The Human Race has no Culture!

[slobo777]

How about straight replacing 'Race' with 'Culture' and incorporating the Non-Human Cultures into this?

After all Race as a separate aspect hasn't existed in all editions of D&D - remember the Races-as Classes? You could have Cultures including 'Mountain Dwarf' or 'High Elf' alongside 'Human Barbarian' or 'Civilised Man', etc.

. . . that would work reasonably well in my game world.

I currently run a 4E game which allows all the races mechanically, but presents many of them in the game world as members of 7 different "tribes". I have taken pains to make the tribes distinct but generally more human-like in apperance, as I wanted to move away from the over-exotic feel of PC races in 4E as a whole. (In the interests of saying "yes" to players who want those super-exotic characters, I still allow them to play PCs that basically ignore my tribal mappings though . . . and I'd want to continue that if i moved to 5E).

Anyway, I could in theory in 5E go the whole hog and homebrew the actual tribes with full statistics, as Races. I did that in 3E (because e-Tools supported it). 5E looks simple enough as a system that I could do something similar there. 4E was too complex, and tools in DDI don't support that kind of home brew, so the mapping to 4E "build race" was a pragmatic way to do the same.

 

[The Choice]

To get back to the original, intended topic, I'd like to see human cultures be further defined, but I believe that those would have to be campaign specific.

An Aundairian from Eberron or a woman raised on the Sword Coast of Faerun could have different cultures and possess different bonus, for exemple. On the other hand, it's really easy to stumble into stereotyping folk from a particular region, so much so that it falls into caricature (the klingons from star trek were really the worse exemple of "they have a warrior culture", so all they are were "warriors" and dumb brutes).

It would also be really dangerous to slip into racist stereotypes. So, while I like the idea of different human cultures, there are dangers that pop up whenever someone does that.

 

[Tehnai]

An easy way to fix this would be to give Human, as a race, a pair of +1 bonuses to put in any ability (and they can both be on the same stat, I don't really care myself). A human character also gets an extra background trait that has to do with his culture.

For example, a character with the "Desert nomad" trait would be an adept at surviving the desert (don't need to roll anything to find water, or something) while the one with the "Citizen of the Empire" would have a passport, the protection of the Imperial embassy and an apartment in the Imperial city.

 

[ferratus]

I think if there is human cultural distinctions, then they should be in backgrounds, preferably based on the region they lived in. For example, 4e had backgrounds for people that lived in swamps, on mountains, in the forest, in the underdark, on monster infested marchlands, etc. Those were all very interesting, and I hope they show up in 5e.

I'm not sure if I want human subraces, because it smacks of race theory or cultural paternalism. It is a bit uncomfortable with demi-human subraces, but they are fantasy races so it is a bit isolated from human racism. Saying africans or asians or whatever have X ability (or different genders for that matter) sets off my squick meter.

However, backgrounds can't be considered part of the core game because some people won't be using skills. You cannot give humans an abillity that involves feats or skills, so don't keep mentioning it. This is modular 5e, so you find other solutions than 3e's solutions.

 

[howandwhy99]

My understanding of 3d6 is it covers the entire spectrum of adult human ability for the 6 ability scores. That isn't elf, dwarf, or halfling. Those races spectra overlap, but are not the same as current humans and not 3-18. The game plays within the bounds of average humans today so players can comprehend basically what their character can do with those scores based upon their own real world experience.

The designers have clearly veered away from that. And it's not like a lot of old games didn't too with, what? 7 methods to roll ability scores? For me, I could just say the +6+1 bonuses are for all PC humans and make NPCs weaker. It just isn't that hard to work around.

High rolling dice systems make above average, even best-of-the-best PCs more common, but there is no denying a lot of people want to play that type of character. For me that means the game is on easy as all the challenges will be that much more statistically in my favor. I'll do better because the math is in my favor and my game play choices not quite so important. That doesn't mean I want an inept character to play a game of futility either, but I like thinking a hero can be an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.

 

[The Shadow]

If you think the 700 Club had a problem with D&D, just wait until a core book comes out with different 'subraces' of humans with different ability scores.

You'd be able to hear the screaming from Jupiter, and yes, I know sound doesn't carry in space. The space would be filled with hot air, expressly so you could hear it at Jupiter. Now multiply that by 100 if Intelligence varies between 'subraces'.

WotC would have to be out of their minds to do such a thing.

I suggested above that human cultures could be accommodated by having a second cultural background, but letting people only choose three skills from the two. How's that sound? It'd even let you get a cultural 'trait' in.

 

[Henry]

(Most) PCs are superhuman because of their class not ability scores. A level 1 fighter knows weapons combat better than 99% of his village.

A farmer with 18 STR is still a Normie. He can't go hunt goblins. But almost every fighter can own a goblin. Any character without the STR CON and DEX to fight will most likely not be a fighter. Ability score attract characters to super heroism but the training of class and level make them superheroic.

That being said, their would be some sort of culture in humanity. Perhaps a simple Civilized and Barbaric split.

I can't really buy into that for D&D 3 - even a commoner is proficient with one weapon, and a commoner with 18 STR can eat the average D&D 3 goblin for breakfast. By contrast, a D&D 3 Fighter with, say, 14 STR (about the minimum you could have and still be reasonably called a competent fighter) could take the goblin, but probably with slightly more difficulty than the commoner.

Plus, the only reason an AD&D Fighter could take the goblin compared to the commoner is that the commoner starts out with no weapon proficiencies, giving him a -4 off the bat. But seriously, I do think there needs to be slightly more gap between the commoners and adventurers, a la 1E or 4E.

As for Race, humans have plenty of differential, but it's all in the campaign setting, not the rules. Humans of Eberron, or Faerun, of Oerth, or Golarion, have plenty to distinguish them from one another without giving bonuses. Matter of fact, Forgotten Realms' idea of regional feats were awesome, and I want to see more of them in D&D Next. I'd say give each adventurer an extra feat ("traits", anyone?) that helps them customize their background and where they're from. Say, make them about 1/2 the power of a feat, and give each PC two of them at first level for free...

 

[Manbearcat]

I very much agree. Versatility and breadth of experience rather than the rigid cultures and experiences that typically define the demi-humans.

This is pretty close to what I would like to see for Human Racials.

1 - + 1 to any one ability score
2 - + 1 to untrained ability checks/skill checks.
3 - Some sort of "grit" or "luck" mechanic - Advantage on one saving throw or Disadvantage on an attackers Attack roll 1/day.
4 - A culture-centric ability or a secondary background.
5 - A feat.

This would do the trick nicely. For people who do not want to use skills, backgrounds, feats there could just be a default ability/feature for 4 and 5.

 

[Remathilis]

Then stop using the term 'Race' and use the term 'Culture' instead.

Won't matter.

So Golarion seems kinda racist

The gist of the thread: Golarion (Pathfinder's default world) is racist because the cultures of certain areas end up as oversimplifying and sometimes stereotyping the real-world cultures that influenced it (honorable Asians, thieving Gypsies, Primitive Africans, etc).

Any attempt to make humans that followed the same idea would be viewed as racist too.

Now, if you COULD make a series of human cultures that didn't resemble any known culture (living or dead), you might be able to, but it'd be a very hard culture to play as people would not be familiar with its traits, nor would it hew close to the classic tropes of fantasy.

Catch 22.

So its best humans be presented a vague and bland. Both for WotC to avoid controversy and for us (the world builders) to design them as we need.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would love to see some "cultural traits", but I'd want to be sure that Wizards takes their time to develop actual cultures of their own(perhaps off existing D&D cultures), and not just create stereotypical "Native", "black", "asian" and so on BS like that.