What do non-human playable races add to the fantasy experience...

What do non-human playable races add to the fantasy experience? I can't think of anything except diversity in character builds, but that only translates itself into arbitrary bonuses on various stats and incredibly niche abilities like needing less sleep, detecting trap doors, being better at stonecutting et cetera. Stuff that almost never comes up and even when it does makes very little difference. As for the stat bonuses, what significant advantage does it add compared to simply having humans have neither a bonus nor a malus to any stats, making them suited for any class? Especially when classes are much more influential in determining diversity between party members? Hell, there could even be various kinds of humans with their own specialties (hillfolk, steppe nomads, ye generic kingdom folk, you name it).

Now let's ask ourselves what we lose by having non-human playable races. We lose the sense of wonder. Elves are no longer a mysterious, otherworldly, timeless race of beauty and awe for whom an entire human lifespan is comparable to a quick afternoon nap, they're arrogant humans with pointy ears. Dwarves are no longer an elusive mountain race hidden deep and far away, they're drunk human midgets. Halflings are no longer a quaint, childlike race far away from everything that symbolize everything good and pure in this world worth protecting, they're fat human midgets. By making these races playable, TTRPGs have degraded them.

If you think elves have just been reduced to pointy eared humans, you really haven't been playing with anyone who was good at playing elves.
Same with dwarves, same with halflings.

Have more faith, and stop acting like allowing players to play things somehow ruins them. You might as well be complaining about wizards not being mysterious or druids not being elusive and hidden deep and far away.

Your entire argument basically boils down to "my players can't be trusted". Letting players play as X species degrades X species? But letting the GM control X species doesn't? Why can't you trust your players to treat these concepts with respect?

That's a lot of words to complain about nothing

OP doesn't play RPGs, so he has a lot of free time.

Absolutely nothing. All fantasy races are based on humans in one way or another.

The opportunity to play at something different.

It's not hard to figure out.

Because I want to run a hardcore action fantasy game where macahuitl-wielding lizardmen square up against marauding orcs in obsidian armor, with Not!Iroquois humans caught in the middle.

"Metal as Fuck" trumps banal fartsniffing "wonder" any day, in my book. You do you, but I have fun my own way.

>We lose the sense of wonder.
Yes, because it's impossible to place a mysterious, unusual, or otherwise truly alien race in a setting that has elves.

Or, you're just a really terrible GM.

You know what pisses me off? This retarded repeat thread will get the usual 356 replies and 150 images before being archived.

This. This useless fucking thread that has been discussed time and again when it needs not to.

OP, I hope you die.

What do humans add to the fantasy experience?

Pretty sure this is bait.

>races are mysterious and wonderful enough cause players
>wizards, mages, alchemists arn't mythical enough cause players
>rogues arnt mysterious or devious enough cause players
>Humans arnt interesting cause players
>clerics arnt holy enough cause players

piss off mate

Humans are that one race just pink enough and old enough to not be shit on like the savage races, still breed a fuck ton and spread all over the place, and are unique in the sense they have both the ability and the willingness to fuck virtually anything. Elves have their beauty and natural connection to nature, dwarves have willpower, honor, and endurance, orcs have their strength and rage, hunans have their just above primitive tech, ability to shit on anything remotely different from themselves which includes other humans, their natural prowess of making anything they touch absurd, and their extremely low standards and weird as fuck fetishes. Humanity is a fucking riot.

So what?

They're fun

I agree. Other races are just humans but different, so I only run just human campaigns.

Again, so what?

Chicken mgnugget and roasted quails are both cooked bird meat, so what's the difference?

they allow for characters who deal with things humans don't due to physical differences. Elves live forever for example, how does that affect how they interact with the world, how do they overcome apathy after living so long, these are all interesting questions to explore as a player and it's much easier to do so as an elf than a human.

"Humans only" is a mantra developed by those who want to appear more intelligent and more creative then they really are.

The continue to posit that non-human playable races add nothing to the experience, but fail to adequately what a humans-only experience adds. It's nothing more then a creative version of virtue signalling, letting everyone know how much of a contrarian you are and it's the most entry level shit.

>"Hey guise did you know I'm so smart n creative I don't use ELVES or DWARVES wow I'm the first person to ever do that"
>"Those non-human races might as well just be humans despite having totally nonhuman physical and cultural characteristics. They're really just pointy eared humans and short mountain humans, aren't I clever? If you like those then you're SHIT, I said it. I actually said something in the most popular and common version of fantasy is bad because I'm such a contrarian. Better watch out I'm a rebel xd"

Quite frankly, I'm tired of it.

Stop self projecting so hard.

All the furries in this thread triggered because they can't play their transgendered lizard warlock

You can't tell me that being a golem is anything like being a person.

Who in here has said anything close to that?

+2 dex, darkvision, and getting not having to actually write an interesting culture or biology since you can instead use the ripples of tolkein as a crutch.

the true faggotry is saving and posting that gif

Shit, they're right, this is just virtue signalling.

