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So the title might not be the best way to pose that question, but recently it's something I've been thinking about when brainstorming ideas for various new characters or ideas to try out. I realized that I abhor playing the 'core' races because they frankly no longer hold any real interesting elements to me. No longer do elves, dwarves, halflings, etc, feel fantastic in the way that really draws out my creativity (this might just be a mood of course). Instead, I find that I want to play the 'rare' races (that are at least more socially acceptable in some games, others not so much) like Aasimar, Tieflings, Reapers, and other races that possess more complex social dynamics with a more out there fantasy feel to them. Not because I want spotlight time and to be 'special', but just because I find myself being easily bored with characters of the other races.
Then, it comes back around to playing humans. I have never understood why people like to play humans in the game personally. It feels silly from a roleplay aspect in a fantasy game about all powerful gods and magic (usually, not always) exuding out from some characters very pores to want to just be the same thing that you are, but I do understand that it's in many ways human nature to want human-like stories. Maybe it's just my difficulty relating to people in general and that factors in.
Now, these are just my thoughts on the matter, and I was hoping just to hear what others might think about it too. I do think this might be part of the whole deal of "people like to be average and still defeat the big bad guy", but I really enjoy hearing the various different opinions and ideas that come out of this board.
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It's easy to relate to the human race, and there's not much that prevents humans from becoming extremely powerful in this genre.
I think people would rather stick with what they know than risk botching the RP of a foreign mindset, munchkins excluded.
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Personally, I don't like deep end roleplaying. I like playing mostly myself with maybe a different race and a couple of quirks and have an adventure. I did it when I was younger, but allI gathered from that is that I don't care what my fictional character would do, but rather what I would do in a fantasy situation where I'm much more competent (and magical).
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I used to go wild with non-core choices, but...
Well, I've found as I age that playing a gonzo species doesn't really add anything to my experience.
In point of fact, if my dragon-blooded lizardfolk killing machine is just going to act more or less like a human with a taste for raw meat and live fish, then picking the lizard just to be different is kinda lazy. As the OP says, just my thoughts.
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It's easy to relate to the human race, and there's not much that prevents humans from becoming extremely powerful in this genre.
I think people would rather stick with what they know than risk botching the RP of a foreign mindset, munchkins excluded.
Quibble:
Second sentence over-generalized and, as written, implies that only munchkins play non-humans.Response: Started playing way back when with our highschool's drama crowd. The challenge of the role is still what interests me. This makes some tables and players insufferably dull. Perhaps oddly, I have had some of my better experiences with the players portraying their enhanced selves. They do actually role-play, and can, effectively in character, say why their character is doing things.
My last quibble is with those who just devalue role-play as a waste of energy that should be solely focused on conquest and acquisition. Yawn.
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My personal favorite D&D race, one which I keep coming back to, is the half-elf, because they start out with one foot in the mundane and one foot in the fantastic by their very nature.
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I'm a very firm believer that race and class choice don't make a character interesting or disinteresting. Rather, it's the personality and the manifestation of that personality in the game that makes them exciting to me. I'll grant that the potential social challenges that could come up in some campaigns by playing rarer races could offer good points for back story, their accent and speech patterns, and flavor to hinge upon, but that doesn't guarantee excitement in my personal opinion.
I could build a boring personality onto a Drow Noble, Tiefling or Tengu and be just as bored if I had built it onto a Human, Elf or Dwarf.
As for all powerful gods and magic? Well, I think every single race pales in comparison to said all powerful gods, not just humans. After all, a Grippli and a Wayang will get disintegrated by a god just as easily as a human or gnome. Since humans can use magic, and use it fairly efficiently, I can't think of that as a point against them.
What I'm seeing you say, however, is that the core races aren't unique culturally and physically in your games, and that is understandable. But they've been very exciting when I've played them, so I can't personally relate.
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I talk to myself a lot. When designing characters who are not humans, I'll often say things like:
"...but he's still a human, well, technically he's an elf, but elves are just humans with some weird extra bits like long lives, so he's still a human, basically. I'm going to think about him as a human is the point...anyway, he's still a human, so..."
This goes for any race, not just elves.
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I have no interest in the exotic races whatsoever. In fact, if my players wouldn't object, it'd be Humans only, with the other races as NPCs, adversaries, or extinct. But I allow the core races, a couple that I created (that are really just variant Humans bred for different purposes) and in my next campaign, Tieflings because there's going to be a lot of demon worship by the overlords of the setting.
