D&D as humanocetric ... or not?

[Helldritch]

Yeah this. I got described as a LN DM. If bad stuff happens tough luck, I don't go out if my way to kill them off and run it close to RAW.

It's the only way to play. Personally, I roll dice in the open. Intelligent monsters are played intelligently. Stupid monsters are played plain stupid and genius ones, well, I try... I do not hesitate to kill a player or even to tpk if it comes to that. Of course I prefer when the group retires because they met their goals. But from my experience, when a group retire because they met their goals and met them through sheer tactics, efforts and hardship, it feels way more rewarding than achieving it just because that is the way it was planned. People always love a good challenge. The risk of failures makes it more rewarding.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's the only way to play. Personally, I roll dice in the open. Intelligent monsters are played intelligently. Stupid monsters are played plain stupid and genius ones, well, I try... I do not hesitate to kill a player or even to tpk if it comes to that. Of course I prefer when the group retires because they met their goals. But from my experience, when a group retire because they met their goals and met them through sheer tactics, efforts and hardship, it feels way more rewarding than achieving it just because that is the way it was planned. People always love a good challenge. The risk of failures makes it more rewarding.

You know that stereotype about the DM favoring his GF? I killed my wife's PC.

All good the basement is comfy.

 

[Helldritch]

You know that stereotype about the DM favoring his GF? I killed my wife's PC.

All good the basement is comfy.

Ishhhh, days of hardship for you.
Fortunately for me, my wife doesn't play. I would've liked it but it's not her cup of tea.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That’s not how Common languages work though and English is a great example. Modern English is a pidgin that’s developed when old English was dominated by Norman French.

similarly Humans might have been dominated by Elf’s to create a new pidgin language which all humans were forced to speak speak and others pick up as a trade language.

A fair point in how real life language works, but that isn't exactly how things are portrayed in the game.

Firstly, I cannot think of a single world that specifically calls out humans as having been under the subjugation or domination of another race and their language forced to adapt. There aren't even to my knowledge any references to "Old Humanish" as a language that once existed but no longer does, like there is for "Old English"

Secondly, we simply need to look at the PHB section on languages to see that Common couldn't be derived from another language. It is listed as "Common -> Typical Speakers: Human -> Script: Common" while a language that shares a root, such as Dwarvish and Giant, is listed like this "Giant -> Typical Speakers: Giants and Ogres -> Script: Dwarvish"

If common were a pigdin derived from another language, it would share that languages script, not have it's own unique script. Especially since out of the 16 languages listed, there are only 6 scripts.

Thinking of all gods as ‘human’ rather than gods is a bit contrived and if it is protrayed that way in a game thats just lazying DMing really and not something Ive ever really seen.
In the Forgotten Realm I can think of Gond the Lord of All Smiths, who manifests as a gnome and isnt Chauntea a halfling?

I do not know how they are typically shown, but let us take the Forgotten Realms for a moment, because I think this will show what I am talking about. Most of these are from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

Tempus is "The God of War"
Bahamut is the Dragon God of War
Vandria Gilmadrith is the Elven God of War
Selvetarm is the Drow God of War
Clangeddin Silverbeard is the Dwarvish God of War
Deep Duerra is the Duergar God of War
Arvoreen is the Halfling God of War
Gaerdal Ironhand is the Gnome God of War
Ilneval is the Orc God of War

And when I did a category sort for "Human dieities" most of the ones who show up are the major gods. In fact, Chauntea shows up as a human dieity, but not as a Halfling Diety. Gond shows up as part of the Lords of the Golden hills for Gnomes on the wiki, but is not listed as a Gnomish diety in the sourcebooks, because his role as "God of Knowledge, Invention, and Smithing" is covered by other dieties such as Bleredd, Flandal Steelskin, and Nebelun. The last of whom is mentioned, because it says in the Wiki that Gond was accepted by the Gnomes as Nebelun, even though they were seperate entities, and only remained in the Pantheon because Nebelun was too busy in other dimensions to correct the mistake.

So, I don't think it is lazy DMing. I think it takes far more work to realize that every single race has a unique pantheon, and their gods are as powerful and relevant as the "defaults" which are constantly ascribed to everyone. I mean, I could also take the gods of Death, because every race has one. Does it really make sense that Sehanine Moonbow, the Elvish Goddess of Death, marks an elf to pass on, hands their soul to Kelemvor, then gets it back to put among their pantheon? Didn't Sehanine Moonbow already judge them? She marked them after all, according to the Mordenkainen's Lore, why is Kelemvor even involved in this? Because he is "The God of Death" for all races, while all races except humans have their own unique gods of death?

Humans are the most adaptable Race so there’s ic reason why they why they are so common across the planet as well as the ooc reason of the players and game writers being most familiar with a human base. I’ve got no issue with that being a base standard, but the whole point of races is to allow for fantastic variation and those are best judged against a human baseline.

I don't disagree with you (except for elves, from what I've seen of older editions, there is an elf for every terrain type you can imagine, sometimes three)

But, I do think it makes for a richer world if every race and culture is given proper space and viewing. Break up the gods into their racial pantheons, and rituals follow. Every race would have different prayers, rituals and stories around death, war, love, ect.

Otherwise, if you keep everyone on the same culture, there isn't exactly a good way to have a "human baseline" culture. If all races worship Kelemvor as the God of the Dead, and they follow his precepts and bury the dead in the way he says, then everyone shares the exact same culture, and that culture is human. And if everyone is human, there is very little variation.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

That’s not how Common languages work though and English is a great example. Modern English is a pidgin that’s developed when old English was dominated by Norman French.

similarly Humans might have been dominated by Elf’s to create a new pidgin language which all humans were forced to speak speak and others pick up as a trade language.

