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For the real simple stuff I turn to Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2. It's designed for recreating 80s "30-minute toy commercial" cartoons, but really the core system could be used in a variety of contexts. For superheroes more simple than Mutants&Masterminds there's BASH Ultimate Edition.. I...

I don't. The paint is a very important part of the character to me. (But not the stats all that much, just so you know.) As myself. The real me. That last one is basically how I figure the process works, at least for me: I roleplay to be myself. There's a little inner part of me that's...

I personally tend to have the feeling that elves and dwarves can fit into any setting. But since I essentially view those two as basically "humans, but a little different" (and more fun than halflings and less niche than orcs) it's probably more that I can imagine setting where humans fit in...

As it just occurred to me: Both sides could have their cake: aliens would be aliens, but their alienness might give them a way to be equally diverse different from the human way. (This has probably been suggested before on this thread, but maybe not in this exact way and that could count for...

It was something of a comment on how it was suggested that maybe people who are insisting on seeing aliens as human-like should instead see aliens as alien.

Well that's why I said "possibly". But I do think a hypothetical someone unprepared for having to compromise their ideal of "respect sentient life" would find the idea disturbing. I actually think there's some room to say that full self-defense can be argued against: in the third movie an...

But possibly disturbing as if it's just been hypothetically argued that "if anything has moral value it would be respect for sentient life", and yet based on your hypothetical argument sentient life would be justified in not respecting this form of sentient life.

I was never referring only to D&D: I was addressing all portrayals and anyone who'd listen. I can hope someone in D&D gets my message, but nevertheless I don't expect to be listened to.

Would it have helped if I'd put in more qualifications that I knew it was an amituruish attempt at psychology at the time I wrote it? I can never be sure when I write something like that whether I should sound sure or unsure. And am never sure afterwards whether it was my lack of skill or the...

But is it in reality? I think what some people react to is the fear that they will stereotype out of ignorance like racists of old. They don't want to label "The Other" as anything in case the Other finds an offensive portrayal (as unlikely as that may seem). Also some people arguing against...

But are you going to create a slew of cultures for humans? Because if you are why not just add the races to those culture rather than assuming culture and race always have to be separate and thus each race needs an entirely different slew than the others? This could raise the question of why...

If it has to be repeated (or even explained to humans) more than once it's either not true and you're trying to drown out the truth or if it is true then you are reveling in it for no good reason because you don't need to keep reminding people about it.

I require none at all. But then I appear to be a unique anomaly, and I like being different so don't let anyone else get the chance to try it. ;) I prefer meta-talk to be made by the characters rather than the players. At least that way we're all still roleplaying. Mechanics should never...

It isn't if you're okay with that. But at that point we're not talking about racial crunch anymore. A similar thing could have been done with most of what non-humans are in D&D: suggestions of what ability scores would be high rather than an ability bonus would eliminate the "picked only for a...

I've used "panian", based on the idea that humans are not homo genus but really still of the pan genus that they share with chimpanzees. But it does sound weird, so you could use "hominid", which in some was is pretty accurate. According to wikipedia you can get even more technical and use the...

Short of making all racial stats the same (or playing a point-buy system where your race stats count against your total points) there's really nothing you can do. In an all-humans game you'd end up with the same problem because either you assign human nationalities/cultures different stats or...

To the issue of "orcs to kill": the whole dilemma of needing to kill your opposition is why I prefer games where non-lethal combat is a good option. You can try for alternatives like conquering armies and evil cults, but there's still always the possibility people aren't as bad as their...

I once read some say somewhere that the fantasy-historical game Atlantis: The Second Age had fantasy races, but those races were all warped humans so that you could justify the "humans in funny makeup" concept.

Except thinking so hard about it is what gets us into this mess: you could excise the racial psychologies/cultures and then not think so hard about how every race is just a human in funny makeup/a costume.

Except maybe that's the message: you're forgetting in your argument that fiction can be about thing other than meticulously creating reality.