Quote from: Omega on April 03, 2025, 04:43:48 AM

QuoteI remember playing ElfQuest as a kid, and I don't recall any humans in that setting.

There are in the comics. But they are cave men.

Yes, cavemen, but not dumb, and some are perfectly well-rounded and significant characters.

Quote from: tenbones on April 02, 2025, 03:08:14 PMMost of the games that are fantasy that people are citing as examples are not really "successful" in the commercial sense. WoD doesn't count, because you start as a human and one of the goals is dealing with your condition from the context of being human.

That's true of Vampire and Wraith, but not of Werewolf and Changeling (plus Promethean and possibly some of the others).

Just to review cases:

• Werewolf and Changeling are the most significant of the World of Darkness line. The PCs live disguised as humans, but were born as other beings and have their own societies hidden in the human world.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other anthropomorphic animal games. Mausritter and Mouse Guard seem fairly successful. Sanguine Productions has a multi-edition line including Albedo and Ironclaw.
• There are some games of playing superhuman beings where humans are largely powerless. The most successful are Amber Diceless and In Nomine. In Amber Diceless, the PCs are Amberites or Chaosites in a multiverse where Earth and ordinary humans exist, but are mere shadows of true reality. In Nomine has the PCs as angels and demons.

Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2025, 08:03:39 AM

Quote from: tenbones on April 02, 2025, 03:08:14 PMMost of the games that are fantasy that people are citing as examples are not really "successful" in the commercial sense. WoD doesn't count, because you start as a human and one of the goals is dealing with your condition from the context of being human.

That's true of Vampire and Wraith, but not of Werewolf and Changeling (plus Promethean and possibly some of the others).

Just to review cases:

• Werewolf and Changeling are the most significant of the World of Darkness line. The PCs live disguised as humans, but were born as other beings and have their own societies hidden in the human world.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other anthropomorphic animal games. Mausritter and Mouse Guard seem fairly successful. Sanguine Productions has a multi-edition line including Albedo and Ironclaw.
• There are some games of playing superhuman beings where humans are largely powerless. The most successful are Amber Diceless and In Nomine. In Amber Diceless, the PCs are Amberites or Chaosites in a multiverse where Earth and ordinary humans exist, but are mere shadows of true reality. In Nomine has the PCs as angels and demons.

While I admit that there are different ways of interpreting the title of the first post, I'd point out that alot of the games you mentioned have humans in the setting... you're just not incentivized/supposed/allowed to PLAY them... but they're still there.

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 02, 2025, 05:12:35 PMI remember playing ElfQuest as a kid, and I don't recall any humans in that setting.

I can also totally imagine someone playing Tolkien-based games where everyone is an elf (or hobbit), although humans would be around. It's not even that far off from his writings.

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 02, 2025, 05:12:35 PMI remember playing ElfQuest as a kid, and I don't recall any humans in that setting.

I haven't played the RPG but I read the first dozen or so books.  Conflict between elves and humans is a major driver to the story.  I wouldn't expect to see them as PCs though

Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2025, 08:03:39 AM

Quote from: tenbones on April 02, 2025, 03:08:14 PMMost of the games that are fantasy that people are citing as examples are not really "successful" in the commercial sense. WoD doesn't count, because you start as a human and one of the goals is dealing with your condition from the context of being human.

That's true of Vampire and Wraith, but not of Werewolf and Changeling (plus Promethean and possibly some of the others).

Just to review cases:

• Werewolf and Changeling are the most significant of the World of Darkness line. The PCs live disguised as humans, but were born as other beings and have their own societies hidden in the human world.

When is the last time you actually read those games (note the garbage that is their 5e doesn't count)?

Any Homid werewolf grew up thinking they were human until their first change as a teenager. Standard werewolf practice was to knock up as many women as possible as a deadbeat dad then approach any that actually do change (not all do).

Similarly, the whole point in Changeling is that your fae self is hidden away in a mortal seeming that grew up as a regular person until you underwent a change.

And let's not forget Mages who remain human, just Awaken to to the truth of magick existing.

It's basically the stock trope of all the WoD lines; "you were a normal person until... [insert splat creation event here]."

Even the last version of Mummy abandoned its "you're a millennias-old remnant of a long dead culture" for "you were a normal person until you died and a bit of an old Egyptian soul got grafted onto you as part of your resurrection." Which is lame and I refused to use, but the fact WW went there just proves my point.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 03, 2025, 05:47:01 PMWhen is the last time you actually read those games (note the garbage that is their 5e doesn't count)?

Any Homid werewolf grew up thinking they were human until their first change as a teenager. Standard werewolf practice was to knock up as many women as possible as a deadbeat dad then approach any that actually do change (not all do).

Similarly, the whole point in Changeling is that your fae self is hidden away in a mortal seeming that grew up as a regular person until you underwent a change.

And let's not forget Mages who remain human, just Awaken to to the truth of magick existing.

It's basically the stock trope of all the WoD lines; "you were a normal person until... [insert splat creation event here]."

