D&D 5E Humanocentric Campaigns

[Sunseeker]

Humans are pretty darn versatile in 5E and I have no need to run additional races in my humanocentric worlds. Sometimes those races exist, but are unplayable for lore reasons. For races that don't have sub-races, then yes, I create racial variants when I run worlds centered around them, but not humans and especially not in this edition.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I much prefer humanocentric campaigns. I try and have all my campaigns this way, but only succeed half the time. Players like to play non-humans for the differences in "stuff they get" moreso than "because they're different and it will be fun". I hate characters that are just "humans in funny suits". I currently have one in my 5e game. I can get behind the character concept and even the insanely epic background story, but I can't get behind the "...but I look totally human" BS.

Anyway, in all my D&D worlds, humans rule the world. Everything is humanocentric. This way, the things that aren't human-based actually seem wonderful, interesting and different. At least, to the general population. PC's? Well, they're "adventurers", so they're all wierdos anyway.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Salamandyr]

Wow, I haven't been back to Enworld in a couple days; didn't realize I was getting feedback.

I'll admit to an ulterior motive on this. I'd been using inherent bonuses to fix the math going back to 3e, and found it frustrating nobody else did. Suddenly in 4e, WOTC puts in a book and suddenly campaigns were doing that all over.

I would really like to see some official support for re-skinning races, because WOTC is going to continue to wrap mechanical packages that are really interesting and fun (and not to mention synergize perfectly with the class I or my players want to play) inside a physical and cultural package I have no interest in roleplaying (or designing campaigns to include); Of course in my home game (when I'm running it) I can do whatever I want. But it'd be cool to have other people doing it too, so I could play in those games.

 

[redrick]

Wow, I haven't been back to Enworld in a couple days; didn't realize I was getting feedback.

I'll admit to an ulterior motive on this. I'd been using inherent bonuses to fix the math going back to 3e, and found it frustrating nobody else did. Suddenly in 4e, WOTC puts in a book and suddenly campaigns were doing that all over.

I would really like to see some official support for re-skinning races, because WOTC is going to continue to wrap mechanical packages that are really interesting and fun (and not to mention synergize perfectly with the class I or my players want to play) inside a physical and cultural package I have no interest in roleplaying (or designing campaigns to include); Of course in my home game (when I'm running it) I can do whatever I want. But it'd be cool to have other people doing it too, so I could play in those games.

I think this makes sense. If you like to play a game where the various mechanical class benefits are interesting to you and the other players, but you don't actually have any interest in actually role-playing different species, why shouldn't you run a game where characters are actually allowed to play Elves in human-suits? I have frequently sat with players who started with the class concept that they wanted, and then started going through the various races to choose which one would best suit that class mechanically. Sometimes, they then take the flavor that comes with that, but other times, they really don't. So if everybody at your table feels that way, and if the GM just wants to run a world with little to no demi-human races, that seems fine by me.

Personally, I like going for the role-play concept first and then taking the mechanical benefits and limitations that come with that. But I've played with a lot of delightful people who don't feel that way.

As for support from WOTC, I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind? An Unearthed Arcana article where they've created 12 human cultures mapped to the various species and subspecies?