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Message: <blockquote data-quote="interwyrm" data-source="post: 2773783" data-attributes="member: 31913">I was of the opinion that in most worthwhile fantasy the protagonist is human. Basically, pointy ears or beards are gimmicks. It's like... in star trek, all the aliens are humans with funny makeup and an exaggerated characteristic personality trait.In my opinion, good fantasy is fantasy which takes realistically believable characters and forces them to make realistically believable decisions in an environment that is not realistic at all.The reason is basically that if I am trying to get involved in a story, I do not care about characters I cannot relate to. The ancient and noble race that is perfect in every way and has pointy ears does not interest me. Humans are interesting because they are short lived. They have to deal with mortality. They have a time-scale that they are racing against. I mean, what does a human wizard do... he rapidly assesses knowledge over a short period of time and uses it, typically, to try to cheat his own mortality. That is interesting. The 1000 year old elf who just, I dunno, happened to pick up tidbits of magical knowledge along the way because he could is really dull. The other reason humans are more interesting is because they don't have a 'favored class.' I mean, an elven wizard, a dwarven fighter, a halfling rogue... those are all tired concepts. It goes even further than that though... elven rangers/archers and dwarven clerics are also tired.Let me clarify - stories are interesting because the characters overcome problems. If characters don'to have problems, they don't have an interesting story.</blockquote>

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