All the races are "humans but with X"

>he can't relate to nonhuman characters

user, until we meet another form of intelligence IRL, all races will be "humans with X" to a degree, because humans are the only available template.

You could say this about literally any special snowflake and starfish alien you make

...

>humans but they look like abominations

That is too vague and does not describe it closely enough.

Yea like at what point is OP appeased?

Like obvious giants might be 'big as fuck humans' and halflings might be 'little humans' but what about elves? 'pointy eared pretty skinny humans who are good at magic' ? What about orcs? 'dark skinned humans with tribal stuff and mean.' Ok..so.. mermaids are 'humans with fish tails' and centaurs are 'human top half on horse.'

And kenku are... 'humans but birds' and dragonborn are 'humans but dragons' ?

'drow are humans but dark skin and can see in the dark and live underground and are evil and pointy ear and smaller and women are in charge and they use magic and can dual wield'

Every biped shares some obvious qualities with humans. Every sentient race does too.

I guess it'd be nice if op could share some examples that are not 'human but x' and maybe some that are.

See pic related and

The thing that bugs me more is how all races but humans are generally mono-cultured.
I can understand it from a dm/gm point of view since it's just easier that way, but it's still lazy.

Pretty much

Those can't really be characters though, they'd appear more like animals, abominations, or forces of nature that we can't understand. Aka, enemy fodder. Even more so than bestial humanoids.

Only if they were not intelligent and weren't able to communicate with other races.

...

>the players (who are human)

Xenophobia is human as fuck

>humans are the only sentient species we know, probably only to exist
>OP expects us to build sentient species that are not comparable to humans

No, it's not.

>Fear/hate of things that are dissimilar is human
What harmonious and tranquil animal kingdom have you been sharing an earth with?

Incorrect. Elves are dwarves but slim, tall, knife-eared and without beard. Humans are round-eared, more diverse elves that die fast.

that's the point dude, calling a race "human but X" is total bullshit to start

>all the humans are "real world culture but X"

eh, I wouldn't call this a real rule

If "humans but x" accurately describes a race then it's lazy and unoriginal.

you can describe literally any fictional sentient race as "humans but x"

and I'm saying that "humans but x" is total nonsense since you can boil any race down to a one word dismissal.

I keep forgetting to turn off that damn name

Dragons are just big humans with wings and scales, user.

honestly, I could do that with almost any noun.
Humans, for instance, are bears but with tools and less hair.
Cats are just small bears.
Dogs are slightly larger small bears.

really, a human is just a walking hairless avian.

thanks Plato

No problem.

Try to do that accurately with

Just tentacular humans.

"humans but X" in inherently inaccurate, so even when you use it on a pretty uninspired race it's still inaccurate.
Chinese humans, but slugs
Roman humans, on tripods

Inaccurate. If you asked someone to draw you a picture of that, in 99.9% of cases, it would look nothing like the pics I posted. The same can not be said for elves, dwarves and such.

They'd be pretty close. I mean, one's a ball of tentacles, the other's a ball of tentacles, tomato tomato.

It's pretty inaccurate to call elves humans but with long ears, given they are also taller, (or shorter depending on the setting) and thinner.
And that's before you even get into any of the actual differences like lifespan and diet and behavior.

>all the races are made of abritrary abstract shapes and ill defined mixtures consciousness

from what I can tell you have only the most basic surface level understanding of elves or dwarves if you simply call them "humans but X." That is just as inaccurate as me calling your Stellaris copy paste templates "humans but x"

Not really.
That varies from setting to setting tho. On a physical level most elves can be reduced to humans but with long ears. I'm not talking about culture, civilization or shit like that.

Why the desire to make your races extremely different from humans then? What exactly is the benefit? Humans have a hard time sympathizing or understanding things that aren't remotely human.

>not really
Yes really. They look about as similar to the balls of tentacles you presented as any given long eared human looks to a specific elf from a setting.

Because it's lazy and uninspired.
Now you are just being contrarian.

>now you're just being contrarian
BEHOLD! The elf!

Thanks for proving my point.

whatever you say, plato.

Let's give you lazy and uninspired(I disagree but whatever). How are starfish aliens and freaks any better? Living in opposition to a trope is still living by the trope your opposing. Also very ironic you call other people contrarian

You dense motherfucker, we gonna need two lanterns for your ass.

don't argue with plato, user. He still believes in platonic ideals.

Have we come up a name for this poster?

He tries this same style of thread and the same argumentative style every day.

