A game without humans

[herrozerro]

Slightly inspired by Morrus' thread about names for humans, I have been rattling around a setting for a while now and the question I keep coming back to is should I include humans as an option?

For the most part, I see the inclusion of humans in games to be the base where we can then as players can then expound upon. Since we are humans, we can compare everything in the game to what a human is and then at least understand how we would fit next to it.

But is the inclusion of humans needed? If a game or setting had no human analogue would the game have less appeal? As a sort of workaround in my own setting I have been building a close human analogue, but it's more like a human+.

 

[Mallus]

My standard response to this is: a game will only *ever* have humans because that's what the players are. You can dress them up in all kinds of fictional drag, but any and all characters are going to be a human underneath.

And that's fine.

So go ahead, populate your world with sentient rocks and clever shades of blue, if that's what gets your creative juices flowing!

 

[Derren]

But is the inclusion of humans needed? If a game or setting had no human analogue would the game have less appeal? As a sort of workaround in my own setting I have been building a close human analogue, but it's more like a human+.

No idea how it would work for your personal game, but as a published product it would likely draw a lot less players. There were several studies made in fantasy video games, both online and offline and the result always was around 2/3 of the player choosing human as race.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

But is the inclusion of humans needed? If a game or setting had no human analogue would the game have less appeal? As a sort of workaround in my own setting I have been building a close human analogue, but it's more like a human+.

If you have humans or recognisable human analogues in your game, I have some idea how the society will work. Throw in some symbols to refer to another human society from history or literature and I still know what to expect.

But how does a society of amoeba-like creatures floating on mind-controlled force fields and reproducing in ways biology doesn't even have the terminology to describe work? I don't know; you tell me.

Everyone knows that dwarves are short, gruff humans with a lust for gold while elves are aloof ones with high cheek bones. Their societies can be described as "like ours (from some period in history), but..." As long as this holds true, players have something to work with out of the box. Remove this description from the equation and you have earned the honour to describe a complex system from the ground up.

It's not anatomy what makes a race different, it's their society.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Slightly inspired by Morrus' thread about names for humans, I have been rattling around a setting for a while now and the question I keep coming back to is should I include humans as an option?

For the most part, I see the inclusion of humans in games to be the base where we can then as players can then expound upon. Since we are humans, we can compare everything in the game to what a human is and then at least understand how we would fit next to it.

But is the inclusion of humans needed? If a game or setting had no human analogue would the game have less appeal? As a sort of workaround in my own setting I have been building a close human analogue, but it's more like a human+.

If you can put an interesting twist on humans, go for it.

In 4e Gamma World, you roll for your two 'origins'. If you roll the same for both origins, you get 'enhanced human', which is actually more powerful than normal origins. It's also quite rare. I like that GW took the idea of human as a 'default' and turned it on its head.

What kind of game/setting are you running?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In my personal experience, in those few times I designed campaign settings without humans, I have found I needed to add humans in order to appease players. Not that they necessarily actually played humans, mind you- because most didn't- but because they wanted that option during PCgen,just in case. Without that option, they wouldn't even participate.

 

[pjs37]

If you have humans or recognisable human analogues in your game, I have some idea how the society will work. Throw in some symbols to refer to another human society from history or literature and I still know what to expect.

But how does a society of amoeba-like creatures floating on mind-controlled force fields and reproducing in ways biology doesn't even have the terminology to describe work? I don't know; you tell me.

Everyone knows that dwarves are short, gruff humans with a lust for gold while elves are aloof ones with high cheek bones. Their societies can be described as "like ours (from some period in history), but..." As long as this holds true, players have something to work with out of the box. Remove this description from the equation and you have earned the honour to describe a complex system from the ground up.

It's not anatomy what makes a race different, it's their society.

Pretty much sums up how people feel about humans in their RPG's. I think we like familiarity something to reference back to to say "I can recognize this" I think if you make things too alien to players they won't know how to approach it. Star Trek is a good example of this (While I know it was done for monetary reasons) All the aliens have a human like quality to them and as a result I think people can relate to them even better. We tend to project what we know to be true about humans onto anything else if you remove that we are basically lost.

 

[gamerprinter]

I can certainly see the challenge in designing a world without humans, and sounds like an interesting thought experiment.

Though I have certain players that always play a half-elf, for example, I far, far prefer a setting with only humans and zero non-human sentient races. As a player, I only play humans. So everyone has their particular preferences. I put in lots of flavor for every character, but don't need a different race to make a different character everytime.

 

[HeroForge]

Slightly inspired by Morrus' thread about names for humans, I have been rattling around a setting for a while now and the question I keep coming back to is should I include humans as an option?

For the most part, I see the inclusion of humans in games to be the base where we can then as players can then expound upon. Since we are humans, we can compare everything in the game to what a human is and then at least understand how we would fit next to it.

But is the inclusion of humans needed? If a game or setting had no human analogue would the game have less appeal? As a sort of workaround in my own setting I have been building a close human analogue, but it's more like a human+.

Humans fulfill all kinds of purposes in all kinds of stories. Think, for example, of science fiction movies? Humans are often the underdog in a world of more powerful, long lived creatures. Or benevolent friends to smaller, cuddlier ones. Sometimes they are a reference point, and sometimes it is to get people genuinely excited about their own race! Also: it is good to have a 'default' race for NPCs that doesn't re-contextualize them in your mind by accounting for different cultures.

 

[Kinak]

I don't think you need to include humans. Look at the Dark Crystal, for example.

But, unless you're pushing for an entirely new world from the ground up and are ready for the work that entails, both in development and in getting players on board, I'd probably leave it to Jim Henson.

Cheers!
Kinak