Your elves, dwarves, halflings or others... when you run them, do you run them as just basically humans with pointy ears or height issues and a different culture? Or do you specifically make their behaviors non-human?
They are absolutely plaid differently and the inter actions between different races are highlighted.
One of my PCs is a high elf. Upon entering the human village the guards are awesome and scared like a glowing beutiful angel walks in thier midst. Word goes out and towns people gather to see. Usually the player can key off things like that and play up the other world Fey origins of their character.
Thursday night we did a two hour session with no attack rolls or spells cast as the party tried to get smuggle themselves or someone else past some guards
The Half-Orc had a very different experience than the High Elf....
That sort of thing
I have trouble even thinking of what behaviors might make them specifically non-human, so I guess I usually play them as distinct cultures with some biologically reinforced differences based primarily on longevity, low birth rates, and not sleeping/dreaming (if applicable). The rest is cultural baggage, sometimes with traits heightened to the point where they might be considered minor mental illnesses in humans (such as subterranean dwarves being fearful of "unpredictable" surface weather, or elves that get unsettled in crowds).
Bemusingly I rarely play a non-human.
As a DM I usually just let the players play the demi races as they may as lets be honest. Being relatively human-like they arent aliens. They are though usually culturally different and may have different outlooks or focuses. Or not. And theres allmost certainly alot of crossing the streams going on as all these races are fully able to do whatever they please.
Elf wants to be a miner and dig gems? Nothing stopping them.
Halfling wants to live in the harsh wilderness as far removed from comfort at one can safely get? Nothing stopping them.
Dwarf wants to be a florist? Probably bansai. :cool:
and so on.
Lifespans and mental differences will be a possible point. Depends on how each race looks at these things or deals with them. Elves have really long life spans but dont really advance much. Dwarves live fairly long but are often also very focused. Halflings just kinda are there living the good life and seem unconcerned with advancing either on a general whole.
Of course every DM and player will have their own ideas and approaches which is perfectly fine as long as they dont go overboard or get pedantic.
And as noted in an older thread you can spice up (no pun intended) any culture by giving them their own special cuisines. Elven recipies might feature alot of different salad dressings. Dwarves might favour pastas and various meat sauces. Halflings might lean to spicy foods.
Or each culture could have their own distinctive passtimes and board games. Elves might play something like Go or Shogi. Dwarves might play board games akin to Monopoly. Halflings might play dice or card games. And so on there too.
I make a big deal about making non-humans...not human.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1051586I make a big deal about making non-humans...not human.
How? Serious question.
Yes, and so does everyone else. No one can do truly alien mindsets, because we simply cannot comprehend anything outside of what we consider a paradigm until we meet something truly alien.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1051565Your elves, dwarves, halflings or others... when you run them, do you run them as just basically humans with pointy ears or height issues and a different culture? Or do you specifically make their behaviors non-human?
Demi-human seems to me to indicate that while they're not fully human, they're human-like. I play them as different culture, but not completely alien. I find that too alien kind of approach has the danger of getting into silly territory, where say (completely made up example) an elf tries to talk to a baby like an adult because elves are hatched out of pods and have no concept of childhood. That kind of thing is amusing... once. Then it gets tiresome.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1051588Yes, and so does everyone else. No one can do truly alien mindsets, because we simply cannot comprehend anything outside of what we consider a paradigm until we meet something truly alien.
:D People can try, but yeah, it's glaring to try to come up with a truly alien, alien. Even the strangest sci-fi aliens tend to be based on some human notion of what would be alien
to us.
I try to make my demi-humans distinct tomy humans. However there is only so much I can do, being human and never having met an elf, dwarf, halfling, goblin, etc.
I enjoy using some differences, but I'm a minimalist GM by nature (on most things, not merely race portrayal). That is, I'd rather have other races as different cultures (and multiple such cultures for each race), and then use something distinct to make them stick out as non-human, rather than make them completely alien. Though this varies by campaign, too.
For example, in my current campaign, halflings and most elves are magically altered humans. Whereas the "high elves" are the actual, strange elves. I went for an alien feel not by spelling out the differences, but making them extremely xenophobic and secretive. The rare high elf player is somewhat of an outcast, and doesn't know their deepest secrets. With the dwarves, the "deep dwarves" rarely come out of their caves. Many dwarves find this claustrophobic, and reject that society. From them, player characters are drawn. The practical effect is that dwarves and high elves are different even to the players of those characters. (It's a campaign secret, barely even hinted at yet, but one of the reasons that high elves and deep dwarves get along, is that they kill anyone that even tries to reveal their mysteries, including their own rebel kin. It's also why they are quite happy for malcontents to identify themselves early, before being exposed to the mysteries, and thus exiling themselves before they are killed. They know that they need a buffer that gets along with other races. So there is mutual respect of privacy and of constancy of purpose. It's deliberately a little darkly utilitarian to modern sensibilities.)
