to ignore. So despite being under developed, it has a strategic value greater than it's economic value.

Thank-you for attending my TED talk on imaginary geopolitics

 

[Demetrios1453]

But that’s the point. Why is it a human fishing town? I get the point of a town being there. Fine and dandy. But a town that’s 90% human when the nearest human settlement is actually quite a ways away and there are multiple non-human settlements far closer?

It’s not a problem that it’s got humans. That’s plausible. It’s the fact that outside of a couple of exceptions, it’s almost entirely human.

Because, before nationalism and forced relocations, that's exactly how human beings of differing ethnic groups in close proximity lived in then. If you went along, say, the border of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century, you wouldn't find that one language/ethnicity stopped precisely at the border and another one began. You'd have a mix of German villages and Polish villages, with few of one population living in the other, in a broad area to either side of the border. Even further in one country or the other, you'd still find random isolated villages that spoke a different language than the surrounding countryside. Same here. Saltmarsh is seen by all as human village, so humans live in it, and few others would move there. Basically - local tribalism.

 

[Hussar]

Give a page number where you are getting these numbers. page 15 has 27 buildings with encounters. And about 50 other buildings. The numbers of buildings vs population don't add up.

Yup.