A fair point in how real life language works, but that isn't exactly how things are portrayed in the game.

Firstly, I cannot think of a single world that specifically calls out humans as having been under the subjugation or domination of another race and their language forced to adapt. There aren't even to my knowledge any references to "Old Humanish" as a language that once existed but no longer does, like there is for "Old English"

Secondly, we simply need to look at the PHB section on languages to see that Common couldn't be derived from another language. It is listed as "Common -> Typical Speakers: Human -> Script: Common" while a language that shares a root, such as Dwarvish and Giant, is listed like this "Giant -> Typical Speakers: Giants and Ogres -> Script: Dwarvish"

If common were a pigdin derived from another language, it would share that languages script, not have it's own unique script. Especially since out of the 16 languages listed, there are only 6 scripts.

I don't think the answer is exactly either of these.

This is from a five minute Google search, so take it as you will, but between Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, the "Common" language is a lingua franca descended from ancient (usually human) languages that have since either gone extinct or linguistically diverged into different languages.

Greyhawk Common is a hybrid of Old Oeridian and Ancient Baklunish, both ancient human languages.

Forgotten Realms Common is descended from the Thorass language, which in turn was a hybrid of Jhaamdathan (an ancient human language) and Alzhedo (Auran Primordial).

Eberron Common (the Galifaran language) is descended from Old Riedran (an ancient human language), splitting from what would become modern Riedran and developing via linguistic drift before being onstated as the official language of Galifar.

I don't know about other settings; I'm guessing Dark Sun Common is descended from Halfling? But anyhow, the answer is that D&D languages just... evolve, likethey do in real life. Linguistic drift and linguistic standardization happen. Sort of how like Jianghuai Mandarin and Putonghua are related to each other but not identical.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't think the answer is exactly either of these.

This is from a five minute Google search, so take it as you will, but between Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, the "Common" language is a lingua franca descended from ancient human languages that have since either gone extinct or linguistically diverged into different languages.

Greyhawk Common is a hybrid of Old Oeridian and Ancient Baklunish, both ancient human languages.

Forgotten Realms Common is descended from the Thorass language, which in turn was a hybrid of Jhaamdathan (an ancient human language) and Alzhedo (Auran Primordial).

Eberron Common (the Galifaran language) is descended from Old Riedran (an ancient human language), splitting from what would become modern Riedran and developing via linguistic drift before being onstated as the official language of Galifar.

I don't know about other settings; I'm guessing Dark Sun Common is descended from Halfling? But anyhow, the answer is that D&D languages just... evolve, likethey do in real life. Linguistic drift and linguistic standardization happen. Sort of how like Jianghuai Mandarin and Putonghua are related to each other but not identical.

True, but that just proves the initial point I was trying to make.

In all of your examples, the "Common Tongue" that all races speak, derives from Human languages. Therefore, Common is the Human language which was my claim.

I think, if I understood correctly, that Tonguez idea was something more similiar to the human language having been destroyed, and therefore they speak only this combination of languages known as common.

My claim is that Common is the human language, and every other race speaks it by default, and that the most common gods are actually the Human gods, just not called out as such.

So, if everyone is speaking the human language and worshipping the human gods... then the game is inherently humanocentric, even if the entire party is formed of tieflings, goliaths, dragonborn, gnomes and Tabaxi. Because the most common npc encountered will likely be human, the language is human, the gods are human, the coinage will likely be human, ect.

Edit: It takes an large expenditure of effort to break away from this, and focus the game in other areas.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I've come to the realization that no matter what I say, my players will come to the table with whatever character idea they've come up with on their own anyway. My Thule game was "No casters" and the first three character concepts were all full casters (oh, I'm just the only one). My Greyhawk game, as I mentioned, has a firbolg and an orc. Not a single character is actually from the Saltmarsh area or has any direct links to the Saltmarsh area. My Dragonheist game, as I mentioned, has a talking skeleton and a warforged.

Sigh.

I've found that no matter what, the players do not give the slightest crap about the setting. So, I either get new players, which I don't want to do, or I adapt and overcome.

This whole "the setting fidelity matters" thing is a DM bugaboo (something I'm somewhat guilty of) and, honestly, players don't seem to care in the slightest. Someone upthread mentioned needing a place for Samurai to come from if you add a Samurai to the Egypt game. Nope. No one cares. The players could not give the slightest crap about it. So, let it go and roll with it.

What you need to do is use reverse physiology. Next time you pitch a campaign, say that everything is fine except X,Y, or Z. Naturally, all your players will want to play X, Y, or Z! Of course, you campaign is actually set for X, Y, Z to be the focus of the campaign.

 

[Kai Lord]

Well, as far as I'm concerned there are no Drow in Midgard. Play a...shadow fey.

If Bruder dies I probably will.

 

[Bohandas]

The problems arise only when the perfect storm hits: you-as-DM have prepped an ancient Greek setting with a campy Hercules-Xena flavour to it, hoping for - but not insisting on - mostly Human and mostly warrior characters to fight the warlord-of-the-week, but each player has for whatever reason (and independently!) this time decided to go off the farm in char-gen. So, after the roll-up session you're presented with a Gnome Artificer* whose solution to everything is to build some crazy device; a Tiefling Rogue** whose mission is to steal 1000 g.p. worth of loot in order to prove herself to her clan; an Arctic Elf Ranger whose goal is simply to get home to the northern icefields; and a sodden Dwarven Cleric (to the god of beer, natch!) who most of the time is too drunk to stand up***.

That last one's not too bad. Everyone's heard of Bacchus/Dionysus/Zagreus, the Greco-Roman god of getting liquored up

 

[Zardnaar]

If Bruder dies I probably will.

I assume you like Magnamund?