I've also done campaigns with various "magical genetic" connections that explained the oddness, such as one with "peoples of the woods" and "peoples of the earth" (and also sky and sea). Elves seemed odd to everyone else, because all the "peoples of the woods"--goblin, troll, elves, etc. in that campaign--shared affinities and banes. But that was deliberately designed to create tension among the various players in the party, rather than going for alien mindsets.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1051588Yes, and so does everyone else. No one can do truly alien mindsets, because we simply cannot comprehend anything outside of what we consider a paradigm until we meet something truly alien.
You are a ridiculously limited human being.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1052210You are a ridiculously limited human being.
Not really. Most people play other 'races' like Dwarves and Elves et al. as a mishmash of real world cultures, of which there are a myriad of. But they're still based, however loosely, off human cultures.
The question put forth is very silly in its implication, so the better question to ask is:
What are your favourite cultural aspects do you like to put in your Elves and Dwarves and everything else?
Quote from: RPGPundit;1051565Your elves, dwarves, halflings or others... when you run them, do you run them as just basically humans with pointy ears or height issues and a different culture? Or do you specifically make their behaviors non-human?
I play them as people.
By that, I mean that I play them in much the same way as I play humans, as they have a lot of the same motivations and emotions. However, I play up the unhuman parts when necessary but not all the time.
So, if I played a Half-Orc, then I would play up the bestial/violent stuff occasionally, perhaps by being savage in combat or by killing prisoners, but wouldn't be ultra-violent all the time.
The problem with inhumans in D&D, however, is that they are usually portrayed as being like humans, so it is hard to play them in other ways. It is a lot easier in other settings, such as Glorantha, where inhumans are given different cultures and roleplayig them is a lot easier.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1052210You are a ridiculously limited human being.
You seem to discount the absolute breadth of human behavior; for example, the culture where they played some sort of game that involved kicking the severed heads of the people they sacrificed (because they thought it kept the sun coming up every day) through hoops is already pretty damned alien to most people in the Western world.
Then throw in say, foot-binding, distending your lower lip until a dinner plate fits in it, stretching your necks using ever more metal bands, turning servants into eunuchs, keeping harems, ritualistically eating people, keeping the skeletal remains of your ancestors in your house, chopping off limbs, tongues, eyes and branding as forms of punishment. Some people have even ritually killed themselves en masse because their leaders told them to.
Then there are the folks on the opposite extreme who surrendered all their worldly possessions and spent the rest of their lives helping others, or in absolute silence while praying unceasingly or went off into complete isolation from the outside world in the name of spiritual connection with the divine.
There was a sect of Chinese monks who practiced Self-Mummification. There are people who dress up as furry creatures to have sex and those who enjoy dressing up as babies and having people spank them.
I defy you to come up with some cultural practice so alien that some human somewhere hasn't already tried it. Remember, humans came up with sagging pants as a cultural/fashion practice, invented the mood ring and pet rocks and devised the FATAL rpg system.
Aside from the Elves the other races are magically modified humans in the Majestic Wilderlands. In some cases the biology of the magical modification makes for a very different culture and individual mindset, , like orcs. Others not so much, halflings.
As for the elves their mindset and culture is dominated by their immortal lives and spiritual connection to the world.
My approach is not any better or worse than any other. There are lots of dials to turn on this topic. One of the reasons I setup things this way is because it makes most races relatable than some completely alien or non-human. And I found over the long run shifting the human averages for a race is enough to produce a series of alieness.
Demi-humans (excepting gnomes, really) are from human folklore, so by definition, aren't alien, but part of human culture.
Zee Bashew has a nice little piece in his 5e D&D animated series about using the optional Honor stat as a dwarven trait to define them.
[video=youtube;Wjbna_5eL6s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjbna_5eL6s[/youtube]
I did something similar for Gnomes using the Sanity and madness rules.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1052210You are a ridiculously limited human being.
I have yet to find any decent portrayals of demi-humans with genuinely inhuman psychology. Most writers seem to have extreme difficulty writing demi-humans as anything other than human ethnic groups.
