Can you make a setting with no humans? The question, posed to me by my audience, reveals a lot about RPG World building and ttrpg gameplay in general.
Watching this one now. I once ran a campaign where the dominant race on the planet was Kobolds (and if I remember there were either no humans or they were largely gone). That worked but it was an oriental adventures campaign with kung fu fighting kobolds. I also did make a game I never published called the Meddlers, that took place in a kind of limbo, where there were individual cities separated by vast deserts. In that there were humans, but you couldn't be one. Everyone was a Brownie who were there to kind of protect the humans (I wrote about it when I was first working on it in this thread: https://www.therpgsite.com/design-development-and-gameplay/the-meddlers/). But again, never ended up putting that out. It had kind of a corny feel overall (which might have helped making it more gameable than if I had run a more straight forward setting with no humans). I don't object to hon-human settings but a lot of non-human settings that have come out, have tended not to interest me for other reasons.
No problem. I've done plenty.
We did all non-human campaigns back in AD&D and all mutant campaigns in Gamma World.
You could pit Dwarves and Elves at odds with one another; and then introduce some common crisis, that's greater than their bickering. Force them to consider uniting, against a common cause.
No need to even mention humans.
It's interesting seeing this conversation evolve, because this probably started with the, "you play non-human characters to play the stereotype," thread.
I am starting to disagree with this idea because it devalues the semantics of being a human.
Fundamentally, the problem we are having is that we have never encountered a sentient race which thinks in a truly non-human manner, and assuming said sentient race isn't Lovecraftian, humans would quickly internalize how the thought process works. Put another way, out of game, the concept of a human character is quite plastic and always expands to match or exceed the space possible for a playable character.
The problem I have is that because this is a watered down of metagaming, this makes the word, "human," useless for roleplaying because by this definition, all characters are human. The Dwarf character is human, the Elf character is human. Etc. This is not seeing human characters as opposed to something else, which is actually more likely to be an in-character point of view within the fictional world. The player views the default race choice as human, but that isn't necessarily how the player character should think.
It would take a pretty special table to truly play an alien setting. I put forward two difficulties with doing this in another thread.
The biggest issue I see is giving the audience (players) a way to connect and identify with the setting and the characters but not just making them humans but with special features. Even very good writers have an issue with this. As an example, what are Klingons other than proto-samurai with facial growths? Actually getting players to detach from their own humanity and self identity is a Herculean task.
I once played a Tabaxi in a D&D 5e game a few years ago with the idea that I would pattern him after a common house cat. I did my best to put my mind in the sate of engaging the game with both the motivations and thought processes of a cat. The end result was a PC that was a lot of work to play and a lot of fellow players that were ready to see it end.
It's humans all the way down.
I think that if you're going to try to play truly nonhuman characters, it's important to have everyone in the group onboard with the idea.
Some time ago I was in a 2E game playing a ranger with a 5 wisdom, not a dumb guy, but prone to bad decisions. I decided to try to simulate this for roleplay purposes by making decisions by going with whatever idea first popped into my head. These were generally silly or funny and this was a radical departure from my usual practice of thoroughly thinking everything through. I had an absolute blast with this. The other players not so much. Some of the actions were detrimental to meeting our goal and several players were mad at me. They thought maybe I had gone crazy. If I had communicated first and let everyone know what I was doing it probably would have been acceptable at the table, and if not I could have done something else.
Similarly a truly nonhuman character is going to do things that don't make sense viewed from a human perspective. If your friends are not on board with this, it can cause friction at your table.
Quote from: Fheredin on April 11, 2025, 07:21:16 AMIt's interesting seeing this conversation evolve, because this probably started with the, "you play non-human characters to play the stereotype," thread.
I am starting to disagree with this idea because it devalues the semantics of being a human.
Fundamentally, the problem we are having is that we have never encountered a sentient race which thinks in a truly non-human manner, and assuming said sentient race isn't Lovecraftian, humans would quickly internalize how the thought process works. Put another way, out of game, the concept of a human character is quite plastic and always expands to match or exceed the space possible for a playable character.
