Humanity: why make Human Player Characters in 5e Dungeons & Dragons 

Web DM VVS

Just as a small reminder: The Forgotten Realms: Calishite, Chondathan, Turmish, Rashemi, etc., you get the point --> *2nd Ed AD&D Regional Sourcebooks (released between 1987 and 1999), 3rd Ed D&D Sourcebooks like Races of Faerun (2003)* Greyhawk: Oeridian, Flan, Suloise, Baklunish, Rhennee and Olman --> *World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1983)* Eberron, the descriptions of the people living in each of the five nations and those of the people living on the continent of Sarlona show that not all humans look alike or share the same customs. --> *Campaign Setting (2004)* Mystara: Similar to Earth --> *Regional Sourcebooks (1987 to 1991)* Birthright: Anuirean, Brecht, Khinasi, Rjurik, Vos --> *Birthright Campaign Setting (1995)*

They come and help and humans give thanks by giving grain......I don't think that's enslavement at this point.

That's not racist. But if you said you didn't have any human friends, then we'd all suspect your might be.

Yeah, my best friend is a human...

Don't mean to sound racist myself, but some of my favourite slaves are human.

Thank god. If you said you were friends with Elves we might have issues.

Heimskr, Prophet of Talos Around elves, watch yourselves!

Chaotic Good, murder hobos.

MMMMMmmmmmm, no too sure about that friendo

Made me think Custer’s last stand was a dm who thought we’re done here.

@@tyler58701 There's an untapped gold mine for "History From the DM's Perspective".

I completely agree.

aFistfulofDice that is a good point that I've never thought about.

Yes especially with the higher ages. It makes the backstory much more difficult imo, like why is my elf just get started at age 200? and furthermore how is he lvl 1 still?

William Bogar Because elves are lazy tree-hugging degenerates. lol

Or go Guild Artisan background. You spent the working days of those 200 years perfecting your craft, suddenly your Elf makes the best wine on this side of the material plane, who is going to ask you to prove it? There is a campaign going on, can't be wasting time making alcohol to satisfy the semantic arguments of a sceptical party can you?

All the most boring people I know are humans too

@777rick777 That's that famed human versatility for you

I love playing humans. All the most gullible people I know are humans!

You obviously haven't met my boy IBM Watson.

I don't know, humans are just so... human.

Good

Sounds familiar....

I'm guessing one of your antagonists is a white Orc and a Dragon in a mountain?

Why does the halfling need to wear rouge? Why not some eyeliner? Foundation? 😂😂😂

come to think of it, the 13 fighters should have demolished any dragon.

The fight over a rock... before the fight over a ring.

Michael Doherty have you seen Australia? That’s a place where there’s a ton of crazy monsters humans live around.

Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well. Glad to see Im not the only one who prefers IG over the blueberries.

@@Xaxp I like space marines (not smurfs though... I hate smurfs) but I like them more as a rarity. I use them as like an elite squad rather then the entire army.

@Lord Admiral Spire ya I know. It's more hatred for fun rather then anything serious.

Lemon Elemental beautiful post. Whole heartedly agree. Besides, to me, most fantasy races are aspects of human personality and different tropes. Thus the decision to play one of those races is often just to adopt that certain aspect for RP. As a guy who works in retail and plays video games and tabletop games in his off time, playing a female human sorceress who draws magic from arcane runes scrawled onto her body by a draconic cult who captured her as a young girl, is pretty fantastic and exotic, playing a human barbarian who drinks ale and loves prostitution and solves everything with violence or the threat of violence is enough of an alien concept when compared to my day to day life that it doesn't need to be a eleven sorceress, or a 1/2 orc barbarian. It really doesn't help that most races are just humans with extra features anyway. Elves are pointy eared people, dwarves, gnomes, and half longs are just short people, tieflings are horned people, 1/2 orcs are green people and dragonborn are just scaled people.

Humans are the "Hold my beer" race.

Humans are cultural, diplomatic, warlords, business-minded, innovative. Other races can be too, but in lore other races tend to only stick to one of these spheres, neglecting others.