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In point of fact, if my dragon-blooded lizardfolk killing machine is just going to act more or less like a human with a taste for raw meat and live fish, then picking the lizard just to be different is kinda lazy. As the OP says, just my thoughts.
Isn't that kind of a fallacy though?
Like, do you really need other reason to play as exotic race besides "I think lizards/whatever are cool"? I do admit I like concept of trying to think from alien mindset, but I don't think anyone of us have context for what irl alien mindset would be like, so why would non humans need to be "inhuman"? Person is person regardless of species right?
But yeah, I wonder how many players are like "I want escapism, so I'm avoiding playing as human to further myself from boring everyday life" regarding playing exotic races ._. Like, more popular form of escapism seems to be "I'm roleplaying a badass I'd want to be" considering how rarely I see former opinion being expressed.
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I'm a very firm believer that race and class choice don't make a character interesting or disinteresting. Rather, it's the personality and the manifestation of that personality in the game that makes them exciting to me. I'll grant that the potential social challenges that could come up in some campaigns by playing rarer races could offer good points for back story, their accent and speech patterns, and flavor to hinge upon, but that doesn't guarantee excitement in my personal opinion.
I could build a boring personality onto a Drow Noble, Tiefling or Tengu and be just as bored if I had built it onto a Human, Elf or Dwarf.
As for all powerful gods and magic? Well, I think every single race pales in comparison to said all powerful gods, not just humans. After all, a Grippli and a Wayang will get disintegrated by a god just as easily as a human or gnome. Since humans can use magic, and use it fairly efficiently, I can't think of that as a point against them.
What I'm seeing you say, however, is that the core races aren't unique culturally and physically in your games, and that is understandable. But they've been very exciting when I've played them, so I can't personally relate.
I can agree with you on a lot of this honestly. I won't deny that you can suck the life out of anything and potentially breath that same life into something. I suppose to me it's more that the base line of said personalities feels more intriguing or interesting to me, there's more to build off of to me I suppose is the best way to put it. Many games I've played in over the years have indeed driven the racial cultures of the 'core' races kind of into the dirt, because as a gaming society we have a pretty established "fantastic normal" for them, I would be lying to say this hasn't colored my opinions on the matter.
Your point about the gods being gods is one point I will concede as being not a super fleshed out thought, with it being mostly setting dependant on how 'magically inclined' your races are. I played in one setting that had humans as totally unable to do any magic at all because their bodies couldn't hope to handle the powers they would be toying with, then in another setting where everyone had magic all the time. Both were fun, but my bias makes me lean toward the former in my preferences for fantasy realities.
Edit: I think part of that comes from a sense that humans are only really interesting to me when they struggle against something they can't really defeat, if only to prove they will darn well try. "Humans are awesome and can do anything" feels really silly to me even as a human, we aren't THAT awesome to me I guess.
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I have no interest in the exotic races whatsoever. In fact, if my players wouldn't object, it'd be Humans only, with the other races as NPCs, adversaries, or extinct. But I allow the core races, a couple that I created (that are really just variant Humans bred for different purposes) and in my next campaign, Tieflings because there's going to be a lot of demon worship by the overlords of the setting.
Care to elaborate why? Is it just for sake of the world you hope to craft around the party or because of a general dislike of 'fantasy' races?
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Like, do you really need other reason to play as exotic race besides "I think lizards/whatever are cool"?
You certainly don't. I do.
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I can't get enough of playing Humans, personally. I've occasionally dabbled in other races (played a Sylph in a Runelords game for a few sessions before I had to take over as GM, played a Doppel in a Dragonstar campaign when the GM insisted upon no humans, and played an Elf in a PbP on these boards because it was for Elves only), but I wished I had been a human instead.
For me, I think part of it has to do with my love of the cosmic horror genre. My favorite perspective is that of the guy who's out of his depth, trying to keep up with all the weirdness going on around him. Humans work really well for that.
The other part, I think, is that so many of the people I play with have such a disdain for playing 'normal' folks. I have a tendency to default to support-type characters, and in that way playing a human can be an extension of that. Weird and unusual stand out and 'pop' more when there's a 'straight man' to play off against. And, thanks to the first point, I'd much rather play the 'straight man' than the one turning all the heads.
None of this is to say that I try to build boring characters. In an upcoming game I'm playing a tome eater occultist, without telling anybody, because I want it to be a surprise when the otherwise normal bald guy starts eating a book. :P
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Like, do you really need other reason to play as exotic race besides "I think lizards/whatever are cool"?You certainly don't. I do.
