It's time to stop putting "Humans" in RPGs - Crazy Thoughts
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ก.ย. 2016
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I can't be the only one who feels this way. Let's take a walk through Stormwind and discuss the role "humans" play in RPGs!
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So, you're not wanting to get rid of humans altogether, you just want them to not be copy-pasted generic brand humans everywhere. Did I get that right?
Exactly, dude.
Sounds good t' me.
Jonathan Pinckney
Okay that I can get behind that because I like humans in WoW and pretty much any other RPG.
I like the sound of that, i honestly prefer to play as humans in these kind of games because I like the thought of a seemingly normal person fighting alongside magical and\or galactic races and holding his own in conflicts that would seem unlikely for a normal human to go through.
In many real fantasy stories, the WoW approach to the Human race, that combines traits from all other races in a jack-of-all-trades kind of way, and tries to unite them diplomatically, exists, too. But what those stories do differently is that their Humans do not only combine the boons of others (while not really mastering any of the qualities), but they also have **faults** that are unique, or at least particularly characteristic to them. In Lord of the Rings, Humans (even aside from the cultural differences among Human nations) are categorised as being temperamental, somewhat untrustworthy, and most importantly power-hungry. These features go so far that they strongly affect the story. Still, Humans have the ability to consistently re-establish a respected position among the races, because they are capable of providing their strengths to alliances, prove diplomatic and grateful towards allies, and redeem their errors through long-term relationships of trust.
My point is, I think, that not all Human races with balanced-out abilities automatically make for bad concepts; so long as they also have weak points that create a relevant identity for them.
"What do humans have to offer?" Bruh, a bonus feat is amazing bruh
I'm a simple man. I see Vivec, I like.
You n'wah
Hehehe, jack of all trades, master of none, but better any day then master of one.
Get that early crossbow expert to break the game
D&D 5e reference?
The generic humans are a leftover from old RPGs, where the humans are the generic "+/-0" race, without advantages and disadvantages.
I completely agree with you that humans shouldn't be the boring average blank slate.
I'd say that the different races in the Elder Scrolls series are another example of good humans.
The generic race, from a time of old RPGs, I'm guessing that you mean tabletop game before videos were even a thing? Even then humans had a niche playerbase, humans have objectively offered open-playability and generally specialized in multiclassing, all harping back to being a versatile race of varied people that tended to be able to adapt to the cultures and worlds of other races.
emm dnd? in 5E +1 to all stats or Variant +1 to any 2 stats of your choice and a feat
@@fiadhearthpony6177 still the most broken starting bonus for a race let me be clear without the feat bonus almost no one will take humans.
@@xxx10353 and if Halfling didn't have the lucky feat nobody would select them
@@fiadhearthpony6177 yeah I still can not fathom why would they make such a broken feat and let's be real if the game actually related size to strength it will be the big boy's gang.
in dnd I think there described best as "swift army knives that mate like rabbits"
I fucking love this description! Thanks for watching by the way. Be sure to subscribe, and share this video if you haven't already!
thanks for the heart but heads up don't tell me to do that or anyone for that matter we know what to do if we like someones channel we don't need to be reminded
Statistically, more people subscribe when youtubers ask them to at the end of the video. He's just doing his job
Yeah, it was a bit cuntish.
It felt like the delivery man from Drake and Josh saying "don't tell me what to do" to josh after he said have a great day.
In the Witcher series, Humans are a relatively new arrival in a world previously populated by elves and dwarves but the explanation for humans being dominant is that they breed quickly compared to elves and dwarves and are very adaptable. The elves are on the decline because nature who previously provided all the food and medicine they required is changing because of global warming (not kidding, it's in the books).
Robin auf der Heide
It's more a big ice age
That's pretty much it. Humans breed quickly and have the capacity to be extremely over zealous and brutal. Humans are so passively destructive that it bleeds into the environment, sabotaging the other races. Because the other races are weakened by them when a Human army decides to attack they usually win by basically running down their enemies until they surrender or die out. Depending on how the other races breed this usually results in humans being on top if humans can Outbreed the competition. and should they have the shorter lifespan Focus more on Early Training to get the peak human in a faster time then other races. making a baseline human warrior stronger or strategically smarter then some other races Grunt units.
In the end the Reason humans tend to dominate is because they basically can throw numbers at an enemy while being Capable strategist so capitalize on their larger numbers aswell as typically being able to create warmachines and technology on a timely and as needed basis.
Loli Hitler ohhh that's why every rpg game is realesed in september!! :D
Then they created Witcher’s for their monster problems :)
Yeah and as humans, we're killing off the elves, or anyone else different, that nature and global warming hadn't got to yet.
From a narrative viewpoint the humans are extremely useful. Simply due to the fact, we have something that we already know, to compare everything else in the world to. When we say a species is physicly strong in most fantasy world, what we are really saying is "They are strong compared to humans". Humans are the baseline so that we don't have to explore a new fantasy race completely before we grasp what is "normal" in that particular world.
1 year late but thats a really good point.
Joakim Vretlund This is why generic humans are needed in fantasy worlds (especially in games), to have a base, something avarage that we can compare to every other culture and race, we need something that we know from the start, to get started in a world with a lot of exotic and different races and cultures.
Hit the nail on the head. It's all about a narrative and statistical baseline. Without "humans" the authors/developers would have to work that much harder to give the reader/players that sense of scale.
No they are a waste of space. You have just an easier time to understand them just because you are a human in real life too. They is nothing special abut them.
There's a difference between humans being necessary and humans being overly important.
I think TES does this right by making non-human races feel very alien and "human" at the same time, each with their own flaws and imperfections and by each human race having a very distinct culture.
It doesn't really show in Skyrim because of mediocre writing but it's very evident in Morrowind and Adventures: Redguard.
In TES Nords actually did something : they conquered Tamriel and made the Empire and ...they pissed off Alduin at the point that he almost destryed the world. So they did good and bed things as any other race
Definitely. I wish they kept the tone of Redguard and Morrowind throughout subsequent games.
Not funny yeah wood elves are fuckin cannibals
They made us Altmer look like the foolish empire with our towns
TES does it well because there are more than 1 human race and they are actually different and not just a skill or looks.
I think humans are used both to show how we would react in a world full of elves and dwarves and so the writers can use social commentary and have it be a direct criticism of humanity. For example, humans in The Witcher 3 with their racism and subjugation of the other races and the blind religious hatred of mages.
Using fantasy races with undeniable differences to humans to represent actual racism is silly. Especially when the differences mean that they're inherently dangerous/hostile like undead.
And the elves are repeatedly shown to be no kinder to others than humans are. It's even pointed out how rich it is for them to go muh elder race solidarity when back in the time elves dominated the continent they warred on or ruled over their neighbors.
"humans" are the most adaptive, that's why they dominate. Other races are specialists in one thing, humans can do everyting on "ok" level - balance race.
Talking about "differnt humns" - TES
Where are you getting this from?
Humans aren't a single race in TES, and they can't do everything on at an OK level, not any more so than everyone else can.
They aren't even always dominant.
You got me wrong. These are two separate statements.
I said
1. In 'comon' games humans are average balanced race,
2. In TES there's no such race as 'human', it's the example of different human races with their good and bad sides, like he said on 0:51 "multiple human races with their different cultures etc. etc".
So yeah, I agree with you:)
Its also because their the baseline. Its so much cheaper and easier to start a series with just humans and 1 generic fantasy race, then expand. Issue is that sometimes just makes humans too important in everything, and i think for some games that goes way too far and actually dicks over the better, deeper lore added much later. Take Nelves and Tauren having their very identity and lore in WoW being bent over just for these new concepts in universe that the games were founded on: Horde and Alliance.
FrozenEdges yes they are, just like elves, nords imperials and bretons are subspecies of human.
Papa Hairy wat
An MMO or RPG without any humans would be pretty interesting now that I think about it.
I think the best story I ever played was a homebrew tabletop in which the humans were "keepers of history" and had an obsessive-compulsive problem with wanting to know and chronicle EVERYTHING. If you were human, you had to specialize in one of the Knowledge skills as your obsession, which was usually dictated by which nation you came from and what your nation built off of as a culture and society. It was so much fun and so very interesting!
See, this takes something true about human nature (our curiosity and desire to record our accomplishments) and really drills into it in an interesting way. This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about!
