Question on fantasy races

[jsears2002]

Darn you Set!
J/K

Now I am wishing I had a gaming group currently so we could play a game like that. I don't.

And I won't for a while. I ship off to BCT with the Army in a few days, so I get to thrive on the stories that you bring to the boards.

Thanks for sharing on that.

I think it would be cool to play monster races on campaigns every once in a while, or throw them into the campaign as pregens for players to switch to for a short segment (seeing the other side of the fence, or another piece of the equation).

 

[Votan]

Someone may have mentioned this already:

George R. R. Martin's a Song of Fire and Ice (which is also a fantasy rpg) is a human only world. It also happens to be the best fantasy novel I have ever read.

It might be worth your while to check it out.

Good series. I also found ICE's middle earth setting a great example of making a number of interesting (and distinct) human cultures. Of course they had the advantage of Tolkien's books as a starting point and that helped a lot. But you could play in the 4th age (with hobbits, dwarves and elves pretty much gone) and still have a very interesting setting.

 

[Aus_Snow]

An all non-human campaign might be interesting. But one where humans were an enemy, or worse, the primary enemy, just sounds too much like an exercise in self-loathing for me to want to participate.

(emphasis mine) Yikes.

Um, IMO, it would only be that if the DM and/or players deliberately made it that way.

There's nothing about running non-humans only, even with humans as enemies -- and yes, possibly as the main enemies! -- that necessitates self-loathing. At all.

But uh, yeah, YMMV.


edit --- and, fwiw, anecdotally, I've enough proof that that's true. . . eh, never mind.

 

[Hairfoot]

I played human PCs exclusively for about fifteen years, and couldn't understand why someone would want to play a race they're not a member of. Then, for some reason, I got completely sick of playing humans and haven't run a human character since. For the sake of fun options alone, I think other races are a good idea.

And halflings were (probably) real, so perhaps demihuman races are more of a truly historical fantasy theme than we think.

 

[aolujumu]

It didn't register to me that way.
But offcourse the notion of something different is
ok by me. But this fantasy stuff, i can't really talk much about
but its worth a try....

 

[Salamandyr]

(emphasis mine) Yikes.

Um, IMO, it would only be that if the DM and/or players deliberately made it that way.

There's nothing about running non-humans only, even with humans as enemies -- and yes, possibly as the main enemies! -- that necessitates self-loathing. At all.

But uh, yeah, YMMV.


edit --- and, fwiw, anecdotally, I've enough proof that that's true. . . eh, never mind.

Well, let me put it this way, it's a warning sign. If I don't know the DM, and he or she tells me that we're all going to play heroic orcs (or elves, or dwarves or whatever) fighting off the encroaching hordes of vile humans, then I don't know for sure, but I've got a pretty good indication that the DM wants to spend an inordinate amount of time ruminating on the horrible sinful nature of man, and how we'd all be better off if only humanity were more like his fictional orcs, elves, Na'vi, or what have you.

I can't stand Rousseauian fairy tales, and have no interest in imaginary tales where my species is held up to ridicule next to some imaginary teacher's pet. I've got a feeling the only sin that is unique to humankind is the distressing tendency to denigrate the worth of our own species. Do lions sit around ruminating no the moral superiority of wildebeests? I've no interest in participating in yet another metaphorical birching of my own peoples' backs.

Considering World of Warcraft is a game where one can play with humanity as antagonist while not assuming virtues in Orcs and denying them in humans, I will concede it's possible to tell a non-human protagonist/human antagonist without turning it into yet another version of Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully, Avatar, or Battle for Terra; but I think considering past experience, the burden of proof is on them.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Well, let me put it this way, it's a warning sign. If I don't know the DM, and he or she tells me that we're all going to play heroic orcs (or elves, or dwarves or whatever) fighting off the encroaching hordes of vile humans, then I don't know for sure, but I've got a pretty good indication that the DM wants to spend an inordinate amount of time ruminating on the horrible sinful nature of man, and how we'd all be better off if only humanity were more like his fictional orcs, elves, Na'vi, or what have you.