Why though? Like, I'm certain most people don't pick wizard as class because "I really want to roleplay an academic or a master of spells", they usually do it because they think it would be cool to be a wizard.
Second sentence over-generalized and, as written, implies that only munchkins play non-humans.It's easy to relate to the human race, and there's not much that prevents humans from becoming extremely powerful in this genre.
I think people would rather stick with what they know than risk botching the RP of a foreign mindset, munchkins excluded.
Ye. Besides, I think its viable to select non human for mechanical reasons without it having anything to do with optimization. For example, I like playing tengu because I find Swordtrained trait amusing and what you can do with it when character has proficiency with all sword like weapons, casters with greatswords is just amusing image. I don't like kitsune that much, but the race essentially has two faces allows you to do thing vigilantes do way before vigilantes were a thing.
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The normal hero is a story trope: the ordinary person thrown into the fantasy world becomes a powerful hero. Starting out exotic diminishes the epic of becoming exotic. While Pathfinder does not drop a non-magical nobody from Earth into a fantasy world, a Golarion farmboy or a tavern wench or even a new student at the wizard academy counts as sufficiently ordinary.
In contrast, my second Pathfinder character was a gnome, simply because I wanted to see what playing a Pathfinder gnome was like.
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Why though?Like, do you really need other reason to play as exotic race besides "I think lizards/whatever are cool"?You certainly don't. I do.
'Cause it's more fun for me to figure out why, exactly, a given concept needs to be a friggin' lemur-person or whatever.
I'll still play non-core (well.... non-human- I'm more likely to run a goblin or a lizardfolk than an elf, dwarf, halfling, or gnome) if the character I want to run really requires it... but I don't see species (or class) choice as enough, on their own, to make me play anything.
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The normal hero is a story trope: the ordinary person thrown into the fantasy world becomes a powerful hero. Starting out exotic diminishes the epic of becoming exotic. While Pathfinder does not drop a non-magical nobody from Earth into a fantasy world, a Golarion farmboy or a tavern wench or even a new student at the wizard academy counts as sufficiently ordinary.
Hmm, doesn't really sound open minded to me. I mean, you could have totally ordinary dwarf farmer become hero as well, there isn't "normal" in a fantasy world :D
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There are a lot of factors that go into whether or not I like a race; the divide for me isn't based on how mundane or normal a given race is. A lot of it is also intangible and inconsistent; factors that make me like one race might make me actively dislike another.
My favorite race is orcs/half-orcs, but I'm also a big fan of(in no particular order) aasimars, tieflings, fetchlings, hobgoblins, ratfolk, oreads, sylphs, changelings, gillmen, samsarans, strix, suli, vishkanya, monkey goblins, triaxians, andriods, kasatha, lashunta, shabti, wyrwoods, caligni, and ganzi.
There is a lot that boils down to, "do I like the way this thing looks", but there is an intangible spark of "what kind of stories can I tell with this character".
I do generally reject the notion that humans are just inherently more relatable because people are so heavily influenced by their culture and their society, and I think that people who live in a world as drastically different from modern society as Golarion or any given fantasy setting really is, is going to have a drastically different world view than most people alive today.
And I think that if you can deep-dive enough to put yourself in the mindset of someone who lives in a world where a multitude of gods are objectively real and actively influencing the world, where planar travel is possible, where magic exists a real monsters are actively trying to kill you or coexist with you, where hunger and sickness are real concerns on a mass scale because there's no industralized farming or wide spread medical profession, where technology and society range from stone age to antiquity to dark age to medieval to renaissance to Victorian all on one Europe-sized continent, and where information doesn't travel at internet speeds; if you can put yourself in a fully accurate mindset for a human in those conditions, I think you can do the same for an elf or an orc or a dwarf or whatever.
And if you're not going through all that and just playing human with more or less the sensibilities of modern society, then I don't see why you can't do that for whatever other race you like the look of, as well.
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Some people want to explore a fantasy world, not a fantasy race.
Not mutually exclusive. I am not sure what your point is.
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I mostly play non-human spellcasters, beause I enjoy imagining and exploring the way those characters differ from myself, the way they relate to the world and interact with it, while bound by different rules, needs and expectations. Fantasy worlds are full of options that "normal" characters will never explore. Kind of a waste in my mind.