Assuming that demi-humans have psychology shaped by their evolution, despite the young planet creationism rampant in fantasy settings, then their psychology should be shaped by their environment. For example, human psychology is characterized by tribalism, short-term thinking and wishful thinking (https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/why-humanity-destroyed-itself/). A species without those three psychological flaws will be extremely alien to us, and vice versa. (The only genuinely alien species I can think of in this regard are the zerg from
Starcraft, at least in theory since in practice the games' narrative universe just turns them into the puppets of a deranged teenage girl with high heels glued to her feet. Like most mass market video games the plot is absolute garbage.)
In the case of elves and dwarves, they would have species-wide psychological traits that set them apart from humans. These are not just cultural traits that are trained, but actual psychological aspects of their species.
For example, humans have an innate fear of the dark because we cannot see in the dark. Dwarves can see in the dark perfectly, so you would expect them not to be afraid of the dark. They may, in fact, be terrified of the open sky in the same way that humans are terrified of underground labyrinths.
Elves may be capable of long-term thinking and thus find it trivially easy to take environmentalism as a matter of fact. In a single elven lifetime they saw the terrible wages of capitalism and decided to become eco-friendly communists or something.
I don't know how easy this is to communicate when the point of the game is generally to wreak violence.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052767I have yet to find any decent portrayals of demi-humans with genuinely inhuman psychology. Most writers seem to have extreme difficulty writing demi-humans as anything other than human ethnic groups.
Assuming that demi-humans have psychology shaped by their evolution, despite the young planet creationism rampant in fantasy settings, then their psychology should be shaped by their environment. For example, human psychology is characterized by tribalism, short-term thinking and wishful thinking (https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/why-humanity-destroyed-itself/). A species without those three psychological flaws will be extremely alien to us, and vice versa. (The only genuinely alien species I can think of in this regard are the zerg from Starcraft, at least in theory since in practice the games' narrative universe just turns them into the puppets of a deranged teenage girl with high heels glued to her feet. Like most mass market video games the plot is absolute garbage.)
The Zerg are the descendants of the Bug sci-fi trope, used in Starship Troopers, Armor, Aliens, etc, etc. Terrestrial insects projected onto a spacefaring civilization. Very familiar, as we have a visceral reaction to the buggy sliminess of such races. They plug into our human expectations. Their hive mind hierarchy is obviously inspired by ants and bees.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052768The Zerg are the descendants of the Bug sci-fi trope, used in Starship Troopers, Armor, Aliens, etc, etc. Terrestrial insects projected onto a spacefaring civilization. Very familiar, as we have a visceral reaction to the buggy sliminess of such races. They plug into our human expectations. Their hive mind hierarchy is obviously inspired by ants and bees.
What I mean is that the zerg are the first time the trope was depicted as a
protagonist. The zerg are one of the three playable sides in the game and produced the gaming jargon "zerg rush."
Initially they were written as driven to perfect themselves by assimilating the strongest species in the universe, the characters talked in a manner reminiscent of the King Jame Bible and Shakespeare, and they were set up as the main villain of the franchise. Basically they were the entirely biological equivalent of the Borg from
Star Trek, if you were the sort of person who played the Borg in the video games where they were playable.
All of that was quickly discarded in favor of turning the zerg into the puppets of some crazy succubus with daddy/boyfriend issues (even the Born Queen was better than that), they were rewritten as the nice friendly misunderstood victims of an evil space demon, and by the end of the last released game they became peaceful hippies.
This is a real shame because, barring 4X games like
Stellaris and
Endless Legend (which do not have much in the way of narrative due to the format), there are no other examples in all fiction ever published of voracious bug monsters bent on conquering the universe being written as
protagonists.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052771What I mean is that the zerg are the first time the trope was depicted as a protagonist. The zerg are one of the three playable sides in the game and produced the gaming jargon "zerg rush."
Initially they were written as driven to perfect themselves by assimilating the strongest species in the universe, the characters talked in a manner reminiscent of the King Jame Bible and Shakespeare, and they were set up as the main villain of the franchise. Basically they were the entirely biological equivalent of the Borg from Star Trek, if you were the sort of person who played the Borg in the video games where they were playable.
All of that was quickly discarded in favor of turning the zerg into the puppets of some crazy succubus with daddy/boyfriend issues (even the Born Queen was better than that), they were rewritten as the nice friendly misunderstood victims of an evil space demon, and by the end of the last released game they became peaceful hippies.
This is a real shame because, barring 4X games like Stellaris and Endless Legend (which do not have much in the way of narrative due to the format), there are no other examples in all fiction ever published of voracious bug monsters bent on conquering the universe being written as protagonists.
