Worlds & Monsters: humans are boring??

[Stormtalon]

Well, time to give in to temptation.

Hi. I'm a human, and yes, I'm boring. See these ears? Round. No character at all. These eyes? Dead, listless and dirty brown. Hair --what there is of it-- is straight and lifeless. And my skin? Ooooh, it's pink. That's a thrill a minute right there. About all I can do with it is make it change color -- watch me stand in the sun for 5 hours and now it's red! Absolutely fascina-- you fell asleep, didn't you?

*sigh* Fine, fine. I'll take your suggestion to see if I can't get on "Extreme Makeover: Baleful Polymorph Edition." Maybe my life as an insect won't be so dreary and dull.

/signed: Marvin, the paranoid an.... err, Human.

 

[Zarithar]

Thank you. And thank you for admitting that Forgotten Realms-books are fubar.
In fact, aren't they the primary cause for all the things that those who like the Forgotten Realms as they are now will change then with the 4th edition?
Mediocre fantasy books dictate the fate of the iconic D&D-setting.

Well I wouldn't call them FUBAR (f**ked up beyond all recognition for those unfamiliar with this wonderful military acronym), but they are definately flawed. The setting and some of its iconic characters if I am not mistaken though was actually conceived by er... the same mediocre writers of FR novels (Greenwood anyone??? ) .

 

[LoneWolf23]

That's probably right. I wonder how they are going to change the various deities as well. Most of them have a very human appearance.

Well, that one's easy. Every race sees the gods differently. While humans worship Pelor as a bright, gold-skinned human, elves see him as a gold-skinned elf, and dwarves see him as a dwarf with a bright, golden mane and beard.

 

[Solarious]

When I read the quote from the beginning of the thread, a thought immediately occurred to me. What would an ancient Egypt-like kingdom look like if it were ruled by mummified dwarves? How would Tolkien fantasy and the popular image of fantasy Egypt interact and reconcile? Would they live in mountains surrounded by desserts? Dessert-valleys surrounded by mountains? Deep underground? Would they have enslaved other dwarves, or rule over humans who worship them as gods for their wisdom?

Sorry to go off on a tangent (and skimming lightly over the thread), but I think it's an interesting idea, synthesizing (popular culture) examples of human culture with DnD fantasy/lore. If it's too sharp a turn of conversation, I can always start another thread. Or my post can be buried, never to be seen again.

 

[DandD]

A mountain that once was the biggest pyramid of the world (really really colossal), built by an ancient dwarven empire at the height of its civilisation a really really long time ago, and now seen as a sacred place by humans, who worship the dwarven mummies burried in there as benevolent god-kings?
Sounds really cool...

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I don't think that this is what Wizards intends. They talk about the end of the human-dominated world, which to me means that even the points of light are supposed to be largely non-human. I could be wrong, but that's how W&M reads to me.

From the Worlds and Monsters book the break down is as follows:

Most of the history of the world consists of Empires rising and falling. Most races have had one or several of these events occur. Halflings are the exception they never have empires and they never have massive cultural disruptions.

Humans dominated the most recent empire.

As that empire developed communities became highly integrated.

After the collapse most of the communities that are left are either -

A.) Highly disrupted and small human communities

B.) Highly integrated communities of humans, dwarves, elves, and half elves with Dragonborn, Halfling, Tiefling, and Eladrin contacts. These are the largest communities and tend to be holdovers from the Empire.

C.) Older, developed, and homogenous communities left over from prior empires: Eladrin cities, Elven glades, and Dwarven fortresses.

D.) Other weirdnesses such as Tiefling noble houses, Dragonborn mercenary companies, and the aforementioned undisruptable Halfling barge culture.

E.) Don't exactly qualify on the Light side of PoL

 

[kennew142]

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have used the word boring. But when I read those sections of W&M, it seemed to me that they were talking how the assumed D&D world in previous editions had always been so humanocentric that non-human races felt like aliens. How many non-human nations were there in Greyhawk? What percentage of the total were they? It's the same in the Forgotten Realms. Almost every nation and region is dominated by human kingdoms.

In Eberron, the designers finally integrated non-humans into the greater society. Race is less consequential than nationality.

The new concept seems almost like Star Trek to me. All the PHB races are assumed to be normal in the setting. The reason that tieflings are not killed on sight in the assumed setting is that tieflings are normal members of that society. The last empire may have been human dominated, but other races (including tieflings and dragonborn) were fully integrated.

Making non-human races normal within the conceits of the assumed world makes them more a part of the world. Players of said characters can feel part of the same community as the players of human characters. They (and any NPC relations) are not oddities.

This concept isn't actually new to 4e. In 3e, the DMG talked about integrated communities, but the assumed setting (Greyhawk) was as humanocentric as Gygax had originally envisioned.

My own 4e homebrew will be less a true PoL setting and more similar to Eberron. Nations still exist and they are still dominated by one race, but other races are considered normal in the setting. I'm looking forward to it. As a historian and classicist, my homebrews have always been more simulationist in concept, drawing from history and relegating non-humans to the margins of the campaign world.

My design concept for the next setting will be more in line with the assumed D&D world. In part, this is because I've been inspired by the previews; in part, because I've decided to do something new; and in part, because my style has become more narrativist in the past few years.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

"Halfling barge culture" should be a feat giving cool benefits.