Humans are the only civilized race in my setting

I have never felt the need to include other races in my setting, for the reasons below:

1) There can still be meaningful conflict without using multiple races. Humans have fought each other since the dawn of time, and for very good and interesting reasons. There can still be interesting conflict inside a race, without the need for another.

2) I also find wars between different races one dimensional. They usually boil down to "My race is superior than yours.". And while that can be a good reason to fight, it gets pretty old pretty fast. Wars fought by single races tend to be more engaging and more horrifying. Think about it this way: It is easy to alienate another race and attack them, while taking the lives of your own people harder to do, and is more tragic. The latter kind of conflict also requires a better reason compared to the former because again, it is much easier to declare war on a different race.

3) Culture wise, multiple races are not necessary. For example, culture of a cannibalistic tribe can be just as much interesting while keeping them human, as opposed having them be of another race, such as wood elves. What makes cultures or group of people interesting is not their appearance, but their behaviour and mentality. Seeing how diverse humans can be in the real world, is there a reason to replace certain populations with different races? A well crafted human culture is nothing short of a well crafted draconian one.

4) This keeps the players guessing. If I introduce them to a orcish city for example, most players are going to assume they are going to be barbarians, as it is the stereotype for that race. And while it can be fun to play around that prejudice in players' heads, making every civilization human seems to help the players to open a blank sheet of paper for each new culture in their minds.

Aside from a few other minor reasons, these are it. What do you think Veeky Forums? Am I missing the point of exotic races?

Nah not really, exotic races are mostly meant to be a stylistic thing.

It's kind of odd to say an idea is bad because it can be done badly, but to blame that on the idea itself rather than variable quality of writing and execution.

I am not blaming the idea.
I am just deeming it unnecessary, and claiming that most positive effects attributed to exotic races can, in fact, be accomplished without them.

But there are also positive things that can be done in settings with multiple races that cannot be done with a single race.

Necessary or not doesn't really matter, there are stories that are better off with multiple races and there are stories that are better of without.

For game design terms, though, multiple races can be a very interesting thing, if they're properly integrated in the mechanics to be meaningfully different but balanced, rather than shoehorned in, dull races you find in a lot of games that don't understand how to use their constituent parts properly.

Can you give me some examples (outside battle mechanics of course)? I could use some solid advice on how to make them work.

Most people usually point out the inhuman aspects of exotic races, for example, draconians being cold blooded, ruthless reptiles. But I rarely get to see other inhuman races actually doing something inhuman that would bring out their differences.
Most of the time, evles are just a bit more smug, orcs are a bit more easy to anger, dwarfs are a tad bit alcoholic and asocial. But I don't see the point in these, as humans also show these personality traits as well.

I am having trouble finding a justification to add these races to my setting, and go to the extra effort to flesh them out. Humans seem to already have everything these races would add to a setting to me. I really could use some examples.

If you feel the need to justify it, then you probably shouldn't. I like having multiple races in my settings because I think it's fun.

No, I am not trying to justify it.
I am just trying to get my point of view across, so that somebody could let me know if I am missing anything.
This thread was created to change the minds of no one but myself, good sir.

And you're unnecesary because there're other humans in the world, so please, remove yourself.

> I also find wars between different races one dimensional. They usually boil down to "My race is superior than yours."
Hope you get why this is a trick question. Race wars, by the fact of being race wars, are because of race, you're cheating with the question motherfucker

I honestly would if I could.

No, I am a saying that the most wars between different races (at least the ones I saw) usually revolve around "My race is superior and all inferior races should die", and there is usually no more dept to them. However, wars between single races are usually ideological, and to me, much more horrifying.
I am not implying that you can't have not racially motivated wars between different races, but what is the point of having those races different at that point?

I generally like using nonhuman races in setting for the same reason fantasy uses magic in general. They allow for story and character possibilities you can't get with real-world elements, take elves, for instance, the fact that they live for centuries is bound to have a massive impact on their culture, which in turn has a massive impact on individuals, that allows for characters and setting elements that you wouldn't find in a purely human setting.

I do feel there's a certain lack of deliberateness in how fantasy races are often used though. Most of the time they're not made to explore these sorts of ideas but just for some superficial variety, which is a shame because to me the point of sci-fi and fantasy is the ability to explore exactly those sorts of hypothetical scenarios.

How about all kinds of giants from ogres an trolls to cloud ones. You cannot fit humans to their size.