Sure, but even with your example, I wouldn't call them alien. Humans have engaged in eugenics in an attempt at reaching perfection. Assimilation (borg or bug) has it's analogies in efforts to convert people to various ideologies. It's all very human-relatable.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1051573... with some biologically reinforced differences based primarily on longevity, low birth rates, and not sleeping/dreaming (if applicable...
I'm in the camp of favoring biologically-based differences. Can you elaborate on what you do with any examples?
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052773Sure, but even with your example, I wouldn't call them alien. Humans have engaged in eugenics in an attempt at reaching perfection. Assimilation (borg or bug) has it's analogies in efforts to convert people to various ideologies. It's all very human-relatable.
Really? What would you call "alien" then? I think your line of reasoning is excessively broad to the point where it makes "alien" impossible because every form of life can be reduced to "human-relatable" terms.
Your analogy to eugenics and totalitarian ideologies falls flat because the shtick of the zerg is that they embrace diversity. Where the Nazis tried to created an ideal, the zerg breed killing machines specialized for every imaginable purpose. Small dog-like zerglings, huge blimp-like overlords, gigantic hatcheries that constantly spawn larvae, and silverfish-like "cancer factories." Where the Communists tried to make everyone think alike, the zerg create immense detachments or "broods" of their species which are given a directive around which they build their personalities and adaptations, such as breeding, mining, or warfare.
If that is not alien, then I do not know what is.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052828Really? What would you call "alien" then? I think your line of reasoning is excessively broad to the point where it makes "alien" impossible because every form of life can be reduced to "human-relatable" terms.
This highlights the problem. Give me an example of a non-fictional form of life that isn't terrestrial, so we can compare.
QuoteYour analogy to eugenics and totalitarian ideologies falls flat because the shtick of the zerg is that they embrace diversity. Where the Nazis tried to created an ideal, the zerg breed killing machines specialized for every imaginable purpose. Small dog-like zerglings, huge blimp-like overlords, gigantic hatcheries that constantly spawn larvae, and silverfish-like "cancer factories." Where the Communists tried to make everyone think alike, the zerg create immense detachments or "broods" of their species which are given a directive around which they build their personalities and adaptations, such as breeding, mining, or warfare.
If that is not alien, then I do not know what is.
Exactly. Until we have a real-world example of a truly alien life form, we have no basis for comparison. There is great variety in the kinds of life forms on earth, but they all share the same basic structure of cabon based DNA, compete for similar resources in similar ways as each other. Prey on each other because they share that DNA, and can use each other for food. All humans have babies, and structures of heirarchies. Use similar tools, make music, laugh and cry and poop and stub their toes. Which of those experiences would an alien being share, and which would they find utterly alien?
The zerg are super ants much like the Tyrannids in 40k. And lets be honest. Most bugs are alien. They may do some recognizable things. But alot of what they do is alien to how a human or most mammals think or act.
But personally I think trying to make elves and such into something alien in D&D misses the point that these are relatively human races. And even basing off the fey they still come across as overall human-ish in how they think and act.
Star Frontiers had some interesting approaches to their aliens. Especially the Vrusk and Dralasites. The vrusk were very clan/group/company oriented but not hive minded. The dralasites found bad puns hilarious, changed gender essentially by season and had a thing for perfumes. Same with Traveller. The Azlan are more or less relatable. But something like the Hivers are weird.
Lots of different ways to go about it and really alien elves can be interesting too.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052833This highlights the problem. Give me an example of a non-fictional form of life that isn't terrestrial, so we can compare.
The octopus? It is the most intelligent invertebrate so it would have a completely different psychology from humans. Furthermore, the octopus is not humanoid at all but still follows the apparent trend that complex life is pressured towards cephalization (concentrating the central nervous system and sensory organs around the anterior of the digestive tract). In fact, the cephalopods display
higher cephalization than vertebrates since their brain is wrapped around their esophagus.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052833Exactly. Until we have a real-world example of a truly alien life form, we have no basis for comparison. There is great variety in the kinds of life forms on earth, but they all share the same basic structure of cabon based DNA, compete for similar resources in similar ways as each other. Prey on each other because they share that DNA, and can use each other for food. All humans have babies, and structures of heirarchies. Use similar tools, make music, laugh and cry and poop and stub their toes. Which of those experiences would an alien being share, and which would they find utterly alien?
Even alien life will have analogues to terrestrial life, simply because we live in the same universe subject to the same laws of physics. Even if the building materials are different, alien life will still be subject to game theory, natural selection and so forth. We can speculate based on the knowledge we have because those rules do not change.
