A game without humans

[Herobizkit]

I once ran a campaign that was Elven-focused.

Because there were a LOT of elven variants, I went with Elves being the dominant race of the continent.

Humans existed, but they were essentially surface-dwelling Grimlocks and found most often among Orcs as slaves and cannon fodder.

Half-Elves inherited the stigma that Half-Orcs usually have.

Dwarves existed, but stayed either underground (Duergar) or at sea (like Vikings, yup).

Halflings often worked in tandem with Wood Elves.

... and screw Gnomes. because GNOMES. :3

But yeah. Wood Elves (the most common), Wild Elves (xenophobic barbarians), Grey Elves (haughty superiority similar to Magneto), Drow (who hunt Grimlocks and fight Duergar), and even the Aquatic elves (allies of the sea-Dwarves) saw some play.

It was short lived, but man, good times in my youth.

 

[Yora]

What I found to be working rather well is to have humans be just one race like any other. In most settings humans make 80 or 90% of the entire population, with the rest being everyone else. But it doesn't really have to be that way and you can put their numbers much, much lower. In my homebrew setting, humans are only in 4th place between gnomes and a goblin race. As long as there are two or three places where humans are dominant and have their own communities and societies, that's sufficient options for players to make their characters from these places. The current campaign takes place in a region where there are 50% humans, 40% elves, and 10% gnomes, but so far the PCs stayed in the human area.

 

[steenan]

It really depends on what the game is about, what kind of stories it is designed to tell.

In stereotypical, Tolkien-derived fantasy that D&D used for years, humans are present and typically important for the setting. But it's definitely not the only type of fantasy worth exploring.


Use humans is you want to focus more on exploring familiar, human concerns, or on exploring how humans react to things alien and supernatural. In this case, you probably don't want to have any non-human playable races.


If you want to explore the supernatural and alien from first-person perspective, then putting humans as a playable race detracts from the premise. They become an easy way out for people who don't really want to engage the game as designed.

 

[howandwhy99]

I prepped to run a game where the PCs were all dwarves. There were humans in the world, certainly. It's simply the game centered around a dwarf hold where the PCs lived.

The only potentially stumbling block I see with a setting without humans is lessening of ability to identify with the creature type. We basically act like everything about humans applies to everything else except for whatever handful of differences we see. It's expected that another race feels, thinks, lives, exists as we largely do. And that's why most PCs today act like its 2013 in whatever setting they are in.

 

[valhallions]

I know in myself, I would always choose a non-human option if available. However I do think that humans are needed in a game, even if it is just a mention that they have died out or left or even evolved. It gives the players a reference point and something they can relate to. I find that if you want your players to be non-human, a human villain is always fun.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

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

This makes me want tot run a game where all of the characters are sentient colors.

The opening adventure sill be a mystery: "Blue and red had gone missing ... all that remained was a vile shade of purple."

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, the Earthdawn RPG and setting uses dwarves as the dominant species. Humans are just one among many other, less common races. It definitely works, well even. I suppose you could get rid of them completely, but you might alienate some players who prefer playing humans, so make sure to discuss the idea first.

 

[Nellisir]

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+.

http://matt-landofnod.blogspot.com/p/pars-fortuna.html

 

[Janx]

when I read the title of the thread, I envisioned an RPG that has no humans sitting at the table to play. Perhaps one played by dogs or computers.

Clearly, I'm in the wrong thread....