Why does the RPG and fantasy gaming community love humans so much?
SmilingSword
Member Posts: 827
in Off-Topic
So I play bunch of different fantasy games and I've been seeing more and more of this strange human love lately. The game that got me thinking about this is Mordheim, "which is a great game by the way" there are only 4 races at the moment they are the Sisters of Sigmar, Reikland Mercenaries, the Cult of the Possessed and Skaven. So we have girl humans, boy humans, evil humans and some ratmen, 3 out of the 4 races are human, and now people have started talking about adding dlc races. The vast majority of fans have been calling out for Undead and Witchhunters. So they will most probably be adding dead humans and racist humans as the next 2 warbands. So in a game with a possibility of having about 15 different races, we will most probably end up with 5 human teams and some ratmen.
Everybody always complains about fantasy fans liking elves, but I'm pretty sure human lovers out number the elf or dwarf lovers by 10 to 1.
So back to the original question, if you are a human lover, I just want to ask you why you like humans over elves, orcs, dwarves or any of the other numerous fantasy races for that matter?
Everybody always complains about fantasy fans liking elves, but I'm pretty sure human lovers out number the elf or dwarf lovers by 10 to 1.
So back to the original question, if you are a human lover, I just want to ask you why you like humans over elves, orcs, dwarves or any of the other numerous fantasy races for that matter?
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Comments
1. When Gary and Frank and the rest created Dungeons and Dragons, Gary envisioned a world that was primarily dominated by humans but with the occasional 'Fantastical' beings like elves and dwarves and the like. The original version of the game was designed around giving humans benefits and limiting the other races primarily for that purpose. While there are indeed other role playing games out there, D&D is one of the earliest ones and certainly one of the most well known game systems.
2. "For some players" and I want to be careful about generalizations here, playing a role is more comfortable if you are playing basically a version of yourself. In that, since most players are human of some description, they can more identify with a character that is also human. I think this is more an artifact of earlier versions of role playing games though as most true role players that I have ever met don't have these hang-ups. I hesitate to use the term 'More casual' players, but that may also play some small part.
In any event, I would suggest that playing any race/class/background character is a matter of personal preference. I would hope that all diversity is embraced and that the perception is just that, a perception. But in any event, play what you like and what feels comfortable.
If you're someone who doesn't have a lot of creative energy to begin with (you're playing for the fun of it, or you just don't have any strong ideas on that given day), then it's considerably less intimidating to play a human character than it is to play any other race.
Even if you do have a lot of creative energy, you might hesitate to play a non-human because you know it will mean less energy left for other details, like what your character's family history is, or why they're on this adventure to begin with, or what secrets they may be hiding.
And it definitely isn't always going to be the same for every character you make. I've had games where I decided on a human character solely because it left me with more creative energy to fill in the details, to make my character feel more realistic despite the setting. But then I also once played an Awakened (as the spell) squirrel named Whistler, who was more fully realized and more compelling than any human character I've played before or since. And I was a squirrel.
However, in the specific case of Mordheim, I seem to remember from my tabletop days that the rulebook/codex goes into some detail about why each type of war band is there...
The Skaven and Possessed are chasing warpstone (it's basically currency for Skaven, and the Possessed are after the mutative effects).
The undead have risen there because so many were killed by the meteor that brought the warpstone.
The Witchhunters and Sisters are on your basic "purge-the-unclean"/ "the end is nigh" quest.
The human mercenaries are either locals or chasing wealth or trying to reclaim the city.
For the other races:
The Dwarves, Dark Elves, Tomb Kings and Lizardmen have geography against them even if they were interested... by the time they reach the city, presumably a larger "official" force from the Empire will have gone some way to restoring order.
High Elves and Wood Elves are unlikely to want to sully themselves scrapping in the streets.
Orcs and Goblins are pretty thick and too busy kicking each other's teeth in.
