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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MG.0" data-source="post: 6795716" data-attributes="member: 6799436">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.  The whole section rambles a bit and so I tend to read it as a disconnected stream of conciousness thing, which is probably how it was written. I'll just focus on this one part, because I don't have much time at the moment.    The third paragraph is about the importance of humanity as an anchor to the otherwise bizarre world of D&D, 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. 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. Star Wars cantina isn't a good example either, as there is no believable culture there - just a throwaway scene in a movie. Unless you plan on lampshading culture issues, making everyone just humans in a funny suit anyway, it is a tremendous amount of work for a DM to undertake without aid from literature. 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.  Again, I don't agree with every point he makes, but I do agree with: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players wanting to play powerful monsters typically see it as a way to get attention or dominate the game. This is pretty much borne out in my experience. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Creating an entire campaign world populated with believable cultures is incredibly hard without aid. Doubly so for worlds not centered on humans. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Literature is a big help in creating believable worlds. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The further a character is from human, the harder it is to identify with and integrate into a world. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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. </li> </ul>  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.</blockquote>

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