I wrote a homebrew a long time ago. In the game one of the first ages of the world humans had a war with dragons. They did not get help from other races due to other races not wanting to fight the ancient and powerful dragons. The humans were losing the war and the dragons birthed a new race the dragonborn. I liked the dragonborn in D&D and decided to borrow the idea. After the dragonborn were born the humans seemed to feel a sense of dread and felt they would be erased from the world. The humans got desperate and started to work with new magics and some of it was dark. The humans finally found a powerful warlock that had taken in the souls of demons to become powerful. Doing this the man had problems with mental illness. The humans used him as a weapon any way due to losing the war at the time. The warlock unleashed a powerful make that turned the dragons onto each other. With this the humans began to push propaganda to dragons about other dragons being vile and greedy. This tore into the dragons minds and with the new magic slowly giving them a mental illness close to that of the human warlock they began to kill each other in huge numbers. The humans decided they could not let the warlock live so they sent in the best warriors they had to deal with him. When they found the warlock he had consumed so many demons into his soul that he was powerful but long gone in his mind. Almost killing all the warriors he finally failed to fight them off as the warriors used protective runes they had gotten from the dwarves to resist his magic. The humans won the war after years of hunting done mentally ill dragons. When they won they enslaved the dragonborn and used them as labor and warriors in battle to help them fight future threats. The humans world be seen by the rest of the world has problematic as they tried to force other races and kingdoms to ally with them. It did not work and for many years the races of the world would war. I actually made the dwarves and elves form an alliance instead of the humans and elves. The dwarves and elves did this to stop the humans from forcing their hand. I made some homebrew races in the world as well. I know this is long, but I enjoy telling stories too much.
@@psychotripnerdstuff That is not human nature, it's civilised culture.
I smell Heresy, Sigmar protects!
How DARE you bring Age of Sigmar into this channel! Haha just kidding. Thanks for watching by the way! Be sure to subscribe and share this video if you haven't already!
Death to the skeleton sitting on the yellow chair
that's the other god emperor of mankind in the far future
BOB MARINE *THE ORDO HERETICUS HAS LOCATED YOUR POSITION HERETIC. PREPARE TO EXPERIENCE EXTERMINATUS*
Blood for the blood God.
I get to be Human every day. Let me play something else!
I know right
Nothing is stopping you from playing other races lmao
THIS
Nobody's stopping you from playing something else. Don't step on the toes of those of us who do want to play humans.
I can't be a beefcake wearing massive armour and wielding a giant sword, all while harnessing one of the primordial powers of creation, in real life.
You get to be a human. How do you take advantage of that status?
WOW I did not expect this video to blow up like it did. Let me clarify a few things:
My goal here isn't to mock people who like humans, or to say they're always useless and boring. My goal is to criticize "humans": the generic, one size fits all humans we keep seeing in fantasy games. My goal is to encourage developers to make their humans deeper and more interesting, instead of using the same generic, monolithic "humans" we see so often in games.
A lot of folks are pointing out things humans are often good at. I actually 100% agree with you here. I just wish we really SAW these things in action more, you know?
It feels like, too often, all the things that make humans unique are left in the background, while the other races get to shine. I want to see real, solid examples of humans solving conflicts in ways no other race can. I want to see examples of humans working together better than elves. I want to witness a scene where humans win a battle through sheer numbers. I just want more games to embrace what makes human unique.
Also, when I call humans "generic" I'm not necessarily asking for them to become crazy or exotic. Sure, I prefer weird shit like that, but I'm fine with humans that are based on "typical" concepts like medieval Europe so long as these ideas are deeply explored and feel important to the story. It's why I used Dragon Age as an example of humans I like.
Let's take the dwarves in WoW, for example. They're definitely "typical" dwarves, but these "typical" themes are explored very deeply. We see how their industrious, militarized nature translates into their visual style, their culture, and their general behavior. A lot of WoW's conflicts (especially on the Alliance side) revolve around the bickering dwarven clans. I actually love watching the "Three Hammers" bicker, insult each other, and slowly grow closer to one another. Sure, it's all typical "dwarf stuff" but it's actually utilized in an interesting way in my opinion.
Since I made this video, humans in WoW have definitely got better, but I'd still like to see the things that make us "human" explored a bit more deeply, and utilized in interesting ways.
Let's get rid of humans in the real world!!
Jk
There are many, many arguments why humans are dominant species, and through multiple fantasy realms it is wastly explained. First, humas reproduce much, much faster than other races - the "elder" races like dwarves and elves have high longevity (over 200-300 years according to some fantasy systems) and thus, they have lower fertility, lower sex drives and lower birth rates. If humans outnumber any other race 10 000 : 1, it's easy to guess why they rule all of the races. Second, humans are diverse - they live and thrive in every type of environemt, they build cities, villages, farms and workshops anywhere, from deserts to snowy mountains, they will live wherever they can survive and be happy with it. Other races, like elves or dwarves are much more secluded or tied to their "typical" lands. Where do dwarves live? In the mountains. Where do wood elves live? In the forest. Where do lizardmen live? In the swamps. Where do humans live? Everywhere. Third, humans are also much less tied to their "roots" and stereoitype than other races. What do dwarves like? Mining, gold, metalurgy. What do gnomes like? Technology, wacky inventions, electricity. What do elves like? Nature, magic, spirituality. What do humans like? Everything and anything. They can be petty thieves, hard working farmers, greedy merchants, high maintenance nobles, righteous kings, and they can be the exact opposite of the stereotype noble thieves, evil kings etc. Have you heard of an miner elf, or maybe a murderous assasin wood elf? How about a dwarven farmer, of the cucumber clan? No? Why is that - because only humans are such a diverse and unique bunch, they can fill any role and be good at it. Fourth (not the last, just running out of time and space). Humans are much more passionate and motivated than other races, sure, dwarves can be passionate miner, or warriors or smiths, but they lack passion for anything else. Same with elves - they are passionate magicians, scholars, healers, but they don't really have passion for power, fame or wealth - humans will devote themselves to any goal - they can be addicted to any drug, any sensation, they can work for their entire lives to achieve their dreams or obsessions. Other races, not that much passionate towards just achieving their goals. No elf would spend hundreds of years in order to develop a new kind of glue, right? A human would spend 20-40 doing it - and fail even or succeed on his deathbed... Lastly, humans, overall are much more tolerant - (yes, there are also racist humans) but OVERALL - humans will trade with anyone - dwarves, elves, gnomes, lizardmen, cat people, orks - you name it. They will let other races visit their cities, live and prosper within? It's not unthinkable to have half elves in places of power within human settlements. Would elves like to trade with dwarves? Would they let dwarves live in their beatifull cities? Would they let a dwarf be their leader? No. Elves would also probably not trade with lizardmen, while dwarves don't like orcs the same as orcs don't like pretty much anyone. It's easier to believe a human would be capable of all those things. If you are into roleplaying - humans can be anyone who you aspire to be, a warrior, a scholar, a thief, a mage, a merchant... and can be as good or as evil as you want them to be. Other races fit roles and stereotypes, but they are much more driven by their own narrative. That is what makes humans so appealing to some people. A human can don a dwarven armor, wieald an elven sword, have boots stripped from a dead orc and put on a pair of gnomish glasses and go out to the world - being whatever he strives to be. No other race could do that just as easily.
The comment might be a bit big, but the essential is there : "There are many, many arguments why humans are dominant species, and through multiple fantasy realms it is wastly explained".
psychotrip, if you want to be the video-game-analysis type of guy, at least try to think a bit more about your arguments.
That's because human exists in the real world, therefore, we can come up with these points from our collective knowledge. But what IF elves aren't limited to woods and dwarves don't live in the mountains. What IF other races adapt differently than US and just don't live on this stereotypical archetype while humans can just be oh so adaptable and dominant race?
Wouldn't that be super cool? That's pretty biased to me, cause you can't really compare a fictional race to an existing one with humans with thousand years of histories and plenty of data to base off on. Making them the defacto supreme dominant base on biology that cannot compare with fictional race's biology is just....boring.
All those traits of other races compared to humans are decided by the writers/designers. If they want, they can make other races diverse, adaptable, passionate and fecund just like humans - or even more so.
The reason non-humans are often pigeonholed into a "typical" role is because they're usually designed to fill a specific, narrow niche (that, or superficially ripping off Tolkien).
Low sex drive? I could help with that.
Humans are always the best race
great now i'm going to overthink the humans in my own story.
Making people overthink things is my job! Just remember to illustrate the traits that make humans successful in real life, make sure they feel culturally diverse, and really give examples and strong arguments for why they're so successful as a species.
That was fast.
I am a warlock, after all.
I usually play as the weirder options at first. It's way more fun.
Same here! Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one. Thanks for watching by the way! Be sure to subscribe and share this video if you haven't already!
i played a female qunari mage in dragon age inquisition lol
Don't get why people prefer to play humans. I can be a human all I want in real life.
Humans are Boring, I want to be the Sci-Fi Magic Using Zombie with a Cannon shooting Fire in the shape of Lightning
In your opinion.
It's sad that I have to tack that on, because a lot of people with this opinion seem to think that it's gospel.
I like my humans. Sue me.
Humans having cultural diversity: mainly just English culture.
Very diverse WoW lol
Take in mind that the other races in WoW are the ones that represent other IRL cultures, like Trols, who are basically africanamericans
Or the night elves wich, for me at least, are the japanese from WoW, because they are racist as fuck
And elfs are just asians in general, they are different between each other but in the end they all look alike
Trolls are a combination of Caribbean and South American (Aztec, Maya) cultures depending on the type of troll.