Growing up I quite identified with halflings/hobbits. Maybe this was because I read The Lord of the Rings multiple times, or maybe I liked the books so much because I thought of myself that way. Who can say. But playing AS a halfling wasn't so very hard. I already though of myself that way.
Then there is the fact that people role play specifically so they can be something other than they are.
For example, in my own case, I am 6'4" tall and weigh nearly 300 pounds. I am used to towering over almost everyone I meet like a giant. Public fixtures like counters, seats, mirrors, bathrooms, and the like are all too low and too small for me to use comfortably. Clothing that fits cannot be bought through mainstream purchase channels. These characteristics of mine affect everything about me, how I see the world, and my personality. It affects how other people treat me. I am pre-judged to be of much lower intelligence and wisdom than I actually am based on the sight of me alone. People tend to be surprised if they get to know me enough to know my actual level of mental ability.
Thus, in D&D I can only identify personally with humans and half-orcs. Sometimes I am even not without sympathy to ogres and half-ogres.
This is not to say that I *couldn't* imagine being and playing a "shorty" in a D&D game, but it would require a lot of the imaginative effort on my part that @Dee describes so eloquently. So much effort, in fact, that it would take all the fun out of playing for me.
In any live production of anything, including COS play or LARP, if I were inclined to participate in those, I could not believably be cast as an elf, dwarf, halfling, or gnome. I'd look ridiculous, and take the audience or the other participants out of immersion. I'd *have* to play a human or a half-orc.
So, I think people tend to become very passionate about playing whatever fantasy race best matches their own characteristics in real life. If not that, then they seem to want to play what they *wish* they could be. I've noticed that people who love to play a different race and alignment every time they make a new character seem to be a minority among players. My impression is that most people have one or two very specific character types that they almost always play as far as race, class, and alignment. And there is a pretty big group of people like me who like to self-insert into games.
http://www.gamespot.com/videos/reality-check-what-are-we-hiding-character-creatio/2300-6422437/
http://www.gamespot.com/videos/reality-check-why-do-we-change-gender-character-cr/2300-6422542/
Basically, some players like to play as themselves when they make a character, and other players like to play as something completely different. And some players go back and forth between the two.
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But I must admit humans make the best skeletons so a plentiful supply is needed.
So please, continue to send your human adventurers to die go questing, find a golden egg or something... We will be happy you dropped by...
I am (among other things) a big Science Fiction fan. However most of the TV and books and movies are all so focused on humanity being the center of all, that I often times find it quite generic. Truth be told, if a really solid AI were to be created, our fate would be written in a micro-second. Same if we came across any truly aggressive interstellar species. But we want to believe that we are the greatest.
Many novels and movies notwithstanding, any species capable of making their way here won't sweep us out of the way by landing an invasion force on the ground backed up by air support. No, they will take out the major population centers by bombing them from orbit. Their victory may not be swift--it would take weeks, if not months, to completely secure an entire planet--but it would be most definitely be complete.
Now to get back on track. The RPG and fantasy gaming community doesn't necessarily love humans but because we are humans we do not have the ability to develop ideas which are not filtered through the lens of being human. We may *think* we know what elves or dwarves or orcs might be like but those ideas are really just distilled essences of humanness. Even if you try to branch out farther and consider what a society of cats might be like that winds up being only what we, as humans, think a society of cats would be like. We project ourselves onto anything we envision because ours is the only perspective available to us.
As far as their potential approach, there are far to many to say what they would take. Biological would be my weapon of choice as it has the greatest potential effect with the least possible (alien) casualties or destruction of infrastructure. But Mass drivers sending asteroids into our orbit would be another way. Bombardment from orbit would be yet another certainly. And then who knows what other technology they may have access to?
As far as the "Human lens", true enough. However, most stories written (or otherwise passed on) are already based on the human experience. Often times Elves and Dwarves merely represent different aspects of humanity and the human experience, but given a different face. After all, these beings don't actually exist. They were thought up by humans and stories told about them by humans and from a human perspective. Imagination aside, it starts off with the person telling the story, not the fanciful creature they are telling the story about.
