I don't see the appeal.

My games usually go to level 10 or so.

If you want to encourage humans give them an ability boost or something else.

I can't say that it ever much registered as a pro or a con for us.  Except when we played pre-generated characters for a module (where leveling is not even a concern anyway), everyone who played in our groups almost always played a demi-human for the multi-class options.  There was the rare dwarven fighter played straight, and most of our thieves were halfings (already unlimited).  Everything else was getting hit with the spread out XP slowdown from the multi-class, which was the "real" cost to us of playing a demi-human.

So in practice, we'd have needed the campaign to go quite a ways past name levels for the humans before we'd have hit the limits on demi-humans.  We did have a few campaigns that started at 7th level and went up into the 11-14 range, but didn't spend enough time at the upper end to make the racial limitations felt.

Quote from: David Johansen on June 26, 2024, 07:51:14 AMThe level limits got softened in Unearthed Arcanna and again in second edition.  What with tripple classing it probably isn't really a huge issue.  A long term campaign power cap doesn't make sense outside the context of a long term campaign so it seems like a weird design choice.  Personally humans should get something.  I like the +1 to every stat in fifth edition but that's likely too powerful for first.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 25, 2024, 10:55:45 PMI've gone with the idea of Soft Level Caps. When a Demi-Human reaches said level, they must pay more to advance than Men: 50% for a single class, 100% for 2 multi-class and 150% for a triple multi-class. I also scrapped the 'Everyone can level unlimited as a Thief'. Only Halflings do so. Dwarves and High Elves get Fighter instead. Grey Elves get Mages. Wood Elves get Druid. Gnomes get Illusionists.

I agree more with David Johansen. It's better to bake in some initial human boost. The problem with level limits as a balancing factor is that it crucially depends on the timing of the campaign. Like, I remember playing with my friends for the summer after my freshman year, and level limits were irrelevant. But if we're playing a game to last for many years, then even a soft level limit could be prohibitive.

And as a game world feature, it never made sense to me that other races would be identical to humans up to a certain point, but then suddenly stop and be unable to get any better.

Adding do that, the part that I found really weird was the different level limits for NPCs. There are dwarven clerics and halfling druids, but players aren't allowed to play them. That stood out to me as questioning what the level limits were all about.

Quote from: Osman Gazi on June 25, 2024, 03:37:03 PMIf the caps are rarely approached, then it seems as though they're merely theoretical and don't address the problem Gary was trying to address--namely, if the players rarely survive to the higher levels, then they never have to fear the downsides of being non-human and so you still have the incentive to only play non-human races (at least regarding this rule).

You'd maybe think that...but in actual play it tends to make a real difference, especially if you want to have rangers or paladins or illusionists in your party. Not to mention, knowing your half-orc has a cap of level 2 cleric spells, even if you only expect the game to hit 5-6th level max, is quite the deterrent. For all the teeth gnashing about this sort of thing, I'd say well over half of all AD&D characters I've ever seen were human, and the others were usually some sort of thief or MU multi-class. If you wanted a straight fighter, human is the only way to go; if no one wants to be a thief, you play a dwarf fighter-thief or an elf thief-MU. I can't ever remember anyone ever playing a non-multi demihuman in any AD&D game except for a half-elf bard, but that may not even count.

Somebody upthread mentioned baking in a bonus for humans at character creation.  Castles & Crusades solves this by giving humans and extra prime attribute, meaning all their saves and checks are better in three categories rather than two.  This can have a significant impact on the game.

Quote from: Mishihari on June 25, 2024, 03:30:29 PMI think I recall reading that Gary thought that if demihumans were all around better than humans, then they would be dominant in the setting.  He wanted humans to be primary hence the limits.

I can say that when I was doing RPGA play, you could always spot a munchkin group from the high number of elf characters the twinks adored.

Quote from: David Johansen on June 26, 2024, 09:39:05 AMOr, you know?  If you want more people to play humans you could throw them a bone or something.

Like unlimited levelling? And I believe only humans could dual class. They got a few other soft perks. Like a few classes only humans could qualify for.

Quote from: Omega on June 26, 2024, 07:37:29 PMLike unlimited levelling? And I believe only humans could dual class. They got a few other soft perks. Like a few classes only humans could qualify for.

There are two ways to approach AD&D (and B/X to a bit lesser extent) if you're using some sort of ability score assignment instead of just rolling:

1) Put your lowest roll into CHA and optimize STR/DEX/whatever. Hope the DM will run the game purely as a combat-oriented slugfest with absolutely nothing outside of killing orcs and taking their stuff.