Quote from: Omega;1052835Star Frontiers had some interesting approaches to their aliens. Especially the Vrusk and Dralasites. The vrusk were very clan/group/company oriented but not hive minded. The dralasites found bad puns hilarious, changed gender essentially by season and had a thing for perfumes. Same with Traveller. The Azlan are more or less relatable. But something like the Hivers are weird.
Don't forget the aliens in
The Galactos Barrier.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052840The octopus? It is the most intelligent invertebrate so it would have a completely different psychology from humans. Furthermore, the octopus is not humanoid at all but still follows the apparent trend that complex life is pressured towards cephalization (concentrating the central nervous system and sensory organs around the anterior of the digestive tract). In fact, the cephalopods display higher cephalization than vertebrates since their brain is wrapped around their esophagus.
That was a trick question. The octopus is a terrestrial creature. It comes from earth. It is, by definition, an earthling, and will have much more in common with us than any alien creature.
QuoteEven alien life will have analogues to terrestrial life, simply because we live in the same universe subject to the same laws of physics. Even if the building materials are different, alien life will still be subject to game theory, natural selection and so forth. We can speculate based on the knowledge we have because those rules do not change.
We can speculate, but our speculation will be heavily influenced by our experiences of life on this planet. And once you get past "It's a being" the speculation part has to fill in a
lot of details.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052852That was a trick question. The octopus is a terrestrial creature. It comes from earth. It is, by definition, an earthling, and will have much more in common with us than any alien creature.
That seems disingenuous. Just because something was not an earthling does not mean it will be unrecognizable or that it will have less in common with us than we do with jellyfish. Niches exist independently of planets and there is no reason to believe that alien life will be fundamentally different with regards to that.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052852We can speculate, but our speculation will be heavily influenced by our experiences of life on this planet. And once you get past "It's a being" the speculation part has to fill in a lot of details.
And I feel like you are falling into the logical fallacies of moving the goal posts and arguing from ignorance. There are numerous speculative biology projects (http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/specbiol/specbiol.htm). Do you really think all of them are too similar to terrestrial life and do not paint a believable picture of alien life?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052862That seems disingenuous. Just because something was not an earthling does not mean it will be unrecognizable or that it will have less in common with us than we do with jellyfish. Niches exist independently of planets and there is no reason to believe that alien life will be fundamentally different with regards to that.
And I feel like you are falling into the logical fallacies of moving the goal posts and arguing from ignorance. There are numerous speculative biology projects (http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/specbiol/specbiol.htm). Do you really think all of them are too similar to terrestrial life and do not paint a believable picture of alien life?
My point is we have no way of knowing until we actually encounter extraterrestrial life. Until then, it's all various degrees of speculation. Maybe they will be "humans with bumpy foreheads" because of convergent evolution, or maybe they will defy our expectations of what life fundamentally means, and we will go "Bwuh?"
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1052871My point is we have no way of knowing until we actually encounter extraterrestrial life. Until then, it's all various degrees of speculation. Maybe they will be "humans with bumpy foreheads" because of convergent evolution, or maybe they will defy our expectations of what life fundamentally means, and we will go "Bwuh?"
Science fiction has already explored stuff that defies our expectations regarding the definition of life and intelligence. We have gotten the xeelee from the Xeelee Sequence, the scramblers from
Blindsight, the soft ones (https://orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45c5247899c85) from Orion's Arm, the babyeaters and superhappies from
Three Worlds Collide, the aliens/demons from Lovecraft pastiches and more. Someone even analyzed the possible psychology behind the Dunwich horror (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3197956/).
We have yet to exhaust every possibility, but we do have a fairly imaginative picture of what alien life could be like.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052974Science fiction has already explored stuff that defies our expectations regarding the definition of life and intelligence. We have gotten the xeelee from the Xeelee Sequence, the scramblers from Blindsight, the soft ones (https://orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45c5247899c85) from Orion's Arm, the babyeaters and superhappies from Three Worlds Collide, the aliens/demons from Lovecraft pastiches and more. Someone even analyzed the possible psychology behind the Dunwich horror (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3197956/).
We have yet to exhaust every possibility, but we do have a fairly imaginative picture of what alien life could be like.
I don't think the HP Lovecraft stuff helps your case though. It's rooted in human psychology and human fears. An actual alien observing the fiction might find them very specifically tailored to trigger human emotions.
And yeah, I'm aware of the more far-out stuff from sci-fi. The Caliebans from Herbert's Consentiency universe are another example. Interesting ideas, but not outside human expectations, since
somebody thought them up. That's the logical trap we cannot escape until we actually encounter real world alien beings.
Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1051572They are absolutely plaid differently and the inter actions between different races are highlighted.
Great, now I have the image of my dwarf druid dressed in a checkered shirt burned into my brain.... :(
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1052828Really? What would you call "alien" then? I think your line of reasoning is excessively broad to the point where it makes "alien" impossible because every form of life can be reduced to "human-relatable" terms.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "human-relatable".
CJ Cherryh's books have aliens nobody understands. (See her Chanur and Foreigner series.) Their thought processes are too different. In the Chanur books, the one species that can talk to one particular alien species kind of got the idea of trade across. Now, instead of just taking stuff (including people), the aliens leave something (sometimes other people) in return. We know
what the alien species does, but not
why.
Several post-singularity authors have the AIs also impossible to understand. The AIs operate at a level we can't conceive, any more than a Flatlander can really understand "up but not North".
But most aliens that take up significant portions of a book are written as "one particular aspect of humans take to an extreme" because that's what humans can understand. The zerg are understandable, if extreme.
Quote from: Tod13;1053026But most aliens that take up significant portions of a book are written as "one particular aspect of humans take to an extreme" because that's what humans can understand. The zerg are understandable, if extreme.
Saying that such aliens take a specifically human aspect to an extreme is disingenuous. The zerg's defining traits are not unique to humans but are basic facets of life itself taken to their logical extreme. The zerg's assimilation is just bacterial conjugation and viral replication taken to its logical extreme. Their deliberate manipulation of their own genes is just natural selection and horizontal gene transfer taken to its logical extreme. Their drive to expand infinitely and consume all life that is not themselves is the basic drive of all life and viruses and even prions taken to its logical extreme.
The only aspect of the zerg that is uniquely human is that they are a biological equivalent to the Singularity, complete with a materialistic God complex, which itself is unique to modern cyperpunk fiction and was completely unknown to humans in ages past. If the most human aspect of an alien is that they are what humans consider to be beyond the ability of their own minds to comprehend, then I think saying they are just a human aspect exaggerated is outright falsehood.
All this stuff about the Zerg and completely alien biology/psychology is kinda beside the point to the topic. One of the core aspects of demi-humans is reflected in their very group name; they are human-like beings. They are social beings that reproduce sexually, are born, eat, drink, rest, defecate and, even it sometimes takes centuries, eventually grow old and die.
Heck, as I understand it one of the reasons "races" got used instead of species was because a lot of the initial source material referred to elves, dwarves and hobbits as being among the "races of Men." Half-elves got added specifically because Tolkein (and a lot of folktales he pulled from) had elves/fae and humans produce fertile offspring; something that just doesn't happen (naturally anyway) unless you shared a common ancestor less than a hundred thousand or so years back.
In other words, at best we're looking at modern humans vs. Neanderthals in terms of how "alien" the demi-humans would be from the humans. It's not like they're Thi-Kreen (insects), Lizardmen (reptiles), Aaracroca (avians) or even Wolfen (canine mammals). The demi-humans are at the very least hominids, if not actual homo sapiens (some refer to anatomically modern humans as homo sapiens sapiens to distinguish from extinct subspecies like homo sapiens idaltu).
Personally I tend to view the demi-humans of most D&D settings to be homo sapiens (homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens subterranus, homo sapiens immortalus, homo sapiens diminitus, etc.)... which is why, at least in the pre-3e editions, the use of "race" to distinguish makes absolute sense. Some settings may establish the races differently (ex. Dwarves are sapient stone, elves are plant-based) but they seem like the exceptions that prove the rule.
That said, if you're including dragonborn, reptilian kobolds, thri-kreen and warforged in the section you should probably be calling them species instead of races.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1053109Saying that such aliens take a specifically human aspect to an extreme is disingenuous.
Nope. It is accurate. To repeat because all the clauses are important: But most aliens that take up significant portions of a book are written as "one particular aspect of humans taken to an extreme" because that's what humans can understand.
Nothing you say changes what I said. But I think the problem, see below, is that you think I said something I did not say.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1053109If the most human aspect of an alien is that they are what humans consider to be beyond the ability of their own minds to comprehend, then I think saying they are just a human aspect exaggerated is outright falsehood.
I never said that. I said most aliens that take up a large portion of a story are exaggerations of aspects of humanity. Please note the qualifiers.