I role play an individual and not a stereotype of class or race. My ability to rp something realistic and consistent is helped by not having to play someone who is entirely alien.

Yeah the other races would look at a great evil and think "ehh I'll just go to sleep and wait for it to blow over" but humans would look at same great evil and think "KILL IT WITH FIRE BEFORE IT LAYS EGGS, BLOW IT BACK TO THE DEPTHS OF THE VOID FEOM WERE IT SPAWNED FROM"

Perfectly examplifies how boring playing a human is to some players like me XD

The human music is a Rick and Morty reference.

I agree fellow human.

Ahh, a human humor! Of course I understand human humor. Let me make a human laughter. Oblog, oblog, oblog! Hmm? What with the human long face?

KageRyuuUji my kantaaa

Humans get laughed at, regardless of what their stats are.

Those sound like elves and dwarves who are actually different, unique and interesting.

Yeah, what Feather said. I sorta hate the assertion that all Dwarves are stereotypes of these ungraceful, hard-core drinking, loud mouthed, Scottish, boisterous numbskulls, oh who all happen to be master smiths? What about the Elven Ranger bowslinger (I bet she's great at weaving bracelets out of blades of grass, and fucking pottery), I hear that's never been done before. I'd take the piss out of the angery Half Orc Barbarian if it wasn't for the serious mechanical benefits that come with the racial traits. How about a genuine _character_ every now and then? Like the Dwarf who took their racial and Guild Artisan proficiencies in Brewers tools and Cook's utensils, but they're a fucking Cleric of the Forge domain who "don't want to be faffin' around wit no anvil". Literally fighting the stereotype on that one.

weeks? The initial character creation takes like 20 minutes. If you want to research a foreign culture or if your using wotc product and want some game history add maybe a couple hours, and If you draw your own portraits maybe you never get it right, but some draft exists within a day or two.

The bamboozler will not become the bamboozled.

But also, I love the ideas of a race “enlightening” the lower races. Maybe instead of the elves, it is the gnomes that taught humans magic, or that humans are just dire halflings, and as such halfling and human culture could be one in the same. Maybe humans are the cultural chameleons of dnd and simply adapt to their surroundings, or build their own culture from parts of other races.

Actually, I the Shannara books, elves and fey way predate humans. The second book, Elfstones of Shannara spells out most of the elvish history.

Jeffrey Anderson Well, that is another fault on the show then.

AGrumpyPanda yeah, I always felt like the human race was way more exemplary of the chaotic alignment than most other races. Sure we have our lawful societies that can exist for a while, but just from our world we can see that humans are pretty dang chaotic. Never got why elves were always placed as the chaotic race (besides being the opposite of dwarfs) when they are always depicted as halving the magnificent kingdoms and grand traditions, while humans meanwhile are trying to conquer and change is the only constant

l3054 my guess is that it's the final remnant of their humanity before they transcend their origin entirely.

Vivec is both, or neither possibly could be considered non-binary/genderqueer.

I was going to ask you to elaborate on your previous point, but now I have all the answers I need. You are an alt-right type, so your first comment meant you don't think trans people and non-binary are real or deserve human dignity. This was given away by the "social justice" dogwhistle, and that you are a Sargon of Akkad fanboy.

That's not remotely true. That is the kind of thing that was going to make me say before that you don't know much about gender issues. The activists in the LGBT community have never made that claim. The only time I hear that claim is by someone with transphobic views like you. You folks like to say " they didn't exist until I heard about it". That sounds completely ignorant lol. Gay people existed before gay people came out. Trans people existed before trans people came out. It is basic logic to realize that in a society that oppresses those who defy cultural gender and sexual norms that such people wouldn't be telling everyone unless the ball was already toward acceptance. Even still, we see how people act. Someone will say " I get the gay thing, but the trans thing? nah" then they will say " Ok trans is fine, but non-binary? No Way!" and so there is always the tendency to hate what we don't understand. Do you know that many cultures have way more than two genders?

paul coy I know you were listing those off to show how humans aren't boring, but those *are* boring

