Why must humans rule?

[FenrisUlf]

Anyone here ever done a high (or other) fantasy setting in which humans are not at the top of the social heap? While not roleplay, I've done some stories in a world (sort-of like Central Asia and pre-Islamic Persia) where humanity is a 'subject species' under/allied to a race of wolf-folk who are the actual rulers. It's more heroic fantasy than high fantasy, but still, I think it could work as a RPG setting (though I'm decidedly biased...)

 

But anyone else ever done any 'humans don't rule' settings?

[trechriron]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Nope. But I want to. I am drafting up a Fantasy Sci-Fi setting where there will be NO humans at all. There will be a number of races I want to do, all will have some set of special traits that makes them more than "human", and I am trying to stay away from cliché races/species. So far this is proving to be difficult. I think I am going to focus on culture, religion, lifestyle, technology, etc as major distinctions.

 

Many people view the portrayals of non-human as simply human with some special abilities. The real kicker IMO is going to be culture. That will require some forethought on the GM and player to hammer out before play begins. The idea would not just be to eliminate humans from the possible race selections but also to have the available races not FEEL human when portrayed.

 

Just my two cents…

[Brett]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

If I remember correctly, in the Earthdawn RPG by FASA, Dwarves were the primary race.

 

In Monte Cook's Diamond Throne setting for his d20 Arcana Unearthed game, Giants came in and freed humans from the slavery of some sort of Dragons/Demons and now rule the land.

 

I had a fantasy setting that I made once where the races were primarily humanoid\animal variants. There was a race that was like anime humans with wild colored hair, eyes, and skin. However, this race was not dominant in the land.

 

Brett

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

The idea would not just be to eliminate humans from the possible race selections but also to have the available races not FEEL human when portrayed.

 

Like a lot of GMs, I have long been infatuated with the idea of making alien races actually alien, both in fantasy games and in SF. The problem, of course, is that both I and the players are all human. So even if I eventually did manage to wrap my mind around a non-human worldview (which is, on its own, no mean feat), effectively communicating that to the players to the degree where they could actually run one of these creatures is, if not impossible, really quite difficult.

 

In the long run, like many cool ideas, I think it works better as an idea than it does as a reality.

 

Still, there are some shortcuts you can take to get across the feel of alienness, even if the creature is effectively just a human with rubber ears/wings/a tail/what-have-you. The easiest, at least in my experience, is to find one universal truth about all (or nearly all) modern industrial human beings, and break it. This is easier said than done.

 

A well-worn technique is to take a hint from human cultures in other places or times, such as eliminating or altering a culture's awareness of material goods as being possessions. You see this in lots of settings, and I have used it myself: in a fantasy game I ran for some time, there was a race called Zinjan who understood the concept of ownership to cover only what they could carry -- and extended it to cover anything they *did* carry. As such, it was unusual for them to have any great attachment to a specific item, unless they were holding it and someone tried to take it from them. But they may well put it down and forget about it ten minutes later. There were exceptions, of course -- heirlooms, prized weapons, that sort of thing.

 

That's a facile example (which is why it gets used a lot: it's almost become a cliche), but there are more creative ones you could think of, if you're motivated.

[SleepyDrug]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

My main fantasy campaign the world is evenly split between different races and the players are native to the elven nation. Humans usually appear only as villains.

[Brett]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Much more roleplaying is required to play a truly nonhuman race. As the above posts indicate, most Cat-People are just humans with high DEX, tails, claw, and nightvision. They still act like quirky humans, otherwise, they would sleep through most of the adventure and spend their waking hours lounging about, ignoring everyone, and looking for food or something with which to play.

 

Brett

[Brett]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

My main fantasy campaign the world is evenly split between different races and the players are native to the elven nation. Humans usually appear only as villains.

 

Speaking of alien races, wouldn't you think that elves would be the least likely to act like humans (going on adventures and fighting wars) since in most settings, they are have extreme life spans or are immortal? It seems that one with so much life ahead of them would be overly cautious. Other elves with too much life behind them may not care about living or have a death wish. Still, the biggest psychological difference between humans and elves in most settings are that elves have an affinity with nature and magic.

 

Brett

[Wil Hyral]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

In my low-fantasy world, most of the characters do interact solely within the bounds of a Human empire, so they're indefinitely at the top of the social heap. However, by land area, most of my world is ruled by the wild. That means on a few continents, the wilderness is too formidable to settle by humans. Some druids can run the scene there, but whether they're human or not is totally up to player speculation at this point (and I've not commented in either direction).

 

Elves rule very little and dwarves rule a moderate amount. Most of the rulership by numbers is actually done by the Axiom Empire, which employs large units of anthropomorphic ant-people. They are no where near human civilization, and they keep mostly underground.

 

But I do follow the norm for the low-level aspect of the game, which is that humans do indeed rule their lot of the island on which the game is set.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Much more roleplaying is required to play a truly nonhuman race. As the above posts indicate, most Cat-People are just humans with high DEX, tails, claw, and nightvision. They still act like quirky humans, otherwise, they would sleep through most of the adventure and spend their waking hours lounging about, ignoring everyone, and looking for food or something with which to play.