+GekoHayate Yeah, it depends on each tribe
Darkspears ressemble Jamaicans
Zandalari ressemble aztecs or mayans
Also all trols mention the voodoo and have the loa as their gods, the loa being basically spiritual beings that exist between the reign of the dead and the alive (Or something like that) according to the voodoo, wich IRL originated in Africa
I feel like being divided in different cultures would be more of a disadvantage rather then advantage, it would make it to where they'd be less likely to unite against other species who are more united.
@@HankJ666 Night Elves. Take orders from humans instead of ruling themselves. They aren't "racist" in a notable way outside of headcanon/fanfic.
I get what he's saying, if you are going to add "humans" as a race, might as well make them as interesting and as diverse as the other races and their culture, don't put a generic "human" race just for the sake of it, I feel like Mass Effect also did a pretty good job in introducing and adding humans as a species in their world, I also agree on Dragon Age
Mass Effect is another great example I forgot to mention! Sure they're "normal", but so much effort is put into explaining how humans fit into this galactic society and what makes them "special" in their own way.
Humans in Mass Effect end up highlighting the shallowness of its alien races, unfortunately. They're the sort of humans who are vaunted for their unique yet totally indistinct "diversity" compared to the utterly uniform cultures of the alien races in the Mass Effect universe. They're held up as this shining example of "diversity" ("please give us your game award this year, again, GLAAD" - Bioware, 20XX) in the universe that's utterly unlike any other society just because they were too lazy to actually make Asari more than "what Captain Kirk would try to have sex with on a weekly basis" or the Turians "less angry Klingons with mandibles rather than forehead ridges," etc.
@@countrybluegrass It's not like the humans in ME are any less 1-dimensional. They're all more or less just Blue Staters/Canadians with Cerberus as the Space Nazis.
Well argued and presented. I'd never really thought about RPG that way before. Admittedly, I don't invest that extensively into a character. Thought-provoking. I like it.
Glad you enjoyed it! Be sure to subscribe, and share this video if you haven't already!
So I've been writing this setting document for a webcomic for around year and a half.
I have the normal humans for filler characters, but my favorite is this cousin race of sea faring humans. I've designed them as dark skinned island people who were isolated for so long that their people developed traits much more suited for the ocean. They have sea green/blue eyes with a durable membrane that lets them see clearly under water. It's also a small detail, but their eyes wont get irritated from small things like dust or sand. You know, little details that are handy in say, a fight scene. *cough* They have a monstrous lung capacity that originally made them incredibly efficient fishermen and more importantly, pearl divers.
In the current date of the story, these merfolk have become a seafaring race of tradesmen that originally made their fortunes from their rare pearls, but have since become a dominating merchant empire that use the central location of their island archipelago to connect distant lands together into a giant web of profit. Culture wise they highly appreciate the pearls that gave them their original edge in the mercantile world and use pearls in their clothing, jewelry and heraldry.
It's not perfect, but little things like fish eyes can make your everyday milk toast human just the slightest bit more interesting.
Personally I like monsters much more. Goblins, orcs, giants. But in the end, humans are so gosh darn easy to use. It's bland, but it's handy.
What you described wasn't bland at all. It was awesome! This is how you make humans interesting!
Almost sounds like a samoan lol
I think humans could be very good in RPGs if only the other races were more comparative. It's just that writers tend to get lazy and think "Yeah, people know how humans work" I feel like if only other races disadvantages were much greater, humans would stand out.
Dragon Age did it right with dwarves who lived most of their lives underground develop a fear for the outdoors, as if they'll float into the sky if they go out, experiencing huge amounts of vertigo. Just a little personality goes a long way.
Also, there's so many kinds of elves, there's no excuse for not having different kinds of humans. We once lived alongside several species of human before homo sapiens dominated, so there's real-life inspiration to draw from.
So much yes. You've spelled it out perfectly, dude.
We have no other points of reference for a species/race capable of feats like making armies or notable technology would behave besides humies.
Legends say his wow character is still walking to this day
VERY nice timing on the pictures, good audio levels, and well thought out arguments and points. if the rest of your videos are like this you might just get yourself a new subscriber.
Glad you liked it! Be sure to share this video on twitter as well!
I think something that’s highly overlooked here is the fact that we are humans. Now that sounds obvious yes but hold on one second. The very idea of a fantastical video game is that you, a real life hu-man, are dropped into this fantastical world and expected to participate in it. Why should you feel full kinship with an elf or dwarf or robot from the get go? Especially when it comes to dated/archetypal/stereotypical notions about other races (dwarves and gold/ elves and magic, orcs and.....being ostracized?). So in this crazy place why not give your actual human being playing this game a place to feel at home yes? Humanity. Human cities and settlements. A place where you feel already at ease and are this easily able to learn subtly about the new fantasy world as you walk through it. Makes some sense right? But that’s just my initial reaction to this video and the thing that has always seemed to be the reason for humanity to me. Most players I know complain about being the opposite gender in a game or being forced to be something other than a person at least to begin with. To me it makes all the sense in the world to include humanity. It’s just that simple. Now that’s not saying anything about the illogical implication that mankind is superior by always putting us in charge. Probably something to do with our overwhelming need to feel in charge and something about our fear of being less than something else or the ways we have always made other animals subservient to ourselves. But that’s psychological conjecture from a super liberal sooooooo take that as you will.
Humans in world of warcraft actually are fairly diverse when it comes to art style and accents.
Accents are as followed (Edit, going to add onto unique attributes as well):
Gilneas - Cockney (Queen's English), most of the lore can be found in game, summarized; Supported the Alliance of Lordaeron, withdrawn their forces, and built a wall to defend themselves against the orcs. In-game story also explains the Worgen curse that afflicts a large amount of their population.
Stormwind - Midwestern American, alot of story can be found in game. Too much to summarize other than it was destroyed by the Orcs, and then rebuilt. Llane Wrynn was assassinated by Garona Halforcen, and so on.
Alterac - German-ish accent. A treacherous nation that had collaborated with the orcs during the second war, attempted to assassinate Uther the Lightbringer, and now in it's place is the Syndicate, who have been plotting revenge against their old rival Stormgarde.
Stormgarde - Austrian. Where the Kingdom's of Humanity had all began. First founded by the Human Arathi tribes, Stormgarde was once Strom, the captial of the Arathor Empire. They had sent a detachment of soldiers across Kalimdor, shortly after, Galen Trollbane assassinated his father and king, Thoras Trollbane. Coincidentally, both Ogres and the Syndicate assualted the city and captured majority of it, however Stormgarde still retains control of some of the city, as well as soldiers inside of Refuge Point.
Kul Tiras - Castilian accent. A maritime nation that has problems with pirates and raiders. They thrive on trade and their people are wealthy. They once had an extremely large fleet, and are currently in rebuilding their navy.
As far as architecture of the cities, if it wasn't for the fact that the island of Kul'Tiras hasn't been revealed, and every other human nation besides Gilneas, Stormwind, and Dalaran was destroyed, you would probably see more diversity, however there's just no point for blizzard to revamp a city like Stormgarde if they don't plan on doing anything with it, as is, it's just a stock city for a small quest area. Reason why all of them look so similar (Like how Strathlome is extremely similar to Stormwind inside), is because it's using buildings and textures from 2004. It's a 13 year old game. I'm sure everyone would love to see a modern version of the WoW universe, being capable of viewing the game as it was intended to be imagined, but as it stands, it's worth creating an argument over an ageing game. One thing that makes each city unique is each has it's own history/lore to sets each one apart.
Humanity mostly came in charge of the Grand Alliance because of diplomacy. Diplomacy is LITERALLY a racial trait in the game. You get a bonus to reputation. Not to mention that Stormwind city has a population of ~200,000. Ironforge has ~20,000. Teldrassil has ~15,000 and they're a species that used to be able to live for TEN THOUSAND YEARS. Also, are currently the leading mages because alot of the mages who were elves are dead. Humans also introduced the Holy Light to the Elves and the Dwarves.
The Kal'dorei are only recent allies, the Alliance as it was already existed, sure they may have more magical prowess (which at the time, Arcane was banned, and even now is still frowned upon), do you think they want to contest who is in charge? Not to mention they were having trouble with the Orcs, and were pretty stagnant.
The Dwarves and Humans were easy allies. The humans and dwarves shared many secrets of metal-smithing and engineering and discovered a common love for battle and storytelling. The Dwarves get alot of their "technology" from the Gnomes, and the Humans and Dwarves are inseparable, and are nearly always cooperative.
What about Quel'dorei? Malfurion exiled them, they went to the Eastern Kingdoms, met the Humans who were still Tribal, and thought nothing of it. They had issues with the Amani tribe, the Humans had started to unite and band together, and the elves turned to the Humans for help.They remained allies until the second war, where Quel'thalas withdrew from the Alliance (Though some of the population remained, the rest became Blood Elves from their Arcane addictions.)
