Write a set of racial traits for humans that isn't just "they can do anything lol"

>Humans uniquely feel a desire for revenge. The concept of killing an enemy's family, friends, etc. as retribution for a wrong is not something that crosses other's minds. Savage races, like orc, do not plan out their wanton destruction. Civilized races, like elves, do not feel the urge. Humans combine forward thinking and meanness in the correct amounts to create cruelty.
I feel like Inspirebot made this for you.

It fully depends on what kind of setting you're making. But it's not hard to just say humans are the biggest of the starting races.

>they can do anything within these strictly defined boundaries
Done.

"they are the worst at everything, lol"

Oh wait, I think I just wrote the same thing as OP.

5e Human Traits:

+2 Constitution

Cityfolk
>More so than any other race, humans thrive in large settlements and place immense personal importance on having a role in their community. You have advantage when using any skill to navigate, find shelter, or collect information within the limits of a town or city with more than 100 residents.

Eye for a Deal
>Every human, regardless of creed or nationality, is always interested in getting a good deal. Humans will even purchase objects they have no use for, as long as they believe they're getting the most bang for their buck. You have advantage when using persuasion or deception to get a good deal when bartering for goods or services.

True Gods
>Humans take their faith very seriously, and human deities are likewise very protective of their followers. Beginning at 10th level, humans gain access to the Divine Intervention cleric class feature, and human clerics gain advantage when attempting Diving Intervention.

So would that imply that other races don't make statues, paint self-portraits, or the like? I can see how that would come off as creepy, like if you walk into someone's house and every wall has a painting of the homeowner, or if the sidewalks are lined with statues of just one person.

Adrenaline.

When feared panicked or near death double all stats. Usable once per day.

Humans are macro-fauna after all, my answer would be to just make them the biggest sentients in the setting. After all, in real life, only a small number of animals are bigger than us, while the immense majority of them are smaller species, this remains true even if you exclude insects.

In the game I'm working on, humans are the best race, hands-down, at arcane magic. Humans lack basically any physical advantage, but a witch or wizard can absolutely crush any race in spontaneous arcane magic, and are second only to dwarves in pure mana capacity. Only the rabbit-aspected werebeasts come close, and that's only in trickery-type stuff. They're second only to the Fae races in ritual casting, and while the vampires and the not-Japanese bird people are more adept at channeling their respective gods' divine energy, humans are decent at that as well.
Unfortunately for humans, they're frail as shit, and their faction is devoid of any other races that would make up for it. An unprepared human, or one out of energy, is likely to get his shit kicked in by even the non-fighters of other races.

As said, depends on the setting. On the setting i use with my friends, humans have magic resistance as their main characteristic as a race. Powerful humans are basically walking anti-magic fields.

I like what mass effect did.

Like it's actually abnormal for a species to keep fighting it's own kind, humans are retardly good with warfare compared to other species giving them enough of an edge with their lesser technology.

Basically humans were the savage monsters that you could throw at a problem and solve.

Humans are physically weaker and less mentally capable than most other races. They have nothing to make up for this, they must work harder and longer to achieve the same level of success that an elf or a dwarf could. On top of that, humans aren't naturally attuned to magic and the gods favor the elder races over them. If you want to play as a human PC you've got to earn your success.

>that isn't just "they can do anything lol"
They can do EVERYTHING lololol

yes, the exciting skill of shoveling for hours on end without a break.

>Sisypthus
More like "Sissypuss" amirite?

>If you want to play as a human PC you've got to earn your success.

I like this. It would add to the character cause if they've made it far and are considered highly dangerous by other races then that makes then that much more dangerous simply because they they've either lived long enough to be a serious threat or they have so much willpower that taking them head on will likely end in failure.

i like this one, but it's a bit too urban-centred
there should be a variant of humans, like high/wood/dark elves subtypes :
city-dwelling human
wildling human
country-pumpkin human

this is mostly due to us genociding most of megafauna out of the world during the last 10k years
africa got a bit spared due to big animals co-evolving with us

Ability scores: +2 to one ability score of your choice
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares.
Vision: Normal

Languages: Common, choice of one other
Bonus Feat: You gain a bonus feat at 1st level. You must meet the feat’s prerequisites.
Bonus Skill: You gain training in one additional skill from your class skills list.
Human Defense Bonuses: You gain a +1 racial bonus to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.

Human Power Selection: Choose an option for your human character.
Bonus At-Will Power: You know one extra 1st level at-will attack power from your class.
Heroic Effort: You have the heroic effort power.

Just say you read a greentext and are copying it.

But we can do everything

Xenophobia: +2 to perception rolls, -7 on all diplomacy checks, +3 to all attack rolls against nonhumans.
Prerequisite: 4th level skill, must destroy five nonhumans.