2) Realize CHA is the most important stat and put a good score here, get a bunch of henchmen, rule the world.

If you're playing #1, and the DM is a boring rube, then humans suck. If you're playing #2 and the DM actually runs the game in a logical way, humans are easily the best choice. Human PCs can pretty much go anywhere without being faced with outright racism and hatred. An orc tribe will kill elves and dwarves on sight; they might actually try to make a deal with humans.

But of course, roleplaying doesn't exist in AD&D per modern sentiments because there aren't any mechanics to handle this. God forbid you expect players to play instead of just rolling dice.

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2024, 09:30:06 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 26, 2024, 07:37:29 PMLike unlimited levelling? And I believe only humans could dual class. They got a few other soft perks. Like a few classes only humans could qualify for.

There are two ways to approach AD&D (and B/X to a bit lesser extent) if you're using some sort of ability score assignment instead of just rolling:

1) Put your lowest roll into CHA and optimize STR/DEX/whatever. Hope the DM will run the game purely as a combat-oriented slugfest with absolutely nothing outside of killing orcs and taking their stuff.

2) Realize CHA is the most important stat and put a good score here, get a bunch of henchmen, rule the world.

If you're playing #1, and the DM is a boring rube, then humans suck. If you're playing #2 and the DM actually runs the game in a logical way, humans are easily the best choice. Human PCs can pretty much go anywhere without being faced with outright racism and hatred. An orc tribe will kill elves and dwarves on sight; they might actually try to make a deal with humans.

But of course, roleplaying doesn't exist in AD&D per modern sentiments because there aren't any mechanics to handle this. God forbid you expect players to play instead of just rolling dice.

Greetings!

Absolutely, Brad!

Very nice analysis.

Humans always *rock* Hell, in my Thandor world, Humans absolutely dominate--through levers and advantages that have absolutely *nothing* to do with ability stats or mechanics--but have everything to do with Human nature, history, breeding, and the "Will To Power." Humans are devoted to breeding, conquest, wealth, and dominion.

That means that every other humanoid race--and most monstrous races--are on the short egg-timer to oblivion. They had best figure out a way to be on the Human's good side, or they probably won't last long. Or they are ruthlessly hunted down, and shoved to the margins of existence.

My players that play Humans always love these harsh realities, these relentless, unforgiving dynamics. My players that really love playing Demi-Humans, well, yeah, they lament how their characters and their entire societies are always, somehow, living in the shadow of one Human empire or another. In a grim kind of calculus, for all of the strength of the hordes of Orcs, for example, they too, know deep down that these dynamics are true. If the Orcs, or the whoever, is to survive and dominate, Human kingdoms and Humans themselves must be crushed.

Being Human in a fantasy world should always have immense advantages. Again though, these advantages are historical, political, social, and economic, and have very little connection to ability stats or game mechanics. Some people, and some DM's unfortunately, cannot seem to grasp these ideas though. Thus, the obsession with some laughably minor stat bonuses or petty racial abilities--always without ever really seeing the "Big Picture."

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2024, 09:30:06 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 26, 2024, 07:37:29 PMLike unlimited levelling? And I believe only humans could dual class. They got a few other soft perks. Like a few classes only humans could qualify for.

There are two ways to approach AD&D (and B/X to a bit lesser extent) if you're using some sort of ability score assignment instead of just rolling:

1) Put your lowest roll into CHA and optimize STR/DEX/whatever. Hope the DM will run the game purely as a combat-oriented slugfest with absolutely nothing outside of killing orcs and taking their stuff.

2) Realize CHA is the most important stat and put a good score here, get a bunch of henchmen, rule the world.

If you're playing #1, and the DM is a boring rube, then humans suck. If you're playing #2 and the DM actually runs the game in a logical way, humans are easily the best choice. Human PCs can pretty much go anywhere without being faced with outright racism and hatred. An orc tribe will kill elves and dwarves on sight; they might actually try to make a deal with humans.

But of course, roleplaying doesn't exist in AD&D per modern sentiments because there aren't any mechanics to handle this. God forbid you expect players to play instead of just rolling dice.

Yep.  The more mechanics in a system, the more likely the players are to fall into "roll-playing", I've found.  As D&D has gotten denser (and more and more people are coming from video games), the roleplaying is suffering...

Well, video games are, in fact, a thing. So it is what it is.

There are a lot of elements of TSR era D&D which seemed like a good idea at the time and have since become sacred cows. Racial limits on class levels is one of them.

I understand why, in the context of TSR era D&D and how it's balanced, Gary's desire to have humans be the prominent race, and Gary's desire to have the rules of the world support that outcome, this is a "good" idea.

