I'm running a weekly Dungeons & Dragons 5e campaign now after having done a series of one-shots so the players could get to know the classes. Of 4 to 6 players, maybe 5 different character creation sessions in total, they've made....one human.

The kind of game I want to focus on is human-centric. Other races are contributing to the general fantasy landscape. I've told the players that they may have a bit of trouble going into human settlements because human villages would be, for instance, frightened of a half-dragon, or throw stones at a drow, or be very guarded against a mountain dwarf.

I don't mind demi-humans in the party - I think they add lots of interesting flavour to the make-up, but when it's a party of everything-but-human, an entirely mixed bag of various almost-monsters adventuring together, it distinctly clashes with my impression of what a Dungeons & Dragons game should be. I just don't want the majority of the party to be playing the 'weird outsider one'.

As a preface: I came to D&D with 3rd edition and worked my way backwards in editions. When I discovered B/X I kind of fell in love with it (not to say it doesn't have other problems) and discovered that B/X was the kind of thing I always thought of as D&D without knowing it. It made playing a demi-human feel special and different, at least to me. My group is only interested in 3rd edition and beyond, and I'm the one that coxed them into 5e.

I think the races in 5e are very well thought-out, well balanced and well designed. However, when they are well-balanced with the human choice, and interesting-of-themselves, then how can human compete as a selection? Of course humans are going to be a minority in a party of characters.

I've thought of letting human characters start off at a slightly higher level in order to encourage the setting I'm trying to evoke, but I'm concerned players may find this unfair.

Suggestions?

//Panjumanju

As long as you say it up front, and explain what sort of world you want, I don't think it'd be unfair.

Would it work just as well to treat a demi-human party as a minority in the world? Maybe reflect that in the attitudes of the NPCs they meet, etc?

I know where you are coming from. For some reason, I always have a couple of players who always insist on being an elf or dwarf (no matter what group of players it is).

Even in my D&D Bronze Age game (where playing anything but a human was strongly discouraged) I still ended up with three centaurs.

One day I do hope to run a D&D campaign that is more "Game of Thrones" fantasy with only human PCs, but I haven't gotten a lot of player interest in that sort of thing.

It's tempting to rig the deck to get players to chose what you want them to do, but sometimes, well.

I recommend not being coy and saying flat-out 'I want you all to play humans' or roll a die on who gets to play a non-human.

I've been very upfront about the setting and the demographics of the world. I just still feel like I'm flying in the face of player expectation. They have encountered some conflict with NPCs - that's the obvious way of doing it, and I'm okay running "band of outsiders in a human-centric world" as a campaign ....once.... but if this is just the expectation players have approaching Dungeons & Dragons now, I'm not sure how to steer it into the direction I'd be happier to run.

//Panjumanju

Another option is 'nationalities.' I've considered this for strictly all-human games.

So instead of Human, Elf, Dwarf, you might have Esterling, Aegyptian, Frorling.

The 'elves' become long(er) lived humans of refinement and an ancient society, the dwarves are hearty mining folks, expert at crafts and selling their service as builders, and so on.

(I'm trying to remember the name, but there was an ancient Mediterranean group who were such experts in math and craft that a great deal of their prosperity came from being hired out as architects and builders throughout the ancient world)

One problem is that players often have a desire to stand out, to be 'different.'
Few things are as different, to all us humans, as... not playing a human.

I think there's also an unexamined contrarian element where if you say 'this is a game of samurai' someone is going to want to be a Klingon ninja half-dragon shaman.

Random Generation.

You can be a human if you want, otherwise you roll on the race chart and can pick anything from that rarity level or below.  

You don't want everyone to make up Noldor, Warforged, Melnibonean Nobles or anything else with a ratio that turns your world into a joke...then don't let them do it.

Bring back level limits


On a serious note, I prefer to play humans actually.  The variant racial bonus (get a free feat) pretty much makes humans my default PC unless there's something unusual that I want to try out (like my halfling battlemaster fighter)

Quote from: Will;813945I think there's also an unexamined contrarian element where if you say 'this is a game of samurai' someone is going to want to be a Klingon ninja half-dragon shaman.

Next game don't invite that person at all.  When they ask why, say "Oh this campaign doesn't have Drow/Gish/Cybermancers, so I figured you wouldn't want to play".  They'll walk (good) or see that you put the collective game over their wants (better).

This "screw being human" thing IS a thing, in my experience. Most games I've played have featured at least 50% non-human (some maybe 1 human). I've come to realize that some players just don't listen if you're simply "encouraging" them. For example, you say, "it's a humanocentric world--th other races are looked upon with suspicion at BEST, outright prejudice at worst." They won't catch the hint. I mean, I JUST said that to a group last week and ended up with an Elf, a halfling, a gnome a half-orc and one human.:-/

I had honestly hoped the "+1 to all stats" thing would help 5E in that regard, but people like to be Elves, Dwarves and shit, so...I have to either accept that, or rule them out and hope players still play. That said, while I DO think only way to "encourage" the creation of human PCs is to mandate them, I do have a couple ideas:

(1) Roll for it: give folks a small chance of something else in order to appear "fair." Maybe have them roll on a "birthtable," where you can be "the race you roll and under," for example:

Birth Table (roll d12):
1-9: Human
10: Halfling, Elf
11: Dwarf, Gnome
12: Half-Elf, Half-Orc

(2) Use Humans as your other races: in a couple campaigns where I DID mandate human races I also experimented with human "sub-types" that mimicked the traditonal faire, i.e, "Gamnans are hardy, stocky, warrior folk from the frigid north [insert Dwarven stat bonuses and some etc.]." That seemed to work pretty well, though the expectation at the top was "you're ALL human." I liked it because it allowed me to have a much freer reign with how I used Elves, Dwarves, etc. There was still something exotic and mysterious about them.

Are you allowing variant humans and also allowing feats? Because if so humans are possibly the best race in the game and should normally be pretty popular. If you're just using regular humans, or to a lesser extent variant humans without feats, then they kind of suck.

That only works if people are driven by optimizing, and, well, depends on your crowd.

That, and people play a fantasy rpg to get away from the every day.  I.e., being something other than human.

So unless you heavily reward a human, or heavily punish a demi-human, you're not going to get that many humans.

Quote from: Panjumanju;813938I've thought of letting human characters start off at a slightly higher level in order to encourage the setting I'm trying to evoke, but I'm concerned players may find this unfair.

"I want to run a game about humans, with demihumans as rare outsiders. So the only races available for this campaign are humans, and... that's it, actually."

You could probably reskin dwarves, elves, gnomes and half-orcs/elves/lings and maybe even tieflings as regional variants, but you're probably better off not, to prevent debate.