>Write a set of racial traits for humans that isn't just "they can do anything lol"

:/

They are the most populous, and shortest lived. The other species rather than looking at them as rabbits though, look at humans as tricksters, as Humans typically accomplish way more than other species think they should be able to, but that’s just because other species have way too high an opinion of themselves.

>elf army vs. human army.
>elf army has a thousand soldiers who’ve trained for a century
>human army is composed of 15,000 militia
>humans lose, but Elves still due to crossbow bolts because they ain’t immortal.
>elves can’t replace numbers, can’t figure out how any elf can die to undertrained weak humans
>elves forced to peace table.

In our setting, humans are inherently better at cooperation and working in large groups. This is also why humans are so political and tend towards large social movements and groups.

Essentially, humanities unique trait is that they're herd animals

I think there was a slight indication the galaxy wanted us as the new Krogan. Which really freaks out Turians, as they both fought AND replaced the Krogan earlier.

In my setting, humans are the toughest and most talented fighters among the playable races, but are unable to cast any but the simplest spells which renders their advantage moot, and against those of ancient races who've trained to for centuries, their talent amounts to very little.

>Humans are the only creatures to be obsessed with recreating their own likeness
>>Similarly humans are the only species with an 'uncanny valley' effect

I like this one, consider it stolen

>Humans are very good at single minded repetitive tasks.

I feel like this should be the other way around, as in only humans get bored by doing the thing they are passionate about and have to add lesser tasks to their routine to complement

>Humans uniquely feel a desire for revenge. The concept of killing an enemy's family, friends, etc. as retribution for a wrong is not something that crosses other's minds.

I feel like this is too alien of a concept, I can see humans taking revenge farther than other races but making it an exclusively human impulse would be too restrictive, maybe Im not understanding it properly

>country-pumpkin human

I like this.

I thought this was the standard for humans in most fantasy settings, as in "low start, high potential"

Make humans the traders between races, the tongue needed to do any trade is the human one. This also makes humans the race best acclimated to travel over long distances, but also leads to an air of mistrust when human families try to settle in other races communities.
>persuasion
>appraisal
>acclimatization
>endurance

I guess it would hinge on how other races conducted warfare and for what reasons. If they tend to have a more laissez faire stance on combat viewing it as something that is just a fact of life then the human's more defined view of warfare might seem disturbingly obsessive and hateful.

>For whatever reason human forces and some beastfolk race clash
>Humans come out of the altercation victorious, the beastfolk return home trounced but accepting their defeat/deciding to avoid continued incidents with what they determine is a threat not worth engaging
>Beastfolk are horrified to learn that the human view the offense as a declaration of war, and have actively begun to seek them out to "punish" them for their transgressions

the only race without magic
can do everything else
priesthood and miracles are not magic btw

They have shorter lives, they reproduce more frequently and with more offspring than any other race, they settle in every climate, they have the largest population living in miserable poverty, they have the lowest standards for food, clothing, cleanliness.
Humans are vermin compared to elves and dwarves. They live in your garbage, spread like the plague, and transmit the weirdest diseases.

Anything that isn't HFYshit.

That I can see

>they have the largest population living in miserable poverty
Without getting too much into politics, looking at everything from communist regimes to world spanning empires like Britain, where the regular citizen was dirt poor even as the fortunate few made millions in India - could it be we just don't care too much about our common man compared to other races?

This could lead to more impartiality though, human paladins could be pretty strong that way.

Humans were created as tools for the gods, and given traits for that purpose.
They are gifted with iron blood, granting a resistance to the arcane and limiting their spellcasting ability to that which they can gain from external sources.
They have the endurance to travel longer distances with less rest or rations than other races. In this aspect they are rivaled only by Kobolds, who are generally not inclined to journey as Humans do.
Perhaps strangest of all, Humans are very open to relationships with other races. It's not even too unusual to hear of them marrying a member of a race they cannot reproduce with. Because of this Humans have spread to countless kingdoms, presumably so that some will always be in place when the gods have need of them.

Wow.

I wouldn't even be a human in that setting

In D&D speak, that's

+1 strength and charisma

Human males have the largest penises and due to their endurance, last the longest in coitus. Because of the rumours that have spread concerning this, they receive a +2 to seducing females of another race, and some males of another race will initially be more hostile toward them.

Checking these dubs.

Here are the unique racial traits and qualities I give to Humans in my setting:

>Humans are infamous long distance runners and while they're not the 'fastest', they have hands down the most stamina and are capable of keeping up even with Centaurs in terms of marathons simply because they never stop.

>Humans are sensitive to darkness, they are the only species that actively does not have any dark vision: even partial shade or darkness can obscure their vision. Humans, however, have remarkable day-vision and can see effectively for miles so long as nothing is in the way.

>Humans have a strong environmental preference for flatlands: prairies, pasture, savannahs, and even hinterlands.