 

Brett

 

By that same rationale, humans would spend their time beating their chests, screaming, and flinging feces around.

 

(I think I just described a typical thread on RPG.net...)

[Theron]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

In Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos and Khaavren novels, the Dragaerans (the people who run everything) are basically elves (tall, thin, extremely long-lived, some have pointed ears, etc.).

 

(OK it's fiction, not a game setting. But it has its earliest roots at the gaming table.)

[Agemegos]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Anyone here ever done a high (or other) fantasy setting in which humans are not at the top of the social heap?

 

I had one once in which the elves were the Party officials in a quasi-Maoist empire (just now crumbling after a rule of a thousand years). The humans were the peasants and village officials under elvish administration, and the dwarves were a fiercely independent ("better to die in armour than live in chains") mountain people who lived just beyond the borders (and looked down on humans as spineless slaves). Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?

[Old Man]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

While Brust's "Humans" (What the Elves call themselves) are long lived they are by no means cowards. I think they perceive that since they live so long, they should take some effort in preventing their death. They are also pretty far from being nature loving tree huggers. Dragaerans as a whole are arrogant and overconfident just like most Elves.

[Old Man]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Oh yeah, I don't know the name of the series but the first book is entitled "A Hymn Before Battle" The aliens in that universe are pretty alien. For the most part they are pacifists. Each race deals with oposition in different ways. It's been a while since reading them but I think one of the races avoids conflict with the best stealth technology in the known universe; another provides superior weapons technology to mercenaries; and a third I think uses bribes and pay-offs to avoid having to fight.

[Vondy]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

I ran an elven campaign, once. The elves had long ruled the world, but their empire was in decay, the more numerous humans were in ascendency, and they realized their dominion was really a thing of the past in many ways. At the same time, they never actually stopped in human lands. They stuck specifically to elven lands, and travelled between them by griffon. It was an interesting game. The various elven cultures and political infighting took precedence.

 

I ran a game where humans didn't exist, once, as well. That was amusing. And almost no elves appeared, either. The party consisted of several gnomes and smaller fey (sprites, quicklings, whatnot) living deep in the sylvan wilderness - and interacting with all manner of intelligent, magical, talking creatures. Their home was the highest branches of the massive world tree, which was intelligent and talked as well. Humans were never discussed, and elves and dwarves were known, but almost never seen. It was a lot of fun.

 

I also played in a game where it was situation normal - humans being the most numerous race and prevalent race, but the party consisted of seven dwarves and a female human ranger (no jokes, please) who were more concerned with dwarven events and things occuring on or beyond the human frontiers.

 

One of my favorite games, revolved around a party of Orcs and Goblins who were fighting the good fight against the encroachment of the ethnocentric, imperialist, and week humans. It was odd, but amusing. One of the players who was playing a Goblin war leader had a virtual monsters manifesto all worked out. I played the troll. It was a lot of fun.

 

So, I would say, even in games where humans are top dog, you can run a game where they are - as a race - essentially irrelevant, or at least, not the primary focus.

[Nevenall]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

I had one once in which the elves were the Party officials in a quasi-Maoist empire (just now crumbling after a rule of a thousand years). The humans were the peasants and village officials under elvish administration' date=' and the dwarves were a fiercely independent ("better to die in armour than live in chains") mountain people who lived just beyond the borders (and looked down on humans as spineless slaves). Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?[/quote']

 

That sounds like a cool game!

[Outsider]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

The advantage to running a human-centric campaign is, as was mentioned, that the players are human themselves. Certain non-human races are easy enough to play, given that they are really just humans with a few quirks and a slightly different cultural outlook. Playing an extremely non-human character becomes very difficult to carry off, though, if it can be done at all. A halfling, or a dwarf, or a very young elf, sure. But a 6000 year old elf? Not likely. The whole "how do they live that long if they take risks" thing comes up, as well as the "how come they are only 100 points -just like the human in the party- if they've been doing this kind of thing for several millenia?" Even if they only go on an adventure only once every decade or two, and only earn an exp or two each time they do, they'd still be well over 500 point characters by the time they were that old

 

In my campaign world, I have limited the power of the elves by killing most of them in the back history, giving them a very low reproductive rate, and decreeing that the urge to seek adventure among them is just a phase that the young ones go through. Why the older, possibly thousand (or several thousand) point ones dont throw their weight around in the world is something that they know, but that I (even as GM) dont need to.

[SleepyDrug]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Speaking of alien races, wouldn't you think that elves would be the least likely to act like humans (going on adventures and fighting wars) since in most settings, they are have extreme life spans or are immortal? It seems that one with so much life ahead of them would be overly cautious. Other elves with too much life behind them may not care about living or have a death wish. Still, the biggest psychological difference between humans and elves in most settings are that elves have an affinity with nature and magic.