The problem I have is that because this is a watered down of metagaming, this makes the word, "human," useless for roleplaying because by this definition, all characters are human. The Dwarf character is human, the Elf character is human. Etc. This is not seeing human characters as opposed to something else, which is actually more likely to be an in-character point of view within the fictional world. The player views the default race choice as human, but that isn't necessarily how the player character should think.
Yeah. Here's the nonhuman stereotype thread from a few months ago:
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/there-is-no-reason-to-play-a-nonhuman-except-to-use-stereotypes/
And specifically Pundit is saying that playing a nonhuman character is inherently limited to stereotypes, and thus any human character will be more interesting. He compares, say, playing a Moor on the streets of Dark Albion's London to playing a dwarf - and says that the Moor will inherently be more interesting.
- To me, every character has some stereotypes, and some parts that go past stereotypes. Playing a human paladin of Heironeous in an AD&D game has plenty of stereotypes, for example. There are stereotypes associated with race, with background, with class, and so on. Less stereotypes doesn't always mean a more interesting character, though. A character with no stereotypes like liable to be just bland.
- More importantly, non-humans isn't some mysterious rare case. I'm sure everyone on this forum has experienced lots of both human and non-human characters. I don't find that making a human character makes them interesting, or that making a non-human character makes them boring. I've seen lots of interesting non-human PCs.
I wonder if this has to do with historical cultures, though.
I do think real-world cultures are always going to be more in-depth than invented fantasy cultures - whether human or not. I've often favored games with versions of real-world cultures even if they have fantasy elements in part because of this. So when Pundit compares playing a 15th-century Moor to a dwarf, I feel like it's touching more on the depth of real-world Moorish culture than anything in biology.
Running a "setting with no humans" is a trick question because every so-called non-human played in an rpg is in fact a human in a non-human skin suit.
By that I mean there is the inescapable reality that we only know how to play "humans". To illustrate this point, if one ran a campaign where all players played bees in a colony the campaign would inevitably devolve into how the bees wanted to stop being drones, gain their individuality, topple the monarchy, and instill democracy.
And we can see this inability to put ourselves in other races shoes over and over again. This is why monsters are becoming less like monsters and more like misunderstood humans who just want to raise a family.
For these reasons and others is why I prefer to play human-centric games.
Quote from: Ralph Malph on April 11, 2025, 05:47:03 PMRunning a "setting with no humans" is a trick question because every so-called non-human played in an rpg is in fact a human in a non-human skin suit.
By that I mean there is the inescapable reality that we only know how to play "humans".
It's true that we only know how to play humans.
It's also true that we only know a world without conspicuous magic.
Every so-called wizard in an rpg is just a fake played by someone with no idea about what a wizard would truly be like.
---
The point is, it's just a game. You don't have to know real magic to play a wizard, and you don't be be really non-human to play a hobbit. It's fine to prefer human-only games, but it's just a preference.
Quote from: jhkim on April 11, 2025, 06:13:35 PMQuote from: Ralph Malph on April 11, 2025, 05:47:03 PMRunning a "setting with no humans" is a trick question because every so-called non-human played in an rpg is in fact a human in a non-human skin suit.
By that I mean there is the inescapable reality that we only know how to play "humans".
It's true that we only know how to play humans.
It's also true that we only know a world without conspicuous magic.
Every so-called wizard in an rpg is just a fake played by someone with no idea about what a wizard would truly be like.
---
The point is, it's just a game. You don't have to know real magic to play a wizard, and you don't be be really non-human to play a hobbit. It's fine to prefer human-only games, but it's just a preference.
Excellent point! This is also why I don't like high magic or super hero games! ;)
Quote from: jhkim on April 11, 2025, 06:13:35 PMQuote from: Ralph Malph on April 11, 2025, 05:47:03 PMRunning a "setting with no humans" is a trick question because every so-called non-human played in an rpg is in fact a human in a non-human skin suit.
By that I mean there is the inescapable reality that we only know how to play "humans".
It's true that we only know how to play humans.