>Humans are extremely xenophobic and will only tolerate Humans and the various species related to them, such as: Centaurs, Halflings, Gnomes, and Dwarves- in that particular order from 'most comfortable' to 'least comfortable', with Gnomes and Dwarves only being tolerated beside or 'adjacent' to Human communities. Other species are typically chased away or outright killed.

>Humans have a strong monster hunting culture and take great pride and passion in the hunting and slaying of Dragons, Giants, Dinosaurs, and other large monstrous creatures.

>Humans have the second smallest 'Dunbar number' (the amount of people one can have a social relationship with) at a paltry 150 and a hard cap of 300 people. This is lower than the Orcish 300, but not as low as the Cyclopes 50.

>Due to their inability to 'see' in the dark, Humans above all other species have come to attribute certain paranormal and spiritual qualities to it unlike other races or species. This combined with their awkward life-span has given them an almost compulsive association with the supernatural qualities of darkness and made them uniquely gifted Necromancers....90% of all Undead, though, are Human because of this.

>Humans have the longest (compared to their own size) genitals of any sapient species.

Endurance, Adaptive, Luck and maybe perception/intuition ?

Dwarves are renowned for their craftworks and brewing.

Elvea are renowned for their artistry, wisdom and sophistication.

Halflings, their culinary skills and practicality.

Gnomes, their inventiveness and spontaneity.

But the humans? They are known for war.
What humans lack in brute strength compared to orcs or giants, they make up for in tenacity, courage, determination and cunning. They field the largest, often best equipped armies, and their rapid breeding cycles allow them to replenish their numbers faster than the other races. They are passionate and mercurial, often devoting their short lives in pursuit of crusades or causes with fervor. Others simply drift with the tides, making excellent mercenaries to supplement other armies. They are volatile, regardless of their station, and wherever you find humans, you will find strife in one form or another. In battle, in tumult, in chaos, they thrive. If you want to win a war, you get the humans on your side.

Some fear dragons and other fearsome beasts. Some fear plague, drought, or the wrath of the gods. More than these, I fear the race of men, driven by purpose.

Which is what I did.

+Diplomacy
+Stamina/endurance
-strength
With optional bonuses for ranged weapons, or if you're really specific reloading capability.

For sci-fi replace diplomacy with a robot or AI baced skill, and give the - to charisma instead

Alternatively, take the "humans can be anything" thing to its logical conclusion, and give a stat bonus to diplomacy agian with a changeable stat bonus baced on the culture their were raised in.

Jesus Christ.

>Humans have the most complicated and entwined social system
>Ideas like being passive aggressive, White lies, and respect hierarchys are foren too most races.
>Humans are highly adaptable to other races do to this, and it's not uncommon for a human to find its way into most alien societys flawlessly.
>Humans are also prised as diplomats and negotiaters, and get bonuses to them.
>Humans capacity to anthropomorphize is ludicrously high, and as such they keep much more animals then other races and get along with robots and AI's a lot better
>They also are the only race to get highly attached to objects, so much so they end up in high demand as engineers for spaceships, due to their tenacity in maintaining them.
>Humans are in fact inclined to space jobs in general, as they lack a home planet, because the earth was destroyed during first contact, which led the galactic government to set humans up with a shit load of ships as a refugee effort.
>Humans are inherently more conflict oriented then most aliens and no attempt to make a pan human government has worked thus far.
>Humans are the only race to try for relations out of their race, and are the only one to have any success with it.

Why...are humans the adaptive race, because they're fast breeding, and quick growing? I think if that's the case, why aren't goblins, and ratfolk the strongest?

Good stamina and good creativity and empathy, considered mega-fauna. Bad general health and over specialized for the big brain part.

Translate that to whatever system you use.

+10 Seduction
Humans are the only race that are depraved enough to "Do anything".

Higher intelligence.

Shorter lived and with more hurried minds, humans make the best strategists, and their technological advances are catching up to the ancient, more established races disconcertingly quick.

Elves are erudite, but set in their ways. They've collected a lot of wisdom over the eons and are good at what they're practiced at, but they're used to a slower pace and are not actually quick-witted when it comes down to things.

The other races are more stereotypically, expectedly dumb.

What prevents other races from doing the same thing?

The assumption is that humanity is the measure of difference in the setting, the only people who want to codify that shit is fucking autists.

>>Humans capacity to anthropomorphize is ludicrously high, and as such they keep much more animals then other races and get along with robots and AI's a lot better
>>They also are the only race to get highly attached to objects, so much so they end up in high demand as engineers for spaceships, due to their tenacity in maintaining them.
I wish more people introduced subtle cultural differences like this and . Making things that are so quintessentially human that we take them for granted unique to us is a fun way to create very different cultures between races without going too overboard or oversimplified with it.

