Your elves, dwarves, halflings or others... when you run them, do you run them as just basically humans with pointy ears or height issues and a different culture? Or do you specifically make their behaviors non-human?

They are absolutely plaid differently and the inter actions between different races are highlighted.

One of my PCs is a high elf. Upon entering the human village the guards are awesome and scared like a glowing beutiful angel walks in thier midst. Word goes out and towns people gather to see. Usually the player can key off things like that and play up the other world Fey origins of their character.

Thursday night we did a two hour session with no attack rolls or spells cast as the party tried to get smuggle themselves or someone else past some guards
 The Half-Orc had a very different experience than the High Elf....

That sort of thing

I have trouble even thinking of what behaviors might make them specifically non-human, so I guess I usually play them as distinct cultures with some biologically reinforced differences based primarily on longevity, low birth rates, and not sleeping/dreaming (if applicable). The rest is cultural baggage, sometimes with traits heightened to the point where they might be considered minor mental illnesses in humans (such as subterranean dwarves being fearful of "unpredictable" surface weather, or elves that get unsettled in crowds).

Bemusingly I rarely play a non-human.

As a DM I usually just let the players play the demi races as they may as lets be honest. Being relatively human-like they arent aliens. They are though usually culturally different and may have different outlooks or focuses. Or not. And theres allmost certainly alot of crossing the streams going on as all these races are fully able to do whatever they please.

Elf wants to be a miner and dig gems? Nothing stopping them.
Halfling wants to live in the harsh wilderness as far removed from comfort at one can safely get? Nothing stopping them.
Dwarf wants to be a florist? Probably bansai. :cool:
and so on.
Lifespans and mental differences will be a possible point. Depends on how each race looks at these things or deals with them. Elves have really long life spans but dont really advance much. Dwarves live fairly long but are often also very focused. Halflings just kinda are there living the good life and seem unconcerned with advancing either on a general whole.

Of course every DM and player will have their own ideas and approaches which is perfectly fine as long as they dont go overboard or get pedantic.

And as noted in an older thread you can spice up (no pun intended) any culture by giving them their own special cuisines. Elven recipies might feature alot of different salad dressings. Dwarves might favour pastas and various meat sauces. Halflings might lean to spicy foods.

Or each culture could have their own distinctive passtimes and board games. Elves might play something like Go or Shogi. Dwarves might play board games akin to Monopoly. Halflings might play dice or card games. And so on there too.

I make a big deal about making non-humans...not human.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1051586I make a big deal about making non-humans...not human.

How? Serious question.

Yes, and so does everyone else.  No one can do truly alien mindsets, because we simply cannot comprehend anything outside of what we consider a paradigm until we meet something truly alien.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1051565Your elves, dwarves, halflings or others... when you run them, do you run them as just basically humans with pointy ears or height issues and a different culture? Or do you specifically make their behaviors non-human?

Demi-human seems to me to indicate that while they're not fully human, they're human-like. I play them as different culture, but not completely alien. I find that too alien kind of approach has the danger of getting into silly territory, where say (completely made up example) an elf tries to talk to a baby like an adult because elves are hatched out of pods and have no concept of childhood. That kind of thing is amusing... once. Then it gets tiresome.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1051588Yes, and so does everyone else.  No one can do truly alien mindsets, because we simply cannot comprehend anything outside of what we consider a paradigm until we meet something truly alien.

People can try, but yeah, it's glaring to try to come up with a truly alien, alien. Even the strangest sci-fi aliens tend to be based on some human notion of what would be alien to us.

I try to make my demi-humans distinct tomy humans. However there is only so much I can do, being human and never having met an elf, dwarf, halfling, goblin, etc.

I enjoy using some differences, but I'm a minimalist GM by nature (on most things, not merely race portrayal).  That is, I'd rather have other races as different cultures (and multiple such cultures for each race), and then use something distinct to make them stick out as non-human, rather than make them completely alien.  Though this varies by campaign, too.  

For example, in my current campaign, halflings and most elves are magically altered humans. Whereas the "high elves" are the actual, strange elves.  I went for an alien feel not by spelling out the differences, but making them extremely xenophobic and secretive.  The rare high elf player is somewhat of an outcast, and doesn't know their deepest secrets.  With the dwarves, the "deep dwarves" rarely come out of their caves.  Many dwarves find this claustrophobic, and reject that society.  From them, player characters are drawn.  The practical effect is that dwarves and high elves are different even to the players of those characters.  (It's a campaign secret, barely even hinted at yet, but one of the reasons that high elves and deep dwarves get along, is that they kill anyone that even tries to reveal their mysteries, including their own rebel kin.  It's also why they are quite happy for malcontents to identify themselves early, before being exposed to the mysteries, and thus exiling themselves before they are killed.  They know that they need a buffer that gets along with other races. So there is mutual respect of privacy and of constancy of purpose.  It's deliberately a little darkly utilitarian to modern sensibilities.)

I've also done campaigns with various "magical genetic" connections that explained the oddness, such as one with "peoples of the woods" and "peoples of the earth" (and also sky and sea).  Elves seemed odd to everyone else, because all the "peoples of the woods"--goblin, troll, elves, etc. in that campaign--shared affinities and banes.  But that was deliberately designed to create tension among the various players in the party, rather than going for alien mindsets.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1051588Yes, and so does everyone else.  No one can do truly alien mindsets, because we simply cannot comprehend anything outside of what we consider a paradigm until we meet something truly alien.

You are a ridiculously limited human being.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1052210You are a ridiculously limited human being.

Not really.  Most people play other 'races' like Dwarves and Elves et al. as a mishmash of real world cultures, of which there are a myriad of.  But they're still based, however loosely, off human cultures.

The question put forth is very silly in its implication, so the better question to ask is:

What are your favourite cultural aspects do you like to put in your Elves and Dwarves and everything else?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1051565Your elves, dwarves, halflings or others... when you run them, do you run them as just basically humans with pointy ears or height issues and a different culture? Or do you specifically make their behaviors non-human?

I play them as people.

By that, I mean that I play them in much the same way as I play humans, as they have a lot of the same motivations and emotions. However, I play up the unhuman parts when necessary but not all the time.

So, if I played a Half-Orc, then I would play up the bestial/violent stuff occasionally, perhaps by being savage in combat or by killing prisoners, but wouldn't be ultra-violent all the time.

The problem with inhumans in D&D, however, is that they are usually portrayed as being like humans, so it is hard to play them in other ways. It is a lot easier in other settings, such as Glorantha, where inhumans are given different cultures and roleplayig them is a lot easier.