Yet I think the race knowledge of other peoples that are not human is so strong I believe it manifested from a time when homo saps where not the only hominid.
Trolls / Ogres = Neanderthals
Fairies / Elves = Homo floresiensis
I could go on...
Tribes of pygmies and gigantism / dwarfism in individuals will also inspired tales.
The tales are believable because the whole gamut of human experience is, to put bluntly, is more amazing, diverse, terrifying and beautiful than we can ever imagine.
A good story always has some truth in it...
@Anduin - I think that you are merging two distinct and separate concepts. While I acknowledge the fact that these stories often came from actual truths or distortions of same, that is not to say that Neanderthal Man actually lived under drawbridges and regenerated lost limbs.
So yes, the concepts actually start with a grain of truth. I think though that you are drawing too strong a line between that grain and reality.
The other concept is that we write from our experiences. Absolutely, but not in the way that you appear to be alluding.
Taking Tolkien as an example, The Lord of the Rings is widely believed to be a commentary on World War 2, which was looming about that time (and maybe about having lived through WW1). He was also believed to be an ardent Luddite and firmly against technology. So his stories were based on the "Truth" that there was war in the east and, concurrently that the nature loving and low tech Elves and Hobbits were the "Good guys" and the war machine and technology that was displayed in Mordor and other places (though significantly less in the books than in the movies it has to be said) was representative of "Evil". Hence, there were themes that were 'Truths' to him. This in no way is meant to suggest that the world that he created actually existed in whole or in part in reality. I don't think even he believed that there were elves and dwarves and hobbits and dragons in the world. He created it all based on the 'Reality' of fear of the war and hatred of technology.
I think that most good fantasy writers of the past 200 years (and even significantly before that) were of a like mind, using the fantasy world to tell some story or share some insight about the real world. Not every story has a "Moral", but those that do are meant to use fantastical creatures and monsters to represent (in most cases) some aspect of their story or part of their intent as opposed to indicate that these being and races ACTUALLY exist. In that, "A good story always has some truth in it..."
Now maybe there were people, and I can think specifically of Lovecraft, who may have actually believed in the real existence of the monsters they depicted. I would suspect that more authors than not are writing tales and not prophecies.
Again, all in my subjective opinion.
Your point on the storyteller is important. It is always going to be human.
http://mordheimer.com/warbands/official.htm
The Warhammer setting may have about 15 races, but many of them don't have official Mordheim warbands, and I can't see them using unofficial warbands when using Games Workshop's licensed products.
It's also worth mentioning that, in the board game, I believe certain warbands could hire mercenaries of other races such as ogres, elf rangers, halfling scouts, dwarf troll slayers, and ninja goblins (yes you read that right!
As for why Games Workshop designed it that way: I dunno, maybe they felt that it didn't make sense for the other races to form warbands and go hunting through the ruins. Bear in mind that Mordheim is, basically, a city that was hit by a giant comet and is now full of wyrdstone. The current warbands have reasons for wanting to gather as much of it as possible (Sisters of Sigmar to keep it safe, mercenaries to sell it, skaven to weaponise it, possessed because they're frakking crazy, etc). Elves wouldn't have much use for it, nor much reason to go looting in the forsaken parts of the world...a few might (hence the hireling), but not enough to form warbands on the scale that the official ones do.
Also, for the record, witch-hunters aren't racist (no more than the other Warhammer races anyway). They're all about purging the "unclean", which in the Warhammer world, means "tainted by the chaos gods" and has nothing to do with one's race.
Anyway, as to your original question: I usually play human simply because I find human characters easiest to create and make interesting. It's most likely a shortcoming of my own, but I find that when trying to create any other race, I either end up making them too stereotypical, or falling into the usual cliches.