They are different and original.

not really.
And I'd rather not bump the thread or engage long enough to decide one.

lol okay who cares about quality

Retards who use this argument think there is some inherent value to being as different as possible. Why would there be? Why can't there be races that are just humans but with a few twists? Why is there some magical value in keeping everything that is similar to humans just humans?

Retards also believe that apparently immortal beings like elves or creatures that can fucking fly or live underground are similar enough to humans to not warrant differentiation; as though those traits aren't super nonhuman and would make the resulting characters and cultures much different.

Finally; retards also fail to understand that rules and special abilities regarding races in tabletop roleplaying GAMES are an inherent part of the roleplaying and GAME experience. Humans cannot fly, or breathe underwater, or talk to animals, but certain magical fantasy races can, which gives them new gameplay options that a humans only fag can't have in their precious special snowflake setting.

TL;DR- Humans only fags are obnoxious and wrong. Go be an elitist shit somewhere else.

Quality and originality are not mutually exclusive. Most of the time they come together.
t. lazy and unoriginal GM

>t. lazy and unoriginal GM

Cool story bro.

Pic related is my homebrew race. Come at me.

Quality doesn't come from originality it comes with originality. Talentless hacks trying to be different are no better than unoriginal drones.

>Quality doesn't come from originality it comes with originality.
That's what I mean. Sorry if it came off as confusing, English is not my primary language.
>human with a castle as it's head
But still, that's pretty original, I'll give you that.

Looks rad honestly, but I feel like you're being sarcastic.

Well, we can still think outside of the box, can't we?

>Only D&D is guilty of this

Patrician taste

what do you think of "fictional race that looks humans but has inhuman internals"?

can't think of an example of this, but would this trigger you?

People say this but never offer a solution. This "problem" is only as valid as you can define what's wrong with it. Because whenever someone mentions this, all I can think about is equipment, architecture, and navigation incompatibility between races, resulting in shit like splitting the party and limiting trading/using downed player's gear.

So? There is nothing wrong with that.

>icon for deviant is a duck

I don't want to relate to something, I want to like it.

>He doesn't play Savage Worlds of My Little Pony

Fear of natural predators is inherent in anything with intelligence. War aside, humans do not actively prey on other humans as a rule. That's the difference.

Then they are humans but slimy.

Not accurate.
Depends how it's done.

Ducks are rapists user.

So make it interesting. In my setting, all humanoids (except elves of course) are genetic experiments created by the elves in their attempts to manufacture a perfect slave race.

I'm only talking about physical features.

Then what does it matter, humans with x can be just as well written or better than 'ball of tentacles and limbs'
unless it's a sci-fi setting in which case I'd agree with you

Wouldn't be surprised, honestly. Feral ducks are fucking agressive as hell.

Humans exploit and take advantage of other humans all the time, though. Theft is rather close to murder. Money measure your ability to live. Stealing someone's money is basically the same as stealing a part of their life from them.

Well, OP, you could play as , that displays an ideology that is completely removed from reality or any book I've read.
Because someone that answers "appropriation of ressources is murder" when asked about xenophobia is clearly alien.

If I take away your means of shelter and food it would ruin your life.

It's really up to the GM. Bad GM results in monoculture, good GM results in many elf/dwarf/human cultures

And you kill my potential children by making me spend time discussing on Veeky Forums instead that I could spend reproducing instead.
tl; dr: that's a big jump to conclusions.

You trade your effort and time for money. Someone taking away your money is the same thing as them taking away that effort and time. Theft is a devaluation of the victims life.

That's why I play a Thri-kreen

>A race has 1 personality

>there is only one race, the human race

>Humans are dwarves but taller and shittier beards
>Elves are dwarves but flouncier and no beards
>Orcs are dwarves but green and dumber
>Gnomes are dwarves but shorter with bigger heads.
>Halflings are dwarves with hairier feet.

It's all a matter of perspective, Umgi.

If I steal all of your food and money and you have no way to get enough before you starve to death, then I've killed you. Your line of thinking is only viable in first world countries where the average person owns enough that the above can't reasonably happen.

>Fear of natural predators is inherent in anything with intelligence.
Fear of natural predators is inherent in anything that is decent at surviving, intelligent or no. The same is true concerning the fear of the unknown, because unless you know something isn't dangerous, the safest course of action is usually to assume it is.

Maybe after one god made humans, most of the other gods were a bit lazy or busy with other things and when the time came they wanted some intelligent mortals they thought "humans seem to work well enough for the most part, I'll just reverse engineer those and make a few useful tweaks."

ducks are cannibals