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The irony of the accusation that to play a none human in munchkinny is that human is one of the strongest races in the low RP range. In most cases much stronger than a Vanara or Grippli for example.
I find that adding a fun race adds the possibility for fun quirks to bring to my character and I very much enjoy theorizing how race might effect a characters outlook. Elves living 15 times longer than humans and gnomes having the bleaching are both interesting factors that may affect a characters outlook.
I've made around 20 characters, 4 of them are human, and three of those are oracles, I find I only really like making oracles humans, because oracles get a curse, which brings with it, its own quirk so I don't need the races interesting additions as much.
I've also made, Sylph, Oread, Elves (x2), Gnomes (x2), Vanara, Ghoran, Grippli, half elves (x2), Naiad, Vishkanya, Hobgoblins, Suli and Kasatha. None of those more uncommon races were picked for powergaming, rather I liked the race and wondered what I thought would make an iconic class for it. Although I do tend to try at least to have one of the racial bonuses correspond with the class.
I also find I tend to shy away from races my brother likes, he makes a lot of half orcs, halfling's and dwarfs xD
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Then, it comes back around to playing humans. I have never understood why people like to play humans in the game personally. It feels silly from a roleplay aspect in a fantasy game about all powerful gods and magic (usually, not always) exuding out from some characters very pores to want to just be the same thing that you are, but I do understand that it's in many ways human nature to want human-like stories. Maybe it's just my difficulty relating to people in general and that factors in.
As a guy who plays humans exclusively, I just most often find myself drawn to the characters who survive by cunning, grit and force of will. They are the average guy who steps up to the impossible odds, and despite their human fallibility take up their steel, six gun, or now and again, magic to fight the good fight.
Also humans are viewed as underdogs in my circles. While they are objectively a strong mechanical choice, most often people assume Elves are graceful and Dwarves more hardy to a point being human is a negative. Being a human and showing up the others is a bit of icing on the cake.
To tie that in, I've also had games where everybody wants to be something different. When you are the only person being human, you get to be as unique as any Aasimar in the group.
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so for some people being an Aasimar precludes them from exploring a fantasy world? O.o
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I mostly make characters that grew up in human societies even if they're not themselves human, simply because "I have some idea about what human societies are like and I do not need to invent an entire ethnography in order to understand where this person comes from (which I would feel compelled to do otherwise)."
That many of them are humans is largely a function that humans are very mechanically strong; that extra feat at level one is sometimes essential for getting a build to work.
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I mean sure, but you said that for some people exploring a fantasy world and a fantasy race was a mutually exclusive experience. Which is quite a different thing from simply not wanting to.
I thought that might be some interesting school of thought relating to said mutual exclusivity. Hence my curiosity.
I mostly make characters that grew up in human societies even if they're not themselves human, simply because "I have some idea about what human societies are like and I do not need to invent an entire ethnography in order to understand where this person comes from (which I would feel compelled to do otherwise)."
That many of them are humans is largely a function that humans are very mechanically strong; that extra feat at level one is sometimes essential for getting a build to work.
I think this is a bit of a trap people fall into when making more out there characters. When I do so and don't want to come from a human village I simply think how one small hamlet or village might work for that race based on the info we have. Its easy to get bogged down in fleshing out the race to ones own detriment is one is not careful.
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I mean sure, but you said that for some people exploring a fantasy world and a fantasy race was a mutually exclusive experience. Which is quite a different thing from simply not wanting to.
If the player does not want to play a non-human race, then he cannot explore the world with such a race.
I just actively avoid any Mary Sue/snowflake tropes, and core races lend themselves to that fairly well in my experience.
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I don't really think races have much influence over the mary sue trope, with the possible exception of things like Aasimar. The Snowflake thing I can see. Although I see a lot of half elf snow flakes.
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The type of race you play does not have any real bearing on the quality of role play you can produce. If your human character is boring it's because you made a boring character.
Playing an exotic race rarely adds much to the RP of the character in my experience. Most people end up playing them basically like humans.
A secondary concern I have with exotic races is power gaming. For example, I ban the tiefling and aasimar variants, as I consider them to be a little too good.
Honestly, I think all races should just be designed with the human quality that allows you to choose a +2 to any stat and not have a penalty, because the biggest reason I see people choosing a race is based on ability score bonuses and penalties.
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I guess it's just a matter of taste. For a book analogy some like the New Wired genera (think China Mieville) and others just can't stand that stuff and prefer something more orthodox. For the most part theres nothing wrong with either.