It's also true that we only know a world without conspicuous magic.
Every so-called wizard in an rpg is just a fake played by someone with no idea about what a wizard would truly be like.
I beg to differ. That's like saying someone who isn't a computer programmer doesn't have any idea how to play a computer programmer.
A wizard is just someone with special skills, and still a human, whose personality is tied to the human experience.
Can there be better or worse ways to portray a wizard? Sure. It also depends which game you're playing. But it's still much more relatable to play a human wizard than an elf with a 1000 year lifespan.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 13, 2025, 04:19:25 AMThat's like saying someone who isn't a computer programmer doesn't have any idea how to play a computer programmer.
Actually no, they don't. At least most don't. What I see is a lot of players aping behavioral quirks but not actually getting into the mindset.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 13, 2025, 04:19:25 AMQuote from: jhkim on April 11, 2025, 06:13:35 PMQuote from: Ralph Malph on April 11, 2025, 05:47:03 PMRunning a "setting with no humans" is a trick question because every so-called non-human played in an rpg is in fact a human in a non-human skin suit.
By that I mean there is the inescapable reality that we only know how to play "humans".
It's true that we only know how to play humans.
It's also true that we only know a world without conspicuous magic.
Every so-called wizard in an rpg is just a fake played by someone with no idea about what a wizard would truly be like.
I beg to differ. That's like saying someone who isn't a computer programmer doesn't have any idea how to play a computer programmer.
A wizard is just someone with special skills, and still a human, whose personality is tied to the human experience.
Can there be better or worse ways to portray a wizard? Sure. It also depends which game you're playing. But it's still much more relatable to play a human wizard than an elf with a 1000 year lifespan.
I see your point. When you equate being a wizard to being like other skilled occupations, it makes sense.
But being a wizard in modern Dungeons & Dragons is more akin to being a Demi-God or high-level comic book superhero. Personally, I have no interest in playing such characters because they are so far removed from our own "human experience" that it makes it unrelatable to me. Though I am happy to play "street level" powered characters.
PS: I'm not throwing shade on those who enjoy playing such characters. It's just a hobby, so to each their own.
People can generally relate more, even if only in their fantasies, to being a hyper-competent human than to being some kind of non-human creature.
Quote from: jhkim on April 11, 2025, 06:13:35 PMIt's true that we only know how to play humans.
It's also true that we only know a world without conspicuous magic.
Only if you're so dead inside that you can't see the wonder. We've been to the Moon. We routinely soar through the air to the other side of world, create devices that carry us in an hour what would have taken our ancestors a week. We cook food by placing it in a box and pressing a button so invisible energies heat it. I can project my thoughts to you from the other side of the country from a device in my pocket (you're reading then now). I have libraries worth of knowledge in the palm of my hand.
Sure, the subject matter experts can explain exactly how it all works, but so can wizards explain their magic (if they could not, there would be no point to books or apprentices).
Magic is just a word for something we don't fully understand (and is why I prefer systems where practitioners call it something other than magic; i.e. The Art, the Craft, Weave Manipulation).
The only difference between a fantasy Wizard with their Art and the fictional Computer Hacker with real time access to just about any system via screens of flashing lights and because of their extensive knowledge is that one is explained as not magic.
If you can imagine playing a computer hacker, you can imagine being a wizard.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 15, 2025, 08:23:24 AMPeople can generally relate more, even if only in their fantasies, to being a hyper-competent human than to being some kind of non-human creature.
I agree. The closer the PC is to the player, the easier it is to relate.
Some people have a hard time relating to people that have different personality types than they do. A common divide I see a lot IRL is creative types vs technical types. This aspect bleeds into gaming at the table too. I think a lot of players have a hard time relating to anyone other than themselves and they play self inserts in RPGs for the power fantasy. Half or more of the games I run are near future scifi and I see a lot of players take hacker or technician PCs and use their skills as if it was some form of super power rather than seeing it as a real skill with real thought processes. (I see people treat me as some form of wizard IRL for my technical skills rather than understanding that my capabilities are derived from layers of experience and education.)