Gnomes don't even have a city. Sure they've got lasers, gyrocopters, electricity, and so on, but they literally decided to deal with a trogg infestation but irradiating their city, which failed. They sought refuge from the Orcs, and besides, they're not really interested in politics, which the Humans in the Warcraft universe primarily deal with.
Draenei support the Alliance, and are a key player when advising the leaders. Velen even mentored the current King Anduin Wrynn, and Vindicator Maraad assisted Varian with dealing with the Iron horde.
Worgen are Humans. /Thread
You're also trying to compare a non-MMO game, to an MMO. MMO's have vastly more NPC's than most RPG's, and some companies are just not interested in having every single individual npc being voice acted, or having unique flavor like you would see in a standard RPG.
diluted pan-european nonsense is not diverse.
they all have the same religion, differences are only ostensible in government, and there's nothing culturally to indicate that they're at all diverse besides war policy.
also, half of these comparisons are non-canon. the only lore instances of different accents are gilneas, stormwind, a few random scarlet NPCs in eastern lordaeron and the haliscan people.
warcraft has shit worldbuilding. that's just how it is.
Kul Tiras is canon what are you on about, and every race in the game has the same religion worshiping the same thing "The Light" under different names "Elune" and "The earth mother" being a couple examples, if anything humans are one of the most interesting races in WoW
...i never said that kul tiras is non-canon, lol.
i said that most of the comparisons OP was drawing were non-canon.
and, yes, every race in the game has the same religion, that's why homogeneity is completely removed and makes everything boring.
Okay i get your points but: Kaldorei (not Kal'dorei, thats a blizzard typing error they fixed) aren't exactly ruled by Humans, it makes no sense they just bend to an Alliance that only has claim to Kalimdor through them. Kaldorei are also one of the most powerful individual races, unless blizzard bends lore to nerf 'em. Malfurion could destroy Orgrimmar if he wanted to, but killing innocent beings and using nature like that isn't how he works.
As said the Kaldorei have low birth rates, coupled with the damage they suffered during WC3 diminished them significantly, add to it the diminishing power because of what happened with Nordrassil in WC3 and they entered into the Alliance as partners and the Alliance worked more like a NATO like organization where Stormwind the player with the largest population and biggest army is the main player. That changed around Cataclysm as a response to the threat coming from the Horde it was decided for the Allinace to unify more including the selection of a High Leader - High King of the alliance.
But I think a lot of people forget that WoW is set in a universe that was originally created around RTS games, where a lot of the issues brought in the video were not a problem, and because the races were already established and fleshed out in materials before the RPG game was created they could not have changed the humans to drastically.
What game are you playing?
whats your opinion of shadowrun? or is that sort of cheating?
Humans allow us to relate with the franchise. That's why the main characters in Godzilla movies are humans not Godzilla. That's why the main characters in Transformers movies are humans and not Transformers. Unfortunate.
The only Godzilla movie where humans are the main characters is the shitty American 1990's one... and let's not mention the Transformers franchise was doing just fine with the robots as main characters before Michael Bay's borefest showed up.
Ahem, and the new Godzilla as well. Remember I learned more about the nurse and army boy than I did about Godzilla.
ziljin
1. Godzilla doesn’t really fit this example because Godzilla doesn’t possess sapience or at least it doesn’t have any real capacity to display it.
2. Transformers has had tons of versions where the Transformers themselves were the characters in the center stage.
Great points man!
Thanks! It's awesome seeing bigger channels than my own comment on my videos!
psychotrip np man keep at it. Your commentaries are well presented and thought out and you express things I happen to agree with much. Still bummed about the fail of EQ Next when I think of it, just considering the amount of effort that had already been put into it..
I agree completely. Still hoping to see another game take up the mantle and give us the dynamic sandbox experience we were promised.
Again though, thanks for supporting my videos! Be sure to share them on twitter, reddit etc to help the channel grow!
World of MONSTERS I watched your video and the predaters are still not ugly.
Amazing video! I completely agree with what you said and try myself to increase the variety and diversity of my humans so they don't end being bland.
Also, could you please link the conceppt art/artwork from Dragon Age that appear at 5:44, 5:53 and 6:07?
Fun fact: I'm writing a story with a similar idea to this. The gist of the world is that there are multiple continents and each one had a single sentient race evolve on it. The one humans happened to evolve on was the largest, spanning past the arctic circle to far below the equator. Out of this continent spawned five human kingdoms: Geatus (based off of medieval Britan, France, and Spain), Drius (based off of medieval India and Mongolia), Colet (based off of medieval Arabia and Africa), Russen (based on medieval Japan and China) and the yet to be united Highlands region (based on medieval Scandinavia and Russia).
Mostly because I wanted to write a historically accurate as possible fantasy world.
What about lord of the rings?
In Lord of the Rings there are a variety of different human cultures, especially when looking beyond the Men of the West. They also logically fit into the world because they are the only race that has literal agency. Unlike Elves who are bound to Arda and a predefined fate, humans have independence and are not as beholden to the Maia and Eru Iluvatar.
Devin Williams thank you for proving my point.
I know right. No Humans. 70% of the story is dead.
Interesting video, and earned you at least one new sub in me. There's a lot of truth to what you say in this, but I think it deserves to be delved into a bit more. I think that there often is some degree of specific characterization for humans as a race. While you mentioned some (diversity, "free spirit"-ness), there's a few other common themes:
- Humans are more empathic than most other races, and excellent as diplomats (also sometimes as arbitrators).
- Humans are very adaptable compared to most other races. They're far less bound by environment, whether social or physical.
- Humans are more ambitious than most other races.
- Humans are much more comfortable in large groups.
In the case of Warcraft, to use your example (full disclaimer: my experience is mainly with WC2 and 3, only a bit of WoW), all these are true to some degree, and several of them are reasons for them to become de facto leaders of the alliance; they have no issues integrating themselves into elven and dwarven society (the other two major alliance races), they are good at understanding the other races' background and views, they aren't bound by traditions, and they are the most ambitiously interested in uniting the races into a single large alliance. Elves and dwarves both focus more inwards, and are more interested in small-scale groups than large alliances. We also see this in their villains; compare Arthas to Illidan in terms of what drives them and what their goals are. At least in WC3, Arthas is motivated by nationalism and seeks world domination, while Illidan is motivated by vengeance against what he sees as a family betrayal.
Now, I still agree with you that Warcraft suffers for the humans being so generic and default, and while I think there's good reasons for them being so central in the alliance, this isn't actually present in the gameplay. As you say, we see none of their diversity, and playing WoW there's really no mechanical representation of what makes humans different.
Partly, I think the generic-ness of human cultures in games are in an understandable wish to avoid reinforcing racial stereotypes. Like, I have an old Swedish RPG here, where there *are* very disinct human cultures, but since "culture" and "genetic makeup" are so intertwined in games like these, it gets... weird. Elder Scrolls also does this, and while it's less drastic or important there it still rubs me the wrong way. It's not intended badly, but when the character option for black people is "thick-witted but strong and really resilient for manual labor", it will definitely put a lot of people off from that game. But I still agree that if games are to feature humans as a major race, and uphold diversity one of their strengths, then they need to actually show diverse cultures and let those things have mechanical relevance. Just not of the "+2 Strength, -2 Intelligence" type, but rather in how they interact with society.
Sorry for the long post, but I blame you - such an interesting video got me thinking about this a lot!
Hey man no issue with long posts at all! Everything you said is 100% true. I just wish we SAW more of these traits in specific, tangible moments. I want to see more scenes where a group of elves have trouble working together, only for a small group of humans to outmatch them because of their superior social coordination. I want to see a dwarf burning up in the desert sun while a human relaxes while drinking a lemonade. I want to see humans persuasive skill in action, outwitting the elder races at the negotiating table.
It's a matter of showing as opposed to telling I suppose.
The above post is just rigging things so that humans have to be superior to other races. Nothing important.
I mean look at it:
"- Humans are more empathic than most other races, and excellent as diplomats (also sometimes as arbitrators)."
Ridiculous. If other races can produce societies comparable to humans in complexity then they would be capable of comprehending the thoughts of others.
"Humans are very adaptable compared to most other races. They're far less bound by environment, whether social or physical"
Contrived. If other races have comparable technology then they are just about as able to adapt.
"- Humans are much more comfortable in large groups."
How?
"In the case of Warcraft, to use your example (full disclaimer: my experience is mainly with WC2 and 3, only a bit of WoW), all these are true to some degree, and several of them are reasons for them to become de facto leaders of the alliance; they have no issues integrating themselves into elven and dwarven society (the other two major alliance races), they are good at understanding the other races' background and views, they aren't bound by traditions, and they are the most ambitiously interested in uniting the races into a single large alliance. Elves and dwarves both focus more inwards, and are more interested in small-scale groups than large alliances. We also see this in their villains; compare Arthas to Illidan in terms of what drives them and what their goals are. At least in WC3, Arthas is motivated by nationalism and seeks world domination, while Illidan is motivated by vengeance against what he sees as a family betrayal."
