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I'm insulted by how humans are depicted in D&D.
- Thread starter Oryan77
- Start date
Stormonu
Legend
I've always considered common to sort of be a take on English - a pidgin of everybody's language taken out back and mugged by those humans who will deal with everybody for money or to make those half-races (anyone notice how the PHB half races are automatically half-human?)
As for the human modifier to "any one" score, I mark that up to the unique adaptability of humans. Klingons - I mean, orcs - are unbeatable warriors. But they suck at being peaceful. An orc farmer? They could never handle it and would grab the wood axe and start raiding the neighbors. Other races are, essentially, one-trick ponies. They can be good at one thing, and one thing only. Humans are likely to never get that good. But we humans are jack-of-all-trades. We can be anything, often many things at one time. A human could be a soldier in times of war, and then go home to become a farmer for the rest of his life. An orc could never concieve of that - war IS their life. Humans can be all things, any things. Other make sense when they lack that ability to take on one role or aspect. Halfling make a life as warriors? Unthinkable to them. Dwarves living as troubadors? A disgrace to their clans and a waste of their crafting skills! Elves living in crowded cities? They'd wither and die!
While in the D&D game adventurer specialization is rewarded, if you zoom out and look at the races holistically, you can see where humanity can have a great avantage if it is seen as adaptable, whereas the other races are seen as monolithically attuned to one specific aspect of civilization.
As for the human modifier to "any one" score, I mark that up to the unique adaptability of humans. Klingons - I mean, orcs - are unbeatable warriors. But they suck at being peaceful. An orc farmer? They could never handle it and would grab the wood axe and start raiding the neighbors. Other races are, essentially, one-trick ponies. They can be good at one thing, and one thing only. Humans are likely to never get that good. But we humans are jack-of-all-trades. We can be anything, often many things at one time. A human could be a soldier in times of war, and then go home to become a farmer for the rest of his life. An orc could never concieve of that - war IS their life. Humans can be all things, any things. Other make sense when they lack that ability to take on one role or aspect. Halfling make a life as warriors? Unthinkable to them. Dwarves living as troubadors? A disgrace to their clans and a waste of their crafting skills! Elves living in crowded cities? They'd wither and die!
While in the D&D game adventurer specialization is rewarded, if you zoom out and look at the races holistically, you can see where humanity can have a great avantage if it is seen as adaptable, whereas the other races are seen as monolithically attuned to one specific aspect of civilization.
teitan
Legend
In most settings there is... greyhawk had suloise for example. Common was originally the trade language everyone spoke to facilitate trade, like English, a mutt of languages that facilitated communication.
Never played greyhawk. Most of the big settings like FR actually dont though. I think Eberron does, but it also has common. I'd like to see common disappear. or be replaced by lots of little regional "commons" that are local trade languages.
tangleknot
Explorer
Wicked Fantasy (A 3rd party book for pathfinder) did a revamp on all the core races including Humans which were revamped and redesigned to show off their edge amongst the other races. They tried very hard to make humans unique and interesting.
Other than this one instance I agree its pretty lame that humans are the boring race.
Other than this one instance I agree its pretty lame that humans are the boring race.
teitan
Legend
Humans ARE pretty boring. I know I'm bored most of the time... or I have mono... not sure.
teitan
Legend
FR did have some regional languages, Thayan if I recall right. Some of the earth based cultures had their own language as well. Without common... it'd be a headache to run in my opinion but hey, nothing stops you from playing the way you want. Houserule!
Hussar
Legend
Truth.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Humans were the baseline of the game - and even then they had a pretty WIDE spread of differentiation. Demi-humans and other playable races had to fit into the spectrum of what was pragmatically considered within the human range. (e.g. bigger than a quark, smaller than Jupiter), but they could and were considered to extend outside the starting playable range. Those who did remained NPCs.
The conceit was that humans, you and I, were the ones who were going to play the game, so this baseline gave us a starting point on what to expect. Sort of like how all the Players worked together best if they shared a common language (not just their characters).
Over the decades humans stopped being the baseline and became a sort of Generic. Humans are +1 this, +2 that, while everyone else is vastly more defined. They have flavor, we get dull, dull, dull.
I *believe* D&D next is taking an "always positive" approach to game design. Instead of having the baseline be human and demi-humans vary with both drawbacks and advantages, we get a non-referential baseline and every race defined by their list of additional benefits. That feels good, but humans are still generic and poorly defined. Part of this is because of the baseline, but I think another part is the benefits-only approach. We don't want to define humans, at least not too much, but defining us with another creatures as the baseline only makes it more difficult to relate to the material. Plus, I like having drawbacks. Half the scores on the 3-18 bell curve usually fall below the average. That should be more than playable, but in any case it is interesting.
The conceit was that humans, you and I, were the ones who were going to play the game, so this baseline gave us a starting point on what to expect. Sort of like how all the Players worked together best if they shared a common language (not just their characters).
Over the decades humans stopped being the baseline and became a sort of Generic. Humans are +1 this, +2 that, while everyone else is vastly more defined. They have flavor, we get dull, dull, dull.
I *believe* D&D next is taking an "always positive" approach to game design. Instead of having the baseline be human and demi-humans vary with both drawbacks and advantages, we get a non-referential baseline and every race defined by their list of additional benefits. That feels good, but humans are still generic and poorly defined. Part of this is because of the baseline, but I think another part is the benefits-only approach. We don't want to define humans, at least not too much, but defining us with another creatures as the baseline only makes it more difficult to relate to the material. Plus, I like having drawbacks. Half the scores on the 3-18 bell curve usually fall below the average. That should be more than playable, but in any case it is interesting.
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