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 AM

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.

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 PM

Quote 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/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.