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After reading a few posts on this subject I have to say that humans are by no means the cheap race to pick. It is only weak if the person playing it makes it to be a "optimized choice". Who doesn't chose a race to benefit their class? I think it is so weak to be a non-human and fall into the stereotypical archetype for their race. Yay... you're a dwarf drunk who would have guessed...
Now I have a homebrew world I run from time to time. It makes humans way way more in depth. They are by far the minority race in my setting. Their history is rich and by no means and easy choice to roleplay.
Ok, well since this has changed from a discussion, and the sharing of opinions and viewpoints
Changed from? It didn't even start out that way. You even explicitly said that you refused to discuss it.
Ok, well since this has changed from a discussion, and the sharing of opinions and viewpointsChanged from? It didn't even start out that way. You even explicitly said that you refused to discuss it.
LOL
After reading a few posts on this subject I have to say that humans are by no means the cheap race to pick. It is only weak if the person playing it makes it to be a "optimized choice". Who doesn't chose a race to benefit their class? I think it is so weak to be a non-human and fall into the stereotypical archetype for their race. Yay... you're a dwarf drunk who would have guessed...
Now I have a homebrew world I run from time to time. It makes humans way way more in depth. They are by far the minority race in my setting. Their history is rich and by no means and easy choice to roleplay.
Dwarven stereotypes are very useful sometimes.
I have a player who's playing a Half-Orc Pitfighter (kind of a cross between a barbarian and a fighter that specializes in exotic weapons and performing in the gladiatorial ring). He speaks dwarven, has a long thick beard, and goes into every bar and drinks ale and sings 'GOLD GOLD GOLD' in dwarven. When asked, he explains he's a Dorc (Half-Orc/Half-Dwarf) in dwarven.
This of course leads to many many many bar fights with annoyed dwarves.
Is this thread still going?
I can't believe you guys took the bait!
...oh. crap. oops.
manga have had no effect on my sanity whatsoever. they just provide me wierd, creepy, concepts to work with and they are quite entertaining. it's also quite easy to read (especially if you are visually impaired) as there is not too much text in one panel. bunch up text too much and it brings headaches to those who read.
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Can we all agree that the op's original premise for this thread is weak. I amm sickened (-2 on all cha checks vs. hard headed OP's) from having read all 100+ replies, not that they weren't good solid refutes of the original post, but more frommthe fact that I sucked in, again, to a thread that deserves to be fireballled. I play humans 90%'of the time, and I have never been described as a roll-player. My backgrounds are feared by my gm's because they are 7 pages long, but, I want my weaknesses to be used against me, so thus, I write in a lot of history. I love playing with other races, but I really feel, with FR as well as PF regional races, that humans offer alot of good rp potential. My decisions on this are never based off an extra feat or how I act in a tavern. Prhaps the op should get gmg and read about the different player types, particularly the LUMP and the give the paizo boards a response worthy of reading.
As I alluded to in my previous post, this is all about the types of gamers you are with. Who's to say that power-gaming is the wrong way to play the game? Or that role-playing it is the right way? It's a set of rules, how your group decides to play under those rules is up to them. If you have a group that lives to min-max everything and kill evil creatures wantonly, that is their decision. If they want to roll the dice 2 times a session adn role-play the rest, what's wrong with that?
Deciding that one type of game is inherently better than another simply because you enjoy it mroe is RPG snobbery. So to all the posters out there making a big stink about this stuff, here's my advice: TALK TO YOUR GAMING GROUP. find out what type of game they like, and then play a type of game you will all enjoy. That's mostly what this is about anyways, right? Having fun? Or did I miss the memo......
I have arrived, finally, to snuff this thread. By the power of troll skull, I smite thee. I spit my last breath at thee. I fart in you general direction and your mother was a hamster.
*The Savage Slothspawn wolfman exits his laziness for an instant to devour the troll, tearing ravenously with his sharp teeth* "MMM..... MEEEEEAAATT!!!" *Howls animalistically while looking at the moon*
Ok, well since this has changed from a discussion, and the sharing of opinions and viewpoints to a lynching I suppose I will go ahead and disregard the thread from this point on.
Also *Well thought out argument* coupled with *Snarky retort*Let me say in no unclear terms though that this has helped me figure out how I am going to handle things with a couple of my less inspired players.