They're in charge from lazy writing nothing more. Circa Shadowlands, the Night Elves are loyal to Stormwind as their ruler even after Anduin refused to give them enough support against the Horde under Sylvanas when they invaded NEland.
@@psychotripnerdstuff You might as well have humans just fire lasers that instantly kill all non-humans.
@@galten7361 I think you misunderstood my post. I wasn't saying that humans *are* more empathetic than other races - other races don't actually exist. I'm saying that it's a recurring pattern in games to *portray* them as more empathetic. The same goes for the rest of the things I described. I wasn't describing actual humans - I was describing the tropes used about humans. I was neither defending or condemning this, merely observing.
That said, your criticism of the tropes seem kinda... weak. To be clear, I do find these tropes to be rather overused and prefer more thought-through portrayals, but I don't really think the specific objections you raise really hold up.
"If other races can produce societies comparable to humans in complexity then they would be capable of comprehending the thoughts of others." - That's not necessarily true. This is explored in an interesting fashion in Peter Watts' book Blindsight, wherein spacefarers encounter an extremely complex alien intelligence that seems to completely lack consciousness at all. It was great at predicting the behaviour of others, which is what would be needed to build a society, but whether it *comprehended* anything was up for debate (see also: the Chinese Room).
"If other races have comparable technology then they are just about as able to adapt." - This just isn't true, even within our species. I personally have disabilities that make me worse at adapting to different environments (both social and physical) than the average person, despite having access to the same technology as my able-bodied friends. But in fantasy in particular, many races have non-organic origins, being created deliberately by gods or mad wizards to fill a certain function, and thus adaptability serves little function.
"- Humans are much more comfortable in large groups." // "How?" Different species have different social tendencies. Ants are much more comfortable around a thousand other ants of the same lineage than a lynx would be around a thousand other lynxes of the same lineage. In fantasy, some races are portrayed as social on a level equal to or even greater than humans - often including things like goblins, orcs, kobolds etc - while other species are portrayed as preferring smaller social groupings or even solitary life, such as elves, aboleths, ents etc.
Would it be possible to list the games in this vid...Id love to play them....
“High elves, wood elves, dark elves, space elves, space goats… and everything in between.” _[shows a portrait of Jar Jar]_
No, no, he’s got a point.
I think The Elder Scrolls made humans right, to, just like you said Dragon Age did.
I definitely agree!
not really. Too many bad tropes with Elder Scrolls humans still oumatching every other race by default just because. See the origin story of Lorkhan and Talos.
I never play as humans in RPG's even in dragon age. The wood elves are usually my choice. I love their mystical and clever culture. The closest thing humans have ever had to the wood elves would be tribals like native americans.
I tend to be picky with wood elves. The only ones I really like are the bosmer, and that's because I really like what they did with the traditional wood elf tropes, twisting them in really interesting, extreme ways.
Thanks for watching by the way! Be sure to subscribe, and share this video if you haven't already!
Do you think all indigenous populations in the Americas were just "tribals"?
Perhaps the fault lies in portraying nonhumans with that "niché" they often seem to be very monotone, which is unrealistic if you're not controlled by a hivemind.
This is a good way of looking at it I hadn't really considered.
Sure.
100% Agree. I thought this at one point while playing Elden Ring. Since From Soft games tend to be intentionally weird and feature unusual characters, (Living Jar warriors, Giant Multi Faced Boulders) why not let you play as one?
Enough with humans as the blank template. Let me play as a scorpion or something. They've already got two built in weapons with the claws and the tail. It can still be a sentient intelligent talking creature like everything else. These are video games. You can literally make whatever you want. The world you design doesn't even have to adhere to the same law of physics as in the real world. Get more creative!
Humans are necessary. As Syndrome once said, "When everyone's super, no one will be."
In that case you'd want to do it differently. You wouldn't try to make them equal with the others, they might not even be playable. Make what's unique about them that they are weak.
The Whisperer In Darkness thats not uniqueness thats reducing them to vermin Whisper like the vorcha in Mass effect
paulman34340 I don't care about Mass Effect enough to learn much about what that is, but it can work. Like humans are the only "normal" ones and everyone else is a monster out of myth or something. Also it is a form of uniqueness, just not in a beneficial way.
And as someone who like Skaven in Warhammer, I object to "thats reducing them to vermin"
The Whisperer In Darkness the way ya stated it is what I'd expected a damn dirtey strawman smug xeno to say lol
The Whisperer In Darkness but yeah it would come off like that
You answered your own questions. You sit there and question yourself then ask "why?" Well, you just answered yourself. Humans are the race that is versatile. They may not be strong in one specific aspect, but they bring all aspects of the "strengths" that other races also bring, but to a level that is useful. That IS their strength, as they are varied and can be skilled to the levels as any other race, by being individuals that master one aspect of the jack-of-all trades skillset that other races tend to ignore in accordance to their culture.
In short, Humans do everything to different degree because they are a culture of adaption and versatility. That, by itself, makes humans of the most interesting races in fantasy world building.
leroy shane Playing a skeleton lizard man who bla bla bla is also not particularly fun if you gotten past the phase of "random=funny"
It's not what humans do better than the others. It's the fact that humans do everything. There not the best at one thing it's that they can adapt. Also from another point of view humans always seem to have the shortest life spans compared to the elf's and dwarfs so that have a more diveing sense of urgency to learn that one thing and get really good in there short time.
*YES I KNEW I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THE SAME!*
There are dozens of us! DOZENS!
Humans don't need to "add" anything to be successful, they don't need to compete.
Humans in almost every RPG imaginable have one main trait...they have an indomitable urge to dominate, to rule.
This makes them one of the more "capable" races used, as most of the time most races have different overall goals, Dwarves often prefer isolationism, it gives them more time to work on their own technology...but Dwarves never really have "mpires"
Elves tend to be very spiritual and strive for understanding, mostly of magic, though sometimes we've seen them as successful warmongers, like The Elder Scrolls series, where a mostly human run empire was brought to it's knees by Elves.
Though most RPGs tend to have other reasons why Humans tend to be on top, like being more flexible than most species...more imaginative, Dwarves in Dragon Age literally cannot dream for one.
At the end of the day though, if an RPG has legitimate and thought out reasons for humans existing in their world, there is no problem, the problem would lie in how the humans and non-humans are portrayed in that universe and so far I haven't seen one where humans don't need to exist.
Perfect anwser
So racism. And self inserting. And generic "We are better than yoU!" entitlement. We don't need those things. Remove humans alltogether and Fantasy can become great again. Fuck humans.
You are wrong. Delete humans. Now.
Dont really understand the downvotes.. I dont necessarily agree with everything said, but was a good video and you're actually make arguments for you claim.
Thanks dude! Glad you enjoyed. We can always disagree, and I encourage discussion on this stuff!
It's the title and the knee-jerk reaction it incites, and the less-than-perfectly-clear message of the video. If you don't listen properly, and focus too much on the title, it can sound like "Don't use humans in your story. They're boring," rather than the "If you use humans, make them interesting, diverse, and unique," which is the impression I got.
Why are there so many dislikes anyway? He put humans in quotations.
My guess would be because they simply focus too much on the "No Humans!" bit, and fail to realise that he's not making a blanket statement, that there shouldn't be humans in fantasy settings.
dimrill Because his argument isn't entirely cohesive and the title is clickbaity. Its an ok argument when you glean the message, but a better title would have been how to make humans more interesting in RPGs.
This is one of the main reasons why I love the elder scrolls, three human types that are very different from each other.
Agreed!
4, actually
How I choose the race to play?
1. *Is it a lizard?*
[Y]es? - _"Ok, we're done here."_
[N]o? - _"Sigh... Let's see what they bring to the table..."_
YES! It's really refreshing to FINALLY see someone else with this view! Just like you said, humans in RPGs are the easy relatable race, for people who don't like to leave the safe zone when getting invested in a new characther, and it is really a bummer that they're the most popular in RPGs. The developers and/or writers sometimes really seem to forget they are creating another WORLD, far, very FAR away from earth. You see, take elder scrolls lore for example, and it's lore about the very ancient times, with all the *really* unique races and settings. THAT'S a world I really wanted to immerse myself in, because it would be such a unique experience, but it's shame that I will only be able to read about it.
Also I rarely play as a human in any RPG, but just like you, in Dragon Age I liked playing as one because of their lore. But even so, I would like so much more if developers remembered they are creating another planet. Unfortunally, neither the devs, nor the majority of players want to take risks.
Humans are most definitely not the "most popular" race. That title belongs to elves(so much so to the point that they're sort of becoming a Mary Sue race), and even moreso to half-elves.
