So, over in this thread the Pundit said:

Quote from: RPGPunditExalted is utter crap written by pretentious shitheads who have an anti-human stance because they're so utterly unable to aspire to qualify as worthwhile human beings.

Which got me thinking, but it's such a tangent that I'm making a new thread for it. Specifically, it reminded of this line from the hilarious RPG Cliche List:

Quote from: The RPG Cliche ListNephilim Law. In modern-day occult games, mortal humans are considered to have the same intrinsic worth as cattle. (So named for Nephilim, a game that is particularly blatant about this.)

Now, Exalted isn't a modern-day occult game, but you can definitely view it as an anti-humanistic game: in the setting, the various Exalted are the important people in society, and mundane human beings are nigh-irrelevant.

Ignoring the Pundit's assumptions about the motivations of the Exalted designers, why does this sort of thing appear so often in RPGs? I get the impression that it happens far more often in games than it does in, say, books or movies: why is that? Is it the nastier side of the wish-fulfilment element of roleplaying?

Well, there's certainly no lack of gamers that believe themselves superior to the "normals" or the rest of society, but then again, you can find that on just about any message board community out there.

Perhaps an entire earlier generation of wedgied, swirlied and abused gamers decided, rather than go Columbine on everyone, they'd just write a game wherein they were capable of superiority over the rest of the humanity that had mocked them so.  

Quote from: Zachary The FirstWell, there's certainly no lack of gamers that believe themselves superior to the "normals" or the rest of society, but then again, you can find that on just about any message board community out there.

Perhaps an entire earlier generation of wedgied, swirlied and abused gamers decided, rather than go Columbine on everyone, they'd just write a game wherein they were capable of superiority over the rest of the humanity that had mocked them so.  

I think that's a big part of it. In my experience, the people who are the most interested in "freaking the mundanes" are those who were teased by the more popular kids in school. (They also tend to be the ones who still regard things in terms of "jocks and nerds": I suppose some people just never let go of the attitudes they held in high school.)

Of course, it's no coincidence that the publisher which most frequently stumbles into the Nephilim Law isn't Chaosium/MultiSym, who actually put out Nephilim, but White Wolf itself; it applies to pretty much all the WoD games, plus Exalted, plus Trinity and Aberrant, plus Scion, plus Adventure (normal people don't go on adventures - you have to be whacked by cosmic rays before you can be a pulp hero, for some mad reason)...

I don't think White Wolf has ever put out a game where the PCs are ordinary people who rise to the challenge, punch above their weight, and become heroic (or at least extraordinary) that way. You almost always are formerly-normal people who get transformed into something entirely different when a vampire bites you/a cosmic ray hits you/the voices in your head pipe up/whatever, or were extraordinary from birth.

It does rather of irritate me.  I don't know where it comes from, exactly.  I had a guy in our Rifts group long ago that absolutely refused to play a normal human under any circumstances.

One of my favorite parts about D&D3 is that Humans are actually one of the coolest of the starting races, because of that natural flexibility and learning ability.

I've always loved the theme that runs through almsot every iteration of Doctor Who, that humans are this singularly special species, adaptive and brilliant, and capable of incredible deeds, or incredible misdeeds.  

My own game drives home this sort of humanism from the very start.  There's jsut some special spark that humanity has that no one else seems to have, a drive, a level of creativity, that leads them to do some pretty incredible stuff, often against seemingly impossible odds.  

I really and truly believe that it's this that the book talks about when it says we were created in God's image.  There is a terrible creativity in the human spirit, and it's truly marvelous.  A splendor matched only by the universe itself.

Humans kick ass.

Quote from: J ArcaneOne of my favorite parts about D&D3 is that Humans are actually one of the coolest of the starting races, because of that natural flexibility and learning ability.

Hell yes. D&D's always been good about that - Gygax's notes on how D&D is a "human-centric universe" in the 1st Edition AD&D DMG are very well thought-out, and nicely explain the reasoning behind, say, the level limits for non-human characters.

Part of the reason I despair of the anti-human attitude in gaming is that roleplaying someone who isn't human is actually quite difficult, and many people don't quite pull it off, leading to their characters coming off as humans in funny costumes. I generally either have an "all humans" or "no more than 1 non-human for every 3 humans in the party" rule when I am running games with multiple playable races: I want the non-humans to be special and exciting, and it's hard to do that when everyone's playing one.

In Nobilis, all of humanity was originally meant to be special, except that the plan went horribly wrong. They started out as miraculous beings, briefly hovered at the brink of divinity, and then regressed into animals. Restoring the species to its former glory would be a worthy personal project for any PC.

From a game perspective it is very useful.

It helps answer questions like-

'Why is this adventure our problem' - because you are 'Special'

'Why do we put up with this asshole other PC' - you can't sack him, he's all there is

'Why do people keep bringing us their problems/why do interesting things keep happening to us?' - because you have that PC glow

'Why is this story about us and not someone else?'

etc.






See, it seems to me that games go better when PCs have some kind of authority in the situation of the game - Why is this your problem, Why are the NPCs willing to let you do their jobs, Why don't the NPCs do it themselves etc.

Back off man. We're the Ghostbusters

Being Special is more or less blanket authority to stick a beak in to almost any situation, which is incredibly useful.

