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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6795745" data-attributes="member: 6790260">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.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.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.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).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 <s>trees</s> aliens.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.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!</blockquote>

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