Also, in most games that add "human" as one singular thing, they actually do make it justifiable as to why humans are there lore-wise, and why they're dominant, and they actually use human traits to do so,. For example, DnD humans are a very sort-lived race(most don't live over 100 years in RPG's), and as such, they have a drive to leave a permanent mark on the world, to prove that they did exist, and by doing so, immortalize themselves. Because of that, their civilizations tend to grow to an extent that Elves, a race with incredible longevity, would never consider doing, as their race is mostly content, and by extension, stagnant. Elves have all the time in the world, so they can take all the time in the world to come to a decision and act on it. Humans don't, so they have to decide, and act, quickly, so they do.
And just because it's another world doesn't mean there can't be any humans, or a "human substitute" race. That is a non-argument, as it being "another world" doesn't mean anything about whether or not humans should or shouldn't be there.
And, as explained in other comments, humans have a purpose mechanically as well. They serve as a baseline for comparison on the other races. They're a standard by which we can compare the strengths and weaknesses of elves, or dwarves, or orcs, or giants, etc. They're an average bar, the neutral starting point to add or subtract from to get the abilities, lifespans, behaviors, and traits that other races have. How would you know that elves were "alien" to us if there weren't humans or something incredibly similar to humans, for them to be an alien race in comparison to, after all? Or to know that they were the most exceptionally gifted in magic if you didn't have the average that is humans? Without them, for all you would have known, elves were average at magic. Without humans to take the "generic average" position, a different race would have to, and then you'd be asking for THAT race to be removed instead of humans instead, because they "add nothing to the game", and eventually, it's reach a point where there's just one race left, and then you'd be complaining about a lack of variety in races.
Don't know what kind of media you have access to, but in the majority of stories and games humans are in fact the protagonists and the primary choice for players, most of the community hate elves and they're mostly villains. And I disagree with the necessity of putting humans in a game because "an avarage is needed". It makes NO difference if they are in the game or not, if the race presented by the dev/writer is alien, we would know it just by comparing them with real life human behavior. If you want to make a race that's very good at magic, and you want for the reader/player to recognize it, you could make other race that is, for example, terrible at magic and very good at physical combat, or tech, or avarage at both but alien in behavior, instead of using the "human race" trope that is avarage at magic, combat, and costumes. There are a LOT of (truly creative) other ways to show the traits of a race in comparison with another, instead of taking the easy way out and just making a world where "there are humans that are normal and every other race is different in one aspect".
Another great video Trip.
Thanks!
Not sure why there's so many dislikes, the point you're making is fair & well-founded
In RuneScape, all humans basically align to almost all Gods, which are Zamorak, Saradom (Though most align to him), Zamorak, bit on Bandos and Armadyl. Saradomist cities eventually just dominated most of the middle the region with added benefits of Saradomin races like Angelic-like beings, Centaurs, etc. And Saradomin presents Order as well and keeps humans mostly safe. Zamorak revels mostly on Chaos any race and such can join and do their own thing, rather than an organized war, which humans can contribute however they want, which some did join them, and thus there's Black Knights of Zamorak and White Knights of Saradomin.
Goblins for example do have potential, though due to their leaving of their God of War, which also represents much stupider Trolls, Orcs, etc. They are left with few areas to control. Demons mostly are tied to their realm and after the God Wars, have been tried to be killed by humans mostly. Aviansies are on their own realm as well, most of them killed by Zamorak using a powerful artifact to create a black, desolate Wilderness at North. It all just mostly depends what each race is tied to whatever God they worship, humans are just more variable than most races to have most variety. Considering in the Eastern Lands has more Eastern aesthetic, Kharidians has more desert-like culture, Morytania mostly has Werewolves, due to them collecting blood tithes for Vyrewatches.
I honestly think realistically that humans should be slaves and prisoners in many RPGs, they're not magical or strong with their medieval technology in Fantasy RPGs, nor are they hardy, overintelligent or celestially gifted in space RPGs.
I mean: In a real-world scenario there is no way regular humans could fight of demons and 9,000 year old elf sorcerers, nor could they fight of aliens and robots whose technology, brainpower and biology far exceeds their comprehension. I think, even though they're not really RPGs: The Witcher series and Half-Life/Portal get these right with the simple addition of many dying humans/hints of human racism.
Vegetarian Soylent-Green
You are comparing 1vs1, when you should consider that human lives (I mean middle ages) really don't mean shit.
Any woman will have up to 6, even 8 babies, so why care about loosing a 100 man, when the next 200 is born right now?
And loosing 100 elves? They live long af, so they mature slower and breed less. That would be a catastrophy.
This is similar to why mammals outlived dinosaurs.
Long lifes are not really a good thing.
Kanapka Love That's just elves though, what about vs orcs, the undead, demons, etc.
The Whisperer In Darkness
1. Noone likes orcs, all the races would want to kill them, cuz' they are really shitty politicians, threaten everyone and trade with noone.
2. There are a lot of diffrent kids of undead, but most are just hostile uninteligent beasts, they'd easly loose to an organised army
3. Demons usually just chill in their own realm, if they didn't then yeah, killing everything and everyone wouldn't be much of a problem for them, but even then they more often than not are really rare ro can't breed.
I mean, (in my opinion) if you really look at it, humans aren't as weak as we think they are
Kanapka Love
1. Depends entirely upon the orcs in question. Elder Scrolls and Eberron orcs aren't hated. (Speaking of which, on Eberron humans are an eldritch abomination) Tolkien orcs yeah, you'd be right. Warhammer Orcs, it doesn't matter if everyone hates them. They're basically impossible to eradicate.
2. Unintelligent undead are usually controlled by the smarter ones (Lich, wight, vampire, etc). Also in a war they are one of (if not the) worst to face. Their numbers grow when they kill, they never tire, have no need for morale, do not need supplies, etc.
3. Demons do not "just chill in their own realm". They may not often invade, but they frequently come over temporarily. And they may most often (but not nearly always) few in number, they usually can't be killed. They just return to their own realm.
4. Those aren't the only races that would be way better than humans, just the first 3 that came to mind. Since I mentioned Warhammer: Skaven. Also since I mentioned D&D, loads of monster races: Mindflayers, Beholders, Bugbears, Medusas, hell maybe even Myconids, etc. Also D&D specific undead creatures that could easily wipe out humanity without an army of mixed undead: Wights, Bodaks, Shadows, Wraiths, Spectres, and possibly (less likely) Strahd Zombies.
The Whisperer In Darkness I guess it all depends on the specyfic universe, it's way a way bigger subjesct that somwthing for a comment selection. Thank's for the conversation tho, I love polite discussions
My answer is always been humans are stronger than elves more magical than dwarves and smarter than Orcs we are the middle ground LOL
I agree and even in worlds where elves are faster or more magical and dwarves are smarter (typically only in craftsmanship and sometimes war) and orcs who are stronger, humans generally just take the advantages the other races have, make them theirs, then innovate, improve and reuse them against them.
Primary were kinda the perfect foil per say. And we generally band together if under greater threat
But that's not the strong point of the races.
Anon Legion yeah humans are kind of fun that way. They're all fighting and killing each other for decades, but as soon as a threat that isn't human presents itself all humans just throw aside differences, kick the new threats ass, then the humans fight over the spoils of war lol
I like the humans in 40k, where they are a race of space catholics trying to reclaim their former glory. Deeply religious, courageous in battle and unflinching in the face of extreme odds, I think they are a good example of what you are saying
0:14
rest in peace...you will be dearly missed wildstar.
Agreed! Unless you can make your humans intresting they shouldn't be in a fantasy game, or at least be the default race. IMO
Maybe you should find fantasy games made by people that actually know how to write.
Suffer not the xenos to live.
FOR THE EMPEROR!
Jokes aside, 40K is one of the best examples on how to do humans right.
How so? They focus on what makes humans cool, unique, and flawed. So much emphasis is put on the sheer number of humans in existence. The lore goes into detail on just how diverse humans are, with different tribes, cities, and nations on each continent of every world. And that's not even mentioning the crazy hordes of chaos-corrupted humans out there.
The best part of humans in 40k and why it has a much stronger presentation of them than most things is that the basic human groups are not made to be ridiculously strong or on the level of other races. They are just normal dudes in space fighting horrors beyond count infinitely stronger than them. And yet the human race persists and survives, it is this very act of defiance against the odds which is so appealing and should appear in more works of fiction imo.
And 40k without humans... would be 40k, really. Imperiumj of Man is just central to this.
Humans in "classic" Warhamer are also done well. Thay have unique cultures (heavily based on real, but only BASED) (Kislev even has their own magic), they are diverse, they havedistinctive features - they are god at nearly everything in comparasion to other races(not just "averege", but GOOD) except for one major (and in this universe fatal) flaw - they are weak to Chaos.
Hey Trip, what would you say are your favorite fictional humans?
What's your opinion of Worgen in the Warcraft setting? Technically I'd say they fit with the idea of "humans with their own unique skill or power" bit you mentioned, being that they are basically cursed humans.
Gilneans, at the very least, have an identifiable culture and art style, worgen or not. I definitely prefer them over the "regular" humans.