Even the last version of Mummy abandoned its "you're a millennias-old remnant of a long dead culture" for "you were a normal person until you died and a bit of an old Egyptian soul got grafted onto you as part of your resurrection." Which is lame and I refused to use, but the fact WW went there just proves my point.

Mage was the only one of those lines that ever appealed to me, as someone who only plays humans.

The one Werewolf game I played, my character was the token Kinfolk. The one Vampire game I played a few sessions of, I played a Ghoul. I don't do monsters or non-humans.

They may be "human enough" for some, but not for me. Though I did once play a half-demon character in a Dresden Files game (physically human, though).

But the point is, the difference in WoD, that you're interacting directly with whatever it means to be "human" in light of your new condition. I mean I don't think that's unreasonable position ignore for the sake of argument.

I've run tons and tons of WoD with several groups. I can't recall anyone, even in my Sabbat games, where the idea of *being* human wasn't informing the game on nearly every level. There are a few exceptions, but they were individual characters doing their thing (the occasional garou lupus or Sabbat that was *really* into the Sabbat doctrines).

Sure you could run a Werewolf game where everyone is a lupus, going around sniffing each other's asses and *only* fighting Wyrm/Weaver monsters in the Umbral realms... and that could be fun, it's generally an outlier of typical games that WoD in general were sold on.

TMNT - fair example. But they're living and playing in/against a Human world. i.e. the game is about playing in/out of the human context.

But pull out RPG's that are strictly non-human... and that list gets *really* niche very quickly. As to being "successful" - there are three categories of success (hip-shot here): 1) Player success - you had fun playing in  game where your investment is largely you showing up and playing and to your surprise you liked it. 2) GM success - you are a big fan of the setting, you bought all the books, you know you're going to fight uphill to get your players to play it, but fuck it. You LOVE it! you're all in. Then there's 3) Game Designer Success - did enough of #1 and #2 buy enough of your wacky game that you didn't lose your shirt, or are living in and igloo made out of the unsold copies you've glued together.

Quote from: Corolinth on April 02, 2025, 04:16:10 PMTalislanta is a red herring. The game bills itself as more strange, unique, and alien than it actually is. This imposes an artificial barrier to entry which limits its success.

I don't think it's really a red herring. The more I think about it, the more I think it's *exactly* the perfect example in the purest sense of what the thread is asking - if only as a control group.

It literally has no humans in it. Despite it being, as we both agree, largely *way* over-inflated. Yet... if you care to rifle the many threads on Talislanta, in this forum even, I'm willing to bet *most* people ignore those threads (let's stipulate that, shall we?) but the next most common thing said "Oh yeah. Talislanta. I always meant to look into that..." followed by that derisive "Oh that 'No Elves' game from Dragon (the one full of elves).' Having said that, there is no *real* reason for people not to play it other than the appearance of the playable races. It's definitely not the content. The art is pretty badass. The system is better than 95% of the modern systems out here today. I might go as high 98%.

Even when pimped during my edition, there seemed to be a lot of good feedback here and elsewhere. We did some promotion, the death of our publisher didn't help with the production, but I hate to say it, it *probably* got some people to just buy the damn game out of respect. (Cynical, sure, but probably true). But no one actually plays it writ-large except a handful or weirdo obsessives (like me).

So I think it's not a red herring per se. It's merely a good example looking for something counterfactual where the same conditions are 99% true.

I don't know of many settings that fit this bill... and there is probably a good reason for it. In Savage Worlds they have that setting Low Life - where everyone is a fungus/mold/germ that evolved after the world got wiped out. It makes Talislanta look like Pride and Prejudice the RPG by comparison.

Quote from: tenbones on April 03, 2025, 08:43:30 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on April 02, 2025, 04:16:10 PMTalislanta is a red herring. The game bills itself as more strange, unique, and alien than it actually is. This imposes an artificial barrier to entry which limits its success.

I don't think it's really a red herring. The more I think about it, the more I think it's *exactly* the perfect example in the purest sense of what the thread is asking - if only as a control group.

I am speaking as a random schmuck on the internet who picked up a Talislanta book last year. My experience with Talislanta is directly relevant to the argument you're trying to make. I'm the guinea pig, the experiment to test out your idea. When I pick up this new book and flip through it, here's my immediate takeaway:

Aamanian - human
Ariane - drow elf
Arimite - human, with a new skin color that humans don't have on Earth
Callidian - human (maybe elf, but I'm saying human)
Cymrilian - elf, though swordmage looks human
Danuvian - human
Dhuna - human
Dracartan - black man in greenface
Farad - human

I'm looking at this book and I'm seeing a lot of humans. I'm pretty sure most other newcomers are also getting similar impressions. Therefore, if Talislanta is unpopular, it's for some other reason, because there are plenty of human subraces we can play if we just want to be a human.

You say they're not human, and that's fine. I'm not going to argue with you about what those races actually are. I'm just telling you what the newcomer sees when they open the book.