Worlds & Monsters: humans are boring??

[rounser]

I also fail to see the relevance of your posting. First of all, there hasn't been a dragonborn empire presented yet.

But that's what this thread's about. The piece of advice is that a nation with an exotic race is by default more interesting than humans ruled by mummies. Dragonborn = exotic race.

Even more, the game designers have said that in their PoL-game concept, they won't detail out any nation, empire, or whatever, and just leave things as it is, for the Gamemasters to do whatever they want to do.

Again, I don't really see how that's relevant to this discussion.

Secondly, Djelibeby isn't an interesting setting to play, because it's only meant as a joke, a funny thing to read, but not to play in there and have adventures. Unless you are capable of Pratchetesque feats of surprise and humor, but such a campaign wouldn't be serious at all, doesn't have lots of gory violence, and whatever.
Don't confuse funny books with interesting settings. Djelibeby was meant to make fun of pyramid-building people who incarcerate (unwilling) mummies in there, just because a guy in a endless time-loop told them they should do so.

You can't seem to get over the whole satire thing. Let's take the satire out then, and just leave the entirely gameable concept: "Nation of humans, ruled by pharoah who's just a proxy for the real power behind the throne - a high priest advisor who's immortal because he sleeps in a pyramid."

100% gameable, and a lot more interesting in terms of adventure hook possibilities than simply "nation of lizardfolk".

 

[DandD]

But that's what this thread's about. The piece of advice is that a nation with an exotic race is by default more interesting than humans ruled by mummies. Dragonborn = exotic race.

Yes, and it's still possible that it will be so.

Again, I don't really see how that's relevant to this discussion.

I also don't see the relevance of your posting to this discussion. Well, I guess we'll have to leave it at that.

You can't seem to get over the whole satire thing. Let's take the satire out then, and just leave the entirely gameable concept: "Nation of humans, ruled by pharoah who's just a proxy for the real power behind the throne - a high priest advisor who's immortal because he sleeps in a pyramid."

The only thing that is different is that the high priest is immortal because he sleeps in a pyramid, but that wouldn't make any sense at all, because sleeping in a pyramid doesn't make you immortal, but only in the humoristic discworld, where the people there take anything literal, it really does have this effect.

100% gameable

And boring for those who always played in humano-centric settings.

and a lot more interesting in terms of adventure hook possibilities than simply "nation of lizardfolk".

Nope, at best, it would provide as much adventure hook possibilites as the nation of lizardfolk, which hasn't been stated out at all.

Of course, I hope that we won't fall to semantism for further discussion.

 

[Eldorian]

Human Egyptians ruled by mummies or the Aerenal elves of Eberron. Similar concepts, but since one is elves and all that implies, it's more interesting, at least to me.

 

[rounser]

And boring for those who always played in humano-centric settings.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree at this stage. To me, the race is just cosmetic gimmickry, and no substitute for story. I've got the entire arts world and proof after proof behind me, Hollywood, literature, plays, the works...I don't have to defend my position.

Although, Wind in the Willows is more interesting with Mole, Ratty and Badger than it would be with Merv, Ronald and Brendan, I'll give you that. That gimmick is no substitute for a good yarn though. Merv, Ronald and Brendan with a good story will trump Mole, Ratty and Badger without one.

 

[Fenes]

I do not think that elves, dragonborn, dwarves, whatever "cool new race" the designers think of are not more interesting than a good story, and often detract from the enjoyment. Given our wide range of fantasy movies, books and games of all kinds, I'd even say that any realm based upon an adapated historical culture is more interesting and "fresher" than yet another mish-mash of the latest fantasy tropes. Human culture is very diverse, and offers a lot of possibilities. Most fantasy races have one clear baseline (usually Tolkien, lately some computer games as well), and all divergences are created by mixing in some real world human culture - or picking said real cutlure, and replacing humans with another race. Not really interesting to me.

Personally, I prefer human-centric worlds with diverse cultures.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I disagree, Lord of the Rings -- I'm assuming we're talking about the Fellowship saga -- is about the ascension of Man to primacy in Middle Earth. Elves are retreating, Dwarves are dying, Hobbits are Hobbits and a select few are extraordinarily heroic. Sauron is basically the reason the old races are lingering, and when he's gone, so is their purpose for remaining. The Valar and their servitors are free to depart as well.

I agree about the overall plot arch, but not the significance within the narrative.

Though the overall historical arch is human centered, the narrative plot functions to make those humans strange and worrisome. Halflings make up most of our point of view in the first book, followed by Elves. Of the two humans the reader spends time with one is hidden demi-god and the other is a treacherous semi-demigod.

The second book gives you the riders, but it's also clear that they are but one near vanishing facet of the human race as the age of man approaches. And at that point in the book its not at all clear that they are dominant.

The third book has Gondor, which at that point is a declining civilization of men who are chiefly remarkable for how comparatively little they've shrunk from what was good. We see more humans fighting for Sauron than against him.