Or maybe you missed the point entirely. It's boring to make the same selection all the time, no matter what it is. It's not boring to take a fantasy character in a fantasy setting and be a bit fantastic, a bit different from what you see literally every day of your real life. If you're just going to focus on the character on the basis of personality and what happens to them, why can't you apply that same line of thinking with another race? You can have an interesting personality whether you're a human or a dwarf. You can have interesting things in your backstory whether you're an elf or a half-orc. Your DM is mostly responsible for what happens to you during the campaign, and that stuff can be interesting whether you're an aasimar or a tiefling. You can be interesting regardless of your race (a lot like real life), so what's the issue with wanting to vary things up in another way?

Well the obvious question is: "Why would you play a human when there's all these other interesting races? You're stuck as a human in the real world anyway." Of course the answer is rarely simple and straight-forward. as Humans in D&D have a lot more going for them than we do. But imagine the possibilities the stories you listed would have, if there were other races. What if Robbin Hood was a wood-elf? What if Sherlock Holmes was a halfling? What if the Three musketeers were a Dwarf, a high elf and a half-orc? What if Batman was an Aasimar or Conan a goliath?

Most everyone on that list is boring

Batman is more Kenku tho.

So true! Playing in a fantasy world as a human can be (and is for me) the most fantastic experience, becaus it seems, that all the things i have to overcome, i will as a human being among all theese fantastic other creatures

Actually, human fighter is statistically the most played race-class combination of all the possibilities in 5e.

nope, like 15% of alll characters are human fighters.

I know this is two years out, but my experience with Hurry Up and Wait from Cadets is enough to tell me that this has to be true XD

Same experience with my players with something else, I noticed youngest players tend to play nonhuman more than players in their 30+.

Humanity in my DMS games: they are nearly dead cause the gods willed it Me a human who's goal in life is to kill or atleast scare the daylights out of the gods that did this: *exist* The creatures the dm makes: *confused, scared, and slightly aroused screaming intensifys*

You have that freedom with any race; it is a role-playing game. Be a sober dwarf or a friendly elf. Nobody's stopping you. All humans aren't the same; why should all dwarves, elves, or any other race be all the same?

Patrick Gallagher See, I have the opposite problem. I can’t remember the last time any of my players wanted to be a human.

Now that is an interesting setting idea

Did they all pick a new favorite? Or did they spread out

Jeremy Davis a decent spread. Half elf, halfling, elf, Warforged, and tiefling.

Wasted potential there. You could make humans xenophobic as fuck and persecute the nonhuman party. Humanity first!

#DragonbornMasterRace

#ElvesArentPeople

#AllRacesMatter

#butnotTabaxi

#alsoTabaxi

It's a role-playing game; you can play ANY character however you want and if the lore police try to correct you, just ignore them and/or tell them to shut up. I play characters against type all of the time. Humans can be anything, so there's no type to play against. I'm already a human in real life; why the hell would I want to pretend to be one in a game where I can be almost anything? Yes, it IS a failure of imagination.

Hey, I stole your axe and put it on the top shelf. Have fun :3

@@unsuspiciousdweller8967 *Duergar rune knight laughs in huge size*

Benjamin Exton I have player thats total Firbolg, he is 7 ft.

I thought it was just me. I’m 6’2” and my most “famous” characters in the group are halflings and gnomes.

King of the Manlets!

I'm one of the taller players in the group and I consistently play the smallest characters.

Alnilam Orion yeah I whole heartedly agree. I would usually create a character concept first then pick the race with the tropes to match.

I find 5th edition did away with that forced assumption about most races, at least on a mechanical level, since they got rid of the penalties to ability modifiers (well, except to orcs and kobolds ): ). Maybe it's the tables you play at that are the problem, because I haven't really seen that kind of forced assumption at most of the games I've played in.

