Why do people obsess over playing different races other than humans instead of making a human character with a...

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I've seen that Gremlin posted on Veeky Forums before. Where's she from?

League of Legends.

She's Tristana, from League of Legends. Carries around a big gun and shoots people.

Thank you very much.

>humans can be expanded to fit any niche
>therefore, you dont need other races

by this logic, we can go with an all-elf or all-dwarf setting, simply by making dwarves cover every spectrum of possible personality

You can find lewds if you look.

Why do you think he asked?

>I mean if the only interesting thing about your character is their race instead of their personality then you've essentially failed as a roleplayer
What if they have a different race AND a different personality? That's TWO differences to a human character's one. By your own logic, the nonhuman is the better character in terms of roleplay.

Also League is terrible both in terms of gameplay and fluff.

If you're playing anothwr race, its like trying to roleplay a black person when you're white
Either it doesnt come up at all that your character is black, or you end up making a dumb stereotype rather than a character

Also, we're not talking about the exceptions, we're talking about the rules

>If you're playing anothwr race, its like trying to roleplay a black person when you're white
>Either it doesnt come up at all that your character is black, or you end up making a dumb stereotype rather than a character
Explain why.

>Either it doesnt come up at all that your character is black
Is there actually necessarily anything wrong with this?

Because catgirls are love. Catgirls are life.

>If you're playing anothwr race, its like trying to roleplay a black person when you're white
>Either it doesnt come up at all that your character is black, or you end up making a dumb stereotype rather than a character
That's retarded. You're retarded.

The different races in most roleplaying games have practical mechanical differences that will affect gameplay and party balance even if the setting doesn't do a good job of differentiating their culture. Dragonborn in D&D can breathe fire or lightning or whatever breath weapon they happen to have; that's got plenty of mechanical and even role play applications in a typical adventure.

How I see it why play a human if there are other more interesting/more powerful options and I'm simply bored by every setting having a "Human" regardless of how unusual it is.
Also for why not RP something with a personality different to your own its simply more difficult and races give you nice stereotypes if you do not have any ideas.
Racial stereotypes can be used for fun. One of the best character I played with was a goblin who pretended to be stupid while actually being a caster and taking the enemies by surprise because most people did not expect him to magic.

Why do humanfags obsess over other people playing different races instead of just playing the game?

Why would it come up that the character is black? That would be up to the GM based on how his NPCs behave in reaction to the character acting black, not on the player to "act black."

It seems you didn't get a word of what OP said.

My biggest gripe with human only settings is that my past dms can not keep that shit straight.

At game begging, you have six flavors of humans with minor quitks like water breathing and dark vision.

Three games in, new player gets to be a tolkien elf and elf super warriors and mages roam the land.

Six games in lizardmen and dwarves built the world and humans are but bugs on history's windshield of a setting which had none of it in the game brief.

>if the only interesting thing about your character is their race
Oh you mean like practically 100% of human players who give their character some sort of class-based stereotype? Like red wizard or fighter with a ridiculous weapon.
Just because (You) are incapable of making a character of a different race interesting doesn't mean that other people can't either, plus playing different races also brings along options for the DM, for example prejudice and outright hostility that you wouldn't have experienced and had to deal with if you played a human. Why invest in Disguise or hide in a merchant cart to get into the city of Waterdeep when you can just be a human?
What about the group's Orc wrestling it out with the enemy orc chief in a cultural style instead of going all Goblin Slayer on every monster?
There are so many possibilities that you are ignoring.

If I wanted an all humans all the time hobby, I'd watch stupid slice of life anime about humans with different personalities doing nothing.

I'm here to PLAY some shit. Which means occasionally we get an all human firefly, and occasionally we get a farscape.

Possible, I had kobolds do it, so anything is possible

Honestly, I don't even include humans in my setting any more.
They're a crutch for people who want to be the average.
In my setting, if you want to not be a special snowflake, you better be one of these weird guys.

You friend, you I like. (Because I run games exactly same way)

So what you're saying is that there are seven ways to have fun wrong?

I mean, I hate to have to remove humans, as I do see their value, but I don't want to make the mistake of making the setting bend over backwards to make humans a big deal, like every setting does.

fakkin humies i swear

Why does OP obsess over making threads complaining about tendencies in people he's only pretending exist instead of just making quality threads? I mean if the only interesting thing you can think of doing is complaining about shit that doesn't happen instead of contributing positively to the board then you've essentially failed as a fa/tg/uy.

Well I just ran a setting where post apocaliptic event happened, only trace of humans that was hinted was that "orcs" (actually half orcs) had been some sort of race hybrid from the past

>try to run a campaign with a group of friends
>most of them are fairly new to pen+paper
>most experienced friend is running his homebrew
>pick a goblin because their abilities look cool
>mildly experienced friend picks an elf, seems alright
>completely uncreative friend picks a human sword+board fighter who doesn't talk very much
I almost felt bad for him every time conversation swung his way, he was just so unsure what to do.

