Humanocentrism

[darkadelphia]

If you want humans to be more important setting-wise than other races, you need to give them more rules-space than other races. IMO that means developing subraces for humans, not necessarily just tacking on more bonuses to the generic human.

As above, I don't like the idea of human sub-races. 1. It's potentially offensive to grant the, say, the light-skinned people of the west one bonus and the dark-skinned people of the south another, 2. it leads to cosmopolitan groups--makes sense in some game worlds, but I prefer a homogeneous humanity locally with the possibility of encountering far flung races once the characters have gone "where no one has gone before." I know, to each their own.

 

[PeelSeel2]

In our new 4e campaign we decided to have everyone roll for race on a 2d6 bell curve, with Humans coming up on a 6-8, and various other races coming on different rolls. That way playing certain races is special. Works great.

 

[Verdande]

If you want for most of the world to be human, then just have them be humans.

If you want most of your players to be human, though, that's kind of wierd. My advice, though, is to give your humans a little extra flair, maybe in the form of +3 to one stat. It's not that useful to have a +2 to any one stat when you can just pick a race with two +2s basically wherever you want it, so why not give them a tiny edge wherever they want it?

I'm not sure that'll help you out any, but it's certainly worth a shot.

 

[Recidivism]

As above, I don't like the idea of human sub-races. 1. It's potentially offensive to grant the, say, the light-skinned people of the west one bonus and the dark-skinned people of the south another, 2. it leads to cosmopolitan groups--makes sense in some game worlds, but I prefer a homogeneous humanity locally with the possibility of encountering far flung races once the characters have gone "where no one has gone before." I know, to each their own.

1. Doesn't bother me, as long as the races are not mechanically advantaged over each other, though that's naturally your choice

2. Doesn't strike me as true at all, unless you design it that way.

My homebrew campaign setting focuses in on one city, and the 10 (and growing) human "races" available are all representing aspects of cultures that have cropped up in parts of the city. Five people from different neighborhoods isn't exactly cosmopolitan when you can walk down the street and see them all in a few hours. Maybe marginally moreso than a bunch of people from the same neighborhood, but not really. Anyone from outside the city is still going to see five provincials with no world experience.

Now it may not be "realistic" to have a bunch of people living within a few miles of each other having such drastic differences, but it's a lot more interesting from a gameplay and story perspective. It allows me to characterize different areas of the city easily, and to have a lot of gameplay variety without relying on Elves and Dwarves.

Another thing that will make humans more appealing is improving the selection of At-Will and Feats for them to choose from. I know I personally thought Humans were really amazing looking, but because there is such a paucity of material with pretty much only the PHB to draw from, you really can't put those open-ended choices to work for you. Make up some more At-Will powers, and feats (possibly Human-only feats, or Human+Class feats for even more specialization), and your players will see humans as more tempting.

 

[ppaladin123]

Take a look at the background benefits in the new dragon article, "characters of war." Maybe you can offer those to players who pick human characters.

Another possibility is slightly revising the "extra at-will" feature humans get. Maybe tack on an extra sentence: "If your class utilizes more than one primary ability score for at-will powers attack rolls, you may choose one to apply to all three of your at-will powers." That will make humans competitive as clerics, warlocks and paladins.

 

[fissionessence]

I actually like for not many players to play humans, in order to make a more varied party, so I'm kind of at a loss for why you want more humans, but I guess that's just a matter of opinion or setting.

Anyway, one option is to just tell everyone that they have to be humans, but that they can use the racial attributes of any race of their choice. This is easy with dwarf or elf, and for things like fey step or dragon breath, just attribute it to a connection to arcane/primal energy or something. A character I made is a storm genasi wizard on the character sheet, but in the game world he's a human who has an intrinsic connection to storm and lightning. One of the players in my campaign is an elf, but he uses dragonborn stats and has a pendant that lets him change into 'dragon form'.

~

 

[Quartz]

Humans do seem a little on the weaker side. Perhaps delayed gratification might be in order? Either in the form of extra feats at 11th and 21st levels, or extra feats at 5th, 15th, and 25th levels?

 

[Jack Colby]

Regardless of edition or game stats, my players have often chosen humans, and I also prefer a human oriented fantasy world. Our 4th edition game is the first time ever we have had a party without a single human, but I believe it is the sense of newness and trying different things with the new edition, not any statistical reason.