Do You Prefer to Play a Human PC When RPGing?

[Aus_Snow]

The point is that if demi-humans existed, their minds would be alien to us. Even at our best we can only portray them as humans with strange behaviours and outlooks on life.

No.

In the same way, a LARPer can't make an adamantium sword, because the mineral simply doesn't exist. What they can do is use known materials in an unorthodox manner to give an impression of what it might be like, on the assumption that it's analogous to metals we already know and understand. Therefore we can say "I imagine adamantium would be similar to this", but not "this alloy is adamantium". It cannot be accurate, because a negative (something non-existent) cannot be proven.

I think this argument does not support what you were apparently trying to say (again). Or at least, it does not support it at all well. It is not relevant to the point you were (apparently) trying to make (again).

Stop me now, before I start on free will and determinism.

OK.


Agreeing to disagree may have some appeal, after all.

 

[Agback]

(mammals: genera, yes?)

No. The Genera Of Humans And Dogs Are Homo And Canis (Respectively). Mammalia Is A Class.

 

[Kurotowa]

I'm trying to say that a real-world human playing an elf is like my dog trying to roleplay me as a superhero PC.

This is the assumption that I'm talking about. It's a theory, but it's only that. Philosophers, thinkers, and science fiction writers have spent the last hundred years working on theories about what non-human sentients would be like. Some theorize, as you do, that human thought in uniquely rooted in the human condition. Any other being will think so differently as to leave a nearly incomprehensable gap between us. Others theorize that sentience is more universal in nature, and that precisely because we are sentient communication will always be possible. Humans have a strong capacity for understanding others, for putting themselves in someone else's shoes, and given how many people have deep bonds with animals of all sorts it's not unreasonable to believe that alien beings are no different.

I fall closer to the latter than the former. There are gulps of experience and thought, but they can still be overcome. Especially when it's D&D races that are so close to human they can interbreed.

 

[prosfilaes]

I think the realism of a non-human race also has a lot to do with the setting. D&D races are hardly more different than the mutated 'furry' humans in GURPS Technomancer or the parahuman templates in GURPS Biotech or Transhuman Space. Now if this was happening on the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society forums, well, I might be more accepting of the concept that people can't realistically play a Droyne or a Hiver.

Then again, a Traveller human would be a lot easier to play realistically than a Transhuman Space human. Can we really understand the mindset of someone who is pratically immortal, whether he's going to have his body rebuilt or his brain uploaded into a computer, who lives with an almost sapient AI computer inside his head and can load the complete public bio of anyone he sees even if he hasn't seen them before in his life? Whose first sexual experience was with thier AI, who has changed gender a couple times in their life, who considers running a race on the moon without a spacesuit just to live on the edge? That's more alien than any elf I've heard.

 

[Hairfoot]

That's one hypothesis, but it's not the absolute truth.

Indeed. The truths of non-existent species can never be known. I simply contend that the notion that real elves and dwarves would be similar to humans is equally valid to the notion that they would be alien. I err on the side of alien, because the differences in the game world (elf relative to human) are equal to differences in the real world (human relative to dog).

Thanks, Kurotowa and prosfilaes, for insightful and cogent responses.

Thanks not at all, Aus Snow, for the forum equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I?".

 

[fusangite]

Indeed. The truths of non-existent species can never be known. I simply contend that the notion that real elves and dwarves would be similar to humans is equally valid to the notion that they would be alien. I err on the side of alien, because the differences in the game world (elf relative to human) are equal to differences in the real world (human relative to dog).

Really? What do elf societies look like in your game world? Certainly, from the RAW, this is a tough conclusion to sustain. While I'm all for innovations on and modifications to the core rules, I just don't see where you find in the PHB and MM the idea that elves are as different from humans as dogs are.

 

[Hairfoot]

Really? What do elf societies look like in your game world? Certainly, from the RAW, this is a tough conclusion to sustain. While I'm all for innovations on and modifications to the core rules, I just don't see where you find in the PHB and MM the idea that elves are as different from humans as dogs are.

There needs to be a smiley which indicates the hand-pressed-to-forehead motion people make when they explain a point as thoroughly and succinctly as possible, but it's still heard as something completely different to what they said.