Thank you to those who've contributed,you know who you are.
Cut the crap, you never intended for this thread to be an even-handed discussion. You began with a question that was clearly rhetorical to you from the way you framed it, complete with snarky, reductive answer. I've seen this kind of built-in threadcrap lots on times before on this board, like that moronic "I hate the tier system" thread. If I am mistaken, and I don't think I am, you have a lot to learn about written communication if you want to come across as less obnoxious. If you DID mean to have a level-headed discussion, and based on your flippant dismissals to very clear, well thought out rebuttals to your initial point, you need to learn that there's always a better way to phrase a difficult position.
Cut the crap, you never intended for this thread to be an even-handed discussion. You began with a question that was clearly rhetorical to you from the way you framed it, complete with snarky, reductive answer. I've seen this kind of built-in threadcrap lots on times before on this board, like that moronic "I hate the tier system" thread. If I am mistaken, and I don't think I am, you have a lot to learn about written communication if you want to come across as less obnoxious. If you DID mean to have a level-headed discussion, and based on your flippant dismissals to very clear, well thought out rebuttals to your initial point, you need to learn that there's always a better way to phrase a difficult position.Ok, well since this has changed from a discussion, and the sharing of opinions and viewpoints to a lynching I suppose I will go ahead and disregard the thread from this point on.
Also *Well thought out argument* coupled with *Snarky retort*Let me say in no unclear terms though that this has helped me figure out how I am going to handle things with a couple of my less inspired players.
Thank you to those who've contributed,you know who you are.
Hear, hear!
Unfortunately, I do not own a portable music device, or I would have.I sang (well, more like "recited"; I am merciful and do not sing) Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant SongYou could just have played it. Or, better yet, the Demons and Wizards cover.
No MP3/Media player? No stereo? No laptop? Normal computer in the vicinity of the game table? No game consolse or DVD/Blu-Ray player with MP3 capabilities anywhere near? No cell phone with music capabilities? No one you know with one of those?
I guess when you're surrounded by tech gimmicks all day, you get used to them and forget that not everyone likes them that much.
When asked, he explains he's a Dorc (Half-Orc/Half-Dwarf) in dwarven.
This of course leads to many many many bar fights with annoyed dwarves.
He should check out the Midnight setting. There, there are actual orc/dwarf crossbreeds: dworgs. They have the double honour of being both the most impressive race (physically, they gain a bonus to both strength and constitution) and the most unfortunate creatures in the whole world.
The enmity you usually get between orcs and dwarves in fantasy worlds isn't there in Midnight. Instead, you have a total, undying blood feud between two races that absolutely, completely hate the other.
And since Midnight is not a Care Bears world for little girls, there is no beating around the bush about how a dworg could come into existence in such an environment: They're invariably the result of orcs having fun raping dwarven females.
Dworgs are probably the only creatures that hate orcs more than dwarves do. They would be killed on sight by their orc parents (even if they didn't hate them so much), and among the classical dwarven clans, they're not welcome. So they live among the surface outcasts.
One of the worst things about a dworg, from a dwarf's point of view, is that their existence lends credibility to the rumour that dwarves and orcs are closely related, that orcs were maybe dwarves once, before the Shadow altered them.
THE SHADOW?!
Unfortunately, I do not own a portable music device, or I would have.No MP3/Media player?
Nope.
No stereo?
Not anywhere near the game table.
No laptop?
Yes, but my laptop is seriously busted (the screen won't work half the time), and the laptop we use for our over-the-internet player is a player's fiance's laptop and isn't set up for anything but schoolwork. Plus it's glacially slow.
Normal computer in the vicinity of the game table?
Nope.
No game consolse or DVD/Blu-Ray player with MP3 capabilities anywhere near?
He's got a PS3, but I don't own one so I have no freaking clue how to get it to play an arbitrary song that just popped into my head.
No cell phone with music capabilities?
Sure -- but I'm not paying money to download it onto my cel when I own the music on CD.
No one you know with one of those?
Sure, but this wasn't a planned thing. It was spontaneous.
I guess when you're surrounded by tech gimmicks all day, you get used to them and forget that not everyone likes them that much.