We had another campaign with that group that only survived two sessions and he picked a female gnome and we were all really shocked until we realised it was some pre-made character.

/ourguy/

Is this the new Stormwind fallacy? The claim that roleplaying and being a different race than human are mutually exclusive?

Nah, it's just some shit modern Veeky Forums trolls picked up after their last schtick stopped working.

Because it's really interesting and exciting? You may as well be asking why people want to think about magic swords when regular ones can still kill someone.

Why do you assume it's about personality or characterization in the first place?

Have you tried not playing DnD?

Because 90% of people here aren't traditional gamers. They probably picked up the memes from one of the Warhammer video games, or want to talk about their favorite fantasy anime and have learned to put a thin veneer of D&D over it.

Yes.
It only confirmed this notion.

>posts a screenshot where everyone is just as average
ok

I have yet to see someone roleplay an elf or dwarf as anything other than a human with a different paintjob and one or two otherwise human character traits blown way out of proportion.

I would be really impressed if a player managed to really convey a psychology and outlook that are fundamentally non-human.

No, you're a boring player.

You can make humans whatever you want in Stellaris, though. Default empires suck anyway.

Because what measures is a human and easiest way to explain other sapient spiecies to players is by comparing them to what players already know -themselves.

>and one or two otherwise human character traits blown way out of proportion.
Proportion to what? Humans? Isn't that the point of a nonhuman?

If your idea of a compelling nonhuman character is a short Glaswegian with his rudeness and alcoholism dialed to 11, just play a Glaswegian and keep them dialed to an acceptable human 10. You'll be marginally less annoying.

>I don't like nonhumans played with human personalities
>I don't like nonhumans played with inhuman personality extremes
What exactly do you want out of nonhumans?

Read the filename.

He is building a doublethink construct to allow him to claim nobody should ever play nonhumans.

Well, yeah.
But it also works for sword of the stars, master of orion, space empires, aurora, galactic civilizations, and much more.

It's HARD to find games where humans are anything but the average, or the average + able to do diplomacy.

Changing character's appearance is easier.

In GalCiv humans are insufferable Mary Sues and second most annoying species, though.

That describes humans in almost everything.

No it's not, not even close.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreIndexed

There are settings where humans are everything from cattle to literally eldritch abominations out there.

Dumbing shit down for the average uneducated colonial doesn't help people

(You)

I notice you linked a tvtropes page with no examples on it.

One or two 'inhuman' extremes in otherwise run-of-the-mill human personality traits aren't compelling or interesting. They're just annoying in how over-the-top they are.

They don't add anything meaningful.

Even generic RPG elves and dwarves have these racial histories and physiologies full of details that should, by all accounts, result in a worldview that could very well be described as utterly alien to human thinking. It would be incredibly interesting to see someone try and portray that.

But what do we get? Over-the-top arrogant and snobby 'elven' !NotHuman. Over-the-top alcoholic weaponsmithing fetishist 'dwarven' !NotHuman.

Every. Damn. Time.

>these entirely mundane histories that are not diverging in any significant way from human histories because the developers do not want to take risks should somehow make a completely alien creature

That's why I play hivers.

Seriously, know what our racial ability is? Our infinite endurance. We would chase animals down for hours or days until it gave out, then we'd kill it, and drag the meat back to our huts.

When's the last time you saw a game that gave humans the best stamina in the system?

>Even generic RPG elves and dwarves have these racial histories and physiologies full of details that should, by all accounts, result in a worldview that could very well be described as utterly alien to human thinking. It would be incredibly interesting to see someone try and portray that.
How would you suggest one prtray that?

Literally never, outside of homebrew.
That's how bad the "humans must be average" shit is.

I'm a GM. My problem with the way that some player play nonhumans is that it's too often shallow. Like 's example; a dwarf that's nothing more than being drunk & angry with a bad accent.
Elves are played as nothing more than snooty hippies.

Now, fortunately one of my current groups has some really good roleplayers in it so I don't have to experience that.

We've had several good threads about it for elves.

How do your players go about it?

It seems like the tropes about humanity which are linked are the examples.

Funny way to get around actually having to think of a single thing where his argument applies.

System I was working on had injuries be rather common. The human quirk was the fact that taking an injury restored a small amount of hitpoints, meaning they were very, very hard to kill.

best girl

It depends on your specific brand of elf.

Let's say your elves are particularly long-lived, maybe even biologically immortal, and in need of only a couple hours of reverie every day.

This doesn't just mean they would snobbily scoff at the notion of a 30-year-old child having any sort of valuable opinion on anything.

This means that by the time they're mentally and physically mature, days and weeks fly by at the same speed hours and lazy Sunday afternoons fly by for a regular human.

Every player is 'just' a human, of course. How this would realistically affect a thinking creature with an actual personality should be almost unimaginable for us.

