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My "human" dilemma.

VallmyrVallmyr 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?

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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited March 2017
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    I see more than enough humans outside my doorstep as-is. No need to bother with that species even in fictional fantasy game worlds. Then again, such a gamer's point of view may come from the fact that I'm an misanthrope. :smirk:

    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.
  • NightingaleNightingale Member Posts: 61
    edited April 2017
    For me, it depends on the game and the world in question. In RPG's where the races have a Tolkien-esque inspiration (Generally humanoid with a few variations), I tend to lean toward anything besides humans, as there is rarely anything culturally that distinguishes humanity in those games from the real world. They're always the dominant culture, they're always the most adaptable, they're either racist and imperialistic or they're far more accepting than other races (nothing in between/varying from race to race due to historical conflicts), etc.

    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.
    Post edited by Nightingale on
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Humans tend to be boring when there are so many cool races to choose from.
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    I tend to look upon non-human races like the Emperor would :)
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    I usually only play elves. Anyone not an elf will be made one by force. Don't care if you're Jan Jansen or Minsc, you're an elf now. We're all elves now. Elves are awesome.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    All Elves are racists!
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Familiarity breeds contempt.
    You can play who you like but don't dress it up as anything more than it is.





  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    I used to be pretty anti-human in my gameplay choices, because statistics for a lot of games I play show how many people play as humans, and I found being another face in the crowd to be boring.

    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.
  • Papa_LouPapa_Lou Member Posts: 263
    There was actually a long period of time where I disliked playing humans as well. Dwarves were a favourite of mine (to this day, I'd say around 70% of my Dragon Age: Origins characters are dwarves), and gnomes if they were an option.

    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.
  • Son_of_ImoenSon_of_Imoen Member Posts: 1,806
    I'm not bored with humans in fantasy worlds. I am however fed up with the plague of humans on planet earth.
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    Disadvantage of the 2E rules is humans get the ability to dual class and several classes are only available to human such as Paladin. So for that reason alone I end up playing human far more often than I'd prefer to when playing these old infinity engine games.
  • HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,644
    edited March 2017
    I think Gary Gygax recognized how limited humans are in a fantasy setting when he created AD&D. This is probably one reason Dual-Classing (which is rather powerful) was conceived, and also in earlier AD&D, Humans were the only race with unlimited level in a single class (2nd Edition further stretched out demihuman level limits, leaving humans a bit more the underdog again). Finally, humans had a *much* better racial preference chart than most other races. Meaning - Unlike a Dwarf or Elf, people of other races and backgrounds didn't mind dealing with you as much. As you were the "common" race of the realm. I don't think a lot of DMs play with such NPC prejudice these days though, so that's another advantage mostly gone in that respect (and certainly one which doesn't translate to a video game).

    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.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    Contrary to the OP's tendencies, I usually have my charname be a human. I like the idea that while humans aren't naturally talented with certain things they can still specialize at pretty much anything. On the other hand, it feels very unconfortable for me when my party isn't multiracial .
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    Off topic, but one of my favorite RPing campaigns was in a homebrew setting. There were humans, but the campaign was set in another race's homeland. Humans were outsiders, and were treated as third class citizens at best. They were also about halfling height to the locals. So humans were still 'human' but their feel was greatly changed. Made them much more interesting by changing the perspective on them.
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    Gods, if humans were halfling-sized to the normal people, imagine the shenanigans an actual halfling could have gotten into there...
  • ZaghoulZaghoul Member, Moderator Posts: 3,938

    I'm not bored with humans in fantasy worlds. I am however fed up with the plague of humans on planet earth.

    @Son_of_Imoen They do seem to be a plague at times, don't they. :)


    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. :)
  • ZaghoulZaghoul Member, Moderator Posts: 3,938
    Vallmyr said:

    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

    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?

    @Vallmyr Don't play them myself. I usually go for a half-elf (druids)or half-orc (like the mythology) cause I like the roleplaying aspect of not being fully accepted by either parent race. In PnP, maybe something from the Complete Book of Humanoids.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    I will say though, despite myself not ever playing humans I don't mind playing with human characters. Like my IRL D&D group mostly play humans, half-elves, and elves.
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    There is a severe lack of proper beards in that group, Vallmyr.
  • ZaghoulZaghoul Member, Moderator Posts: 3,938

    There is a severe lack of proper beards in that group, Vallmyr.

    Given that I am a big bearded human myself, I will say that the dwarf does have the biological advantage in that respect(not that I play them). :)
    Maybe one reason I dont go further than Half -elf or half-orc as far as that goes.
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