The Human Race has no Culture!

[TrippyHippy]

After making my views known about the demented decision to have the entire race of 40lb pipe-smoking, peace-loving Hobbits trained to inflict more damage with weapons than people more than twice their size, I thought I'd get into the nitty-gritty of an issue that has always bugged me about D&D: the Humans.

The issue is this - Humans are supposed to be the most diverse and adaptive of all the fantasy races, but they are also the most bland in practice. Whereas Elves, in particular, have a variety of 'sub-races' and cultural aspects detailed, along with associated abilities, Humans are just a bland hodgepodge of nothingness. In some ways this is acceptable if they are considered the 'baseline' Race, but in recent editions there has been a tendency to try and 'balance' them up. This has led to another head-scratcher moment (for me at least) where they have been given an +1 bonus to every Ability score, and a +2 to one of their choice. In other words, an 'average' human is distinctly above average in everything!

There seems to be a desire to keep the game strictly generic when dealing with Humans alone, which actually goes against most fantasy literature tropes. Check out the cultural variety in Mankind found in Lord of the Rings (which the other Races are all based on). Check it out in between the different families of Westeros (Game of Thrones). The One Ring actually details several cultures for Humans, as does RuneQuest, and other rpgs.

Rather than just giving bland bonuses, what about creating interesting 'sub-races' for humans to work with? There is a slight clash with Backgrounds and Classes (especially Barbarians) to a degree, but surely something more interesting could be worked out?

What do y'all think?

 

[Grydan]

In other words, an 'average' human is distinctly above average in everything!

The 'average' human adventurer.

The character generation stats are for generating PCs, not the supporting cast.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The 'average' human adventurer.

The character generation stats are for generating PCs, not the supporting cast.

Nope - I get bored of this argument quite quickly. An 'adventurer' can be anyone, and actually, I quite like the idea of playing a rags to riches adventurer who comes from the ordinary folk and makes it big.

The character generation shouldn't just assume that everybody needs inflated stats to become adventurers, and the chargen system should be baselined on establishing typical members of a race. Indeed, there is nothing explicit in the rules that states their stats are inflated because of their 'adventuring' status - it's just a post-mechanic justification.

 

[SLOTHmaster]

Homogenous humans has also always bothered me. I also don't like it how, going by race descriptions, humans are the only ones that live anywhere, believe anything, and are amazingly adaptable. Maybe humans would be more intersting if rather than being the dominant race they were a minority. Neutral traders able to traverse any other race's land, the remnants of an empire forced to flee to the desert, gypsy-like folk, mercenaries, anything would be more interesting than everything.

 

[Li Shenron]

Nope - I get bored of this argument quite quickly. An 'adventurer' can be anyone, and actually, I quite like the idea of playing a rags to riches adventurer who comes from the ordinary folk and makes it big.

The character generation shouldn't just assume that everybody needs inflated stats to become adventurers, and the chargen system should be baselined on establishing typical members of a race. Indeed, there is nothing explicit in the rules that states their stats are inflated because of their 'adventuring' status - it's just a post-mechanic justification.

This.

The "PCs are superhumans" is an idea that carries a certain philosophical (Nietzsche?) aftertaste to the game... I much prefer the phillosophy that PC become adventurer because of choice, not because God, nature or luck have blessed them.

OTOH I can accept the idea that those better than average stats (including those already for using the 4d6 method instead of 3d6) are there just because we've all gradually become more wimps in the past 38 years of gaming.

 

[Prickly]

I disagree that we should have different human subraces.
I mean in game of thrones there isnt a large genetic difference between the various nations.

I'm not too keen on subraces for this reason. Surely most of the time the difference is only cultural?
I think that's why 4th ed had distinct races for Eladrin, Elves and Drow. it was to show a distinct genetic as well as cultural change between the related races.

 

[slobo777]

The character generation shouldn't just assume that everybody needs inflated stats to become adventurers, and the chargen system should be baselined on establishing typical members of a race. Indeed, there is nothing explicit in the rules that states their stats are inflated because of their 'adventuring' status - it's just a post-mechanic justification.

I agree. At least about the unwritten assumption. It should be explicit in the rules, and I would like to have non-super shop-keepers, peasants etc in the game.

How that is achieved in practice is less of an issue for me - for instance I'd be happy with separate monster-style stats for human commoners, and a clarification on the races block in the PHB that the options presented are for building heroes only.

However, I am quite disappointed by the current playtest version of "Human". It feels the least like "human" out of any version of D&D I have played, and manages to be both realism-breaking and boring at the same time.

 

[Prickly]

This.

The "PCs are superhumans" is an idea that carries a certain philosophical (Nietzsche?) aftertaste to the game... I much prefer the phillosophy that PC become adventurer because of choice, not because God, nature or luck have blessed them.

OTOH I can accept the idea that those better than average stats (including those already for using the 4d6 method instead of 3d6) are there just because we've all gradually become more wimps in the past 38 years of gaming.

PC's are super human because they are the focus of the games narrative. In the same way the main characters of a book are more effective then the minor ones

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The avrage roll on 3d6 is 9.5 so assume an average person has rolled 3 10s and 3 9s, that means the average human has a 13, 2 11s, and 3 10's ... omg that must totaly break the game

In 3.5 my human mayor had 10's in every stat... in 5e he has an 11.str, 10 dex, 11 con, 10 int, 10 wis and 13 cha... totaly going to ruin my game...

 

[slobo777]

The avrage roll on 3d6 is 9.5

Sorry to be a math geek, but that's 10.5 . . . not that it changes your argument any.