In my setting, Orcs and Goblins are constantly on the edge of overrunning the world because of this

Depends on the setting so I'll post mine
>Highly ambitious, always seeking out more territory
>Individualistic and shorter-term thinking
>Infight for land just as much as they try to steal others'
>Breed fast
>Reproduce with most other races and beings
>more willing to adopt techniques, styles, and tactics from elsewhere
>love them some straight longswords and fitted sheet plate rather than scraps of material (orcs), piles of carved bronze and stone with halberds/pikes/axes (dwarves), or flexible armor and curved swords.

This.

Orcs -- Strength
Halflings -- Dexterity
Dwarves -- Constitution
Humans -- Intelligence
Elves -- Wisdom
Gnomes -- Charisma

Simple, straightforward.

>Shorter lived and with more hurried minds
That's not how this works.

Not how what works?

Realistically rats and goblins should be on a similar level as humanity by this logic, and frankly I wish that was the case more often than it is.

In the settings where that's not the case the latter two are, while sometimes cunning, are generally portrayed as less intelligent or competent overall. If you wanted further rationalization I guess you could say that they in a sense overshot the "sweet spot" humankind occupies being TOO short lived and fast breeding to the detriment of being able to expand on the developments of the previous generation.

Having a short lifespan doesn't make you smarter than someone with a long lifespan.

as far as mine setting goes:

Humans are explosive breeders similar to Orcs and Goblins

But unlike those two, they are allot better at planning ahead. Even generations ahead.
Something Orcs and Goblins lack the patience for.

As a result humans have established settlements all around the world, and have adapted to a large multitude of environments, and created a large multitude of cultures.

Other races meanwhile are mostly confined to a single continent, with only a handful of variants.
Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes are pretty much just confined to the equivalent of Europe, with other continents having their own nowhere else seen races

Orcs and Goblins meanwhile are just a massive destructive tide sweeping across the planet, never settling down for long enough to form unique regional variants.

Are you lost?

How are humans more comfortable with Centaurs than Dwarves?

Having a longer lifespan wouldn't intrinsically make you "slower" or less quick-witted than someone with half your life expectancy. Maybe it could provide more reasons/opportunities to become set in your ways sure, but that would be more of a personal thing than a directly racial one.

I dunno, what prevents a human from having elf vision?

My DM for my current game had a pretty simple but, in my opinion, fairly intuitive approach for making humans unique by making them the only humanoid race that reproduced through pregnancies and births: elves popped out of trees, dwarves carved new dwarves from stone whenever new dwarves were needed, orcs were corrupted elves, goblins were elf children who didn’t grow up quite right, etc.

As a result, humans were the only intelligent race that really had a sense of familial kinship

Getting used to a slower pace has absolutely made me slower witted than I used to be.

So you don't have an explanation?

True but you don't see 30 year old elves portrayed as just as skilled as grown humans, so it's obvious they don't develop as quickly

magic resistance. After all, in reality you don't see humans doing magic on each other much.

Because their bodies aren't built to handle it you mongoloid.

The explanation went over your head actually

You're confusing a longer time frame with a slower pace. Just because a longer lived creature has a much longer window with which to do something doesn't mean it will inherently go about doing it any slower than a human. Or at least not remarkably so.

That makes much more sense, although I still don't think it would drastically gimp them in comparison to shorter-lived races.

Human endurance is a specific evolutionary trait we have much better stamina than most animals, assuming that you wanted that to be a unique trait of humans, you would simply have the other races not have the same endurance

People often make fun of humans for being 'weak' but mankind is damn strong and crazy if you think about it.

It's more of a balance thing, if elves were as smart as humans they could have the equivalent of multiple PHD before they're middle aged

You're trying to autistically nitpick something that makes enough sense for fantasy.

Like the clay they come from, they are malleable. The spilled godsblood that became the clay lets them worship any god.

>humans are short lived

Why so many of you fags allow this?, only elves should live considerably live longer than other races because thats part of their jazz, shit like halflings and orcs should actually have shorter lifespans

In my setting, humans came about as a side-effect of the creation of elves by outer beings. While elves have a vast capacity for magical power, humans are predisposed to act as a counter to them by way of intelligence with machinery. Elves are aware of this and try to hunt them down relentlessly, but if an outside empire finds elves destroying entire cities irritating, they're more inclined to shelter and supply a human with the means to counter the elves and their strange Outer Magic.

This is assuming traditional DnD but long lived races are dumb when not properly thought out

elves and dwarves with nigger tier intellect

If you want to say elves mature at a slower than humans and that's what lets the shorter lived humans stay competitive to them then sure, knock yourself out. Explanations like those make sense. Saying having an extra hundred years somehow makes you less efficient at doing shit as a culture doesn't make any sense.

Humans are charismatic and assertive. They create varied and complicated social structures and engage in fractious politics.

All of them?

But they have practically identical bodies as other races. What kind of sense does that make?

>Gnomes -- Charisma
Oh god no.