I ran a few sessions of the Black Hack, which has no mechanics for races. One player played a dwarf, and another played an elf. And they actually roleplayed being those races, they didn't just choose them for some benefits.

So try playing a game where race doesn't matter and see what the players do. You'll find out if it's the nature of the race itself or just their set of numbers that they care about.

Except that by allowing players to play magical races you either have any npc react hostile or afraid towards a them for being basically an alien race or modify it so elves and dwarfs are now civilized human analogues taking away any sense of wonder or individuality towards them besides looks. The shitty solution is to make a worse derivitive of those races to keep the mystery of the unknown doing virtually the same thing as only making humans playable.

>race doesn't matter
I actually both quite appreciate that and quite hate that.
One, I appreciate it, because it will finally let me play some weird shit.
Two, I don't appreciate it, because it won't let me play -really- weird shit. Nothing that needs a contained atmosphere, or has an alternate movement style that renders it advanced it some areas and crippled in others, or that can survive in vastly different environments.

So it sort of limits my weird play.

man, that only applies in the most uptight of hard sci-fi. The kind that pretends stoners don't exist.

Better just make them humans then

>Except that by allowing players to play magical races you either have any npc react hostile or afraid towards a them for being basically an alien race

I forgot the part on LoTR where humans and dwarves shit themselves and ran away screaming from Hobbits or attacked them because they thought they were some sort of demon.

You're full of shit. If elves aren't as mystical in your setting, tell the players that they are mystical and make it so. In the end, it's your fault as a DM.

Why?
Are you one of those simplicity fetishists that are so common these days?

While I heartily agree with you that "human only" tends to be closely associated with insipid contrarians, the idea behind it isn't inherently wrong. There's nothing really stopping you from adding those same different cultural flavours to your humans while making the more fantasy races as civilized monsters. Some people like their other races to be different, and don't trust the Players to always do a good job at portraying them any different than how they would treat a human. I can empathise with wanting to keep that little bit of mistery and magic to them.

>Except that by allowing players to play magical races you either have any npc react hostile or afraid towards a them for being basically an alien race
Oh no. It's actually just retarded.

>What do non-human playable races add to the fantasy experience?
taste

I typically just play only human campaigns. Not because I hate alien races (well, some) but because I like different set ups.

I enjoy my action movies a bit more than my fantasy movies, and with access to sci-fi I can run basically anything I want.

But I’ve never really played a generic fantasy game, I’ve always kinda ran my own settings where the races are distinct and unique.

This.

I mean it really depends on how weird and monstorous you want your fantasy races to be. Tolkien's world had amazing and interesting races but it did homogenize them a little bit because he civilized them more with the surrounding world. In the movies the dwarves shown did become somewhat of fat bumbling comic relief, in comparison to the solemn, greedy and reclusive dwarves of the books. (E.g. player to dm interpretion). In my campaign elves and dwarves are more like in old fairytales and myths where they would steal babies and rape snow white. Having a dwarf player farting around and chilling in the village would make that very weird. Not everyone has to do it my way though and not everyone has to have every magical race playable.

For me, I just appreciate it as a mechanism to touch upon social issues without having some faggot leering at me as if it's real life commentary.

For example:
>In this world, Dark Elves living on the surface are oppressed.
vs.
>In this world, humans of a certain ethnicity are oppressed.

The first is perceived as a grittier setting, the second is perceived as commentary about the blacks and will lead to extraordinary bitching from anyone that has an opinion on it; all of a sudden I'm a marxist pushing my ideals with a strawman if this oppression is morally unjustifiable, or I'm a fucking nazi if it seems like those humans deserve it at any point.

It's just fucking lame. The fact of the matter is that humans are so thin-skinned and sensitive that you need to make it so that they can't relate to your plot in any way or else they get all bitchy about it.

Humans only is kinda retarded, but I like forcing all the players to be of the same race sometimes. Bands them together as a group much more solidly and gives them a unified perspective on the social mores than they would have otherwise.

Instead of having 4 different people who barely even relate to each other on a basic level beyond "teammate", they generally all come from the same town and have to cooperate in the face of adversity. The mayor of a town thinks Dwarves are all jews and won't allow them into the city they need to enter? Now all of a sudden all my players, who are dwarves, have an actual problem unifying them that needs a solution.

Otherwise, what would happen? The dwarf would just wait outside while the rest of the party handled it. Or maybe the dwarf player would get pissy and try something, but the fact of the matter is that he'd be experiencing that alone because the other players would be divided on the situation.

Having pointy eared humans and short mountain humans gives me more options and more options is always superior.
>b-b-but humans are already varied you can be black
I could be a black elf too. Look, more options.

Because I want to play a dwarf you autistic faggot.

cause humans fighting humans isnt fantasy its real life you fucking autistic queer

You can eat them