Making Humans less vanilla in fantasy settings

[Josh_Kablack]

so as not to derail the latest 5e thread:

I'm strongly of the belief that human beings are the number one reason why heroic fantasy settings feel so similar to each other.

Upon reading that, I wondered if one could do something like Barsoom without being crucified as racist in the current day and age?

In Burrough's books the few Earthlings come from a comparatively much heavier gravity than Barsoom and therefore get super-strength. The native race who is human enough to interbreed with earthlings have different skin colors and lay eggs and other nonhuman traits. There are also halfbreed children of John Carter in the later books - who get to be unique in that there are few enough halfbreeds in the setting to be counted on one hand.

Come to think of it, the El Hazard Anime works kind of similar - the people who come from Earth gain superpowers due to the dimensional transit. The natives have wacky racial powers / magic / kung-fu / technology of their own.

So aside from "humans come from another world", what are interesting twists that could potentially make the race unique within a fantasy setting?

[shadzar]

calling them "humans" to begin with brings with it expectations. to remove those expectations, just don't call them humans.

humans are creatures based on earth, the third rock form the sun in the milky way galaxy.

martians (those from the planet mars), could look damn near "humans" and have differences. sadly martian brings with it connotations and expexctations, so jsut name then after the planet you have the thing based in or on. Titan AE, would have Bobites, Bobians, Boblings, whatever....but not earthlings, as it is no longer earth.

so calling something "human", brings with it the limitations we see in ourselves as a race.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Humans are pretty damn tough.

You could always have the humans be super-religious or somesuch. Maybe the humans are ruled by a pope or something. Been done before though.

I personally like "humans are the tech guys". If you look at the myths of all the old supernatural creatures you could kill by nutshotting them with an iron bar, it works.

[Wrathzog]

In Mass Effect, humans were:
very intelligent, abnormally ambitious, highly adaptable, individualistic and thus, unpredictable. They have a powerful desire to advance and improve themselves, and do so with such assertion that the normally staid Council races have been taken aback by their restlessness and relentless curiosity. Their economy, while much smaller than any of the Council races, is very powerful relative to their size, and their military prowess is amongst the greatest in the galaxy, despite the fact that only 3% of humans volunteer for the Alliance military, a far smaller proportion than other races.

I think emphasizing our adaptability and ambition is the right way to go. Also, that we generally excel at Murder as a race.

The native race who is human enough to interbreed with earthlings...

I've always enjoyed the idea that humans could breed with anything given the time and effort. Don't get immersed into the details of how or why, just that it happens.
Maybe that's how Humans get to be the dominant species? By interbreeding with everything else until everything else just gets absorbed into humanity. Almost like an organic Borg.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Uh, I hate to ruin the brainstorming session, but human beings having a surprising amount of willpower, ambitiousness, and inventiveness is a cliche. So are humans having some sort of superpower or potential that native races don't get. In fact these things only enhance the 'vanilla' flavor of the races, since willpower/superpowers from nowhere/ambitiousness/inventiveness just reinforce the whole 'do anything the setting needs you to do' vanillaness.

Moreover, there's still the problem that even if you give humans a specific role the metafiction strongly encourages players to shoehorn them into a vanilla everyman role. You're going to get a shit-ton of 'I know most humans are barbarians/druid that live in tribes but blah blah blah then I stumbled across and arcane academy la la la now I'm a wizard' stories. Which then raises the question as to why you gave humans that particular hat if the reason people picked a human (because there's a really strong trend of them being the go-to self-insert/vanilla everyman race in pretty much every genre ever) rarely matches the generic in-universe feel.

Or in other words, you're going to have the Drizz't/Drow problem where no humans that get played or get meaningful character development in source material actually act like the typical humans in your specific setting. I'd be like trying to make a race that didn't live underground, drink booze, or have beard/axe/hammer fetishes because you found those things annoying... and calling it a dwarf. Except that the human 'everyman'/'Mary Sue that surprises all of the so-called Mary Sue races' tradition is a hell of a lot more entrenched than the dwarven one.

[Gx1080]

And things being cliche is bad because....?

[Archmage]

And things being cliche is bad because....?

I'd think it conflicts with the goal of "less vanilla," to some extent.

