In fantasy settings, do you have a particular preference for picking humans or a fantasy race? Why...

In fantasy settings, do you have a particular preference for picking humans or a fantasy race? Why? Do you think picking humans is boring? Do you think picking fantasy races is trying too hard to stand out?

I like to pick humans because they are always portrayed as the underdogs in settings with other races.

I only let players be other races if they can prove to me that their character concept can't be done with humans.

So far i have a grand total of 3 non-humans over 10 years of GMing. And a LOT of huffing, and puffing, and leaving the table.

I usually pick humans because I think generally think humans adapting to fantasy elements is more interesting than the other way around. I'll sometimes play the more toned down races like halfling and half-elf though

I prefer dwarfs because they are my favorite race.

i pick a human if its humans elves dwarves, i dont pick human if theres an interresting race there i wanna play.

Whenever i play humans tho i have the urge to turn it into something related to myself and thats a bad habit for roleplaying so i ofthen try to avoid it.

Both are fine options, it depends on what seems most appropriate for the character.

I pick humans because they're more relatable usually. Like, in Shadowrun, I can count on one hand the times I've played another race, though every time I have, it's been fairly memorable.

I guess that's my main complaint about other races. They're all basically refluffed humans, none of their biological differences are that meaningful, and ultimately they function the same with some stats weighted in different places. One of my favorite settings that had different races as options was (ironically) a video game setting, Final Fantasy Legends (SaGa series for the inclined). In it, you had humans which made use of equipment and items to raise their stats and preform better and couldn't use magic, mutants/espers, which visually looked like humans with different aspects (Pointy ears, different skin tone, overly slender or bulky builds, or any combination of various oddities compared to normal humans) and couldn't use as many items to supplement themselves with but had traditional stat growth gained through combat and could use magic spells that they innately learned, monsters, which could devour enemy monsters to switch their form to another creature, inheriting all stats and abilities the other creature had, and robots, which took on different functions based on the equipment you gave them. Each of them played very, very different from each other, and felt very interesting.

Now that I think of it, I might make my next campaign a 1:1 story of FFL with a homebrew system.

Sounds like my kind of campaign.

Fighting horrors and monsters makes a lot less sense when they're on your side too.

I play humans because they're often statistically optimal.

Despite thinking that, you sound like a bit of a jerk. Roleplaying a cooperative experience, and the GM should work with the players as much as vice-versa.

I play humans probably 50% of the time
If I don't have a particular race I want to play or a concept for what the character is going to be then I will default to human since they are usually the most flexible mechanically and thematically

Not him but, generally the ones who pick really offshoot races are not there to build a cooperative story, but to flaunt their own 'ingeneous' character concept to show how special they are.

[citation needed]

DeviantArt

Yes, but elves and dwarves don't bring anything to cooperative experience.

And there's no reason why the archetypes of forest-dwelling archer and short angry miner can't be humans. Better to use "elves" and "dwarves" as human cultures.

But that's a completely arbitrary statement. You're just saying it's better, and that adding extra races is unnecessary, without any explanation or justification.

...What?

does it really need a justification? Our world has only one race (in RPG sense, before this thread gets /pol/luted), and look how many unique cultures we have. What do elves and dwarves bring that's at least half as interesting as those?

i only play humans.
my setting is also human only.

You'll know when you're older. For now it's fine that you play pretend with your friends.

Why is that in any way relevant?

You literally just named a website people post artwork on. That is not an argument, a point or an explanation.

I believe he's talking about the furry craze of the early 2000's, where furries even in real life where the normies treadwere coming out of the woodworks like a colony of hungry termites. Every furry has their own "being" that they are, be it a rainbow colored hominid futa horse or a neon green and pink colored turtle twink. What I'm saying, is that I'm not the user you're talking too, and I still despise furries because they make me uncomfortable.

Because adding forest-dwelling hippies and drunk bearded miners is a dumb cop-out when you could add in actually interesting human cultures?

I'm well aware of all of that. But just citing a website where that occurred is not the same as making a point.

But that's a stupid statement.

If you compare the most dumbed down, simplified and generic version of elves and dwarves to the depth and complexity of a real human culture, of course they'll come up short.

But if you compare the most generic and bland possible version of a medieval human culture to an elven or dwarven culture from a setting with a lot of history and depth to it, you'll be in exactly the same position.

It's a statement of the obvious with nothing to do with whether or not including multiple races in a setting is beneficial or not.

Ousting yourself as a furfag doesn't help your point either.

I'm not sure how you made that somewhat absurd leap, or why you think it's at all relevant.

Cause why not? Like 90% of the races will be just "furry human but..." based on a real life culture. Its much easier to relate to a human and skip a bunch of things we already implicitly know about humans. Also, you will subconsciously always relate to root for humans.

I like halflings. The problems of being small without having to play a child, and the fact that if anyone's going to bother cooking something for the party in the field, it'll be the halfling.

Not to mention they're not too far out there, and most settings I know have them contently existing in humanity's shadow anyway.

T. Furfag

Pretty much always choose human. I might pick dwarf though.

None of the other races seem appealing to play.

I almost always play humans or half-elves. It's mostly about lifespan; beings that live for 400+ years would have a completely alien way of thinking about things and I personally can't get into roleplaying that.

Half-elves are great because they're just pretty humans with pointy ears who live a little bit longer and age gracefully.

No? In Warcraft they're the dominant race with protectorates, Orks are the dindus who fight the man. LOTR has humans owning most of the world, and in the fourth age, the entire world. ASOIAF is obvious, Discworld and WoT are 90% humans everywhere, Bas-lag and Warhammer have shittonnes of races but humans have the most powerful empire.
Name a few settings where humans are the dark horse.

>picking anything other than what is mechanically optimal

Ugh.

>prove to me that their character concept can't be done with humans
Ok. I want to play a minotaur. Humans can't be minotaur. Checkmate.
Joking aside, I like openly stupid GMs like you because they save me the time of finding out what a shitty person you are several sessions in.

That's entirely your opinion.

It sounds more like you are just unable to compromise with your players.

If the setting actually has unique and cool races I'd play them, but 90% of the time it's just human but smaller/knife ear'd/green/ect. So why not beat around the bush and just go full human?

Dwarf Fortress made me find of dwarves as a race.

So do you just run Human only settings, and if so why would you let anyone play anything other than a human?

to be fair man in diskworld there is many much dorfs. They are just all down in the elephant meat with their underkings.

Why add "interesting" not-romans and not-chinese when you could add elves or dwarves?

I think he means the underdogs in any personal-scale or skirmish-scale fight, which in each of those settings, if one side is human and the other is not, the human is the underdog.

I think people have some weird complexes over races in fantasy games. The "human only final destination" guy is always a bit of a strange one. It's like chill out bro it's just a game what are you trying to say here?

If all the elves and dorfs are just refluffed humans with stat bonuses ra-ra-ra then just play one like a human and calm down.

I pick fantasy races if I feel like it, no real reason other than "That'd be cool."

I have never played a human in a ttrpg. I always play orcs, half-orcs, dwarves, etc.

Humans bore me.

Nah, no particular preference one way or the other.

I prefer to play humans unless the character concept I'm thinking of just screams some other race. I have a hard time getting into the mindset of a being that's lived for at least a century already and I'd rather not just play a short/pretty human.

I play humans because they are always mad overpowered.

>someone else played that game
Ayyyy

Maybe you're just a shit player?

I only play humans but you're still a faggot, I would not play with you, holy shit.