But the lack of ability score increases in certain stats are a penalty all themselves because of point buy, it means nothing higher than a +2 mod in your primary ability at low levels, that mod also effects how many times certain class features can be used, like Ki points. Playing a Dragonborn monk might be cool but with no dex or wis increases your pretty penalized; a lesser bonus to attack, less damage, lower AC, less Ki points, your saves are down, and your stun DC is lower. Even after 4th level you're forced to take an ASI over a feat unless you want to continue on lacking in all those departments and if you do take an ASI your basically still behind everyone else. Where as if I played a human I could have a 16 in both dex and wis. The end result is your basically behind for 12 levels where as your buddies have a 20 in their primary by 8 leaving your bonus', saves, and damage essentially 4 levels behind. My problem is that non-traditional race/class combos, are inherently less optimal, and that by playing them you're purposefully choosing to make yourself less effective now, and catch up later. Now if you roll stats thats less of an issue because you can roll an 18 at level 1 and play a dragon born monk with an 18 dex or wisdom, and have a nice bumps to your str and chs on top of that. But most tables play with the base rules. Hell I play humans the majorty of the time and we don't allow variant human at our tables. I just like the idea of being a mostly normal person surrounded by all the crazy shit that exists in a D&D world, the implications of that are great RP fodder. I just dislike that there are some specific personality aspects attributed to the demi-human races and that they have set in stone ability increases. Thus I prefer the freedom RP wise and mechanically that humans provide. The idea that Humans are boring is sort of weird to me because unless you're a boring person and sit down and play yourself every game theres no way to be any more boring than any other race. Like how many badass movie characters are human? How many real humans are fucking interesting as hell? I find it easier to slip into a human and RP anything I want. Other races just don't have that same capacity for diversity.

You're right about everything cept the Ki points. They go by Monk Level, (Level 2 you get 2 Ki points, ect...). Attack bonus, damage, AC, saving throws and save DC is spot on, though.

casey hudson I didn't remember what abilities are based on attributes and I've never actually played a monk. I thought it did but I didn't have a book around me at the time

Here's another fallacy from the argument mentioned in your last paragraph. If Humans are boring because _you_ are one, then any other race can only be worse, as it was a piece a fiction sprung from the mind of a... oh that's right, a Human.

@casey hudson Good one, didn't even cross my mind.

Are you guys really that hung on a personal who doesn't want play a human in a game?

But but but...what if Batman WAS an Asian?!?!

Actually, longer lifespans do not necessarily equate to lower birthrate. That tends to be a cultural, not a biological thing :P In fact, if one race almost never grew old or grew old at an extremely slow rate, they would probably outgrow most other races. Remember that we humans lose a lot of our people from aging, whereas elves would maintain their generations, all in tip-top shape. This is especially useful in a violent world where having a large portion of your population combat-able is a great boon... not to mention the economic benefits. The only way humans could outgrow elves was if elves were either almost completely sterile, or had a chronic cultural/social problem discouraging reproduction.

SinerAthin The problem with what you're saying is that Elves are presented as maturing much slower than other races. Instead of 25 years to full maturation, they take upwards of 100. This single aspect would slow reproduction tremendously without even considering the effects of culture.

While it's true longer life spans do necessitate a lower birth rate, there seems to be at least some co-relation in both the real world (rabbits/insects vs humans/elephants) and the fantasy one. Also, I've never read a D&D book where the elf ladies are having scores of babies. I think they may be, as you say, almost completely sterile. I have yet to hear about elven birth control. OMG: Magical birth control charms.....

That seems to vary from fluff to fluff, Ezeck, and depends heavily on the author and universe. On an interesting note: if elves matured physically at a rate proportional to their extended lives, it is likely natural selection would have picked them off long before they ever became established as a specie if they lived in a remotely hostile world. Frankly, I don't think many fantasy authors have taken a course in population statistics, Sean :P On human reproduction, it is actually highly varied as we've seen throughout history. In northern Europe, it was not uncommon for women to have 6-12 children just a few hundred years ago. Whereas now, European reproduction rates have plummeted into a negative and they got a huge median age of the 40s that is rising. This is unlike certain parts of Africa today, where some women have 9 children on average, and with access to way better medicine than 17-19th century Europe, which further increases the effective birth rate. I think a conclusion we can draw from humans is that their reproduction can vary extremely, and much of it is based around variables pertaining to both their environment, ethnic, religion and cultural background and values, to name but a few. Arguably, our physiology allows for a tremendous (potential) growth rate, but how much our potential growth rate we achieve is typically determined by factors not part of our physiology.