Because humans can't breath underwater and look like monstrous fishmen, because humans can't life forever and be haughty assholes who have infinite knowledge and treat everybody like children, because human can't see every possibility and perceive the world in 4D so their actions are fucking alien to the rest of races, etc. That's why you have other races, because humans are humans and their character depth starts and ends there, their whole culture and personality is influenced by what they can do and achieve, by how perceive the world and how much they can live, etc.

I agree entirely.
I find it hard to accurately portray the psychology of an individual who is thousands of years old though. Wouldn't they be skilled at everything? How could anyone potentially top them at well, anything?
And also, there is the big question:
If you were are immortal, wouldn't you procrastinate everything? Because there will always be a tomorrow to do what you need to do. Would you actually accomplish anything?
And one last question: How would the justice system for an immortal race work, seeing that prison time clearly doesn't mean jack shit? Would they be heavy on executions? How would they punish relatively small crimes, like petty thievery for example?

>seeing that prison time clearly doesn't mean jack shit?
I think you totally don't understand what prision time means, just because you live forever doesn't mean 50 years pass superfast for you.

This. They don't do jack unless you make them do jack. Having to wait a year or more for elvish bureaucracy to move. Recruiting a band of orcs by wrestling the leader down, at which point every single orc swaps allegiance in a creepily synchronised manner. Obligate carnivore gnolls 'aging' meat to an absurd degree, counting the maggots as bonus protein. Dragonborn not bothering with more than barbarian-stripper getup because I AM THE ELEMENTS. Kobolds not bothering to keep lights anywhere but where it's absolutely necessary, because darkvision.

Gnomes, halflings, and the halvsies can go die in a fire, though.

>because humans can't life forever and be haughty assholes who have infinite knowledge and treat everybody like children, because human can't see every possibility and perceive the world in 4D so their actions are fucking alien to the rest of races
But you need to consider that, if you include such races, humans and other human-like races are going to be incompetent as hell, to the point where they might even go extinct.
So, at that point I feel the inclusion of such races would damage the roles of others. I am not out to create all races equal or anything, but all races should at least have a chance in my opinion.

>ecause humans can't breath underwater and look like monstrous fishmen
I agree with this one, although I would rather have the fishmen as an uncivilized race, like a force of nature. That's just my opinion though.

Yeah, but it clearly isn't going to demotivate crime.
Jail time is there to demotivate crime. You commit a crime, and you don't get to live your life to the fullest, and waste your precious finite years sitting in a prison cell doing nothing. 5 years of jail time would mean 5 years of freedom and life gone for a mortal.
But if you are immortal, and lets say you got 500 years; who cares, you still have an infinite amount of years to live. You didn't lost anything and you certainly weren't punished.

Depends, I imagine an immortal race as a very stagnant one with a "as long as it works why change it?" ideology, while short span ones evolve faster and are always innovating

Add penal servitude

Sounds hard to roleplay as one. I can see them being included as a race, but not as a playable race.

>I am just deeming it unnecessary, and claiming that most positive effects attributed to exotic races can, in fact, be accomplished without them.
Unless you're intentionally going for some kind of minimalism challenge, this isn't a useful way to look at things. Most good things CAN be accomplished with just X. That doesn't mean it's not harder or you're not losing out on neat stuff in the process.

I also note that all of your reasoning basically boils down to using races as blunt population blocks, and then noting blunt population blocks can be accomplished with humans or made more subtle. Well, duh. Have you ever tried using nonhuman races with the same subtlety and nuance as you do with humans, and seeing if that works out better?

Forget the name of the series, but they had reasonably immortal elves that were mostly just really, really good at crafting and the little things. Like, they could make camoflauge cloaks that worked like near-active camo for a specific biome, or crazy good armor, but none of it was explicitly magic, just really well made. The 'mastery of little things' also let them make insanely good tea/etc. anywhere. Like, halfway up an icy death mountain crevasse in suspended sleeping bags with no supplies and nothing to burn for firewood, there's still delicious hot tea, because they're THAT good.

On the other hand, it's hella rude to ask direct questions unless there's an immediate threat to life and limb, and you're expected to spend fifty years doing any one thing.

Again, who cares if you are going to have an infinite amount of time to recover from it and to forget about it.
Maybe cut off their limbs or something, and they would have to live the rest of their infinite lives as a cripple. Unless magic heals them. Oh well.

>I'm immortal, therefore 50 years of hard work will do nothing to my body
Are we talking about live forever immortal or wolverine immortal?

