If all the opponents in a setting are humans, is this now so "politically incorrect" that it is no longer a viable option.
Certainly couldn't be sold in today's market.
Even the killing of non-humans as stand-ins for "those bad humans" in being brought up as colonialism and genocide.  

Who is left to "kill and loot" without ramification? Undead? Are they someone's hallowed ancestors and off limits too?

Independence Games has been selling profitably the Clement Sector setting since 2008 for Cepheus Engine/Traveller and is doing quite well.

Isn't that how cyberpunk RPG settings work? Even Shadowrun, while technically having orcs/trolls/elves/dwarves - they're really just humans who have been altered by the increased flow of magic or some such.

I don't think that Shadowrun 6e has done especially well, but that likely has more to do with the mechanics being a hot mess.

7th Sea seems to be have been rather popular.

I was thinking more along the lines of historical fantasy but Sci-Fantasy and Sci-Fi are still good examples.

Have they not gotten the "Correctness" spotlight or have they passed "inspection"?

Quote from: Greentongue;1143793I was thinking more along the lines of historical fantasy but Sci-Fantasy and Sci-Fi are still good examples.

Have they not gotten the "Correctness" spotlight or have they passed "inspection"?

I think that from that point of view having them be actual humans is better, as there can be a reason to kill those particular humans. While through some lenses, killing near-humans (orcs/goblins/whatever) is "problematic" due the view that they are being used stand-ins for various real-world groups.


So - while I disagree with the viewpoint, you seem to misunderstand it. It's that various groups are inherently arrow-fodder for being what they are, and they're too close to being humans for comfort. MOST people with that viewpoint wouldn't have issue with killing orcs or humans in a D&D game - so long as the players were sure that that particular orc/human was a murdering bandit etc. (Maybe with the addition of making sure that the orc/human wasn't a raider to defend their land from the encroachment of colonization or some such.)

Again - I disagree with that view - but you seem to be strawmanning it.

If your goal is to be SJW compliant the only viable enemies are straight white Christian males, whom they would argue are subhuman.

As to whether all-human settings among the sane and rational can sell... Battletech/Mechwarrior has done okay for quite some time and, in fact, a huge selling point is that humans are the sapient life in the known universe (i.e. no bug-eyed aliens with super-tech are going to turn up. In general it's 3025-era where everyone plays at the same level (and that level was balanced enough you could largely just use tonnage instead needing a more complex Battle Value to determine if sides were matched).

Similarly, while most anime-themed RPGs include options for aliens, specific human-only settings aren't unusual.

Finally, several genres (ex. war, superspies) pretty much require human-only as a core part of their setting.

Quote from: Chris24601;1143805Similarly, while most anime-themed RPGs include options for aliens, specific human-only settings aren't unusual.

I'll quote a section of Mekton Zeta, p119 on this one. Very close to human aliens are common in anime due to, as Mike Pondsmith puts it, romantic sub-plots and pathos are used a lot in anime so the aliens are near human because "Kissing a slug is no fun."

It has and it did. OGL Conan was a purely human setting. And it sold very well.

Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerors of Hyperborea is human only iirc.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1143796I think that from that point of view having them be actual humans is better, as there can be a reason to kill those particular humans. While through some lenses, killing near-humans (orcs/goblins/whatever) is "problematic" due the view that they are being used stand-ins for various real-world groups.


So - while I disagree with the viewpoint, you seem to misunderstand it. It's that various groups are inherently arrow-fodder for being what they are, and they're too close to being humans for comfort. MOST people with that viewpoint wouldn't have issue with killing orcs or humans in a D&D game - so long as the players were sure that that particular orc/human was a murdering bandit etc. (Maybe with the addition of making sure that the orc/human wasn't a raider to defend their land from the encroachment of colonization or some such.)

Again - I disagree with that view - but you seem to be strawmanning it.

In D&D, most players I've met wouldn't give two shits about killing anyone, whether they knew they were terrible villains  or not, if it meant their PCs earned XP and claimed loot.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1143819In D&D, most players I've met wouldn't give two shits about killing anyone, whether they knew they were terrible villains  or not, if it meant their PCs earned XP and claimed loot.

There is some that would happily kill their own NPC "mother" if it gave Xp.

I have to assume that the "Vocal Minority" is a minority and doesn't actually effect the majority of game?

Quote from: Slambo;1143813Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerors of Hyperborea is human only iirc.

It's definitely human-oriented and human-dominated (PC races are all various types of humans), but there are still orcs and ape-men and gnolls and such in the setting. Notably, orcs have demonic (swine-daemon) blood.

Harn, but I wouldn't say its sales are hot. Interesting in some ways. Whoops, they have elfs, dwarves, and orcs.

Quote from: Greentongue;1143787If all the opponents in a setting are humans, is this now so "politically incorrect" that it is no longer a viable option.
Certainly couldn't be sold in today's market.
Even the killing of non-humans as stand-ins for "those bad humans" in being brought up as colonialism and genocide.  

Who is left to "kill and loot" without ramification? Undead? Are they someone's hallowed ancestors and off limits too?

Is ANTIFA human?