 

Brett

 

Thats why we put effort into describing elven society, so the players acted as appropriate, and not as humans

[trechriron]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

I think a flipside I might explore is simply having altered humans. Just have only humans, some with seriously different genetic changes and then the whole cultural differences. Might make is easier to have something nearly human to draw on and highlight the differences.

 

I did play once in a game titled "The Monster Squad". We were all non-humans in a human-centric world. It was a blast. I played a Ogre named Thok. In fact, our current Fantasy Hero game is set in that world. I think Monster Squad was fun and we played our differenes to the hilt. It was very enjoyable, and challenged us as players to view things from our characters perspectives as much as possible.

 

As long as the group is willing to get into character and focus on portraying the non-humans as non-human as possible, it can be a really rewarding. Otherwise, make everyone human with some special powers.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

You have to be careful here not to confuse a civilization where humans dominate with a civilization where humans are the majority. It is quite possible to imagine a civilization where the Elves are in the distinct minority but are the ruling class. The aristocracy are all Elvish, pure Elvish at that. Half-Elves are in a caste below full Elves and tend to be given all the important positions in the commoner ranks (reeve, et al) but are nonetheless barred from any serious rank.

 

That in general places Elves as an NPC race for the most part as to realistically explain why Elves are so powerful and able to rule when a minority, they generally need to be much stronger than humans on average.

 

But yes, in general one smacks into the issue of creating alien civilizations that aren't just humans in bad makeup with a few quirks.

[Guest joen00b]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

I had one group that got a bit more powerful than most groups, so they started bopping through alternate dimensions of reality (the group really liked the campaign and characters and didn't want to retire). In one world, the predominant race was Hobbits. Considering most the group was human with one elf, and one half ogre (mighty big guy there), you can imagine the troubles they had trying to adapt to the world where everything is incredibly small.

 

The Half Ogre gave up and lived in the plains outside the city, and slowly but surely the rest of the group did as well. Once they gathered some trinkets, killed off the evil that was beginning to corrupt the world (thee reason they would travels the dimensions), they moved on quickly. I believe the next world was predominantly giant. From near Gullivers Travels to Land of the Lost over the course of 3 weeks.

 

I still haven't got my FH game off the ground because I keep futzing with it, the last grand idea I had was to have a higher race of man dying off to throw into the game. I keep forgetting the rules of GMing; Keep It Simple, Stupid!

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Well, it's a d20/D&D system world, but I, personally, love Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. Humans are definitely *not* in charge.

 

Way back when, an evil dragon/demon hybrid race called the Dramojh invaded the land (presumably from another plane) and conquered the whole continent. After generations of being enslaved and used by the Dramojh, the Giants came, bringing with them the Sibeccai (canines raised to sentience and bipedal-status by said giants) to drive the Dramojh away. Now, the Giants are most definitely in charge, but fortunately they're good rulers (better than a human would be anyhow).

[Foxx!]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Fenris Ulf!

 

You can treat humans as one country in a world with many.

 

In my current campaign, one of the dwarf kingdoms has a caste system of dwarfs and humans. Dwarfs are nobles, knights, merchants, smiths, mages, etc. Humans are hired labour for farming, fishing, serving, etc.

 

Cheers

[Nuke]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

I think human's are mostly written as "dominant" in the society because often, there is some inkling of viewing fantasy worlds as a "long ago" current world. Typically, histories will have the other, ancient races once ruling, but fading away, and humans beginning to take over. The current times will be during the "rise to height" of humanity, and is often the transition point between then and now.

 

Since we are humans, it's natural to see this setting as desirable, because it portrays US as the heroes. It's just like watching the Patriot and cheering for America when you're an American, because "hey, that's us winning!"

 

I don't think that ever closes the doors for other settings, especially if you close the ties between your campaign world and the real world. But I would say that Tolkien made special points about how humans were taking over as they were learning the important things to "be in charge".

 

Just my 2 cents =)

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Another couple of points about my idea that I maybe should have stated before:

 

1) First came up with it because, in furry fandom (yes, I'm one of *those* guys!) whenever you see the nohumans and humans together, either it's the egalitarian paradise or the evil-bad 'hyoomans' are ruling the roost in a racist dictatorship that makes Nazi Germany look like a hippie commune. I just wanted to do something different.

 

2) More game/setting oriented: while, in my setting, the wolf-folk are the open rulers, they did so by working with the previous human rulers of the area. It's basically like what I've read of pre-Islamic Central Asia: the Sugdian merchants dwell in the cities, but they would often elect or choose some nomad chief to be the military governor and king. That way, the nomads were often stopped from killing and robbing every caravan and merchant in the area, and they would defend their territory against other nomads. THis system seems to have worked pretty well for centuries, even against aggressive powers like China and Tibet (surprise! Tibet ruled southern China and parts of Central Asia for about 300 years. Of course, this was back when they were led by the Bon demon-priests rather than Buddhist monks).

 

And thanks for all the input, it's been very helpful.

[cyst13]

Re: Why must humans rule?

 

Bon is NOT demon-worship!