I mean, every story basically starts with a question. Make answering one of those the subject of a campaign. Have a game where the PCs have to figure out how to deal with a group of elven criminals, how do they think they should be punished? Make convincing the ancient immortal lich to give a shit about the dragon coming to kill everyone its own adventure. If nothing else you'll learn a lot about how your players think.

No, I but I throw extreme humans every once in a while. You know, humans can be Hitlers and Stalins too.
I get the minimalist point. My thinking was that I would put my attention to flesh out different aspects of the world if I am done with fleshing out one aspect. If I accomplished the effect I wanted to without the addition of other races, I would rather spend my remaining time on other necessary stuff than to add more races and flesh out that aspect even further. It is more time management than minimalism in my opinion.

Forever life immortal.
My thinking was that, even the most serious wounds can heal over time, and these guys have PLENTY of time. So maybe you would be better of causing an unrecoverable change in their body, like cutting limbs or fingers?

Could be fun. But as a DM, I should have an answer to that question too.
But I can finally see how exotic races would work! I can design my campaign so that finding the answer to how to incorporate exotic races into a setting would be the main objective of the campaign!

Also just throwing this out there, how would immortal races treat their children?

Why would they have children though?

Well, to keep their race going?

Why? they're immortal

Immortal, as in, they don't age.
They can be killed.

I prefer my setting like that too

You wanna know why elves are such awful, conceited shitbags?
The crazy-low birthrate.
Every elf is protective of elf children because there's so few of them and it's hard to get more, so any random elf on the street is going to treat them kindly. This means any random elf kid has like, fifty cool aunts and uncles that will make time to entertain you while they work.

>and it's hard to get more
Why?
Are they not fertile, or do they tend to die during childbirth or something?

1. There can be meaningful conflict with using multiple races as well. I feel this argument is weak.

2., 3. Agree

4. That is double-edged sword, user. If i want to present new character that is strict and loves gold, it is easily achievable by making him dwarf - without need to describing the guys actions into detail. Useful for minor NPCs.

Well, good for you, different races are mostly not that different.
If you have super-different race, it would halt the game if someone wanted to play it. And you bet someone would want to play it.

Anyway, i think human-only settings are good thing and i will probably made my next game human only.

I think for the first argument, he meant that meaningful conflicts can be created through the use of a single race, and that other races would be unecessary, seeing his overly minimalistic mindset.

I can see the reasoning, but elves and dwarves are so rooted in our idea of fantasy, that having them in your setting causes no significant amount of stress - because we already know about them.

Yet another extension of the worthless herp derp dragonborn thread?

Aaaand?

I mean, the simplest story element they can add is an impossibility to breed, which can be used in turn as a source of tension.

They can be killed, sure, but since they don't die off there's really no need to explain to little Yrva'en that grandpa's with the pointy-eared angels now.

You get to have a culture that doesn't know death, that thinks death is atrociously evil, and that has a much more human response to it than our desensitized-early-on one.

But how would they keep their population intact if there is no way to increase it?
An even more important question: How did they came to exist in the first place if they can't breed?

Also, I don't think they would be that unfamiliar with death. Consider this:
How would you punish criminals in an immortal society? Certainly not with jail time.
That doesn't leave you with much options in a medieval society, doesn't it? They would either cripple or execute their criminals I think and thanks to that, death certainly wouldn't be seen as atrociously evil.

1) There can be with multiples races, too.
2) So don't include them.
3) So give races interesting mechanics or distinctly non-human habitats or abilities.
4) You can do that with other races - and hell, if you include an orc city, you just did.

We done here?

>impossibility to breed
What do you mean? Between different races or inside a specific race?

OP is a minimalist faggot, that's why.

Of course they don't change anything if you just make them humans with pointy ears that speak a different language.

However, different races can have vastly different cultures than humans for biological reasons. That cannibal tribe of humans might have lots of diseases and generally be kinda scrappy. If they're elves, who knows how elves work biologically? They might actually grow stronger from the flesh of their enemies.

And on top of that, most of your points seem to relate to the though of having races set up as separate monolithic cultures with bo deviance that are at war with eachother, as though this is just some game of Civilization.

My point was, no matter what you do they will be humans with point ears.
Growing stronger from eating flesh? Sure.
For that to be integrated into their culture, they need to BELIEVE that they are growing stronger with flesh. I can make humans believe that, it doesn't actually need to happen.
And hey, if worst comes to worst, there is magic in the world. Maybe they have a ritual that actually allows humans to grow stronger by eating flesh, I don't need to create a separate race to achieve that affect.

