D&D 5E Humans Only

[Reynard]

Items? You can't buy leather armor as both a pirate and a non-pirate? Swords, bows, daggers, crossbows, maces, etc. aren't a part of both? You can't have sea encounters? I suppose you DO have to have a boat to be pirates, where you wouldn't on the land, but the PHB assumes boats as part of the game, so there is still no change to the base assumption of the game by playing pirates.

I'm going to refer you to the 5e DMG where it talks about sea adventures and encounters, which means that it is assumed as part of the game. Nothing changes except location. Being pirates is no different to the base assumption of the game than being a land traveling party.

They are totally different. With regular D&D you break into creatures' homes and kill and rob them. With pirates, you break into their boats.

 

[Maxperson]

Unless it's with a DM I know has run non-human only games and isn't just someone who is trying to excise the fantastic from the fantasy, I'd be wary and have to make sure they haven't nerfed magic, plan to withhold magic items because it's supposed to be 'special', or something of the like. Even then, only if variant human is on the take. If I can't customize with race, I NEED feats.

This seems very overly paranoid. All that has been said here is human only PCs. Nobody has said the entire world is human only and the fantasy is gone.

 

[Maxperson]

They are totally different. With regular D&D you break into creatures' homes and kill and rob them. With pirates, you break into their boats.

And with regular D&D the PCs pee onto the ground. With pirates you pee into the sea. I'm beginning to get it now.

 

[Reynard]

Unless it's with a DM I know has run non-human only games and isn't just someone who is trying to excise the fantastic from the fantasy, I'd be wary and have to make sure they haven't nerfed magic, plan to withhold magic items because it's supposed to be 'special', or something of the like. Even then, only if variant human is on the take. If I can't customize with race, I NEED feats.

I appreciate that you like to have options to customize your character, but I think it is pretty well within the DM's purview to customize his game with limited options.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In D&D 5E? No. Not unless an extremely good campaign outline to go with it, which presented an actual and compelling reason for humans only.

But if my brother said, I'm running a D&D 5E campaign, humans only, and didn't have some stunning reason why, I would be like okay, guess I'll sit this one out.

Like a significant fraction of the fun of D&D 5E is the ridiculous races. A measurable amount. There are loads of other games (including other D&D variants) to play if we're playing humans-only, where you're not abandoning a decent chunk of the design space and conceptual fun by being humans.

 

[Reynard]

In D&D 5E? No. Not unless an extremely good campaign outline to go with it, which presented an actual and compelling reason for humans only.

But if my brother said, I'm running a D&D 5E campaign, humans only, and didn't have some stunning reason why, I would be like okay, guess I'll sit this one out.

Like a significant fraction of the fun of D&D 5E is the ridiculous races. A measurable amount. There are loads of other games (including other D&D variants) to play if we're playing humans-only, where you're not abandoning a decent chunk of the design space and conceptual fun by being humans.

I find it interesting that you see it as such a strong component of 5E specifically. What makes 5E different than the "other D&D variants" that you mentioned, in regards to "ridiculous races"?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I find it interesting that you see it as such a strong component of 5E specifically. What makes 5E different than the "other D&D variants" that you mentioned, in regards to "ridiculous races"?

5E does races really well. There are a bunch of them and they're really fun - they have fun abilities, fun descriptions, and they're highly distinctive. And 5E humans aren't. The blandest of the bland. +1 to everything. Kill me now. Can't I even swap that for some skills or something? I have a lot of great ideas for non-human characters that won't fit into most RPGs but fit great into 5E. Ridiculous is used positively, note.

In other D&D variants often all the races are ditchwater-dull, like the 2E PHB crew are so boring I won't mind being a human, same with a lot of less-daring OSR games. And even in 3E, at least humans get something to write home about, rather than purified blandness, mechanically. But 5E? You just robbed me of one of the few things I really genuinely like about 5E!

Oh and another strike against "all human" campaigns, they have an unfortunately strong tendency to mean "all white hicks from some dodgy inbred little village". I know the OP said "no other restrictions" which would imply otherwise, but unless that's spelled out, I'm suspicious as HELL about any "all humans" campaign.

I appreciate that you like to have options to customize your character, but I think it is pretty well within the DM's purview to customize his game with limited options.

Yeah and it's in the player's purview to tell him they're not going to play in that game. When he suddenly finds literally 4/6 of his core players aren't interested, he may well have rethink. I've seen it happen, literally this. I don't play in bait & switch games either, generally speaking (I cut Ravenloft a break).

 

[CleverNickName]

In a heartbeat. Humans are my favorite.

Play them as-is in the PHB, or use the Variant Human, I'm down for it. Throw in the Dragonmark humans from Eberron for a little extra spice. Or heck, if you want to play a "Tiefling" or whatever, just use the stats for your preferred race but write "human" on your character sheet. It's not a deal-breaker for me.

 

[Mind of tempest]

no, to play an interesting human is very class and setting dependent, plus I just hate humans.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

In general, not normally, since I play fantasy games to escape the mundane Human stuff. In a non-fantasy game? Sure, human is more likely for me to play, even if it is a sci-fi game with alien races available.

If I did decide to give one a try, there are still some things that would make me decide not to. Like if the DM said humans only because all the other intelligent races are evil andare trying to destroy the humans. Or if the DM said human only and everyone has to be from the same place and be the same race/ethnicity. At that point, I would be wondering if my DM were hiding some secrets about how he really feels about some people in real life, and that would make me very uncomfortable to continue being his friend.