OTOH, there are some that are capable of or at least put a lot of effort into seeing things from different perspectives. These are the players I have the most fun with. Part of the reason I enjoy being a GM is the experience of trying on different characters and bringing them to life through taking on their perspectives and motivations.
It's my opinion based on observation that some players start out not being able to put themselves into the shoes of others and then slowly learn to.
I think it's very possible to have a game where the game play and PCs are something completely alien to our human experiences but it would be a very small segment of players capable of pulling it off and even smaller group that would find enjoyment in it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 15, 2025, 08:42:49 AMIf you can imagine playing a computer hacker, you can imagine being a wizard.
If you are arguing that the degree of difference from normal human thought and motivation between being a hacker and being a wizard might be the same, I can agree that it might be true. If you are saying that a wizard is just a hacker that meddles with magic systems rather than data systems, I don't think so.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 15, 2025, 08:23:24 AMPeople can generally relate more, even if only in their fantasies, to being a hyper-competent human than to being some kind of non-human creature.
True, but that doesn't mean it can't be done, and done well. It's just more work. It's worth it though. When I've played characters very different than myself and put in the time to ponder how their motivations, history, and culture would affect their behavior, I've had the most fun I've had on the player side of the screen.
Quote from: Chris24601 on April 15, 2025, 08:42:49 AMQuote from: jhkim on April 11, 2025, 06:13:35 PMIt's true that we only know how to play humans.
It's also true that we only know a world without conspicuous magic.
Only if you're so dead inside that you can't see the wonder. We've been to the Moon. We routinely soar through the air to the other side of world, create devices that carry us in an hour what would have taken our ancestors a week. We cook food by placing it in a box and pressing a button so invisible energies heat it.
First of all, this is exactly what I was saying. We don't know magic in real life, but we can imagine it. My conclusion of that post was:
Quote from: jhkim on April 11, 2025, 06:13:35 PMThe point is, it's just a game. You don't have to know real magic to play a wizard, and you don't be be really non-human to play a hobbit. It's fine to prefer human-only games, but it's just a preference.
That said, I do think that fantasy wizardry is very different from computer programming. For example, a wizard could Polymorph Self into a dragon, or project into the Astral Plane. Those are not comparable to using a cell phone or microwave, because it's transforming your body. I think playing someone with that degree of power over themselves and others is different than just being able to use devices.
Still, I'd agree that the closest parallel to wizardry is something like programming, where someone can put in arcane instructions and control.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 13, 2025, 04:19:25 AMCan there be better or worse ways to portray a wizard? Sure. It also depends which game you're playing. But it's still much more relatable to play a human wizard than an elf with a 1000 year lifespan.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 15, 2025, 08:23:24 AMPeople can generally relate more, even if only in their fantasies, to being a hyper-competent human than to being some kind of non-human creature.
I think "hyper-competent" doesn't truly convey the other-ness of being a paladin who acts out palpable divine power or a wizard who can shapeshift into a dragon, travel to other planes, talk to the dead, and so forth. To me, it seems no stranger to play an Amberite or an Olympian who could live for a thousand years.
In fiction, people can and do relate to expressive other creatures - from muppets to pets to cartoon animals. And that's been true throughout human existence. Many ancient myths are about non-humans like Coyote or Raven along with the giants and dwarfs and so forth. One of the basic principles of myth is personification not only of animals but also of things like the Sun and the Moon.
Let's put it this way: Imagine if you were a cat. Not a cat-person, just a regular cat. Cats have interacted with humans for thousands of years and they have gradually developed some means to understand us, and we have developed some means to understand them. That's something any cat owner knows.
And yet even so, if you were to try to portray a cat, you would still be engaging in massive human projection; stuff that we presume about cats that's really from our own flawed perceptions of them. And any cat owner also knows that the cat does a ton of stuff that seems completely nonsensical and don't seem to seem any purpose that we could attribute to it. There's still huge amounts of things about how cats act that we can't comprehend.
So you could either play a cat as a kind of human-thinking-as-cat, or you could fake it and have your cat character do a bunch of weird stuff that you might have noticed a cat doing in the past, but without having any clue why you're doing it.