Before that though, I gave a couple examples where the alien's (if you want to call post-Singularity AIs "alien") motivations and reasoning really are incomprehensible. But in those books, the aliens are not significant portions of the story. You're drawing some connection between the two (incomprehensible aliens and aliens as exaggerated humans) that I never made (or intended).
Quote from: Chris24601;1053146All this stuff about the Zerg and completely alien biology/psychology is kinda beside the point to the topic. One of the core aspects of demi-humans is reflected in their very group name; they are human-like beings. They are social beings that reproduce sexually, are born, eat, drink, rest, defecate and, even it sometimes takes centuries, eventually grow old and die.
Heck, as I understand it one of the reasons "races" got used instead of species was because a lot of the initial source material referred to elves, dwarves and hobbits as being among the "races of Men." Half-elves got added specifically because Tolkein (and a lot of folktales he pulled from) had elves/fae and humans produce fertile offspring; something that just doesn't happen (naturally anyway) unless you shared a common ancestor less than a hundred thousand or so years back.
In other words, at best we're looking at modern humans vs. Neanderthals in terms of how "alien" the demi-humans would be from the humans. It's not like they're Thi-Kreen (insects), Lizardmen (reptiles), Aaracroca (avians) or even Wolfen (canine mammals). The demi-humans are at the very least hominids, if not actual homo sapiens (some refer to anatomically modern humans as homo sapiens sapiens to distinguish from extinct subspecies like homo sapiens idaltu).
Personally I tend to view the demi-humans of most D&D settings to be homo sapiens (homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens subterranus, homo sapiens immortalus, homo sapiens diminitus, etc.)... which is why, at least in the pre-3e editions, the use of "race" to distinguish makes absolute sense. Some settings may establish the races differently (ex. Dwarves are sapient stone, elves are plant-based) but they seem like the exceptions that prove the rule.
That said, if you're including dragonborn, reptilian kobolds, thri-kreen and warforged in the section you should probably be calling them species instead of races.
The word "species" seems too modern IMO to fit into a pseudo-medieval European setting. What about ancestries, heritages, kinds and so forth?
Also, why are we conflating biological phenotype with culture? That seems a bit racist to me because we know that in real life every "race" has multiple different cultures. Using "white" people as an example (since SJWs love to claim Europeans lack culture while simultaneously rewriting European history to be more politically correct), we see this in European countries and the American states. Something as commonplace as fast food constitutes cultural cuisine. (Although this depends on how you define race, since racial classifications are unscientific, arbitrary and usually ignore or downplay the existence of ethnic groups like Indians, First Nations peoples and that island tribe that independently evolved blond hair (https://www.nature.com/news/blonde-hair-evolved-more-than-once-1.10587). The Nazi's, for example, considered Slavs and Mediterraneans to be PoC.)
Quote from: Tod13;1053227Nope. It is accurate. To repeat because all the clauses are important: But most aliens that take up significant portions of a book are written as "one particular aspect of humans taken to an extreme" because that's what humans can understand.
Nothing you say changes what I said. But I think the problem, see below, is that you think I said something I did not say.
I never said that. I said most aliens that take up a large portion of a story are exaggerations of aspects of humanity. Please note the qualifiers.
Before that though, I gave a couple examples where the alien's (if you want to call post-Singularity AIs "alien") motivations and reasoning really are incomprehensible. But in those books, the aliens are not significant portions of the story. You're drawing some connection between the two (incomprehensible aliens and aliens as exaggerated humans) that I never made (or intended).
The "one particular aspect of humans taken to an extreme" is classically considered bad writing because it is a giant plot hole. A civilization based around one concept like warriors or scientists cannot function. Even the simplest civilization requires a dizzying variety of jobs to maintain their infrastructure (including food, shelter, clothing, legal disputes, etc). Unlike the klingons, the zerg have dedicated miners, geneticists, and everything else they need to actually fund a war effort.
Your statement is wrong about the zerg. They are not "one particular aspect of humans taken to an extreme" and saying that they are is so reductionist as to be essentially meaningless because if they are then so are ants (communism to the extreme), octopuses (childcare to the extreme), mushrooms (LGBTQ+ to the extreme), trees (veganism to the extreme), rocks (stupidity to the extreme), stars (light pollution to the extreme), and black holes (obesity epidemic to the extreme).
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1053236The "one particular aspect of humans taken to an extreme" is classically considered bad writing because it is a giant plot hole. A civilization based around one concept like warriors or scientists cannot function. Even the simplest civilization requires a dizzying variety of jobs to maintain their infrastructure (including food, shelter, clothing, legal disputes, etc). Unlike the klingons, the zerg have dedicated miners, geneticists, and everything else they need to actually fund a war effort.