See, I don't see those as "problems" in any sense, but merely the unspoken rule of most roleplaying, and much fiction of any heroic stripe really.  The PCs are just the heroes.  Of course they're more important than everyone else.

Well, I've seen it crop up several times in normal human (specifically, if a crew member on a ship is an asshole, The Captain/Ship Owner will try to sack him and replace him with someone who isn't such a liability - PCs would tend to blow Baltar or Doc Smith or Tir Anasazi or Rygel out of an airlock if they don't get with the program).

But never the same problem in vampire. We're goddam vampires. Of course we hang out together.

Quote from: Erik BoielleWell, I've seen it crop up several times in normal human (specifically, if a crew member on a ship is an asshole, The Captain will try to sack him and replace him with someone who isn't such a liability - PCs would tend to blow Baltar or Doc Smith or Tir Anasazi or Rygel out of an airlock if they don't get with the program).

But never the same problem in vampire. We're goddam vampires. Of course we hang out together.

See now, I always though that was stupid.

Mostly because Vampires (in the VtM sense), were mostly fucking dicks, and I didn't see how anyone could stand being around them.

It's probably something of a psycholocial artifact, but it certainly works. From a practical point of view though, only another vampire is gonna have Dominate 3, so you can't just stick an ad in the paper for a replacement. That there always happens to be as many vampires as there are players is merely coincidence.

But I think it ties in to the differing requirements of fiction and games - a TV show can get away with two characters who are always on the brink of falling out, but by the end of the episode come togeather to vanquish the foe, but try that in an RPG and theres a good chance they will kill each other or just walk away to different continents and never speak again.

Quote from: Erik BoielleSee, it seems to me that games go better when PCs have some kind of authority in the situation of the game - Why is this your problem, Why are the NPCs willing to let you do their jobs, Why don't the NPCs do it themselves etc.

Back off man. We're the Ghostbusters

Being Special is more or less blanket authority to stick a beak in to almost any situation, which is incredibly useful.

I agree with the first two paragraphs here, but not the third. Just because your characters are all, say, vampires or werewolves or whatever doesn't mean that they necessarily have the authority to, say, stick their nose into a police investigation. In fact, very often in games operating under the Nephilim Law the characters being Special doesn't solve this problem at all - to use a Vampire example, why does the Prince of the city want this pack of unproven neonate vampires to sort out a problem which really should fall under the Sheriff's jurisdiction?

Also, note that the Ghostbusters were special precisely because they were normal human beings who specifically chose to set themselves up as ghost hunters, and were the only people on the ground with the specialist knowledge required. They weren't bitten on the neck by 9th-generation Ghostbusters and given cool powers.

I think we are sliding a little off-topic here, though: the Nephilim Law isn't just about the player characters being cool and special people who are uniquely placed to deal with the scenario being posed in a campaign. It's also about having a situation where the players, and the people who are similarly special, are almost the only important things in the gameworld, and that your average joe on the street can be killed and drained of blood without consequence.

Quote from: J ArcaneSee now, I always though that was stupid.

Mostly because Vampires (in the VtM sense), were mostly fucking dicks, and I didn't see how anyone could stand being around them.

It gets really stupid if you start thinking about how often vampires need to feed, and how many people in a city you require to support the number of vampires in a campaign, and how a great many vampires in fiction are solitary creatures because they're meant to be solitary, terrifying predators...

Yeah. All games need something gluing the PCs together, and Vampire's assumptions are particularly ropey. It doesn't help that it seems to assume that the PCs will be from multiple clans: a party made up purely of Ventrue or Toreador or Brujah or whatever might be far more inclined to stick together, but they're also going to be decidedly uneven when it comes to the Disciplines they possess.

Personally, I tend to just make sure the PCs are the sort of people whose job it is to deal with the situations they deal with in my games. Want to run a game where the PCs are chasing down a serial killer? Make them the cops assigned to the case. Want to run a game about them solving supernatural mysteries? Make them part of a secret society devoted to doing just that. Give them a superior, make them part of an organisation, and then they have to work together. "I'm not transferring you to another team, Wilson, you're my best telepath and I need you with Z team! Now, get back there and start showing me some teamwork!"

I'm just sayin, with Special characters, not only do you get characters who by dint of their very being are uniquely placed to get involved in almost any adventure and a built in group cohesion enhancer, you also get to treat people like dirt!

Its win win, and hence unsuprisingly popular.

Doing something else is not only less fun, its also makes for a more difficult game to run and play.

Pissing against the wind here dude.

QuoteGive them a superior, make them part of an organisation

I quit.

Can't quit being a vampire.

The Hero's Journey isn't the only story out there.

There's a long tradition of protagonists starting off with powerful, sometimes unique abilities that set them apart from the world. As has been said these attributes can provide all sorts of conflict and hooks that rely less on the setting than they do the inherent condition of the characters existence.

It was only a matter of time before RPG's eventually latched on to this. Claiming that it's "anti-human" is ridiculous, unless you want to make a case that all super-powered characters somehow undermine our precious mortality. Exalted is similar to playing a 10th level Wizard, or Spider-Man, and I don't see games featuring them being decried as the foul scribblings of those who would deny us our essential worth.

Seriously. The whole idea is specious nonsense that hinges on the badwrongfun mentality that some individuals can't help bleating out at every available opportunity. It's time to grow up.