Quote from: RPGPundit on April 16, 2025, 09:26:15 PMLet's put it this way: Imagine if you were a cat. Not a cat-person, just a regular cat. Cats have interacted with humans for thousands of years and they have gradually developed some means to understand us, and we have developed some means to understand them. That's something any cat owner knows.
And yet even so, if you were to try to portray a cat, you would still be engaging in massive human projection; stuff that we presume about cats that's really from our own flawed perceptions of them. And any cat owner also knows that the cat does a ton of stuff that seems completely nonsensical and don't seem to seem any purpose that we could attribute to it. There's still huge amounts of things about how cats act that we can't comprehend.
So you could either play a cat as a kind of human-thinking-as-cat, or you could fake it and have your cat character do a bunch of weird stuff that you might have noticed a cat doing in the past, but without having any clue why you're doing it.
See, I disagree with this because this is more definitional hairsplitting than saying something profound. The human mind is practically defined by its ability to come to understand things. Obviously, it is possible to learn things about others. Say you do come to understand your cat at a deep enough level to roleplay being a cat person. At the start of this process, a cat person was alien, but at the end of the process, the cat person is understandable. By this definition, the cat person is now a human.
Well, that's sort of true. What has happened here is not that the cat person is forever unintelligible, but that the comprehension element has expanded the meaning of what it means to be human. The definition of human expanded into the space that used to be solely occupied by the cat-people.
Have you noticed the problem here, yet?
Why, yes, indeed,
the definition of human inside the game and the definition of human outside the game are slightly different things. "Human," outside the game fills the space the players can occupy with roleplay by definition, but "human," inside the game does not. What we have here is a cross between the informal fallacy of equivocation and metagaming.
Quote from: Fheredin on April 17, 2025, 06:09:54 PMQuote from: RPGPundit on April 16, 2025, 09:26:15 PMSo you could either play a cat as a kind of human-thinking-as-cat, or you could fake it and have your cat character do a bunch of weird stuff that you might have noticed a cat doing in the past, but without having any clue why you're doing it.
See, I disagree with this because this is more definitional hairsplitting than saying something profound. The human mind is practically defined by its ability to come to understand things. Obviously, it is possible to learn things about others. Say you do come to understand your cat at a deep enough level to roleplay being a cat person. At the start of this process, a cat person was alien, but at the end of the process, the cat person is understandable. By this definition, the cat person is now a human.
As I would put it, in an RPG, you are
always faking it. That applies just as much if you're playing a human as if you're playing a cat or an elf. Role-playing a human doesn't mean that you truly understand what is going on inside real people's heads. It's faking it for the purposes of a game.
Someone who roleplays a soldier doesn't understand real combat and the taking of human life. Understanding comes from real experience and interaction. And human beings often relate to animals really well, and may understand those animals that they interact with daily better than some human beings.
For example, my wife's uncle worked with chimpanzees for decades at the Portland Zoo. It was fascinating to see him visit there, because the chimpanzees recognized him through the glass, and he could talk in sign language with them.
Also, my stepdaughter works at the humane society and has always loved cats, and frequently lectures my wife and me about cats. Are there still cat behaviors that are mysterious to her? Absolutely. However, especially as a 22-year-old girl with little life experience, there are a lot of human behaviors that are mysterious to her.
If she was into RPGs, I think she could role-play a cat better than she could role-play, say, a Holy Warrior of Durga (Virakshatriya) in Arrows of Indra's Bharata Kingdoms. I could give her the character sheet of a Virakshatriya, but she'd absolutely be faking it as far as understanding the culture, the religion, and the violent behavior of that character - none of which she has familiarity with.
My son has run "The Secret of Cats" adventure a few times:
(https://evilhat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/products-Secrets-of-Cats.jpg) (https://evilhat.com/product/secrets-of-cats/)
https://evilhat.com/product/secrets-of-cats/
If I wanted to get Fiona into RPGs, I think she'd relate much more to this than to Arrows of Indra.