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1:20 No, no it doesn't.
He's simply stating that his opinion is better than anyone else's and plugs his ears to anything that contrasts that point.
Keep humans in video games. I like to play as myself not some scaled dog that walks on two legs or something.
TexasWarmonger exactly,for the sake of immersion,i need to be human.
So many commenters like this who don't understand
I feel Gilneas has been glossed over a bit. They were the most advanced group of humans in wow being at a level like that of the industrial revolution while stormwind and the other regions were your stock medieval fantasy level. they were always isolationist too, which allowed a group of proto druids to do their thing and help ensure good harvests. this is great for a nation that doesn't want to rely on anyone else. then there's the wall which cut them off completely for a good 20 odd years and which not only saved their nation from the undead but also trapped them when the internal worgen problem happened. The cataclysm happened pushing a people already in turmoil, dealing with a werewolf curse running rampant and who was still deing with a civil war over where the wall was placed and that it was put up at all and plunged them even further into chaos as the fallen wall and compremised natural defences that had existed in the ocean allowed the forsaken, sentient undead made up of some of the very people Gilneas doomed when they built their wall and later refused to allow any of the gathering refugees in when the undead scourge first appeared. they're a proud people brought low who once shunned outsiders and now depend on the kindness of the other members of the alliance. they can't go home since the forsaken blighted the area and as seen in other regions that stuff is like nuclear fallout and takes years to disapate.
Then there's the kul'tiras humans coming next expac. distinct enough to be their own race on the menu, unlike Gilneans who are only officially playable as a wolf-man Kul'tiras humans still look human but gigantic, broad (or in some cases gigantic skinny) humans who like hunting monsters and have sea priests.
they're a nation of people founded by gilnean sailors and inherited their isolationist tendancy from them, when the orcs and the man's own daughter killed daelin proudmoore, leader or one of the leaders of kul'tiras and the alliance did not join them in striking back at the orcs kul'tiras withdrew completely from the alliance HOWEVER it looks like this time it will not be the isolationist who comes to the alliance with their tails between their legs but the alliance who will need to beg for help.
another thing they seem to have inherited from gilneas is druidism, only up until the worgen curse boosted the proto druids of Gilneas to similar levels of the elves Kul'tiras humans appear to have done this on their own and developed a distinct, dark form.
Also, Jazz jackrabbit theme?
this guy really cant figure out why humans are in these games really he said why humans were the best without knowing it
Why do you think so.
what a pointless request, of course we want humans in RPG's, it just makes sense. Swords, guns, horses are all of this world so don't put them in fantasy games either. We want a race to relate to as well as ones we don't relate to.
I...I don't think you watched the video. There's a reason I put humans in quotes.
I watched it, shit just didnt make sense
D K9 word bro
his argument wasn't at all that humans don't belong in fantasy because "they're of this world"... The fact that you seem to think think this makes it appear as if you haven't watched the video.
Psychotrip was saying that "humans" in fantasy all too often become a generic default without any real identity. Where creators often go out of their way to describe what makes another race's culture special, we sometimes see the human faction be a vague medieval european mash up.
I wish I could pin this comment, MaMastoast. Thank you for explaining my point better than I could! To be fair though, I think you're right: I don't think a lot of people watched the whole video, since I explicitly mention good examples of humans in fantasy. In Dragon Age, for example, humans are my favorite race (Tevinter FTW).
I know this is an older video, but this is something I have been thinking about a lot. I'm an indie dev and one project I am thinking of tackling next is an rpg but only with only one non-human, non-standard tolkein-esque race. I'm still in heavy ideation since I am currently focusing on a different project, but I am looking towards a game world centered around an anthropomorphic elk species with its own unique world and culture.
This sounds amazing! I want to know more. I hope you liked the video!
@@psychotripnerdstuff I did! I can't say anything is for certain with the rpg since I am still focused on another project, but I think it'd be really interesting to build a world based on the customs and social behavior of elk. They have really interesting matriarchal structures and migration patterns that could really be used to make a rooted but alien culture to our own. The game would possibly involve a lot of alchemy, foraging, farming, and cooking as core parts of making the player feel really immersed and integrated into the world space. If I make a proof of concept, I'll let you know!
@@localvoidlander8093 I'd definitely love to see it if you do!
actually the two main human traits that I've noticed that seem to be present in most RPG's is adaptability and stuborness. one thing alot of people dont realise about humans in most RPG's is the fact that more often than not; they're fuckin EVERYWHERE, and what dose being all over the place mean? it means humans can and will build their settlements practically anywhere without restrictions, if a human group finds anywhere remotely habitable they will pitch tents, mill trees, quarry stone and start building a settlement "oi Antonius! theres a platue there!" "neat, lets put a keep on it". Dwarves are more often than not: earth bound, they stay in the mountains and hilly places and go down into the deep dark places of the earth, Elves are forest bound, being one with the trees and growing their homes with trees, and only moving when the forest grows out and there are so many representations of orcs I'm just going to roll with the wow ones, Orcs in WoW seem to build in naturally defendable places like in a canyon or crater or on a mountain side and they seem to favor using bone and hide as their main building materials.
and more often than not when shit hits the fan and everything starts to look a like the apocalypse is on the way its normally the human that buckles down the hardest, they Will not lose hope and they will not submit, they will fight to the bitter end and even if they do fail at least they can say without a doubt that they tried as hard as they could to stop it.
I mean one of the most vicous and feared and interesting 'villians' in wow was a fucking ex-paladin Human Prince called Arthas the Lich King. and man I actually read his story and FUCK ME my feels still haven't recovered.
So all i'm seeing is that you don't like humans in World of Warcraft
That's the idea that I'm getting as well. Lists that he doesn't like them. Ignores the cultural information and the facts that the undead are also humans. Ignoring the points that don't suit your viewpoint, in the case of the OP, is really the issue. Warcraft has many different races of "human." Vrykul are human, have three different cultures: Northrend, Stormborn, and Kavaldir. Lordaeron Humans: Forsaken. Gilnean Humans, which have a different culture and the worgen affliction. Kul Tiras humans, Slavic-cultured sea-fairing nation of humans. Humans in World of Warcraft are pretty damn diverse and have a plethora of interesting cultures that the OP just ignores to suit his argument.
He just used it as an example ._.
TheSpartanOne - they're not diverse at all, lol.
same religion worldwide? check.
nothing established in lore that sets city-state culture apart, beyond parts pertinent to the warcraft 3 storyline? check.
it's pigeon worldbuilding. funny how i saw someone else try to compare kul tiras to castile, while you're insinuating they're slavic. why does that happen? because wow humans aren't diverse. you can call them whatever the fuck you want, and it makes zero difference.
also, gilneas's "culture" is relegated to a policy of isolationism and harvest witches.
that's it.
that's all they have going for them.
It's not like all the other races have same religions worldwide, right?
Plus you have to consider the fact, that Warcraft's religion has actual consistent manifestation in the physical world in a form of all kinds of healing powers and the like - which makes it pretty unlikely to have many deviant religions - and we still have Scarlet Crusade, who interpret the teachings differently, and then all the warlocks, shadow priests and necromancers, that definitely have a different religious belief.
ace0071000 - it's pigeon fantasy, the type that makes it abundantly clear that it was never meant to be a comprehensive worldbuild.
rts lore generally doesn't translate well into an RPG format.
the fact that it has consistent manifestation is fine.
the fact that the representation of this is absolutely atrocious is not.
nothing about the light is interesting, nothing about the scarlet crusade is interesting, nothing about the argent dawn/brotherhood of the light is interesting, nothing about the silver hand is interesting, nothing about warlocks and shadow acolytes are interesting -- it's like picking rotten fruit next to a blooming orchard. so many other fantasy IPs that do it better.
No it is not time to stop having humans in rpgs. Next.
Agreed. Humans provide and integral part of the experience and are a classic jack-of-all-trades race that inherent plays how you want them to, which eased the ability to understand other races by contrast.
I can certainly agree with your points here, and I'll admit when building my own setting I kept races like "Human" in so people had a sense of normalcy compared to all the other alien stuff I put in, but I did end up giving the humans unique stuff too. Best way I can put is the various other races in the setting were made by the gods but humans were "born" or otherwise evolved on their own, giving them a unique biology subject to change and are best known for adapting traits best suited to their environment, whereas the other races are more inflexible and have to find work-arounds for all their problems. Also plenty of cultural diversity, which is always fun to write.
The real point that the "Human" concept is even still a thing is an old aspect/trope from early sci-fi and fantasy writing. I cant remember the quote but the over all concept is that people find it hard to empathize with something that they consider inhuman. The Human is the window character so that a person who is not used to being in such a setting can watch and feel apart of that setting without feeling like they are out of place. Its this reason that there is not concrete answer if Decker from the first Blade Runner movie is a replicant or not, or why there is never a nonhuman main character save for Frodo and Bilbo, two very human looking characters with very human wants and needs.
