John and Jane Doe, Human Fighters
By The Warden
Welcome to the two-thousand-and-thirteenth year of the calendar, gamers! Wow, has it really been that long? Seems like just yesterday it was the nineteen-hundredth-and-seventy-fourth year… and before that was just a void of nothingness. Funny how times flies when you’re not around for the majority of it.
All jokes aside (yes, that was a joke), we’re here to talk about something very serious. Every day at kitchen tables and Google Hangouts the world over, a human character’s true potential is being ignored. In campaigns uncounted, there are players looking at the stats for a human and replying, “Yeah, what the hell. I don’t know what else I want to play.” Or the damnable “Hey, these guys have a +1 bonus all around. I’ll use these guys for that reason alone.” As fellow humans, are we not outraged? Do we not think highly of ourselves to want our people represented as truly inspirational characters and cultures?
It’s a conundrum I’ve written about recently (see Racial Limitations from November 4th) from the non-human point of view and there was a query posted on Google+ recently that brought this topic back from the dead. As part of the massive ongoing open playtest for D&D Next, Bruce Cordell asked the following:
Before going any further, I want to stress something vital. The following is not a pot shot intended at any viewpoint and it goes without saying that it may appear as such depending on your own viewpoint. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let us discuss the significance of fictional humans in a world surrounded by underground humanoids, immortals, and imaginary beasts, shall we?
Previous versions of D&D Next humans provided something extra in the way of skill applicability or strength and versatility over non-humans in the form of unlimited level progression. What exists now is basically a lesser version where humans are granted a significant stat bonus and that’s it. At first, it seemed cheaper and overly simplistic compared to before until it dawned on me what existed before, an opinion strengthened as I went through the comments recapping the various instalments of humans over the game’s generations. Humans in the world’s most popular roleplaying game have been nothing more than a min-maxer’s dream… mechanically speaking.
UNLIMITED POTENTIAL, SAME OUTCOME
Not that there’s anything wrong with that from a mechanical standpoint. On the whole, humankind has been offered up to the gaming public as the world’s chameleons, an adaptable people found in every geography and society the campaign has to offer who devote themselves with fiery intensity to a particular cause or way of life. They are a people unbound to norms. What better (and cleaner) way to demonstrate this aptitude than providing the best bonuses a player character race has to offer, or additional skills and options? Like I said, mechanically speaking, it works.
My difficulty with RPG humans in D&D and a large majority of settings and systems is the lack of character provided to the race when compared to the rest. Standing next to the dwarves’ stonecunning, elven meditation, and halfling luck, humans appear to be nothing more than those gym rats who work out for two hours a day and talk about how much they work out their glutes. There are quite a few games where each race is only dignified with a minor option permitted at character creation (such as Edges in Savage Worlds), but that is not the way every other race in D&D (and all its offshoots, including Pathfinder) handle these flexible creatures.
Older editions of D&D, as we all know, offered up humans as the ultimate level progressors and it became their strength. Every other race could only gain so much XP towards particular classes, except humans. In 2000, humans switched it up and gain bonus feats and skills when all the races fought off such oppressive limitations (I seem to recall hearing about a halfling strike for level limit rights in the late 90s).
There is an argument that a character’s true potential comes through in how the player handles them and there’s no disagreeing with that point. My only concern when it comes to the human race is that they don’t come with any notes for players to start from, something the non-humans have in spades. Racial abilities, features, powers, and options typically provide a foundation for the player’s expectation of culture, habits, personality types, and so much more. In many cases, these abilities provide very little substance to a game, yet they enhance the character all the more simply because it’s a handy feature every now and then. Knowing exactly how deep you are underground and which direction you currently face will not win you the dungeon’s treasures; not requiring any sleep comes in handy when your elf is on watch late at night, but any GM worth their salt knows how to work around that matter; and luck is really just having advantage one more time in this game, something available to everyone. Yet in the context of presenting a fictional breed of humanoids scattered throughout the world, you instantly know the dwarves live under stone, elves are transcendent creatures beyond the limits of the mere mortals, and halflings are a crafty bunch of little buggers. Humans have no such quirk available through their abilities other than they make for some really big or smart dudes.
It’s what makes racial abilities a mechanical and roleplaying tool rolled into one, just as it is with classes. If you read a description for the fighter and found yourself craving the thrill of battle, your armour soaked in the blood of your enemies, and find that all a fighter gains is a bonus to initiative, would you scratch your head? That’s how I feel about humans most of the time.
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!!
Many of us experienced players (which I’m assuming simply because you’re checking out a roleplaying site, so it should be a safe bet) know exactly what to expect when we see words like fighter, paladin, dwarf, and elf. But stop and think about the next generation of players and GMs out there, yet to discover this glorious pastime. They don’t have that luxury and it’s not going to hit them as soon as someone slides a character sheet in front of them. For these upcoming fans, their first experience with a race is through the racial abilities.
Let’s roleplay a hypothetical situation, shall we? It’s 20+ years ago and you’re at your first convention, sitting down to your first open table game. The host welcomes you and introduces you to the rest of the group, many of whom are friends with the Gamemaster and that makes you the outsider twice over. The GM then explains the concept of the game: you are valiant warriors sent by your church to relinquish a holy relic from a vicious dragon. There is an elaborate recollection of the tragic events behind the dragon’s attack, extensive details on the landscape, and every other character seems elaborate, personable, and each player discusses their history with the group. When you, the new guy, look down on your sheet, there’s nothing to offer. Do you have the strength of personality to improv on the spot in a craft you’ve never attempted in front of people you’ve never met before playing a game you’ve never tried? Or will your focus remain on fitting in and learning based off the material you’ve been given?
The core options, such as racial abilities, play a significant role in offering new players an opportunity to step up to the plate as a distinct and unique character. You want someone to know what an elf is? Tell them their racial abilities and you’ve opened up a larger world. Race, just as it is with classes, is a shorthand for the other players due to their initial experiences in the early days of playing and carries on into the next couple of decades. If someone asks me what I’m playing, my race comes before my class (i.e. “He’s a dwarf fighter.”).
That being said, an equal counterpoint could turn to the human race as the best starting point for new players and it’s an excellent point. Why bog them down with details beyond the initial rules to play until they’re ready to step up to that plate? Providing a race where their sole purpose is to be better than the average character and you’re offering the player an even better shot at not only understanding, but kicking butt and that leaves a lasting impression on a new player. In my experience, when a new player makes some awesome attack rolls in their first session, there will almost always be a second one.
TO ERR IS HUMAN
And that is the point to this human predicament: there is no one right answer, which makes it the perfect RPG problem. It’s what RPGs are all about and that’s why we love them. As mentioned before, certain systems offer nothing more than a couple of bonuses and a single option for definition, others do not. Some players aren’t interested in a list of unique abilities, they just want to roll the dice, dammit. Others define their character through their abilities. To each their own, as they say, and if I’m not content with how races are presented in D&D Next, there is a metaphorical tonne of options to fill my gaming needs. Like everything else in this field, it all comes down to what you’re looking for in your games and want to achieve with your characters and in that fashion, it’s a perfectly human solution.
With all that out of the way, there is one request I have for Bruce and his team working on D&D Next: give us a chance to make our humans human. Stat bonuses and bonus options are fine and good, but what purpose do humans serve in the core worlds of your game? Are they the default or are they a people rich in culture, history, and genetics capable of so much more than being an 18th-level fighter? Don’t worry, there’s no pressure. Only the impact your game will have on the future generations of roleplayers everywhere.
Follow Us!