Who said anything about not liking? Not being able to afford them is my problem. And, like I said, it wasn't pre-planned, or I would have brought my portable CD player/stereo with my Led Zeppelin cd and some mood music CDs.
if someone doesn't play a human as nothing more than a set of numbers in a game. expect them to do the same as an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, an orc, a catgirl, or even a lawful evil half celestial, advanced, young, fiendish, werephoenix, fire nymph with a charisma in the late 40s. i doubt that anyone would play the last one on that list. nor get such a character approved.
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if someone doesn't play a human as nothing more than a set of numbers in a game. expect them to do the same as an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, an orc, a catgirl, or even a lawful evil half celestial, advanced, young, fiendish, werephoenix, fire nymph with a charisma in the late 40s. i doubt that anyone would play the last one on that list. nor get such a character approved.
Approved, but the game takes place in the crater of Kilouea if you can survive Pele's wrath.
if someone doesn't play a human as nothing more than a set of numbers in a game. expect them to do the same as an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, an orc, a catgirl, or even a lawful evil half celestial, advanced, young, fiendish, werephoenix, fire nymph with a charisma in the late 40s. i doubt that anyone would play the last one on that list. nor get such a character approved.Approved, but the game takes place in the crater of Kilouea if you can survive Pele's wrath.
i wouldn't want to play such a character anyway. it just has too many templates and was just a means to get a point across. i would never personally play it. if i were dming, she wouldn't make a bad npc to throw into the city of sigil. and someone may find her quite entertaining.
another note, i don't think that having special conditions for accepting a specific character is really approval anyway. i beleive that it is better to actually deny the character upfront than it is to create special conditions for approving the character. and some characters don't even need those special conditions. such as alternate human ethnicities. that special setting you thought up sounds like a special condition to me in itself. i beleive that balance is important, but it shouldn't be the most important thing, the story is more important, but balance and fairness comes close. the DM and the player should come to mutual agreements. the DM shouldn't have 100% of the power. i beleive the DM should account for 50% of the "power" and the players alltogether should account for the other half. both sides should meet halfway. and i beleive every character should be audited by the DM, or that the DM should at least have the rough idea of the mechanics of your character. and that players should pick a character they can reasonably understand whose complexity they can handle. i beleive that a player should (if possible) provide a photocopy, scan, or printout for every article he uses, (unless the dm has the book too) and keep access to a book or pdf for himself.
THE SHADOW?!
Izrador, also called The Shadow of The North. The campaign world's nemesis - and, in this case, not one you will set out to kill. Because you won't. You can't kill a god. Midnight is a very dark setting full of tragic heroes. Because you see, the Enemy has all but won. The only thing you can do is delay the inevitable.
Izrador was the typical Evil God. The other gods made war upon him in ancient times, and defeated him and hurled him onto the Ground (material plane). But Izrador turned that defeat into a dark victory when he closed off the world behind him. The Veil is absolutely impenetrable. Absolutely. Nothing gets through. No divine power, no souls of the dead. No spellcaster trying to take a shortcut through the transitive planes.
That means that for all intents and purposes, there is only one god in that setting. And he's hell-bent on destroying his prison so he can return to the higher spheres. Say goodbye to clerics (unless, of course, they're the Enemy's Legates.)
Midnight is often described thus: Imagine Middle Earth, a hundred years after the Ring War. Imagine Sauron had won.
Yes, but my laptop is seriously busted (the screen won't work half the time), and the laptop we use for our over-the-internet player is a player's fiance's laptop and isn't set up for anything but schoolwork. Plus it's glacially slow.
Well, I think even the slowest computer can handle an MP3 file you feed it through a thumb drive and click on it. Most operating systems come with media players all set up.
He's got a PS3, but I don't own one so I have no freaking clue how to get it to play an arbitrary song that just popped into my head.
Nothing a bit of preparation couldn't fix :P (I guess you knew you would want to play the song, so you bring the CD or MP3 with you, and tell him you want to play it.
No cell phone with music capabilities?Sure -- but I'm not paying money to download it onto my cel when I own the music on CD.
Unless that phone is quite different from those I owned (and those I know), it would support you transferring the MP3 (you just created from the music CD with software that is totally free, maybe even already on your home computer) onto it.