But players can get a hell of a lot more creative and do a hell of a lot better than "My guy is super arrogant and scoffs more often than he breathes. Also pointy ears."

The problem is that the average human nowadays can't run half a mile without getting winded, and the average geek probably can't even run that. So the concept fails verisimilitude even though it's totally accurate.

Our endurance is pretty decent compared to other mammals - unless comfortable civilization causes us to sit on our asses, work the fields etc. so we never practice running. Most humans are worse than regular animals at running, because we don't run for a living anymore.
Also, what makes you think this must be a human-only thing? Last I checked, elves, orcs, dwarves etc. also sweat, breathe using lungs and use the same gaits as humans.

The two aren't mutually exclusive though.
Enjoy your (You)s

Because it's really, really hard to justify how a single human lived for a couple of thousand years stuck on the bottom of the ocean without means of getting air, food, or (non-salty) water, or any for of protection.

>if the only interesting thing about your character is their race instead of their personality then you've essentially failed

why doesn´t plague just draw porn already? he could be fucking rich by now

>This means that by the time they're mentally and physically mature, days and weeks fly by at the same speed hours and lazy Sunday afternoons fly by for a regular human.
I never understood this point. Just because you lived for a long time doesn't mean that you start paying less attention to individual moments. Arguably, old humans report time flying by because their lives have become boring routine and busiwork. And I don't see why such an experience should scale boundlessly with age - an elf will still have to eat, rest and survive day by day. Particularly in dangerous situations, you won't let your attention slip.

Basically, since most humans don't approach things with the thought "I'll expect to live another 40 years, so what's a few days compared to that", most elves won't do so as well.

He did.

what?when? I was living under a rock, spoonfeed me brother

If your game has races and classes but doesn't have race as class its a bad system

>Arguably, old humans report time flying by because their lives have become boring routine and busiwork.
That's not the (only) reason.

We experience everything within the framework formed by our own past experiences. If you've only lived for eight years, roughly half of which you don't even really remember, a single passing day is roughly 1/3000 of your life. By the time you're forty, a single day accounts for 1/14600 of your life. This profoundly affects the way you experience the passage of time.

Now extrapolate that to a thinking creature that lives for centuries.

>I never understood this point.
Because you don't know how memory works.

Your information is a bit outdated, sir.

>niggers in my fantasy setting are just like niggers in real life

Way back when under a different name. It's not very good.

Yes, and black characters get -4 INT +2 STR.

Got some more of that delicious conjecture?

>It's not very good.

It really wasn't most of It is soft bullshit

>black
>+2 STR
That must be why they are dominating things like Olympic weightlifting. Oh, wait...

>days and weeks fly by at the same speed hours and lazy Sunday afternoons fly by for a regular human.
Why? I've never seen the soundness in this argument; years pass by quickly if you spend them working a 9 to 5 in the same job every day, yet a year lingers when it's packed full of momentous occasions like the birth of a child, or the funeral preparations for a relative, or tour through a stay in an unfamiliar country. Even on the daily scale an entire day could drain away spent engulfed in a riveting task or just reading a good book, while an hour drags by if you're stuck doing monotonous work. A person's sense of time adjusts all the time relative to what's happening. Age does have an effect; a child's life moves much more slowly than an adult's, but I would argue that's because it's full of first experiences for someone totally unfamiliar with everything about the world. Older people can still experience that slow down in the examples above, and even younger children can lose days and week just playing a videogame.

I'd think there's a base level perspective on the movement of time everything would share, more based on how fast they actually need to respond to things happening in the world around them; if something lives in the same day/night cycle as us, their sense of a day will be roughly the same, augmented more by the tasks they do than their own aging process. The scale of years and decades would be stranger, but still comprehensible from a human perspective. It would most certainly affect things like long term-planning, political and financial concerns, and all that fiddly shit that probably wouldn't come up if you were just talking to your elf adventuring buddy. They'd largely just seem like a regular person, with perhaps a slightly more carefree perspective on things that would be more pressing to the average person.

I was aware of that argument, but I don't find it convincing for the simple reason that humans don't remember their entire lives. We can't have a concept or perception of "fractional lifetime" for this reason. What we *do* remember are moments of emotional significance. So an older person who has been slaving away at work and then idling in retirement will not add any mental landmarks during these periods. And looking back, it will seem as if these years went by in a flash. But it will not be so in the moment, and it will surely not be so when there's much to discover, learn and experience, as would be the case for an almost eternally fit person in a world full of adventures and magical secrets.

Ok, +2 CON then.

>cont
And then there's the extra point of how much does an elf even remember. Sure they can live for 800 years but How much is actually recalled? Your average human does not recall most of their life, why would an elf? They might have exactly the same capacity and in that case you'd just have a human with fuckhuge gaps between the time their cousin knocked out one of their baby teeth and what they had for dinner last night.