[Whipstitch]

Frankly, I'm not a big fan of having my characters be all that defined by where they started life. Your generic self-insert is my blank slate.

[TheWorid]

Moreover, there's still the problem that even if you give humans a specific role the metafiction strongly encourages players to shoehorn them into a vanilla everyman role. You're going to get a shit-ton of 'I know most humans are barbarians/druid that live in tribes but blah blah blah then I stumbled across and arcane academy la la la now I'm a wizard' stories. Which then raises the question as to why you gave humans that particular hat if the reason people picked a human (because there's a really strong trend of them being the go-to self-insert/vanilla everyman race in pretty much every genre ever) rarely matches the generic in-universe feel.

So, in other words, even giving humans a role is pointless because people will make them do other things anyways? Okay, so I guess we just sit back and ignore possibly ever doing anything because someone, somewhere, might make a character that was not stereotypical within the setting as written. If making them cliche is bad, and not making them cliche is also bad in your opinion, then that is hardly constructive.

I sort of like the angle of humans being resilient; really resilient. Not in the sense of being the strong willed race that surprises everyone, but that of being biologically tougher than average. Play up things like intentional consumption of poisons as spices or intoxicants as being not normal among the other races. Have the other races perhaps live longer, but heal more slowly. Adrenaline and other factors giving us excellent pain resistance. That is probably not enough on its own, but good conceptually.

I recall a rather interesting /tg/ thread on the topic a while ago; I wish I could recall more of the ideas mentioned. Something to do with humans being known for their non-evil necromantic empire.

[Seerow]

Or in other words, you're going to have the Drizz't/Drow problem where no humans that get played or get meaningful character development in source material actually act like the typical humans in your specific setting. I'd be like trying to make a race that didn't live underground, drink booze, or have beard/axe/hammer fetishes because you found those things annoying... and calling it a dwarf. Except that the human 'everyman'/'Mary Sue that surprises all of the so-called Mary Sue races' tradition is a hell of a lot more entrenched than the dwarven one.

By this logic giving any race a distinct role in the world or culture is pointless, because players will always do what they want with them anyway.

The point of cultures in game settings isn't to remove options from the player! If the player wants a chaotic evil dwarf rogue who is clean shaven and can't stand booze, he's within his rights to play that. It goes against just about every dwarf stereotype, and people in the game will look at him funny for it, but he can do it.

Players tend to be relatively unique. That's what brings them above the general population and lets them become high level characters. So if the niche for humans is barbarians, and players tend towards clerics/wizards with backstories supporting how they found their way there, more power to them! In the actual setting the actions of one individual, or even a few hundred individuals, means almost nothing.

[Winnah]

Humans are often portayed in fantasy as the younger race, lacking the wisdom, experience and maturity of other races. That trope needs some serious subversion. Make humanity the ancients. Then the gods learned from their mistakes and made Orcs.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, in other words, even giving humans a role is pointless because people will make them do other things anyways? Okay, so I guess we just sit back and ignore possibly ever doing anything because someone, somewhere, might make a character that was not stereotypical within the setting as written. If making them cliche is bad, and not making them cliche is also bad in your opinion, then that is hardly constructive.

Okay, do you know why human beings are the vanilla everyman race so goddamn often in fiction and why it's so rare for them to wear a non-generic Hat--let along let someone else be the vanilla everyman?

• When confronted with the unknown, people default to what they know. If you're a newcomer to a TTRPG, playing a human is the 'safe' race because you know what they eat, how they live, how they talk, etc.. Moreover, people are more familiar with the concept of 'Wizard' or 'Action Hero With A Sword' than 'Dwarf'. If someone wants to play a wizard but doesn't like any of the non-human racial palette, they're going to pick a human or the closest thing to it--THEN comes the shoehorning/theme ignoring because what they really want to play is 'Wizard' not 'Plains Barbarian'.
• Human beings are the default self-insert race. People often have fantasies of them or a personality they want banging bitches, killing dragons, hauling treasure, raising a ruckus, etc.. But because nearly everyone that plays D&D is a human being, the self-insert... ends up being a human.
• People like porting over characters from other campaigns, who are often human beings. And in this case it's much easier to subtly teleport Sephiroth away from the desert slums into some kind of sword-based research facility than it is to get over the fact that a race that DOES fit his concept better is 4 feet tall and has rabbit ears.
• Human beings have a tendency towards defining things in relation to the human experience. Halflings are 'short' not 'human beings and elves are tall'. Half-orcs are reknowned for their strength and lack of intelligence even though an ogre mage eclipses the half-orc and human by more orders of magnitude. Etc. etc.
  