That's why I abandoned TSR D&D and have no intention of ever playing it again. It was great at the time. Truly magnificent. That time was several decades ago.

I mostly play humans, and sometimes it does irk me that everyone in the group is non-human. But I also understand why a group of 4-6 humans playing a fantasy elf game sit down and want to play something other than a human. Gary trying to rig the game so that they all picked humans anyway just never sat well with me.

I don't mind the class restrictions or level limits, but if it's an issue for your table, either give humans a bonus to XP earned or the demihumans a penalty (or just recalculate the number of XP required).

I guess it depends how quickly you want leveling to be to figure out which approach is the right one for your game.

For a mechanic to impose setting constraints on race selection, I still love the Dragon Quest method:  Every non-human race has a percentage chance you have to hit to qualify.  Even the more common ones like elves and dwarves are set in the 20% to 30% range, with everything else lower.  You get 3 chances to qualify for a non-human race.  Fail them all, you are human.  You can always pick human if you don't want to use some or all of your chances.  For example, you might try for elf, fail.  Then try for dwarf, fail.  Then pick human because you don't want to try anything else.

What makes that work really well is that a player must assign all ability scores before rolling for race.  So in fact, setting your scores to work well for elf, dwarf, and human isn't really possible. 

Then the non-human races also have XP penalties (depending on how mechanically good the race is).  So the percentage thing is strictly a setting thing, not a balance mechanism.  Which means you can tweak the percentages to fit your own setting, with no other changes needed to make it work.

It's simple to understand (unlike some other things in DQ, alas) and does exactly what it sets out to do--make humans be about 2/3rds of the characters, give a take a small fraction.  As a side effect, it makes it much harder to power game ability score and race combos--unless you know you are playing human.  Which truly does make human characters "more flexible" in the game.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on June 27, 2024, 10:20:07 AM

Quote from: Brad on June 27, 2024, 09:30:06 AM

Quote from: Omega on June 26, 2024, 07:37:29 PMLike unlimited levelling? And I believe only humans could dual class. They got a few other soft perks. Like a few classes only humans could qualify for.

There are two ways to approach AD&D (and B/X to a bit lesser extent) if you're using some sort of ability score assignment instead of just rolling:

1) Put your lowest roll into CHA and optimize STR/DEX/whatever. Hope the DM will run the game purely as a combat-oriented slugfest with absolutely nothing outside of killing orcs and taking their stuff.

2) Realize CHA is the most important stat and put a good score here, get a bunch of henchmen, rule the world.

If you're playing #1, and the DM is a boring rube, then humans suck. If you're playing #2 and the DM actually runs the game in a logical way, humans are easily the best choice. Human PCs can pretty much go anywhere without being faced with outright racism and hatred. An orc tribe will kill elves and dwarves on sight; they might actually try to make a deal with humans.

But of course, roleplaying doesn't exist in AD&D per modern sentiments because there aren't any mechanics to handle this. God forbid you expect players to play instead of just rolling dice.

Yep.  The more mechanics in a system, the more likely the players are to fall into "roll-playing", I've found.  As D&D has gotten denser (and more and more people are coming from video games), the roleplaying is suffering...

Emphasis mine.

There seems to be some confusion here, if I may say so.

AD&D does have PLENTY of role-playing mechanics including DETAILED penalties from hiring people from other alignments/races (see page 238 and 240 of DMG for example).

AD&D in general is not a great example of a game with "few mechanics" (B/X might be). It also contains lots of mechanics that are usually ignored by most tables (e.g. weapon versus armor), and even Gygax disavowed IIRC.

In fact, I think that EXCLUDING/DOWNPLAYING some important AD&D mechanics (especially reaction, morale, loyalty, etc.) in WotC versions is what you seem to be complaining about, and I agree, even tough I usually prefer games that are a lot leaner than AD&D.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 27, 2024, 02:21:07 PM]
AD&D does have PLENTY of role-playing mechanics including DETAILED penalties from hiring people from other alignments/races (see page 238 and 240 of DMG for example).

These mechanics have absolutely nothing to do with roleplaying and are completely the purview of the DM. The players have no need to know these bonuses/penalties even exist. Further, they are there as a mechanism to assist fledgling DMs with honing their craft; it is obvious Gygax, coming from a wargaming background, included a lot of stuff like this because it makes sense for helping referees learn the game, but he'd be the first one to throw out anything that resulted in illogical results.

I know we're not here to fucking litigate AD&D (again), but the modern lens used to view older RPGs is annoying as hell. WotC versions of D&D went full retard; that has nothing to do with reasonable DMs in the past actually running reasonable games based on, hey, reason.