That's fair enough then. I wouldn't be assuming that, but I suspect you have your reasons, just as I don't.

I can't stand Rousseauian fairy tales, and have no interest in imaginary tales where my species is held up to ridicule next to some imaginary teacher's pet. I've got a feeling the only sin that is unique to humankind is the distressing tendency to denigrate the worth of our own species. Do lions sit around ruminating no the moral superiority of wildebeests? I've no interest in participating in yet another metaphorical birching of my own peoples' backs.

Also fair enough. I can certanily understand and sympathise with that perspective. I have played in that kind of campaign -- very rarely, thankfully -- and do not want to, ever again. Either way 'round, actually. Or any other variant.

Considering World of Warcraft is a game where one can play with humanity as antagonist while not assuming virtues in Orcs and denying them in humans, I will concede it's possible to tell a non-human protagonist/human antagonist without turning it into yet another version of Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully, Avatar, or Battle for Terra; but I think considering past experience, the burden of proof is on them.

Understood. My mileage has indeed varied on this point, and that's colouring my views differently. Or not colouring them, I could claim. Heh. But that's unlikely, so I won't.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I can't stand Rousseauian fairy tales, and have no interest in imaginary tales where my species is held up to ridicule next to some imaginary teacher's pet. I've got a feeling the only sin that is unique to humankind is the distressing tendency to denigrate the worth of our own species. Do lions sit around ruminating no the moral superiority of wildebeests? I've no interest in participating in yet another metaphorical birching of my own peoples' backs.

Mmmm, yes. I was the one who said several pages ago I hated humans, but at the time I meant I just get really annoyed by their superior attitudes. Your example of self-loathing as bad as the self-aggrandizement that I said I wanted to see stopped. They're probably connected: the people who self-loath are probably trying to overcorrect for the self-aggrandizing. Making the humans bad because in the past the humans made X bad. What's really needed is just to take the middle ground, where no one's bad. People can have their killing, just not anyone to blame for it.

 

[Aeolius]

I played human PCs exclusively for about fifteen years, and couldn't understand why someone would want to play a race they're not a member of. Then, for some reason, I got completely sick of playing humans and haven't run a human character since.

Sounds like my experience, though I played Serrus for over 4 years and took him up to L19 before he retired (to raise little half-elves with his wife). I started DMing online in 1995, with an arctic campaign. After that, I wanted something tropical, so I considered an island adventure. On a whim, I decided to try an undersea setting. The rest, they say, is history.

 

[Desdichado]

One of the coolest 3.5 parties I played in consisted of an ex-slave hobgoblin chain-fighter (using the same chains he used to wear as weapons), a goblin wizard (pyromancy-nut, lived by the alchemical fire, died by the alchemical fire...), a red-furred female bugbear rogue (surprisingly sneaky for her size!), a lizardfolk shaman (with a monitor lizard companion), a mute orc tattooed monk and a fanatical dragon-worshipping kobold cleric who insisted that he was a dragon cursed to live as a kobold (or reincarnated into a kobold, or a dragon transformed into a kobold form willingly, because of losing a bet. His story changed every time he told it...).

I've had a lot of fun with hobgoblin PCs.

One group had two: a hobgoblin shyster who was always on the lookout to make a quick buck. He ended up being paired as an unlikely and amoral Felix to a human rake's Oscar; the human always screwing up the hobgoblin's plans by sleeping with the wrong woman, and the hobgoblin always screwing up the human's love life by swindling the wrong people. That same party had another hobgoblin soulknife, an ex-legionnaire, who had a paranoid reaction to the concept of changelings that eventually took hold of the entire party. It also had a half-orc gal who really wanted to be a beautiful flirt, but never understood that she looked like she had been run over by a truck.

Coincidentally, I also had an ex-slave chain fighting hobgoblin PC in another group. There, the most outrageous characters were all humans, though, as it turned out.