  This creates a problem when you're trying to define a fantastical setting, because you're seeing so many more things through human eyes than you would through, say, a detective novel. It's unavoidable of course but it magnifies the NEXT problem. So keep it in mind as:
• Human beings are prejudiced towards boosting humans. Yes, we're all very annoyed with stories about Immortal Elves who live better than you, smell better than you, and fuck better than you. But you know what? People do this kind of shit all of the time with human beings as well, even when it doesn't make any kind of goddamn sense (like human beings in Mass Effect having more genetic diversity--WTF?) so this leads towards people making human beings a Mary Sue race either overtly or subtly. So if you want someone totally frickin' awesome in a multi-racial coalition? Chances are... it's a human being.
  
  This cuts both ways even if there is an objectively superior species. People just can't resist the urge to root for the underdog so even if human beings are a below-average race genetics wise they use some kind of vague undefined kludge of inventiveness/willpower/curiousity/recklessly to show that they can still win the day! Which was interesting the first time but come the fuck on. I'm tired of that shit.

THIS is what you're going to be up against when you have humans in your campaign setting, from both game designers and the players. And it's a problem that pervades almost all of fiction. You might be able to buck the trend and create a human race in a setting that doesn't persistently fall into one of the above pitfalls, but I seriously doubt it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The point of cultures in game settings isn't to remove options from the player! If the player wants a chaotic evil dwarf rogue who is clean shaven and can't stand booze, he's within his rights to play that. It goes against just about every dwarf stereotype, and people in the game will look at him funny for it, but he can do it.

The problem is that people don't want human beings to be defined in any way. A dwarf that shaves, doesn't drink booze, etc.. bucks the trend of dwarfliness, but he's still a strongly defined character. People who buck a specific archetype just so that they can create or springboard off of a vague everyman character are much harder to deal with.

[Mask_De_H]

Lago, seeing things through human eyes and with human ideas is going to happen regardless, because those playing the game are humans instead of, say, Giant Frog. If there aren't humans, people are going to find the closest thing to humans and consider them "humans but X".

[shadzar]

again, if you are not using the thing FOR its namesake, why use its name?

a sober shaven dwarf does not resemble a dwarf.

Kakarot/Goku wasnt human but fit in with them.

Tanis wasn't human but fit in with them.

why use a word, if you arent using it for its meaning?

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, see, I'm familiar with all that stuff you said about why people play human characters, I just don't see it as a problem or think that it is really possible or even all that desirable to ditch all the cliches during a session of D&D. I am totally okay with some of the PCs being defined more by their role within the group than by their cultural starting point, particularly since non-human races are often portrayed as damn near being mono-cultures and thus being highly susceptible to cliches of their own.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I am totally okay with some of the PCs being defined more by their role within the group than by their cultural starting point, particularly since non-human races are often portrayed as damn near being mono-cultures and thus being highly susceptible to cliches of their own.

Then having humans just reinforces the problem, because instead of a PC going 'none of these cultures have things that fit my character desire enough, I'm going to hammer and brainstorm until I get a story that does' they just retreat for the safe, vanilla race that says that it's okay to not have a hat because their hat is being hatless. You don't even get the Drizz't story, you just get pablum.

If there aren't humans, people are going to find the closest thing to humans and consider them "humans but X".

Hence why you also need to make their degree of humanity close enough to each other but differ in various ways. Even in D&D if you banned humans and forced someone to play one of elf/dwarf/dragonborn/eladrin halfling/tiefling (but NOT half-elf) you're probably, discounting mechanics, are going to get a fairly even spread.

[Gx1080]

While "no humans" is a rather extreme solution and people defaulting to humans isn't the end of the world, after thinking on what excessive Humanity fuck yeah can do to a setting and to a game (modern 40k, with 6/9 of the good codexes being Space Marine variants and the Mary Sue Kalgor Draigo), I have to admit that Lago has a point.