SinerAthin We know exactly why all those birth rates vary and can predict population growth and decay with exceptional accuracy now.

Quothcraft in my game I let everyone be whatever they want, but my rule is when u die u have to be a new race and class. Then when they have some close calls they've started looking into what they'd be and start getting really excited about their next character. (Which isn't gnome wizard, human fighter, etc.)

This is actually an interesting observation that coincides with my own experience. A feat at level 1 is a really powerful option. Maybe by giving all races access to a similar variant rule for allowing them to pick a feat at level 1 is the way to go and promote more diverse choices.

Quothcraft you're surprised when you're like 'you can have +2,+1, racial bonuses and a feat at level one' that your players take that instead of +1+1 and a feat?

>blaming power gamers Its an entirely valid way to play. You don't play a character to play a peasant, you play one to be a hero. Maximizing your potential is important to that end. Would you call someone who wanted to play the ultimate defender a power gamer? Someone who intentionally tanks their damage in favor of defending others? What about a strom sorcerer, who wants to play the lightning guy, with the lightning powers. Would you fault him for taking Elemental Mastery to get around level 1 resistances? Or maybe a Blade centric sorcerer who takes War Caster so they can maintain concentration on spells, and use spells if a person runs away from them? Is that person a power gamer for wanting to be capable? Keep in mind, 5e has the beautiful BACKGROUND section that directly establishes your character ISN'T new to adventuring. Most of the backgrounds give players experience. A human variant rogue criminal or urchin has experience with sneaking or surviving on the streets, them taking Skulker or Alert fits. Is that power gaming? Or is that using game mechanics to reflect character development? Will you honestly fault the barbarian who takes GWM at first level so he can be the howling meaty maniac he wants to play? Theres nothing inherently wrong with power gaming. In fact, you really can't complain about it since you handed them +2,+1 *AND* a feat, which is objectively better than +1,+1... Plus, if they were sincerely power gamers they'd have taken that first level feat and gone standard human anyway. +1 to everything can be actually game changing.

Bluecho4 This is pretty much me exactly. And no one has ever accused me of being boring or lacking imagination.

I mean, kobold magic users are not unheard of. Franklt, yhe only really unique thing about my kobold wizard is that he is more curious than his other kin.

They don't have a slow maturation. They reach physical maturity at the same age as humans. They just don't take an adult name until 100.

@Regular Slime Human bias probably; heck that was literally one of the main reasons why demi-humans had certain limits in the original versions

The thought is the true definition of a people person.

That'd be pretty slimy to just kill a character just like that because you rolled some good stats. It's not like there aren't ways around it. I mean, you're about the level to go up against a mind flayer for a difficult encounter, and I bet your INT save isn't all that good. Our party fought one recently, and the monk was stunned for about 3 turns because he couldn't make that save.

casey hudson Yea, Int is only a 10, Chr is 9, 13’s for Con and Str. He isn’t stupid but definitely not the planner in the group. I just killed a Mind Flayer, with the help of the Bard who incapacitated him right before my turn. Lol

Tell me you couldn't make Spartacus (not a myth but you get my point) as a Half-Orc, or Theseus the son of Poseidon as a Water Genasi or Triton. I think don't race has much to do with re-imagining myths.

casey hudson maybe not for you, but personally I prefer to see humans rise above their mortal limits. But that's just me, and the beauty of this game is that we can all play our own way.

Okay fair point, but all races in D&D are mortal right? Though I think there's something to be said about the human swordsman whose surpassed the skill of the Elf who has been the master for 600 years.

casey hudson you've hit the nail on the head.

Subtle reference right there +1.

Not racist if it's true.