Elves are made up. By humans. They do not exist. Therefore, no-one can claim that (if they were a fact of real world life) elves, dwarves, gnomes, devils, or any other fictional species would look, act, think, feel, and relate precisely the way it is depicted in game/book/movie/series/computer game/vivid dream X.

They might, certainly. But it defies all belief that I'm being taken apart for stating that if something which doesn't exist did, it might be different to the way it's imagined.

MM, PHB, Tolkien, Nintendo, or any other person, company, cult, or god which may render these species in future do not come into it. The point was not how they function in a game, but what they would be like if realised.

If I'm wrong, don't waste time arguing. Get out there there and describe precisely how technology which doesn't exist works, so that we can have it now, instead of waiting for it to exist. Cold fusion would be good.

Ooh, ooh! Better yet, create a holodeck. If it's been imagined and depicted in fiction, its exact nature and ramifications should be patent.

 

[Schmoe]

I play a human more often than I play any particular other race, but I don't play a human more than I play all other races.

 

[fusangite]

Elves are made up. By humans.

Doesn't this indicate that, because they are made up by humans, they must be composed entirely of attributes humans can understand? How can something defined and created exclusively by us (humans) be unknowable by us? Because elves exist exclusively in the human imagination, isn't what an elf can possibly be necessarily circumscribed by the human imagination?

They do not exist. Therefore, no-one can claim that (if they were a fact of real world life) elves, dwarves, gnomes, devils, or any other fictional species would look, act, think, feel, and relate

This reasoning makes no sense. If we had no idea how an elf would look, act or think, how would we even know that what we were looking at was an elf? Obviously, our ability to define them as a particular set would be contingent on our ability to assign properties to them.

It might be that elves, in a particular hypothetical world, were like Vulcans, ie. humans with pointy ears, longevity and some weird personality and cultural quirks.

Sure, if they were Runequest elves (ie. intelligent humanoid plants), elves might be hard to comprehend but the RAW's descriptions of elves makes it pretty clear that this is not the case.

They might, certainly. But it defies all belief that I'm being taken apart for stating that if something which doesn't exist did, it might be different to the way it's imagined.

MM, PHB, Tolkien, Nintendo, or any other person, company, cult, or god which may render these species in future do not come into it.

What are you talking about? We are having a conversation about D&D elves. Elves as defined by D&D's rules.

If D&D elves existed in the real world, they would be like... [drumroll] D&D elves.

As with most discussions on ENWorld, our definition of a term is assumed to be the definition the term has in the game.

The point was not how they function in a game, but what they would be like if realised.

The title of this thread is "Do You Prefer to Play a Human PC When RPGing?" You are claiming that our discussion is about something it is not. The question is: are D&D elves playable? I say, "yes." You seem to say, "D&D elves are not believably playable because if elves existed in the real world, they wouldn't be anything like D&D elves." What we are discussing is the playability of a creation of the human imagination; a creation of the human imagination is necessarily knowable by humans and therefore playable.

If I'm wrong, don't waste time arguing. Get out there there and describe precisely how technology which doesn't exist works, so that we can have it now, instead of waiting for it to exist. Cold fusion would be good.

Ooh, ooh! Better yet, create a holodeck. If it's been imagined and depicted in fiction, its exact nature and ramifications should be patent.

Close the rubber cement container, take your nose out of the plastic bag and re-read the thread title please.

EDIT: D&D elves have been defined as both very long-lived and socially similar to human beings. I see no evidence that this is, by definition, impossible.

 

[DM-Rocco]

How can you not?

Back in AD&D I was an elf man, almost exclusively, although I did play each race at least once.

Under the 3.0/3.5 banner, it is just too hard to give up the extra skill points and bonus feat. Sure seeing in the dark is cool, so also can be the bonus to ability scores, but in the end, there are so many skills and waaaaaaaaay to many feats and not enough of either from class abilities.

It is a shame, cause I always enjoyed other races, but in 3.5, the only other time I didn't play a human was when the DM said, "let's make epic characters, anything goes," so I played a succubus thrallherder with a spellweaver cohort, that was fun

I hate to admit it is cause of the bonus feat and skills cause it sounds too much like meta gaming, but really, unless you are taking another race to meet a PrC requirement, it is very hard to pass up what you get for being human.

Side note: I can't get a DM to let me play a Warforged, but that sounds like fun and I would take that over a human, but really only if I could take Artificer with it