The Human Race.... What would YOU do ?

[Evenglare]

So im gearing up to run my campaign world with the HERO system or possibly mutants and masterminds 2nd edition. Anyway, thats kind of beside the point. My campaign has 2 races. Humans and Fey. So I have made up templates for my fey race, but now I really would like to make one for humans to set them apart instead of just letting humans be the generic character doing whatever. I'm thinking give them some pretty high physical parameters. Since the fey are a mystic race dealing with magics, I figure the humans could be the martial type of race. I might actually keep magic exclusively to the Fey and allow humans to have unique combat styles.

The campaign will be taking place on an archipelago (my inspiration is chrono cross). The fey realm will be the "Another world". So thats just some backstory. Any other suggestions other than "dont do that , it's dumb"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you're using HERO, remember that the max stats in the "Normal" disadvantage are for normal humans, and that your fey "package deals" need to define normal maxes for them.

If you really want fey to be the exclusive or nearly exclusive users of magic, remember to give the Fey some of the traditional vulnerabilities (depending on legend)- cold iron; ash, hawthorn, mistletoe and rowan, etc. You might also want to make magic resistable..

 

[Dethklok]

I think the crucial thing is to give the human culture its own flavor. Numbers and abilities won't give you a memorable game in the way that a colorful human worldview will.

So I'd suggest you start out by picking a few historical cultures as a base. Don't just default to the standard fantasy settings; think about Egypt, Sparta, China, or Mesoamerica, too. And resist the temptation to let your players use every item in the handbooks - you get more flavor by restricting your equipment a few items that preserve flavor. For instance, the Classical world relied quite heavily on spears and large shields, while Samurai focused on bows and katanas. The combat styles you mention could then be developed with this as a base.

Then, I suggest you consider how life in a world with one other major race would affect thought. How do the humans regard the fey? "The fey don't have souls?" "The fey are beyond comprehension?" "The fey are beguiling?" If you want mixed adventuring parties, then humans and fey probably get along reasonably well, but I'd suggest introducing more differences between their cultures, and going for more friction. Think about the tenson between Legolas and Gimli in the Lord of the Rings (books) and imagine where it would have left things if dwarves and elves had gotten along swimmingly. Generally when you think about neighbors like the Brits and the Irish, the Jews and Arabs, the Koreans and the Japanese, you'll notice that relations can be quite bitter between different groups - and those groups are all human!

 

[darjr]

I like what Dethklok said. It's more work but a couple of simple templates for different cultures would be cool. Let the humans be the ones that are more flexible.