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So the title might not be the best way to pose that question, but recently it's something I've been thinking about when brainstorming ideas for various new characters or ideas to try out. I realized that I abhor playing the 'core' races because they frankly no longer hold any real interesting elements to me. No longer do elves, dwarves, halflings, etc, feel fantastic in the way that really draws out my creativity (this might just be a mood of course). Instead, I find that I want to play the 'rare' races (that are at least more socially acceptable in some games, others not so much) like Aasimar, Tieflings, Reapers, and other races that possess more complex social dynamics with a more out there fantasy feel to them. Not because I want spotlight time and to be 'special', but just because I find myself being easily bored with characters of the other races.
Then, it comes back around to playing humans. I have never understood why people like to play humans in the game personally. It feels silly from a roleplay aspect in a fantasy game about all powerful gods and magic (usually, not always) exuding out from some characters very pores to want to just be the same thing that you are, but I do understand that it's in many ways human nature to want human-like stories. Maybe it's just my difficulty relating to people in general and that factors in.
Now, these are just my thoughts on the matter, and I was hoping just to hear what others might think about it too. I do think this might be part of the whole deal of "people like to be average and still defeat the big bad guy", but I really enjoy hearing the various different opinions and ideas that come out of this board.
So this may come out as an attack, but it is NOT meant to be. different strokes and all that, just how I feel.
To me, the out there races are a gimmick, and somewhat a crutch. Sort of like, no need to develop a personality, there's one right out of the box for you, add seasoning to taste.
I actually enjoy roleplaying humans the most, as it's liberating. A human doesn't have to conform to any stereotype, to any degree. It isn't defined by its race at all, so it can be anything you can dream up.
Once again, just my opinion.
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I am not that much of a fan of exotic races:
a) You can write a culture, that is exotic and different by just using humans. Different cosmetics don't really make you different, different motivations and values do.
b) Some exotic characters can be really annoying to run as the GM in many prewritten adventures/settings and need a lot of planning when designing own scenarios, since the NPCs in the village of the day will often react differently to a half-dragon than they do to most adventurers.
Still there is some concepts for exotic characters, which sound really fun AND I'd like to play: Agile tongue builds and Gripplis in general, Fetchling rogue hiding in the shadows, Warforged etc.
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I don't really think races have much influence over the mary sue trope, with the possible exception of things like Aasimar. The Snowflake thing I can see. Although I see a lot of half elf snow flakes.
I see just as many people playin humans wanting to be special. There's plenty of humns with the blood of dragons, gods, feys, lost princes, secret heirs, wandering nobles, chosen ones and bearers of magical marks.
From what is being said, it looks more like some people want to look at their characters and their adventures and imagine it could be them in the characters' places, wich seem harder when the character is too different from the player. I cold be wrong of course, but that's how it seems to me.
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I used to play some wilder races, but I found them restrictive in flavor, I found it hard to roleplay their line of thinking, and often hard to justify.
I tried a Lashunta once, because I found the telepathy neat and their ability scores unique. But it was just so weird bringing a space alien to the table and trying to roleplay that, introduce my character as that, and talk to NPCs as that.
These days I mostly play humans and half-humans. Don't need to contrive a background for them, have a large selection of racial options, and can generally play them as, well, human, save for a minor perspective difference here or there.
I do like the idea of giving races the human +2 to any stat option on character gen.
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My favourite heroes are the ones who are in over their heads. The pulp-style hero who is outmatched, outsmarted, outmuscled but still succeeds against the odds to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.
Indiana Jones, John McClane, Lara Croft, Rick O'Connell, The Entire Crew of Serenity.
So when I am choosing a character (particularly for an Adventure Path), I pore over the player's guide to see what fits the narrative tropes and build a character who fits in neatly with the heroic arc while not being otherwise too exotic.
That said I still have made some unusual choices, I've played an android tinkerer in Iron Gods, I'm playing a Shifter Feral hunter in Ironfang Invasion, like a cross of Beastboy/Mowgli.
But in Legacy of Fire, I was a humble and religious human summoner who came upon a genie in a lamp, the Eidolon, a genie cursed to the lamp by Sarenrae for destroying one of her temples in his youth. The genie eventually earned his freedom and became a new Herald for Sarenrae. The human summoner became a merchant prince, and used his wealth to upgrade the temple of Sarenrae in Kelmarane.
In Kingmaker I'm a Gnome prankster bard, who has not rolled a single damaging attack so far. He's good at words and illusions, and he uses them to keep the company of murderhobos he's joined up with from getting themselves into too much danger.
