D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[Moonmover]

Since the thread has wandered off into Saltmarsh lord specifically, for some reason.....


It may be worth noting that while the nearest settlement to Saltmarsh (the lizardfolk community at Dunwater) is non human, the lizardfolk are explicitly newcomers.

Spoiler

They've only recently arrived, having been chased out of wherever they came from by sahuagin.

There is a significant Dwarf presence in town, but they are also newcomers. The king commissioned them to start a mine.

So, the area has been almost entirely populated by humans until just recently. I'm not sure who's argument that helps, but there it is.

 

[Pauln6]

I think the 3e LG gazetteer spread the races and classes a lot more evenly than I liked out of necessity because they wanted every (real world) LG nation to function independently on a level playing field. That stripped out flavour for me and led to the introduction of cheesier Harry Potter style training schools for many classes, including sorcerers training alongside wizards. Back in my day you had the 1e master and apprentice in a lonely tower situation after level 11 so dozens of wizard schools felt like a real change of emphasis. I liked the article on sorcerous universities because you had a handful scattered around the Flanaess (Greyhawk and Ekbir being the greatest), each with their own flavour (which, in fairness is more like Harry Potter with a handful of international schools). I felt that formalising wizard education too much made it feel that bit more mundane.

Similarly, going from a vanishingly rare population of grey elves numbering less than 25,000 to 10% elf populations in some major cities also felt a bit strange. 1e definitely applied a default culture of high elves being the PC race and sub-races being isolationist, and thus rare, alternatives, and Greyhawk bought into that. There has been considerable drift over time and I wonder if the return of Tolkien to our TV screens might prompt a resurgence of interest in this kind of Tolkienesque racial dynamic?

 

[Plaguescarred]

Since i generally use a published campaing settings for the groundwork of my campaigns, most compaigns i've run in past decades have been humano-centric, wether it was GREYHAWK, FORGOTTEN REALMS, EBERRON, the Nentir Vale, AL-QUADIM, DRAGONLANCE and even in the 80-90's DARKSUN and MYSTARA to my memory was.

These campaing settings all have demihumans or other races population to varying degrees, with often concentration in certain region but globally, humans remain most dominant in terms of ratio.

The only time where campaigns i've run didn't feel humano-centric was when the scope was so focused on a racial aspect that it didn't really appeared so despite playing in one, such as when i ran an all orc & goblin game at surface or Drow campaign in the Underdark for example, even though they were set in the FORGOTTEN REALMS, its inherent humano-centricity was offscreen for the most part.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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

You talking about the 3rd edition version? This is many years later than the original adventure. It has grown significantly in the intervening years, and thus is a very different place to the Saltmarsh of the original adventure, which was a cross between Jamaica Inn and Innsmouth. The 5e version in GoS is closer to original, not the much larger town it would go on to become. It doesn't have a large quay, docks, warehouses, harbourmaster's building, defences, etc, that would be required for any significant trading port. Just a few wooden jetties for fishing boats and small craft. And by all accounts the clock is being reset in the new DMG. Any later changes are being undone.

 

[Baron Opal II]

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.

I don't know what you mean by tiers in this context, beyond perhaps size. Do you have a reference for this that I can read up on?

 

[Hussar]

You talking about the 3rd edition version? This is many years later than the original adventure. It has grown significantly in the intervening years, and thus is a very different place to the Saltmarsh of the original adventure, which was a cross between Jamaica Inn and Innsmouth. The 5e version in GoS is closer to original, not the much larger town it would go on to become. It doesn't have a large quay, docks, warehouses, harbourmaster's building, defences, etc, that would be required for any significant trading port. Just a few wooden jetties for fishing boats and small craft. And by all accounts the clock is being reset in the new DMG. Any later changes are being undone.

Are you saying you cannot dock the Sea Ghost in Saltmarsh? Where do the ships from Iuz dock and load? The dwarves mining ships? And so on.

And Saltmarsh makes no logical sense you say? That would be my point.

But my point actually is what @Plaguescarred said. The settings for DnD have always been incredibly humanocentric. Why is Phandalin 90% human? Pretty much every adventure in the Sword Coast details communities that are nearly entirely human unless they are the stereotypical “race” town where the population is almost entirely that race.

It makes very little sense.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I mean, a D&D movie set in the Forgotten Realms still had a main cast of five humans and the most human-looking tiefling in the history of the game!

No, Doric isn't the most Human looking Tieflings in the history of the game, when she looks like a 2e Planescape Tiefling.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, Doric isn't the most Human looking Tieflings in the history of the game, when she looks like a 2e Planescape Tiefling.

Yup. This is the result of 4e's normalizing the look of the tiefling for branding purposes.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Are you saying you cannot dock the Sea Ghost in Saltmarsh? Where do the ships from Iuz dock and load? The dwarves mining ships? And so on.

And Saltmarsh makes no logical sense you say? That would be my point.

But my point actually is what @Plaguescarred said. The settings for DnD have always been incredibly humanocentric. Why is Phandalin 90% human? Pretty much every adventure in the Sword Coast details communities that are nearly entirely human unless they are the stereotypical “race” town where the population is almost entirely that race.

It makes very little sense.

Humanocentric makes perfect sense.

Also Saltmarsh has various docks. The dwarves also don't have any mining ships yet.

 

[Parmandur]

I think a solid case could be made that in Greyhawk, Humans are just the natural inhabitants of coasts and grasslands. In the Principality of Ulek, which is mainly Dwarven, Fnomosj and Halfling, for example, the navy and coastal towns are predominantly Human.