>And on top of that, most of your points seem to relate to the though of having races set up as separate monolithic cultures with bo deviance that are at war with eachother
Not really. I was just thinking about the effects of having multiple races on conflicts, with my main argument there being that such wars tend to devolve into race wars, which honestly at this point I am sick of.

However, if you were to look up the thread, I actually changed my mind about my OP. Many people presented much better reasons and arguments. However, You got my point completely wrong. I was talking about how hopeless it was trying to make other races different than humans, especially if the world contains magic. I still hold onto that belief, while I now see a couple of elements other races might add to my campaign, even though they are not much different than humans.

Long-term prison sentences weren't really a thing in medieval times anyway.

Much better to just execute, publically whip and/or brand/dismember the lawbreaker in some manner.

Yeah, but even for the pettiest of crimes?

I mean, to this day the sentence for stealing is cutting off the criminal's hand in some places, so yes. No one's above the law.

The post you're responding to is my only post in this thread, so don't take these as the responses the other user would've given.

Generally, I think the idea with fey creatures and such is that they don't reproduce in the same way at all. it's often left a mystery because that's not what's being explored with their existence and I personally think that's totally fine. I'm not writing a treatise on their biology, just thinking of ways they can be used in fantasy fiction.

As for your throw into death penalty territory, I don't see how it's relevant. Again, fantasy fiction. My personal guess? Exile. I don't imagine perfect, high arts, all song and music elves kill their criminals. That'd run totally counter to their concept.

Again, I think you're going at this wrong by focusing on "realism". They could come from angels for all I care.

That would be a lot of crippled elves, considering they live forever and that they are probably going to commit a form of crime in their lives.

You are 100% correct OP. You don't need multiple races. Points 1 and 2 are completely valid. Point 4 is very valid, and it's interesting that racism in D&D is so accepted. If you said "look a city full of niggers, they're probably going to attack us" you'd get kicked out of an average D&D game. But it's okay when it's orcs. The only point that could possibly be contended is point #3, and that is where I like to use a couple races here and there because I like elves and I like dwarves, and I like orcs as well. I like the easy stereotypes from time to time. Problem is, most people have turned their games into super-inclusive oh-so-tolerant clusterfucks where any race exists and every city is mixed race. Instead of a world that's 90% humans, it's a world that's 50% humans with shitloads of random races that no one needs or fucking asked for. Tell me, cunts, what is the point of tieflings or drow as a playable race? What the fuck do they add? Edgelord shit. That is all. If you play a tiefling or a drow you are an edgy shit. Anything else, is just you trying to be different. You want to be different? Play an elf or dwarf or orc. That's different. Hell, play a fucking goblin, that's really different. The thing is, OP, and you hit the nail on the head: the more races you have in the setting, the more fucking diluted and inane it becomes. Focus your fucking setting. EDO exists for a reason. There were four main races in Lord of the Rings that actually fucking existed in any numbers, and humans were still by far the most numerous of them. Make a setting like that. That's a GOOD setting. Forgotten Realms and Eberron, with their 572 races? Those are complete shit. See the difference?

Woah calm down.There is nothing wrong with adding a bit more color to the world.

Maybe we should replace Orcs with black people from now on, then. Sounds fitting.

But I like having lots of different races available. It's fun.

>Maybe we should replace Orcs with black people from now on, then. Sounds fitting.
I mean, they basically are.
>large
>muscular
>unintelligent
>violent
>war-like
>primitive, tribal culture
They basically are every /pol/-tard's view of black people.

>every /pol/tard's view of black people.
I think you mean every sensible person's view on black people. I mean, even blacks don't like blacks judging by their homicide rate.

>Elves
>Probably going to commit a crime

This doesn't compute, user.

Elves are thieving hippies, user. Such is their way.

>redddit spacing
I don't care what you like. I don't care if you like having more races available to you. I don't give a shit what you want. Here's the deal: I put effort into making an actually good setting. Not "original" not "donut steel OC" not huge and complex with a long drawn out history, because no one gives a fuck about that. But I try to make the pieces in it actually significant, and try to give it a feeling, even if that feeling is a bit mundane. I have a world of several nations each with different cultures, ways of speaking, and so on. Something nice and lowkey that actually has a tone instead of a schizophrenic kitchen sink flash of colors that add up to the warm beige color of sun-tanning shit. I put some amount of effort into that. Oh, and making it playable and malleable, not some rigid crap with a 300-page world document.

And what do you do? You bring in your half-tabaxi kender warlock with three different archetypes and some other faggot bullshit, then try to climb the sky or seduce the guard captain into sucking your dick because you rolled a natural 20 on your Bluff check.