No one you know with one of those?Sure, but this wasn't a planned thing. It was spontaneous.
Okay, that changes everything, of course.
Since I don't bring my MP3 player with me to games, and I don't think I have my complete music collection on my laptop, I'd have been forced to search the song on youtube or something (which I just did. It took me 15 seconds ;-P)
I would have brought my portable CD player/stereo with my Led Zeppelin cd and some mood music CDs.
I use my laptop and some nifty little active external speakers for that. I personally can't imagine playing without some background music.
That reminds me: *Is off to raid the Disciples III folder for music*
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i wouldn't want to play such a character anyway. it just has too many templates and was just a means to get a point across. i would never personally play it. if i were dming, she wouldn't make a bad npc to throw into the city of sigil. and someone may find her quite entertaining.if someone doesn't play a human as nothing more than a set of numbers in a game. expect them to do the same as an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, an orc, a catgirl, or even a lawful evil half celestial, advanced, young, fiendish, werephoenix, fire nymph with a charisma in the late 40s. i doubt that anyone would play the last one on that list. nor get such a character approved.Approved, but the game takes place in the crater of Kilouea if you can survive Pele's wrath.
Okay, but I still want a minotaur bard NPC. That just sounds awesome to me.
Well, I think even the slowest computer can handle an MP3 file you feed it through a thumb drive and click on it. Most operating systems come with media players all set up.
Yes, but my laptop is seriously busted (the screen won't work half the time), and the laptop we use for our over-the-internet player is a player's fiance's laptop and isn't set up for anything but schoolwork. Plus it's glacially slow.
It only has one working USB port, and that's taken up by the camera for the internet player. Also, you've never used this computer. It takes 5 or 10 minutes for AIM to load. By the time I'd gotten the camera unplugged, the thumb drive plugged in, waited for the thumb drive to open, found the appropriate MP3, double-clicked on it, and waited for WMP or whatever to load up, the mood would have been ruined.
It could've played an MP3, I'm sure. It's got Windows XP installed, so it has Windows Media Player. The problem is in the cost:benefit ratio. Like I said, it's glacially slow. I suspect that's because it barely has enough RAM for the OS and loads about a billion programs at startup, but it's not my computer (or even my friend's computer), it's my friend's fiance's computer, so messing with it is kind of out of the picture. We had to do some negotiations just to get her to let us put AIM on the thing.
Okay, but I still want a minotaur bard NPC. That just sounds awesome to me.
Would there be a problem with other people horning in on his material?
Okay, but I still want a minotaur bard NPC. That just sounds awesome to me.
Does he play the cowbell?
Or maybe he serenades people with his haunting moos? (inside joke)
Okay, but I still want a minotaur bard NPC. That just sounds awesome to me.Would there be a problem with other people horning in on his material?To use said material you must
1)Have him play a horn (ironic) or ukelele (silly)
2)He must attempt to woo a cow named bossy.Otherwise, he's fair game.
Or ... "Free Range"
Okay, but I still want a minotaur bard NPC. That just sounds awesome to me.Does he play the cowbell?
Or maybe he serenades people with his haunting moos? (inside joke)
Yes, a cowbell would be an excellent instrument in this case. I could always use some more cowbell.
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Or ... "Free Range"Okay, but I still want a minotaur bard NPC. That just sounds awesome to me.Would there be a problem with other people horning in on his material?To use said material you must
1)Have him play a horn (ironic) or ukelele (silly)
2)He must attempt to woo a cow named bossy.Otherwise, he's fair game.
You're just full of bull aren't you? :P
Hehehe.
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Late to the dance again...
I play a human character about 50% of the time. The wide varieties of shapes, sizes, colours and cultures of the human race on Golarion really allows for a lot of different characters, even if they have the same class and look similar on paper. They are totally different in role, but similar in roll.
Sure, each core demi-human race is getting their "... of Golarion" suppliment, but's that's just a few dozen pages in comparison to the Campaign Setting and all of the regional suppliments which detail the mostly human-dominated world. (Is this a good place to put in a request for "Kobolds of Golarion"?) :)
Sure, playing demi-human or monstrous characters are lots of fun and it's easy to get some good RP hooks for them, but there are also so many kinds of humans to play that neither really gets old.
