My "human" dilemma.
Vallmyr
Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
I despise playing humans. In tabletop D&D I have played two human characters, in CRPGs I've played a total of 0 with the exception of Icewind Dale (though it was 2 humans, 4 non-humans).
I hate playing humans in fantasy settings and it's the main reason I avoided Dragon Age 2 for so long. Like if I see an RPG releases with many races in the setting but you only can play as a human I usually skip it such as recently with ME: Andromeda.
I'm not sure where this hatred of playing humans came from or when it really started but even for my story I'm writing all the main protagonists are non-humans save for a few. Even for my own D&D homebrew setting the human population is dwarfed by the Elven one and the only thing stopping the Elves from taking over the world was a Dwarf/Human/Halfling Alliance as well as infighting between the Elven Summer and Winter Courts.
I understand humans are the race people can relate to since we are humans IRL but they never really appeal to me at all. Anyone else share these thoughts?
I hate playing humans in fantasy settings and it's the main reason I avoided Dragon Age 2 for so long. Like if I see an RPG releases with many races in the setting but you only can play as a human I usually skip it such as recently with ME: Andromeda.
I'm not sure where this hatred of playing humans came from or when it really started but even for my story I'm writing all the main protagonists are non-humans save for a few. Even for my own D&D homebrew setting the human population is dwarfed by the Elven one and the only thing stopping the Elves from taking over the world was a Dwarf/Human/Halfling Alliance as well as infighting between the Elven Summer and Winter Courts.
I understand humans are the race people can relate to since we are humans IRL but they never really appeal to me at all. Anyone else share these thoughts?
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Comments
Even the typical demihuman races, such as halflings and elves, are too much of human-look-alikes for me. Probably the reason why I mostly play reptilian humanoids, monstrous humanoids or any other kind of non-humanoid races if given the chance.
However, there are a number of games where I actually prefer to play as humans because of the unique light in which they are cast. For example, in the world of Guild Wars 2, where you've got giant Norsemen, militaristic cats, big-eared rats with unparalleled intellects (and egos to match) and literal plant people, I generally choose to play as a human. Why play as such a boring race? Well aside from their domination in the world of history and the many different cultures present within humanity (things I like), humans in GW2 are nothing like the humans of other games. By the time the game opens, humanity is a culture in decline. They've been driven out of lands they controlled for centuries. Their kingdoms have fallen, their gods (whose power they relied on to get a foothold in the world to begin with) have practically abandoned them, they've got enemies encroaching on their last stronghold, and to top it all off, now they've got dragons to worry about too. Their adherence to tradition makes them appear stagnant to the the other races of the world, and many believe they are destined to die out as a result (kinda like the elves of the Forgotten Realms, if my memory of lore is correct). They are the underdogs of Tyria and THAT makes them interesting.
I feel the same way about humans in the Mass Effect series. I know that visually they seem boring in comparison to Asari, Turians, or Krogan, but their place in the universe is far more interesting than their depiction in other fictional settings. Humans are the new kids on the block. They don't have nearly as firm a foothold in the galaxy as the other races, who have been at this for centuries. They are struggling to gain respect and recognition from cultures who generally view them as either children in need of guidance (the Asari) or barbaric savages who'd still be fighting with sticks were it not for the older races (the Turians). To the last point, there is actually a video recording in one of the games in the original trilogy (can't remember which) where the Turians have captured a human during the First Contact War and one of the Turians basically says something to the effect of "You clowns honestly thought you'd beat us with metal slugs (i.e. bullets)? Cool story, bro. Now we're gonna show you how war is REALLY waged." I found that hilarious. Anyway, while I agree that it would be nice to have the option to play as one of the other races, I don't mind playing as a human because ME humans are actually interesting.
tl;dr- While I understand that many people are turned off visually by humans in fiction, I think there are also plenty of worlds where if you can look past the obvious similarities between fictional humans and those in real life, you'd be surprised how interesting they can be.
You can play who you like but don't dress it up as anything more than it is.
I've lightened up, thanks to a few break-out characters I've played that were human in various games (such as my Fire Mage in WoW, a human Engineer in GW2, and a v.Human Four Elements Monk with Magic Initiate: Druid for Thorn Whip, Produce Flame and Goodberry to add to the flavor of a Four Elements Monk.) I'm still more apt to play non-human races, generally shorter ones for some odd reason, or orc-based ones, but at least I'll play humans willingly.
But lately, I've found myself making a lot of human characters. It actually started when I bought the BGEE series. Most of my characters that I've taken through the saga have been human, with a few dwarven and gnome exceptions.
I think the reason is that humans just seem to fit easily into any role at all, so it's easy to imagine them doing and being whatever I feel like playing at the time. Of course, it can always be fun to roleplay a dwarf who sneaks around and avoids battle unlike all the other dwarves, but a human seems to fit more naturally into that role, all while also fitting well into the "drink all the ale and charge into battle" role that dwarves seem to be thrown into fairly often.
I'm probably rather off-topic though, as the OP mentioned it was more due to his personal taste than anything else. There's certainly fantasy races I tend to enjoy playing a bit more than others as well. To each their own.
Humans are, IMO, working their hardest to bring the issue of overpopulation to a head. I found it interesting when even the Dali Lama said ppl need to scale back the increase.
As regards to plagues, viruses love big crowds. Many of the uniformed(and informed) have decided to forget ANY kind of vaccinations, not undrstanding the reason we don't see many of the more common diseases of the past. Bout every 100 yrs or so we see some big epidemics, and with globalization & tech. bringing fast travel, it does not take long to spread. I guess my background in epidemiology has got me thinking that humans are facing more than they can handle. Technology seems to be evolving faster than humans are. So many factors involved but, as we don't have these 'backup' disease resistant demi-humans as in fantasy setting, it will be interesting to watch where the issue of 'chaos theory' will let the pieces fall. Personally I am not so sure that would be a bad thing as things have a natural way of balancing things out.
Sorry for the bit OT but this comment got me to thinking on it again.
Given enough time I can see, over a long period of time, some new things evolving here on Earth. Who knows though.
It might have been interesting to see the neanderthal survive in and of itself, instead of being merged with homo sapiens.
I return you now to your regularly scheduled program.
Maybe one reason I dont go further than Half -elf or half-orc as far as that goes.