Fuck off.

Niggers are neither large not muscular.
The sportsmen are a exception to the rule

The crown for muscular and large people goes to nordics, though serbians tend to be a bit taller than them.

But a good setting only exists in the context of the game. As GM, no matter how much work you put into your setting, if people aren't enjoying it it's worthless.

My GM just lets us play whatever race we like, and we have fun. That makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?

I guess /pol/ does succeed at shilling for a Final Solution, if nothing else. Neck yourselves.

While crude in my statement, I'm not exactly wrong when it comes my reference to the homicide statistics. Those men aren't exactly the most peaceable as a whole.

I'm not shilling. The typical nigger is not the muscular giant that some people believe

The joke is that that user wants you exterminated.

Well that's a little extreme, I think.

>Elves as thieves
>Not as civilized gentle savages that lose their homelands because men wield iron

Well..at least they're not a certain diminutive race whose traits include being annoying, curious to the point of killing themselves, kleptomania and forced adorableness which is supposed to be enforced.

>if people aren't enjoying it it's worthless.
But people are enjoying it.
Just not you.
Because you're worthless.
>My GM just lets us play whatever race we like, and we have fun.
If you don't give a fuck about your setting looking like a shitty star wars movie, sure.
>we have fun
Not an argument. You can have fun in any shitty D&D game where there is not a care for setting tone or anything like that. Fun has got nothing to do with this discussion. Don't even bother bringing it up. It's like saying FATAL or RIFTS are good games because you had fun playing them.
Also, my job as a DM is to provide a good story and a good game. Your fun does not enter into it in the slightest. If you aren't having fun, fucking quit. I am not changing my game to pander to the lowest common denominator, which is you. Seriously fuck yourself.
Drink bleach.
Lie on the freeway.
Get into country music.
Whatever way it takes for you and the other morons who have to play "whatever they want" to kill yourselves. It does not make sense to play whatever race you want, when it means everyone in the party is a different race, has no background in common, and is basically just their own separate entity. Fuck it. I ran a Pathfinder game for six people once and only one of them played a core race. Why? Because most roleplayers fucking suck at roleplaying and try to compensate by playing what's "new and cool" even though they haven't played any of the old stuff yet. As a result, fantasy gets filled with meme-tier races (I mean, for fuck's sake, how many kinds of cat-people are we up to in D&D now? Seven?) that have no distinction or actual value, just meaningless crap for people to tack onto a setting to make the new kingdom interesting. "Well, THIS is the land of the BLUE SKIN FISH PEOPLE" Fuck that shit, fuck that noise. New races add nothing in value. You add nothing to the game being a kender or a tiefling. It's bullshit.

You seem upset. Maybe relaxing and not being so uptight would let you enjoy yourself more. Experimenting and allowing yourself to actually accept a setting with lots of races might be a good start.

It's nice to have fun.

Jesus this thread has really gone to shit after I left.

Between different races. It's the simplest addition one can make by adding a second humanoid species, being 100% technical.

He's right you know.
Playing shit settings is like fucking fat girls, it can be fun but it'll never be as good as fucking a hot girl.

I really dislike this need to deconstruct shit using realism Veeky Forums has. Have none of you read an actual fantasy novel? There's no need to chart the fucking exchange rate between the coinage of two cultures. You can have your elves, dwarves and hobbits and never give them a canonical origin. You can have their culture be arbitrary, you can have a race that literally commits no crimes. Why does everything have to get reduced to minutia and wankery for the sake of your ability to suspend disbelief, knowing you've completely and utterly wrecked it just to feel superior to other people?

Except different people find different traits more or less attractive? Both examples are entirely subjective.

It's a way for people who never actually play games to feel superior, acting like they're above all those silly ideas and only play in perfect, pure, entirely rational settings that don't actually exist in any practical fashion.

>Experimenting and allowing yourself to actually accept a setting with lots of races might be a good start.
I have. I played in Faerun and Eberron for years. Then in a donut steel kitchen sink setting for another few years. Both were shit.
>It's nice to have fun.
There you go with that non-argument again.

>fat
>attractive
Nope.

You seem awfully insecure. It's okay to have opinions without trying to tell everyone else why yours are better. You don't need to justify yourself to us. Your fun is your fun, no better and no worse than that of any other, and that's okay.

Yeah.
The question for a campaign I'm making is "what can change your nature?" and the players would have to figure it out or their characters lose it and sink even deeper into a karmic swamp