But maybe that's just how I roll, er role. :)
I suspect that's because it barely has enough RAM for the OS and loads about a billion programs at startup, but it's not my computer (or even my friend's computer), it's my friend's fiance's computer, so messing with it is kind of out of the picture. We had to do some negotiations just to get her to let us put AIM on the thing.
A pity, because it sounds that this thing needs a fresh start. Tabula rasa.
That bard needs ranks in intimidate, so he can cow his enemies!
Yeah, these jokes are just hoofing it at this point.Can we steer this in another direction?You're just full of bull aren't you? :P
It's not easy to calf your name into the annals of comedy!
A pity, because it sounds that this thing needs a fresh start. Tabula rasa.
Yeah, believe me I know. I could fix it in probably half an hour (I'm betting just clearing out the startup programs would fix 90% of the problems), and if that failed just a cheap bit of RAM would definitely do it. Ah well, it works well enough for our purposes.
I read through a bunch of the comments and now I need to rant even through no one cares anymore.
As several people have already said the problem isn't race, it's the player being unable to roleplay, which in my mind means they shouldn't be playing this game.
Now where can we find additional proof that humans can be interesting characters? Hmmmmm.... well we have the guy who started this discussion. He keeps mumbling about how human characters suck even after admitting that it's just his players who are incompetent. Need more? Please turn your head to the nearest bookcase. Within those books are countless interesting human characters. Now turn on your TV, look! More human characters! And here comes your family, aren't they such characters!
Now if you wanted to fix this problem you could tried an idea my friends came up with. It started with a guy that always powergamed (he defined a balanced character as one without weakness, and I'll mention, he powergamed with every single race in the entire system. He ran a game and every faceless minion was an epically powered whatever) so we had this idea to have a game where we each had rules to prevent us from playing our "normal" characters. Mr PowerGamer would play with only the core rule books. One guy had to play an evil character, another had to play a paladin (and not become a blackguard later). One guy couldn't multiclass, and another couldn't plan out his character ahead of time. I was going to have to be the party leader.
Also, if you want to f-up powergamers, start at first level. Min-maxing works well on paper, but not so well in game when you have no high level spells or the awesome abilities you're working towards.
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Please turn your head to the nearest bookcase. Within those books are countless interesting human characters. Now turn on your TV, look! More human characters! And here comes your family, aren't they such characters!
Modern media, which is crawling with human protagonists, does make a rich field to mine for character ideas, dunnit? Humans run the range from deadly dull to delightfully quirky to incomprehensible.
Quite a few of the non-human protagonists, particularly in sci-fi and fantasy, are less 'alien' in perspective than real-world people we meet every day. Legolas, Gimli, Worf, Londo Molari, Rygel, Quark, Kira, etc. were less 'non-human' and more caricatures of one or more human qualities or traits.
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Humans have stereotypes too. There are just more of us so we have different ones.
... a lot of not flattering.
In any case I don't see any race being above another in role playability. It's all in the guy/girl playing them.
Personally though, I prefer fae/elven races myself as does my wife. Just our thing and we make it work. Of course I haven't played a single character with a "normal" background so I've never tried to work with a stereotype.
As several people have already said the problem isn't race, it's the player being unable to roleplay, which in my mind means they shouldn't be playing this game.
That's a bit harsh, methinks. I suppose you just sat right down at the table for your first RPG ever and were immediately the best roleplayer evar, eh?
As several people have already said the problem isn't race, it's the player being unable to roleplay, which in my mind means they shouldn't be playing this game.That's a bit harsh, methinks. I suppose you just sat right down at the table for your first RPG ever and were immediately the best roleplayer evar, eh?
Of course not. That's me, not him!
The last part really is a bit harsh, but beyond that, it fits: the problem isn't this race or that, it's people who can't roleplay.
You won't fix this by banning races, you fix it by yelling at people until they get better. Or, of you find yelling doesn't help for some reason (;-)), talking to people and telling them that you are concerned that there isn't enough immersion and roleplaying at the table.
Or, I dunno, you play a game where roleplaying is as mechanically rewarded as the race/class selection.
Rather than assuming it will 'just happen'.
*goes back to his Halfling Barbarian, adventuring in a party with a Dwarven Druid/Wizard/Mystic Theurge.*