[Whipstitch]

As someone who did most of their D&D gaming with pick up groups in college or running the occasional game for my brother's band I must say that I'm frankly not that interested in throwing up a "Must be this creative to ride" sign. If the adventures that happen to the character in play are the most interesting thing that happens in that PC's life I am OK with that, so having an easy out race that merely avoids running counter to the setting hits me as less onerous than insisting that the bassist must choose a race with scales or pointy ears even if he really hates that shit.

[PhoneLobster]

... is a cliche...

That doesn't automatically make it bad, but I admit the second some dumb fan boy started off with 'In Mass Effect Humans..." I growned, and not just because I hate Mass Effect as a dull uncreative cliche ridden derivative piece of shit that it is, but indeed because I knew what would come after that in that sentence (because mass effect is so predictably lame) and didn't like it (because it was predictably lame).

Mind you the thing where you then go on to say people will defy your stereotype is stupid of course. And thats about all the mention that deserves.

So anyway there are some other human traits you could pull off.

Humans Suck
Actually humans ARE the boring vanilla race. They ARE the jacks of all trades. But in this variation that DOESN'T make them awesome, it makes them the "Masters of None" and EVERYONE kicks their ass within specialty fields and everyone wonders why they keep humans around at all. Humans are threatened economically, socially and physically, they are a threatened species and they really ARE underdogs. They get sympathy interest as a species purely by being underdogs. And they suck as PCs, so maybe a bad idea for an actual game, unless you are prepared to give up on humans as PCs since players rarely want to play as humans ANYWAY.

Humans are brutal savages
Almost as cliche as our "all round awesomeness" thing. But slightly more interesting with it's filthy violent barbarian aspect. Everyone wants human mercenaries. And Orcs feel a bit miffed, but fuck it, screw orcs, they are even less popular and more cliched than humans anyway.

Earth Girls Are Easy
Humans are good at something. Producing sexy sexy busty girl humans. Human, and maybe half human, girls are the sexiest thing in town. (I mean sure maybe there are even hotter Nymphs or Succubi, but they are rare and somewhat powerful, while human girls breed like rabbits and have the ability to fight off superior demi-humans that is also similar to a rabbit's) All the elves and dwarfs want to kidnap a human concubine or 100, and all the orcs and tentacled terrors want to devour the tender flesh of human maidens. Humans are constantly under siege as they fight off constant waves of non-humans with no special powers other than the best factory outlet bulk supply of boobies in the universe. If they weren't breeding so fast what with that bottomless supply of abnormally attractive human girls they would long since have gone extinct. And if everyone didn't know that "free range" human girls were better they would long since have been properly domesticated in demi-human captivity, and indeed probably large percentages of the human population ARE even despite the popularity of the wild game version.

Humans Aren't In The Old Boys Club
Run with the David Brin uplift variant here. Everyone else is in the awesome club, they've long ago all found their specialties and developed awesome powers (or rather, technologies). Humans didn't get the invite the day the awesome tech and civilization specialties were being handed out... and they completely missed out, rocking up thousands of years late to the party without an invite and with nothing much to offer anyone other than a bit of a surprise and some mild offense. Human tech/powers are second rate home made hodge podge that may have some minor advantages here or there and because humans actually know how their own tech works, but the aliens all just go to their alien specialist friends for each of their tech needs and no one but the Toaster Oven race even knows how the hell Toaster Ovens are made, but the Toaster Ovens are AWESOME to the point of being beyond human understanding. This is sort of a variant of the "humans really suck" angle, except since it's largely about technological gaps being a human in this setting is to a large extent about struggling with an equipment gap and then trying to steal everyone else's cool items and item making secrets. edit: Also if the Refrigerator Race needs to secretly stock up on Toaster Ovens without the knowledge of the Toaster Oven race or their allies the Comfy Chair alliance, then they COULD make a shady bargain for some second rate human toaster ovens, and it's not like the humans won't be forced to give them VERY favorable exchange rates for their superior alien refrigerators. Hell those foolish naive humans will think the Refrigerator Race is doing them a favor, even as they are being framed.

