I've sometimes thought it would be interesting to have a fantasy races be subdivisions of humanity instead of the more typical versions of elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. What I mean by that is that the men of the frozen north are known for being big and strong but not very sociable, they have +2 Strength and -2 Charisma, while humans of the southern jungles are small but quick and have +2 Dexterity and -2 Strength, just as some examples. Something like that, along with more specific sorts of abilities or bonuses (resistance to cold, greater ability to track, certain weapons counting as martial).

Has anybody played in a game where this was the case? I've sometimes thought if you had your races be humans instead of non-humans that you could still have that sort of cultural thematic feel for characters without having such unremovable hats for the races (species?) and their characters.

Birthright, one of the many 2e D&D settings had this as a concept... there were no baseline humans and each got +1 to a stat and -1 to another.

Personally, I don't think they need the penalty... just a bonus. +2 Con and Resistance to cold for the Northern humans, +2 Wis (for Perception checks) and Terrainwalk (forest) for the humans who live in the rainforest region.

I also wouldn't necessarily make the dividing lines strictly on conventional geography. You could have an entire culture of humans who lives almost their entire lives aboard giant ships who get +2 Str (climb checks for the rigging, being able to haul in nets full of fish, raise anchors, etc.) and a natural swim speed (but not water breathing; just that they're good enough swimmers to not need to make checks to keep afloat even in bad conditions) or a culture that lives entirely on floating earth motes and so have +2 Dex (balance checks) and where the feather fall spell is passed on from parent to child (for their survival) and is something they can do once per day even if they aren't otherwise a spellcaster.

Yeah, all the time. Usually thought of and presented as cultures and typical regional traits rather than races.

I'm doing that in my current 5E campaign, at least to some extent.  I've still got elves, dwarves, and halflings, but no other races from the D&D usual lists.  All the half-elves and half-orcs racial adjustment blocks are used to describe alternate humans, with the default humans being the "Imperial" stock.  I'm using the gnome stats for alternate halflings in the same way, as it makes for a good mix of "smart" short people to go with the "tough" and "quick" versions of normal dwarves and halflings.

I've also run a campaign where that was turned on its head a little.  Where all the typical fantasy races are descended from magically altered humans, and thus the race name is descriptive of that process.  That is, a particular strain of human that are notably lithe and clever with a few other characteristic features are called "elves", and various individuals can be partway there.  You didn't get racial adjustments.  You rolled for stats, and the stats you got determined your racial possibilities.

Pretty much sums up my Red Shetland RPG way back. No fantasy races at all so its all based on racial variation.

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1033347I've sometimes thought it would be interesting to have a fantasy races be subdivisions of humanity instead of the more typical versions of elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. What I mean by that is that the men of the frozen north are known for being big and strong but not very sociable, they have +2 Strength and -2 Charisma, while humans of the southern jungles are small but quick and have +2 Dexterity and -2 Strength, just as some examples. Something like that, along with more specific sorts of abilities or bonuses (resistance to cold, greater ability to track, certain weapons counting as martial).

Has anybody played in a game where this was the case? I've sometimes thought if you had your races be humans instead of non-humans that you could still have that sort of cultural thematic feel for characters without having such unremovable hats for the races (species?) and their characters.

Well, it's more or less the case in Runequest: Vikings, where various people get a Siz bonus or penalty, presumably due to diet:).
Though I felt my own ancestors were misrepresented, it wasn't much of a problem. In practice, we all played Northerners, and didn't bother with convoluted explanations why someone might have travelled far abroad to join a Viking expedition;).

BTW, I suspect the same thread on TBP might get way funnier responses:D!

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1033347I've sometimes thought it would be interesting to have a fantasy races be subdivisions of humanity instead of the more typical versions of elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. ... Has anybody played in a game where this was the case?

Yeah, a couple of times. I ran an all-human 2E AD&D campaign in the early 90s with north men, southerners, etc. I can't remember if we had their origin affect attributes or not. I want to say no? More recently, I have been running Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (AS&SH), in which all of the default races are humans drawn from historical and pulp sources - Romans, Spartans, Kimmerians, Atlantleans, Esquimaux, Vikings, Amazons, Ixians and so on. In AS&SH the choice of race has no effect on attributes.

It's very common in Swords & Sorcery games & settings, eg Primeval Thule does it. In CRPGs obviously Elder Scrolls does it, with similar numbers of different human races and elven races.

In my Wilderlands 5e campaign, most human races use the baseline stats, but I use variant stat bonuses for the more diverged Altanian Amazon & High Avalonian races.

Quote from: AsenRG;1033377BTW, I suspect the same thread on TBP might get way funnier responses:D!

I'm sure they would treat the question with the mature & sensitive tone for which they're so rightly renowned.

Quote from: Sergeant Brother;1033347I've sometimes thought it would be interesting to have a fantasy races be subdivisions of humanity instead of the more typical versions of elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. What I mean by that is that the men of the frozen north are known for being big and strong but not very sociable, they have +2 Strength and -2 Charisma, while humans of the southern jungles are small but quick and have +2 Dexterity and -2 Strength, just as some examples. Something like that, along with more specific sorts of abilities or bonuses (resistance to cold, greater ability to track, certain weapons counting as martial).

Has anybody played in a game where this was the case? I've sometimes thought if you had your races be humans instead of non-humans that you could still have that sort of cultural thematic feel for characters without having such unremovable hats for the races (species?) and their characters.

Lion & Dragon (and Dark Albion) has Scots Men and Cymri (english traveling gypsies) as PC "racial classes".

I do this all the time, usually by reskinning something pre-existing, like High Elves become the aristomagical sword-duelling culture, or whatever.