You certainly seem to dislike Gygax's approach to D&D. I'm not saying everything he wrote is gospel or anything like that, but there are valid points in there.
Honestly, it's more the rhetoric than the approach itself. The man definitely understood design. But his
written opinions come across...far worse, and far less friendly, than his
spoken ones. I'm also not super big on the "player skill is the end-all be-all of the game." I think it matters, albeit more as informed choices and learning from results, but I'm also in it to hear an awesome story.
The third paragraph is about the importance of humanity as an anchor to the otherwise bizarre world of D&D...
And had he stopped there, he would've had my full agreement. We need touchstones. They help us find the familiar in the strange--and, in the best cases, the strange in the familiar.
and also about the importance of making a campaign world a living breathing whole - indeed a monumental task without aid. In the fourth he's not saying that it's difficult to DM a world with more than humans, he's saying it's difficult to create a believable campaign world where humans don't play a central role or don't exist.
It's hard for me to see it as such a "monumental" task when I engage in it as an idle pastime. I'm a clever guy, but I am not so puffed up to think that I am somehow specially imaginative! And again, I see a huge and fundamentally important distinction between the two things you describe here: a world where humans
don't play a central role vs. a world where humans
don't exist. Arguments about the difficulty of making, and accepting, the latter cannot necessarily be used to justify the former! There's also a third, even grander state, which Gygax is stridently arguing for: humans not just in *a* central role, but *the* central role, with all other species as mere footnotes to their radiant, indeed
solar glory. The fact that it's hard to find your way in a world with nothing "human"--which I don't dispute--doesn't actually support the idea that humans MUST be the special, chosen/destined people that
always lead and
always dominate.
The fact that Star Trek has created an (arguably) semi-believable culture for Klingons actually reinforces this, as it wasn't done by a single overworked DM in his spare time, but as you said, by teams of people hired to do just that, and still humanity plays the central role.
Well, other than having a separate costume designer, I'm 99% sure Klingon culture--language, rituals, etc.--can all be traced to one guy (Marc Okrand). And even if it were a team, so what? It just shows that "believable" cultures CAN be done, in fairly short order, by a small staff of people. Sometimes repeatedly (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Bajorans, Romulans, Cardassians, the Founders). Will it take longer, and be more piecemeal, if done by a single person? Sure--but at the same time, they have the most fantastic special-effects engine ever created to ease their burden (that is, their players' imaginations). Hell, Tolkien did it with not just one culture, but half a dozen (some drawing heavily on real cultures, some fairly minimally, e.g. the Vanyar and Noldor).
Notice he doesn't preclude the possibility of creating such a world, just that it would be difficult, which indeed it is. His last sentence does cynically disbelieve such a world rival those of literary geniuses, and here I disagree. Not everyone is capable of creating a complicated believable world, but I don't think it as rare as Gygax seems to think.
See, I think he is using that example to show that it
is impossible for most, if not all, DMs. Sure, he's allowing that it might be theoretically possible, but it's clear that his argument is "you're not going to
actually accomplish this." But there absolutely
are such worlds--and I think Gygax has misinterpreted why they happen. Humans are frequently central for the same reasons that males are far more commonly the leading role in books and films: because we humans (I would argue lazily) rely on stereotype and convenient cultural biases. But at least for gender or ethnicity or sexuality, there actually
are people to challenge us on these acts of convenience. There ain't a Lorax to speak for the
trees aliens.
Again, I don't agree with every point he makes, but I do agree with:
- Players wanting to play powerful monsters typically see it as a way to get attention or dominate the game. This is pretty much born out in my experience.
- Creating an entire campaign world populated with believable cultures is incredibly hard without aid. Doubly so for worlds not centered on humans.
- Literature is a big help in creating believable worlds.
- The further a character is from human, the harder it is to identify with and integrate into a world.
- Don't refuse monsters as characters, but place realistic (for your campaign) restrictions on them. If monster-like characters are not lampshaded, then most players will gravitate back to playing something that fits in better.
Okay, well, first point doesn't apply to dragonborn, tieflings, or the vast majority of other "non-human" races. They're not "powerful monsters." They're no more different from humans than elves are.* I disagree about the "doubly so for worlds not
centered on humans." Worlds can feature humans, and humans can be a common occurrence, without them being the "center" of the campaign/story. Consider, for example, World of Warcraft: arguably, the two most important races are not human--they're (Night) elves and orcs! (They certainly get better writing most of the time...) And sure, literature helps--good DMs borrow, great DMs steal, to "borrow" from Mr. Wilde--I see that, too, as kind of a platitude, since it's effectively impossible to work without being inspired by stuff you already know (and, particularly, stuff you like).
I can identify just fine with non-human characters. It's a matter of making them understandable, even if they aren't
like us. The difference between cognitive and emotive understanding. I also question that last assertion: I don't think either of us has any idea what "most" players, who decide to try a
balanced "monster-like" character, will want to do after experiencing the effect of being made Other.
An example for the last item: If everytime your Xorn walks into weapon shop, the proprietor freaks out, it gets old. Ignoring that because it gets boring does a disservice to the integrity of the campaign world overall unless you make Xorn's walking into shops a normal thing in your world. Making a campaign world with believable Xorn nations and culture mixing with that of humans is a lot of work, due to the lack of any existing source material.
Eh. I don't think it's as much work as you're thinking it is. It does require effort and thought, but I came up with at least a delaying tactic (the "random race reaction table") with just a few minutes' thought.
*And, in 5e, dragonborn are IMO decidedly
less different, mechanically!