Fact of the matter is that humans, exactly because of that first feat, are so versatile that they can play any class in a more viable manner than most other races. They essentially have a subrace for every feat in book and they are one of the 3 best race picks for every class. Look at the newly released Tiefling UA. I'm pretty confident that if they made it into an official publication, we would see a lot more Tieflings as well because suddenly the Tiefling doesn't have to be the warlock of the party.

This seems more of a game balancing issue.

Scrolling down the DnD subreddit and only seeing art of Tieflings, I don't think we need any more per-se. It seems like, just as every party needs a cleric, you can scarely find a party lacking in that one tiefling. Other than that, I'm glad that this is happening.

I've been in probably about 10 different groups in the last 2 years and that has only amounted in 1 tiefling. Granted, I know that's likely a statistical anomaly because though D&D Beyond data, it appears that about 7% of players play tieflings making it the 6th most popular race putting it above for example halfling and gnome but below dragonborn.

Hm... Maybe it's the Reddit audience. I see inordinate amounts of Tieflings-Tieflings-Tieflings in all the art that gets made. (I get ticked off because it seems a way to be the new Drizzt without having people accuse you of being Drizzt; a la Drow) Personally, I've had no Tieflings (only Drow) in my ~4 groups in 3 years either, though I've had only a few long-running groups rather than many short ones. It seems to be something that would be much more popular in the artsy-roleplaying sector of DnD than the more-likely-to-minmax audience, though. (the type that seems to watch this particular channel) Given that Tieflings (as you said) are tied to Warlock, which itself is a class that has great roleplay/edgelord potential but is kind of lackluster when it comes to combat. (actually mechanically not terrible, just annoying af to play)

"Be true to the character you're playing and let your race be secondary". Totally agree, my issue is with choosing human is that you're kinda choosing nothing.

The game far surpassed what he envisioned, and good thing else it wouldn't still exist. I respect my father but when I became an adult my life is about what I envision, not what he does.

@Xaxp varric is a dwarf smooth-faced, American ascent, long range rogue, surface living, who is son of a merchant family is author of several books, and he the most famous and well-loved character of his series, hell he the entire second game of the series is he telling what happened. "Also, having a human grounds things in reality in some way. I feel that if everyone in the party is special, then it makes it feel like nobody is special. Of course, you can expect the elf that has lived and trained for centuries to slay an upstart red dragon. But following a nobody farm kid from bumf*ck nowhere with naught but a sword and a chain shirt to his name feels like a more interesting journey to me." i feel this way with kobolds because they are the most looked down upon race both because of their height which is rather important since they are one of the smallest playable races at range of 2-2 1/2 feet tall. and they are always on the bottom of any social totem pole, often seen as pest or gutter trash or at their very best, servants. and also given their beastly appearance can also expect people to treat them harshly, i.e. at a rural tavern giving them a dog bed or make them eat out of a dog dish or even forcing them to sleep out with the mounts. also, even human farm kid would at least know a few famous adventurers who had the same start, but even world-renowned scholars would have a hard time naming 5 kobolds of note.

I find it far more entertaining to play a class that my race isn't obviously good at, and get good at it anyway. If you can be good at everything, where's the challenge?

very cool. I have elves be the "evil race" in my world like Magician Apprentice Mordrel. They are barbaric too.

Also, elves don't reproduce anywhere near as fast as humans meaning that the human population will increase a lot quicker than the elves causing them to be able to field much bigger militaries and have a much wider variety of people making it much easier to find particularly gifted people.

That's really cool in that, you can essentially "create" the Freezing Sphere, and the Resilient Sphere spells that appear in the phb. Then take out the arcane patent on it, and be the genuine intellectual owner of two spells!

casey hudson that’s the hope, I’ll have to find out a way to role play coming up with them

Michael Autrey but that’s not the proper way of looking at it unless you’re in the situation described in the video where you have all odd stats. Barring that you’re not getting a 6 point benefit, you’re getting a one point benefit to six stats.

You are getting 4 status Points in atributes you won't really use.

Here's the thing, that's 1 feat that won't cost you an ASI. If the feat is integral to the build you're going for, Variant Human helps you come online faster.

Or if they take variant they don't have to waste an ability score increase on a feat.