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I play a lot of elves, gnomes, half elves, and Fey (especially satyrs)
I rarely play humans for basically the exact opposite reason everyone else stated.
I can't do human in the real world right, might as well do the thing that feels most natural, and not be people.
also I can't shake the fact that human = boring/prey/victim in most fantasy settings.
I don't want to be a victim. I want to be a hero.
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Playing in Golarion, I expect a character that belongs there organically and fits in. Too many of the weird freakshow races don't have much logical reason to exist, to adventure in conventional surroundings with other races or to be accepted in the existing society. Your stock gang of murderhobos is going to be distrusted enough even if human, but if they're a bunch of frogs, lizards, aliens and birdmen, they'll have a much harder time.
If the GM is always having to twist the world to accept this mondo-bizarro gang of weirdos, it soon loses its verisimilitude. Either that or the world changes from humanocentric with a smattering of the other normal races (as described in the ISG) to a menagerie of random species where most of them are just humans in rubber suits.
There's a halfway house with just a couple of wingnut races, such that gripplis or kasathas are common enough to be accepted, but that's a lot or worldbuilding to do properly.
One or two PCs from an unusual race are OK in an otherwise conventional party, but the racism and suspicion is going to get old fast. Either that or everyone goes around in a Hat of Disguise.
/rant
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This is my escape from the real world. I personally prefer to go all in. Races are good to represent a certain aspect.
Example for self extension, I am personally biracial. I have experienced lots of good about this, and lots of bad. I can represent that pretty well with a half orc or half elf. Outsiders that just don't fit in one meet expectations from both cultures. Precisely because of that it fuels character development and motivation. Do you favor a side? Emulate one personality? Get the best offer worst of both worlds?
Yet if there is something else I want to emphasize, then other races work. I normally choose whichever race is most mechanically optimal, and work backwards for justification.
I have NEVER made a human character, not even for theorycraft. Since that's most of what I do with Pathfinder, it can be quite counter productive since humans are so optimal! :p
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When I choose a race, there is some hook that makes the choice appealing for me (race, class, gender, culture, background, personality traits, etc), particularly when viewed against the rest of the party and the campaign world in general. For example, a human bard is pretty standard. However, a Vistani human bard in Ravenloft--that has possibilities.
How interesting any race is for me depends on how many (or how few) of my brethren there are in the world. If they are rare (like a drow on the surface), why is that? If they are widely distrusted, am I going to want to deal with that situation if I play that race? If a race is rare simply because they are not native to the region, will the appeal of being different be enough to hold my interest? It all depends on what else is happening.
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Playing in Golarion, I expect a character that belongs there organically and fits in. Too many of the weird freakshow races don't have much logical reason to exist, to adventure in conventional surroundings with other races or to be accepted in the existing society. Your stock gang of murderhobos is going to be distrusted enough even if human, but if they're a bunch of frogs, lizards, aliens and birdmen, they'll have a much harder time.
If the GM is always having to twist the world to accept this mondo-bizarro gang of weirdos, it soon loses its verisimilitude. Either that or the world changes from humanocentric with a smattering of the other normal races (as described in the ISG) to a menagerie of random species where most of them are just humans in rubber suits.
There's a halfway house with just a couple of wingnut races, such that gripplis or kasathas are common enough to be accepted, but that's a lot or worldbuilding to do properly.
One or two PCs from an unusual race are OK in an otherwise conventional party, but the racism and suspicion is going to get old fast. Either that or everyone goes around in a Hat of Disguise.
/rant
We're talking fantasy world, though. Those races have presumably always been there, so unless they're a race with a bad rep, there's no reason they're treated any worse than anybody else. Everybody knows there are different looking people running around, and while some people may be xenophobic, they're not gonna panick a the sight of a guy with four arms or by a humanoid rat if they don't do anything scary.
As for their reason to exist, what does that even mean? Are you talking in universe, or about why the writers created them? In both cases, this is fantasy, it justifies pretty well the presence of fantasy creatures.
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I play humans and half-humans (tiefling, aasimar, oread, sylph, ifrit, undine, fetchling, etc) because most gms i play with include racial tensions as a point of adversity. To breathe life into their worlds. This racial tension, however, usually involves pure race society A hates race B. Or, this entire dwarven city HATES elves. And while i dont mind the mild sneer, i dont want to play a character who cant even get a room at the inn.