Humans are the Humans from Guyver
Humans turn out to be the base stock of all the other races. It isn't just that elves and dwarfs were BRED from humans (another fine option), it's actually the case that humans are sort of a mature larval stage thingy a bit like an Axolotl. Pretty much every single humanoid monster in the world (and maybe some of the less humanoid ones) used to personally BE a human before their metamorphosis into a Gregole or whatever, maybe they can even cosmetically turn back to pull the full shirt ripping werewolf routine. Players pick the human race because it is compulsory, then they pretty much always turn into a monster as part of their character advancement or find themselves a Guyver unit, which may as well be the same thing really.

What Non-Humans?
Screw you, why do you need non-humans again? You want to be an elf. You can just be a gay human. You want to be a dwarf? You can just be a hairy gay human. You want to be a Gnome? You are a short, also gay human. You want to be a halfling? You are a short AND hairy, but still alarmingly gay, human. You can do this literally and just not do other humanoid races for a setting, because really you don't need them, and they are sorta silly. Or you can do this mechanically and just not give out mechanical racial differences for elves, dwarfs, or orcs and have everyone mechanically identical to human as long as they are, let's face it, close enough to physically identical. You don't get funky mechanical racial powers until you have four arms, wings, or gills. And those may or may not exist in the setting.

Humans are Space Dragons
There are legends among the races of the largely cold and icy universe of a deadly and unique race from the blazing hot inner worlds of a distant sun that would be uninhabitable by normal life forms. They are fast moving, short lived, brutally violent, always hungry and angry due to their boiling metabolisms, so hot they not only CAN drink LIQUID water in order to survive, but MUST, and indeed the burning hot stuff spurts out of their bodies when they are injured. They are infested with countless deadly parasites and microbes from the disease ridden tropical swamp worlds they call home and they are masters of mysterious technologies that heat things up and make things explode, often as a byproduct of whatever else the technology is supposed to do. They rarely venture to the civilized cold worlds of the majority of the universes' races, but when they do it is impossible to tell whether or not it is a scouting mission, a diplomatic mission or a military invasion, they seem to end up melting and exploding everything they come into contact with regardless.

[Fuchs]

I don't see anything wrong with humans at all. There can be enough variety just from different cultural backgrounds, I don't see any need to push humans in a special role.

And a game where a human is a good choice for every role is a better game than one where I have to play an elf if I want to be a good wizard or archer, and a swarf if I want to be a good axe fighter.

[PhoneLobster]

And a game where a human is a good choice for every role is a better game than one where I have to play an elf if I want to be a good wizard or archer, and a swarf if I want to be a good axe fighter.

As an extension to that the same should be said of a elfs and "swarfs". Which pushes towards the mechanical version of "what non-humans". PCs are SUPPOSED to be the exceptional mary sue characters regardless of being human or not, and that should go for the Elf axe fighters and the "swarf" archers as well as the humans. Which is one of the many reasons non-customizable class synergy racial traits are bad news.

[Fuchs]

Yeah. Races should be a fluff choice for PCs. Something you add so your sword dancer has pointy ears, not something you pick so you can play a sword dancer.

[icyshadowlord]

What Non-Humans?
Screw you, why do you need non-humans again? You want to be an elf. You can just be a gay human. You want to be a dwarf? You can just be a hairy gay human. You want to be a Gnome? You are a short, also gay human. You want to be a halfling? You are a short AND hairy, but still alarmingly gay, human. You can do this literally and just not do other humanoid races for a setting, because really you don't need them, and they are sorta silly. Or you can do this mechanically and just not give out mechanical racial differences for elves, dwarfs, or orcs and have everyone mechanically identical to human as long as they are, let's face it, close enough to physically identical. You don't get funky mechanical racial powers until you have four arms, wings, or gills. And those may or may not exist in the setting.

A friend of mine (one of the players in my campaign) had used this excuse once to block off my homebrews. I HATE people using this in their fantasy works, because MY reason for almost never wanting to play a Human in D&D is because I have gotten fed up playing a Human in almost EVERY damned game or RPG ever (and because I love making my own races and giving them both slight stereotypes AND a broad range of other options in building up who and what they exactly are). It's also why I started World of Warcraft playing an Orc. It was different from playing a Human, and for once I got to stab (or slash) those stupid Mary Sue archetypes in the face.

Edits to fix typos.

[Psychic Robot]

just make different subspecies of humanoids that have pronounced physical features and varying cultures and give them special abilities