If a setting wishes to remove the "Human" aspect from it then it will have a hard time catching on. Its a marketing issue yes but the trends are set for a reason. Most people need to see themselves in the character and if they don't look/act/think in a way they know then there is no bridge between them. Look at the data from RPGs (links below). Most people will pick Human over any other race by quite a margin. And not just that but the more specific they make the human characters in the setting the less the people will want to play them. Given the data people will still pick a blank human over a developed national/cultural/spiritual identity that is just what happens. People play what they know.
I understand the frustrations of the blank canvas character as being lazy, but to one person a blank canvas maybe a field to paint something incredible; all it needs is you. And is that not what RPGs are all about? Taking a block of numbers and rules and turning them into something special. With stories of adventure and daring do we create characters that we decide where they begin and end, not the creators of the game. So the creators of games use this old trope of blank "Humans" to give players that lump of clay to mold into a statue of a real hero.
In summation, yes the trope is an outdated one but it still has a part to play in how people tell stories and make games around them. If you made it down to this part please tell me if you agree or if you don't I would like to know why.
DND's most played characters
fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-your-dd-character-rare/
World of warcraft most played characters
www.statista.com/statistics/276315/distribution-of-world-of-warcraft-characters-by-race/
You are walking around in a game with an ENORMITY of back-story between the factions and races of "humans". Stormwind and Lordaeron are different people, different cultures. The Arathi tribes fought war after war. Not a good example...
But also, no. I like playing humans usually. I absolutely LOATHE most fantasy races, unless they are almost human. I think stories or games that depend on the gimmick of "alien" to fill their races are shit.
Gah, and also "bring nothing to the table"? Magic! The Light. Yeah, dwarves got that from humans. The High Elves are dead, Humans make up the dominant mages. And Humans were the first to fight the orcs, and have been fighting them the longest, and in every war. I mean, they invented a system of freaking internment camps, dude.
WoW isn't great worldbuilding. But WARCRAFT is.
why do you hate fantasy races unless they are almost human?
I find them to generally be gimmicky, or mono-cultural. Often, biologically unsound as hell.
What you don't like seems to me is simply sloppy worldbuilding. I think you were focused more on the example itself which is obviously something you deeply care about. Would you still feel the absence of humans if you could see bits of the essence of humanity in all the other races, distributed tastefully?
I just find the addition of races superfluous, and done poorly so much more often they aren't really worth doing.
Sometimes, in worlds where everything is so completely fantastical, the only way to stand out is to not be fantastical. As far as their dominant position in such settings, I think it comes down to two factors: numbers and versatility. While dwarves and elves live longer, humans tend to have much larger families over the course of their lives. And because that cycle occurs more often ... they multiply like rabbits. While they may not have the best mages (itself debatable) or the best engineers ... they are always a close second in every discipline. That lets them use whatever solution best works for a given situation or to combine disciplines to find solutions that neither, individually, might offer.
It's not about the fireworks that you like the most, KicknWing.
Eh, I often enjoy humans for how they play together together with other more fantastical races. The mundane meeting the fantastical gives a foundation in something tangible while also providing the drama of mixing the two together.
"With the small exception of Gilneas and Dalaran" ~Just wanted to add Lordaeron on that. Gilneas is british english inspired while Lordaeron was gothic victorian. Dalaran is of course magic oriented, and Stormwind is the cliche Knightly-Medieval-Fantasy theme. But yeah, humans are a little more diverse than the video portrays. Specifically, none of them have identical accents.
And although the video is from 2016, just wanted to note the upcoming Kul'teras is looking to be a weird seafaring aesthetic like gothic meets caribbean. Not familiar with any of the other kingdoms though so I couldn't say for them.
Also human's are usually the leading race because in most fantasy settings, they have sheer numbers due to breeding like rats compared to the other races.
psychotrip, the humans in WoW, before the draenei arrived, were the strongest light users from what I know of. So when a well trained human paladin showed up in combat you have a new soldier and medic packed in one.
Usually the only thing I hear in any game lore about why Humans are so influential is because that they are the most populated race. As in there is so many of them that of course they would be in charge.
One of the reasons I love playing guild wars 2 was playing different Non-human races, like the Charr from GW1 (then again who doesnt wanna play as the bad guys?)
So, what's your opinion on humans in The Witcher series?
1:07
What a psychopath would think Mother Nature would say
As someone who's developing an RPG I'll take this into consideration.
In a lot of dnd settings humans have some pretty interesting civilizations. The race is flavored well(if slightly overpowered) with it's abilities since they are the "quick to master" race.
In GATE, the human went through the portal and breed there which ended up with many demi humans
I would love if the humans in Warcraft were more defined and culturally distinct.
Maybe Stormwindians could be more French or Calatonian due to their adaptation to Mediterranean and temperate regions.
Gilneans can keep that cool Victorian, Gothic theme, but maybe they could be given a distinct language and more distinct old culture.
Dalaranians could play around with Ancient Persian or Byzantine cultural basis.
Maybe the remnants of Lordaeron could be more Germanic, German or Swiss and Stormgarde could be more Medieval Scottish.
Warhammer Fantasy has actually done a very good job at making the humans diverse. The world is pretty much based on europe during middle ages up to the renaissance, but also includes tolkienesque fantasy races. For example, norscans/northmen are chaos marauders and represent the vikings, estalians are romantics and are supposed to be spanish, tileans are Italians (based on renaissance italy) , kislev is poland and imperial russia (cold, lots of bear insignias, winged lancers and a tsarist queen) . Their cultures are well diverse and explained in the 2ed rpg supplement books and actually explains why theyre the most dominant race in the old world.
I'm more of a 40K guy, but yeah Warhammer in general definitely makes humans more interesting!
0:49 Sweet mother of Tiamat, that scared the living shit out of me.
When i saw this video i read the title and thought you were putting humans in rocket propelled grenades
I have a question.
What is LARP?
Live-action role-play. LIGHTNING BOLT!
psychotrip XD. Thanks.
No prob!
At least we're getting Kul'Tirans in world of warcraft now, they're really unique both aesthetically and lore-wise
No, in lore they are just normal humans. They just look different cuz of engine gameplay reasons.
For some reason I get a feeling that you could do a spot on Mark Hamill Joker impression
Spoiler alert: I'm secretly Mark Hamil.
Interesting video. I haven't played many RPG's with different races to choose from, but I agree with your point - why should we imitate ourselves in a universe that's the furthest from reality you can get?
Exactly! And it's even more ironic when the "alien" races are more "human-like" than the actual "humans". Why do we always get the homogeneous, bland, short-end of the stick?
psychotrip It's a sad truth.
This is a trend I've been seen for a while and I've tried to contribute my thoughts here and there on boards, usually being met with the same response. "We don't want HFY (Humanity, Fuck Yeah) in fiction, it is a cliche" or something to that effect.
Basically, they feel that if Humans are technocrats, then the Dwarves lose meaning, if Humans are great thinkers, then Elves lose meaning, if Humans are great warriors, then Orcs lose meaning. They'd rather nerf humanity down to nothing but bottom feeders than ever imagine that Humanity have anything actually going for it other than sheer numbers (which shouldn't matter if literally everyone is better than you at anything you do).
This is all a sign of a terrible writer. The moment a writer denotes "diversity" or "free spirit" as a human trait, you can safely discard literally everything else they have to say after that. Because you know they won't be able to name a single redeeming thing that would reasonably give humanity an edge of their competition on a global scale. Diversity never made humans strong, it was our struggle to out-compete our rivals at all costs and become the more dominant culture.
What makes humanity great in the real world? The fact that we literally break down and reshape the world around us to get what we want out of it. Even so far as to physically go to the moon. The fact that a writer can't get this on paper is basically the equivalent of not being able to say a single good thing about yourself at a job interview.
You raise a bunch of good points, but all the fantasy races we see all have their 'favoured' classes, or equivilents - Elves are mostly Magic or Dexterity based, Orcs are mostly Melee fighters, that sort of thing. And while it is nice when those stereotypes are ignored for certain characters, when you look at the Humans, they don't have any focus, any predilections - We humans are generalists, so we can be good at ANYTHING but not the BEST.
Also, I think it's nice to have character I can wholly relate to on looks alone.
Totally check out Warhammer. The human nations of the Warhammer world are heavily influenced by their real life counter parts, with the addition of their own flavors of course. But to be fair, Warcraft 1 and 2 had a small world to work with, and now they had to make an entire world for Warcraft 3 and up. Their was no going back, only forward.
TBC lore bad.
Human and proud everytime. Nothing says epic like your normal everyday joe surrounded by epicness doing epic shit.
They are needed as a race to connect to, people want to play them to be a Cooler person we want to be
I agree with everything you are saying. Although i always play human, because i like not playing a special character. A human is just a human, I dont always want to be elf born with an inner link to magick or a genius dwarf. I kind of like playing humans cause they are underdogs
Jazz the Rabbit - First Level music in the outro music.
Looked at the title, immediately subbed!