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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6671427" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well, it helps if you don't cut out the extremely critical second half of that sentence, where I specifically talk about it changing from table to table. Yes, I allowed for variations from edition to edition (or even between different systems entirely), but the main point was that two different DMs can both &quot;run D&amp;D&quot; while having vastly different cosmological, &quot;biological,&quot; and theological elements in their games. There's also a wide variety of well-loved campaign settings, each with its own particular spin on things. Consider Dark Sun, where Halflings are, or at least may be, the only &quot;original/native&quot; species of Athas, and there are insectoids as well as atypical hybrids like mul.When it is perfectly, 100% accurate to say &quot;I am playing D&amp;D&quot; to describe playing in Oerth, Krynn, Mystara, Athas, Toril, Azeroth, Iomandra, Planescape, Ravenloft, the world of Nerath, and the innumerable homebrew worlds/campaign settings DMs come up with (such as&nbsp; @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=50895" target="_blank">gamerprinter</a>'s setting-in-development)...coupled with the fact that D&amp;D has always re-molded mythology, history, fantasy, and sci-fi to fit its own tastes (one level of Castle Greyhawk had Martian white apes!)...it just seems silly to expect anything remotely like &quot;universal&quot; or even &quot;consensus&quot; definitions for anything.Heck, in some settings, humans are what you get when an elf and an orc have a kid! And that's still just as D&amp;D as Greyhawk or Blackmoor or Khorvaire or Nentir Vale.The question was asked as intended. When you responded to statements about the term &quot;humanoid,&quot; you made it clear that Gnomes qualify as &quot;humanoidish&quot; because they have a roughly human body plan but do not necessarily conform to the proportions of real-world humans. Thus, unless there are additional requirements you did not state, &quot;humanoidish&quot; was sufficiently well-defined for me to not have any questions about it.That and other posts of yours, however, make it clear that you see a very sharp distinction between &quot;humanoid&quot; and &quot;demi-human.&quot; Thus, I am curious what qualities (whether presence or absence thereof) distinguish &quot;humanoid&quot; from &quot;demi-human&quot; as you would define the terms. I appreciate&nbsp; @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=2209" target="_blank">Voadam</a>'s response, as it is straightforward enough, but it is heavily subjective. You have professed a desire for &quot;scientific&quot; terms, by which I assume you mean something primarily objective, so I wanted to hear directly from you what differences you see between the &quot;humanoid&quot; and &quot;demi-human&quot; classifications.(Though I have to admit, I find the term &quot;humanoidish&quot; somewhat...well, silly. &quot;Humanlikelike,&quot; or &quot;having the characteristics of having the characteristics of humans.&quot; It's similar to having a genre called &quot;roguelike&quot;--how do you describe a game which has just a few characteristics of a roguelike? A roguelike-ish game? A roguelite? A rogueoid--no, I can't even stomach that quadruple vowel. A roguesque? Actually that last one isn't so bad-sounding, though technically that should be the narrower rather than broader category, linguistically speaking! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :P"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />)Edit:Also, Tuzenbach, you never really answered the question I asked.If Gnomes are &quot;humanoidish&quot; beings who have had, in several editions, innate magical abilities, are they fey? And if they are not fey, what disqualifies them?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 6671427, member: 6790260"] Well, it helps if you don't cut out the extremely critical second half of that sentence, where I specifically talk about it changing [I]from table to table.[/I] Yes, I allowed for variations from edition to edition (or even between different systems entirely), but the main point was that two different DMs can both "run D&D" while having vastly different cosmological, "biological," and theological elements in their games. There's also a wide variety of well-loved campaign settings, each with its own particular spin on things. Consider Dark Sun, where Halflings are, or at least may be, the only "original/native" species of Athas, and there are insectoids as well as atypical hybrids like mul. When it is perfectly, 100% accurate to say "I am playing D&D" to describe playing in Oerth, Krynn, Mystara, Athas, Toril, Azeroth, Iomandra, Planescape, Ravenloft, the world of Nerath, and the innumerable homebrew worlds/campaign settings DMs come up with (such as @[I][B][U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=50895"]gamerprinter[/URL][/U][/B][/I]'s setting-in-development)...coupled with the fact that D&D has always re-molded mythology, history, fantasy, and sci-fi to fit its own tastes (one level of Castle Greyhawk had Martian white apes!)...it just seems silly to expect anything remotely like "universal" or even "consensus" definitions for anything. Heck, in some settings, humans are what you get when an elf and an orc have a kid! And that's still just as D&D as Greyhawk or Blackmoor or Khorvaire or Nentir Vale. The question was asked as intended. When you responded to statements about the term "humanoid," you made it clear that Gnomes qualify as "humanoidish" because they have a roughly human body plan but do not necessarily conform to the proportions of real-world humans. Thus, unless there are additional requirements you did not state, "humanoidish" was sufficiently well-defined for me to not have any questions about it. That and other posts of yours, however, make it clear that you see a very sharp distinction between "humanoid" and "demi-human." Thus, I am curious what qualities (whether presence or absence thereof) distinguish "humanoid" from "demi-human" as you would define the terms. I appreciate @[I][B][U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=2209"]Voadam[/URL][/U][/B][/I]'s response, as it is straightforward enough, but it is heavily subjective. You have professed a desire for "scientific" terms, by which I assume you mean something primarily objective, so I wanted to hear directly from you what differences you see between the "humanoid" and "demi-human" classifications. (Though I have to admit, I find the term "humanoidish" somewhat...well, silly. "Humanlikelike," or "having the characteristics of having the characteristics of humans." It's similar to having a genre called "roguelike"--how do you describe a game which has just a [I]few[/I] characteristics of a roguelike? A roguelike-ish game? A roguelite? A rogueoid--no, I can't even stomach that quadruple vowel. A roguesque? Actually that last one isn't so bad-sounding, though technically that should be the narrower rather than broader category, linguistically speaking! :P) Edit: Also, Tuzenbach, you never really answered the question I asked. If Gnomes are "humanoidish" beings who have had, in several editions, innate magical abilities, are they fey? And if they are not fey, what disqualifies them? [/QUOTE]

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