This is addressed in the Enterprise episode Judgement. I can't find a clip so...
"You didn't believe all Klingons were soldiers?"
"I guess I did."
"My father was a teacher. My mother, a biologist at the university. They encouraged me to take up the law. Now, all young people want to do is to take up weapons as soon as they can hold them. They're told there is honor in victory – any victory. What honor is there in a victory over a weaker opponent? Had Duras destroyed that ship, he would have been lauded as a hero of the Empire for murdering helpless refugees. We were a great society, not so long ago. When honor was earned through integrity and acts of true courage, not senseless bloodshed."
"For thousands of years, my people had similar problems. We fought three world wars that almost destroyed us. Whole generations were nearly wiped out."
"What changed?"
"A few courageous people began to realize... they could make a difference."
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Judgment_(episode)
Quote from: Chris24601;1053146That said, if you're including dragonborn, reptilian kobolds, thri-kreen and warforged in the section you should probably be calling them species instead of races.
Why?
The Dragonborn Race or the Kobold Race is as useful as the Human Race, Elven Race or the Dwarven Race. If you think of Race in those terms then it makes sense. If you think of Race as a sub-type of a species, then you automatically consider elves, dwarves and so on as different types of human, which doesn't really work.
Quote from: soltakss;1053246Why?
The Dragonborn Race or the Kobold Race is as useful as the Human Race, Elven Race or the Dwarven Race. If you think of Race in those terms then it makes sense. If you think of Race as a sub-type of a species, then you automatically consider elves, dwarves and so on as different types of human, which doesn't really work.
Are human races still a thing in such a setting? Would the term "race" be used in both contexts or would another term be substituted? Something weird I noticed in most fantasy with demi-humans is that human racial or ethnic differences are completely ignored.
Quote from: soltakss;1053246Why?
The Dragonborn Race or the Kobold Race is as useful as the Human Race, Elven Race or the Dwarven Race. If you think of Race in those terms then it makes sense. If you think of Race as a sub-type of a species, then you automatically consider elves, dwarves and so on as different types of human, which doesn't really work.
You realize that I literally just said that I consider the demi-humans (elves, dwarves and hobbits/halflings) in most D&D settings to be subspecies of homo sapiens (homo sapiens sapiens = human, homo sapiens immortalus = elf, homo sapiens subterranus = dwarf, homo sapiens diminutus = halfling).
They have different sizes/builds, different lifespans, minor variations in amount/color of body hair and facial features; it's a bit more extreme than in the real world (particularly lifespans; but then a lot of myths and legends have humans of past ages who lived for hundreds of years before we fell to our current state), but there's nothing about the demi-humans that wouldn't fall outside of "human with a birth defect" levels of deviation from human norms.
In terms of deviation, there are actually several extinct subspecies of homo sapiens in the real world as well.
Running specifically along these lines is that "Adventurers in Middle Earth" for 5e lists elves, dwarves and hobbits alongside the Bardings, Duindain, Men of Bree, Men of Rohan, Men of the Lake, etc. In other words, they're all "Races of Men."
If elves, dwarves and halflings are just homo sapiens subspecies (and those are the only PC types available) then calling them "races" is entirely justified as it's pretty much the same context as we use race today.
However, if the setting also includes PC races that are completely distinct (ex. Lizard men, Bug men, sapient plant life) as well, that's when using 'race' seems silly to me because the options available cross species boundaries, not just racial ones.
Likewise, I do think it's rather logical that most racial distinctions other than subspecies (because of the obvious physiological differences) would be relatively downplayed in D&D settings because, even if they aren't available to the players, there do exist a wide array of hostile sapient species in most D&D settings that must be contended with. A human from the Danish ethnic group and one of the Pygmy peoples have only relatively minor variations in height and pigmentation compared to say any human and a lizardman, much less something like a dragon which doesn't even have the same number of appendages, much less body form.
Also worth noting is that unless the setting has had rather sizable migrations or easy travel in the past, most particular regions of any given fantasy world will tend to be relatively homogeneous in terms of ethnicity.
Paleolithic humans in Europe were more likely to interact with a tribe of their Neanderthal cousins than with other anatomically modern humans from say, southern Africa or Southeast Asia. The need to distinguish between European and African ethnic groups just wouldn't be part of their day-to -day existence while distinguishing between fellow Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals one valley over would be frequent.
This is relevant to the subject:
[video=youtube_share;RwvqXDdIeeM]https://youtu.be/RwvqXDdIeeM[/youtube]