Not to mention the fact that the major villains chasing the characters you care about are the ghosts of men.

I think a major point of the narrative is to make humanity strange and the coming turning of the age thus a point of uncertainty rather than inevitable comfort.

 

[Matt Black]

May I say that I feel the original quote from W&M was taken out of context? I think the intention was mainly to state that cultural simulations campaigns with fantasy elements are less interesting to the general public than fantasy campaigns are. In short they don't want to go back to the model of creating entire campaign settings just to satisfy a cliche.

It wasn't really out of context. That whole section was titled "The End of Human Dominion", and talks about the reasons for the move away from a human-centric world: that such a move makes the world more mysterious, more fantastic, less of a this-world simulation. The snippet that I quoted hints at the root of this design philosophy; a design philosophy that really bothers me. It's the idea that if a story or setting is good, then it's even better if you ramp up the fantasy as high as possible and replace all 'mundane' elements with fantasy counterparts. I see this as a complete rejection of the less-is-more philosophy, and a massive failure of imagination. Adding horns, scales and pointy ears to everything is a cheap way to add flavour. Those things are only interesting when they're exotic, and for that you need a human context.

If the designers can't see that the differences between two humans can be as interesting as the difference between a human and an elf... well, that worries me. Aren't these guys supposed to be professional writers?

Anyway, let me restate my main issue: I don't like that anti-human-centrism is being built into the D&D brand. It's not necessary. It's certainly not critical to the feel of the Points of Light meta-setting. Yes it can be trivially house-ruled away. But why impose it to begin with?

Also let me add that I'm mostly very excited about 4E, so things like this bug me all the more.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's the idea that if a story/setting is good, then it's even better if you ramp up the fantasy as high as possible and replace all 'mundane' elements with fantasy counterparts. I see this as a massive failure of the less-is-more philosophy, and a massive failure of imagination. Adding horns, scales and pointy ears to everything is a cheap way to add flavour. Those things are only interesting when they're exotic, and for that you need a human context.

Precisely. It's the whole "if one teaspoon of spices makes this dish exciting, then, dumping the whole pot in will make it MINDBLOWING WOOOOOO!" philosophy that appears to be going on behind the comment that's utterly idiotic.

I really really really loathe this kind of "replacement" fantasy, where most human things have to be replaced by something "more exciting". I mean, oh, an aqueduct? NOT EXCITING ENOUGH. Now it's a magical waterway where water floats through the sky! And if that was only one thing in one part of the setting, it'd be cool. If every freakin' corner of the setting has something similar though, suddenly it's the NON-magical, normal stone aqueduct that's exciting, not the various flash magical ones.

The same with non-human races. Against a human background, they're fascinating. When humans are just one race, and most of the world is wierd races, though, it's harder to get into, and it just doesn't have the same feel. Indeed, in my experience of such settings, it tends to feel ludicrous and unlikely. It's not even cool in a "swords and sorcery" way, it's just cheap idiocy like Star Trek: Voyager or something. Alien of the week. Eugh.

PS - You CAN do fantasy with a vast number of non-human races and bizarre things really well. It just involves a lot more thinking and consideration than the Homer Simpson-worthy "mummies r duller than salamanders" idiocy we have here.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I really really really loathe this kind of "replacement" fantasy, where most human things have to be replaced by something "more exciting". I mean, oh, an aqueduct? NOT EXCITING ENOUGH. Now it's a magical waterway where water floats through the sky! And if that was only one thing in one part of the setting, it'd be cool. If every freakin' corner of the setting has something similar though, suddenly it's the NON-magical, normal stone aqueduct that's exciting, not the various flash magical ones.

I, on the other hand, agree with the idea behind this philosophy. The strength of D&D is that it is a fantasy game. It is capable of some extraordinary things where you can shoot fireballs from your hands, you can be an elf, and work your way up to defeating the gods themselves.

It's strength is how it allows you to simulate a world completely different than our own and imagine what a world would look like where all of these things existed.

However, in the past, D&D has introduced all of these fantasy elements and then hid them away where no one could see them or use them. The elves were always hiding in the forest and they never came out. The dwarves hiding in their mountains and never coming out. Magic was something normal people never used or even saw(except VERY rarely). It was dark ages Europe(or ancient Egypt, or ancient Greece, and so on) with a couple, hidden fantasy elements.

The ideal for 4th Edition is that if we have all of these interesting things they should be USED. Why not have a world where water flows up...just because it can? Why not create a city where all of the races of D&D live in harmony with one another in equal numbers? Why not have an empire ruled by Lizardmen, one ruled by Beholders, and one ruled by humans rather than 3 ruled by humans with only slight differences?

 

[Fenes]

The problem is, that your elf-ness, or your ability to shoot fire from your hands is not fantastic or special anymore if everyone can do it. And in a "90% are not human, but special races" world, that's the case.