Worlds of Design: Only Human

Why are humans the dominant species in many fantasy RPGs?
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Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

“There is no such thing as human superiority.” – Dwight Eisenhower (Supreme Allied Commander WW II Europe, and 34th President)

Humans are generally positioned as the baseline to which other species are compared, no doubt because humans are playing the game. Dungeons & Dragons famously centered humans as the “main” species lest the game turn into less fantasy medieval and more abstract fantasy – all of which seems quaint now given the dizzying variety of fantasy worlds in books and on screen. But there are other reasons why humans might logically be more common in a fantasy world, and which reasons you choose can set the tone for your game.

Magical Proficiency​

My first answer is humans can use magic much more proficiently than any rival. Not every species can learn more, and more complex, spells, and use magical items. Originally in RPGs there were level limits for nonhuman playable species (often wrongly called races) such as elves and dwarves. This helped prevent them from dominating humans. Modern dislike of constraints tends to see those limitations removed in later rulesets, so this doesn’t necessarily apply anymore to later editions of D&D or other fantasy rulesets. But there are likely other reasons for human dominance, such as adaptability, ambition, and organization.

Adaptability​

Humans in general are very adaptable, as we can see from humans being able to live in almost any conditions, very hot, very cold, with water all around, or in deserts. Human inventiveness is something historians appreciate with each passing decade as the pace of technological innovation continues to increase. Even the ability to domesticate animals is a sign of adaptability. To put it another way: humans are jacks of all trades. Whatever needs to be done, humans will figure out how to do it.

In comparison, many species – inherited from the Tolkien tradition – were deeply tied to their origin: dwarves in the mountains, elves in the forests, hobbits in the hills, and orcs underground. There are plenty of exceptions to these broad strokes across fiction, but the general sentiment holds true that many species are uniquely adapted to their homelands, whereas humans can theoretically be found anywhere.

I remember reading a book by science fiction writer Keith Laumer about his famous character Retief, where the intelligent aliens of a system were astonished that humans could drive vehicles without massive collisions everywhere. Whether you call this adaptability or organization, it’s the kind of thing that might make humans stand out from some other species.

Ambition​

A key element of elves and dwarves and hobbits is their longing for their homelands. All three are often represented as either wanting to stay in their original lands or pining to return to them. This isn’t necessarily the case for humans, who by their nature in fantasy settings tend to be expansionist. Another way to put this, from novelist John Steinbeck's The Pearl:
For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.

While on the one hand this makes humans a catalyst for change, their need to explore and conquer can start wars and bring other species into conflict with them. From a fantasy role-playing game standpoint, this urge to pick up roots facilitates adventures too.

Organization​

The more we know about history, the more we know how chaotic and disorganized humans can be. Yet compared with other species we might be quite well-organized, up to and including empires. Imagine how less effective humans would be if they could never come together in a state/polity larger than a few thousand people. How often do we see imperial elves, say, or dwarves conquering human kingdoms? (The answer depends partly on how much dwarves and elves resemble humans, and if you play Spelljammer.)

And within any state, we can have remarkable organization at times. This affects production, agriculture, and well-being just as much as military capability. Other fantasy species, on the other hand, are often more chaotic than humans, and commonly less organized. What we can’t really know is how much intelligence naturally leads to the urge to organize, because we have no other intelligent species to compare with in the real world.

We’re Only Human​

Of course, the real reason why humans dominate fantasy is because the readers/players are humans, and prefer the familiar. Increasingly, that’s becoming less common as role-playing games branch out, and other media portrays the wide variety of species as coexisting with humans. In some cases, humans aren’t the dominant species at all.

In Dungeons & Dragons, making humans the baseline was a design choice. Later editions have made species less rules-specific and thus more defined by their background than their origin, freeing up other species to succeed on their own merits. But for many campaigns, humans are so ubiquitous they fade into the background. If humans are your baseline in your world, it’s worth considering how they got there.

Your Turn: What’s the non-human dominant species in your fantasy world?
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio
Perhaps long-lived races like elves only can have children a few times. Where humans can become pregnant each month, an elf might only be able to once a year or every 5/10/50 years.
 

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Whenever I'm running a D&D-like setting, I always have halflings as the most common (although not most powerful) race.
One of my campaign worlds has halflings as a dominant race/species in a pastiche of mostly 19th Century Europe. This world was quite intentionally designed to mess with things, though. Dwarves are pseudo-Italian, known for their cooking, leatherwork, fashion, and religion, the gnomes are pseudo-Swiss (because, well, duh). There are two dominant halfling nations: One is pseudo-France with musketeers and revolution perpetually on the mind after having failed at continental conquest a few generations ago and the other is pseudo-Prussia, complete with pickelhauben, kriegshunden (aka large dachsunds), and a growing penchant for world conquest.
 

Perhaps long-lived races like elves only can have children a few times. Where humans can become pregnant each month, an elf might only be able to once a year or every 5/10/50 years.
In one of my campaign worlds, elder races fertility (or lack thereof) was explained by the presence of taint from a Far Realm gate to which they were susceptible and to which humans weren't. Eventually the gate to the Far Realm was closed and the taint has alleviated, meaning that the cap on fertility has abated.
 

It might be interesting to have a setting where Human reproduction levels tend to decrease in higher background levels of magic and increase the less ambient magic there is. Meanwhile, the reverse is true for Elves and Dwarves... This would create an inherent tension and conflict between the races without either one of them needing to be actively evil towards each other. It would also explain why Human spellcasters, many of whom tend to live much longer than their non magic-wielding human neighbours, don't end up with massive clans of spell chucking descendants. It would also help explain why there tend to be racially dominant lands. Obviously, in the Human lands the Elves and Dwarves would see their populations grow more slowly, while Humans would naturally not be a prominent in the Elven or Dwarven lands. This could also set up conflicts should one group expand into the lands of another as if the newcomers gain a foothold their mere presence and lifestyles could become long term damaging to the local populations.

That made me think of the Birthright settings use of Source Holdings which take the form of ancient henges, primeval forests, faerie trods and other wild and unexplored a places, but which become weaker as nature is removed in favour of development. Humans civilisation tends to deplete Sources which is what upsets the Elves (who are implied to live in balance with nature and the Source well).

Generalising that to affecting reproduction as well as Magic power levels is a nice campaign driver to spawning resource competition and conflict
 

One thing I loved in the old Scarred Lands setting was their elf concept of the Forsaken. The god of the elves had been killed in the creation of the setting. Killed in front of many elven witnesses in fact. Which meant that the current elven population was the last. They could no longer have children because they didn't have a god.

Made for a really interesting "elves are on the wane" story. You could play an elf, but, you had to be middle aged, started with extra gold and were among the last of your kind.

Really loved the concept.
 

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