Playing human

Robb Graves said:
bait TAKEN!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Now, aren't you glad I opened THAT door? It gave you the opportunity to expostulate on some of the things we might want to see in a Human race packet.

What else can you guys think of to include in a Human race packet? What makes a human different from other races?

What about racial predjudices (humans usally get along with MWEs? they can't stomach High Orcs? they don't trust Romani or Hoblings?)
 
In my experience humans tend to get along with most races. Races that feel themselves superior tend to alienate humans (dark elves and sarr). The further away from human the race gets the less humans tend to understand.

I play human because of allergies and because I like being able to make my own way. However going into the game I felt more like an alien then a "boring" race, considering I had no campaign info other than the limited info online. I didn't even know the most basic of customs and information any mentally sound adult should retain.
 
evi1r0n said:
I didn't even know the most basic of customs and information any mentally sound adult should retain.
Click to expand...

Who ever said Alcandar was mentally sound? I do seem to recall him trying to fight 3 trolls while in his jammies...
 
Duke Frost said:
Robb Graves said:
Humans rock. the most interesting people i have met in the game are humans, and I've been playing since 96-97 (as a human)
Click to expand...

That's because none of the other races will talk to Nathan, because he's, you know, boring. :lol:
Click to expand...

He's not boring...he's a dirty celestialist sure, but not boring...still wouldn't want to talk to him though. Evil celestial magic user.

Anyway I had considered doing a human character when I rolled out my PC a year ago. Was talked out of it for a lot of the discussion thats currently going on here. With little to no information on humans likes,dislikes, history, etc. etc. it wouldnt have been easy to play a human. Hell it would be easy to play a different race see how NPC humans act, and PC humans act and then do it that way. Now Crossroads is a great example(sorry Deadlands I havent seen your Human packet to judge) of deep involved Human background. You automatically know that if you're a human adventurer you're more than likely gonna hate everyone not human. Then dislike any human not really from Mercatos. It adds depth and a jump off point. Thats whats missing for anything that just wants to sink into a human character. A jump off point.

Heck even with some race packets as they are it can be hard. I remember not knowing exactly how to play my biata off the bat having never LARPed before. I just scratched my head and went with it and of course I'm still learning and autotuning it with IG experiences. So its not like having a race packet makes playing another race easy for a newbie. It can be just as difficult all around.
 
Druk said:
evi1r0n said:
I didn't even know the most basic of customs and information any mentally sound adult should retain.
Click to expand...

Who ever said Alcandar was mentally sound? I do seem to recall him trying to fight 3 trolls while in his jammies...
Click to expand...

I think that was perfectly sane, considering the trolls woke me up to the whole murder thing. Insane would have been fighting trolls without the jammies. :lol:
 
You know...humans are great..why...because you dont not have a limitation put on you by your race...there is not hey you cant be a fighter...you cant cast Celestial magics...you must talk funny and wear bright cloths....as a human you the player can write up just about any background...you can give your character anykind quork you want....so as a Human character your more open to what you can do and rp with...
 
Exactly. Humans are the freest race. You can do just about anything you want with a human character. Humans, in some ways, provide the most role-playing opportunities because you aren't limited by the rules to play your character a certain way.

I don't understand a lot of this demand for human race packets. What will it say: "Do whatever you want"? That's a pretty small race packet there.
 
Most race packets I have come in contact with, perhaps at the local level only, have shown not only what the races do but where they fit within the society as a whole. Dryads are hunted, MWE's tend to dress in gothic styles, Elves had once kept the dwarves as slaves, etc. I'm sure that there is history for humans in there somewhere.
 
Fearless Leader said:
Exactly. Humans are the freest race. You can do just about anything you want with a human character. Humans, in some ways, provide the most role-playing opportunities because you aren't limited by the rules to play your character a certain way.

I don't understand a lot of this demand for human race packets. What will it say: "Do whatever you want"? That's a pretty small race packet there.
Click to expand...
"Just about" is the sticking point. You can't wear bright clothes and talk in an accent. You can't wear furs and be superstitious. You can't play a human with a beard if you don't actually have one. You can't play a human with mutton chops unless you grow them out yourself. "Do whatever you want" isn't how you play a human. At the same time, why shouldn't humans have a distinct history and culture all their own?
 
markusdark said:
Most race packets I have come in contact with, perhaps at the local level only, have shown not only what the races do but where they fit within the society as a whole. Dryads are hunted, MWE's tend to dress in gothic styles, Elves had once kept the dwarves as slaves, etc. I'm sure that there is history for humans in there somewhere.
Click to expand...

Those are local packets though. I can certainly see local human packets, saying where humans mostly live and how they deal with other races and so on. And there can be even more than one "human" packet depending on where the human is from. in Ashbury, we have more than one elf packet depending on which area the elf is from.

But for a national packet, there's really nothing to say about humans.
 
jpariury said:
At the same time, why shouldn't humans have a distinct history and culture all their own?
Click to expand...

what i don't get is... why don't they in your chapter?

my human is from a very specific place, with a very specific culture... and i use that in my role playing all the time. and there is no human race packet in my chapter.
 
Robb Graves said:
jpariury said:
At the same time, why shouldn't humans have a distinct history and culture all their own?
Click to expand...

what i don't get is... why don't they in your chapter?

my human is from a very specific place, with a very specific culture... and i use that in my role playing all the time. and there is no human race packet in my chapter.
Click to expand...

We do have, however, a HUGE Player's Guide, with a detailed history, guides to every estate describing the people who live there, newsletters posted on our web page going back to 1993 covering the plotlines that have happened in our game, and much more information that should provide anyone with more than enough information for anyone to play a human at our game, I think, without a packet.
 
i would say because the only reason a race packet exists is to limit you. some argue, no no, it's for flavor, i need to know X. no you don't... make it up yourself... not having a race packet is freeing.
 
Robb Graves said:
i would say because the only reason a race packet exists is to limit you. some argue, no no, it's for flavor, i need to know X. no you don't... make it up yourself... not having a race packet is freeing.
Click to expand...

Then why have any history or background or anything? Why tell anyone anything about the game world? Why not just tell all new players to make up their own history and world and whatever where their character is from?

If you think background and race packets only serve to limit you, then clearly you are not a new player who is trying to fit in with a new character and just wants to know wtf is going on.

I think the most frustrating thing to me as a player of a human is the fact that other people can tell me that I'm doing it wrong, but when I ask for a race packet or some information on what humans should be played like they tell me "you are a human, you already know". This is rather like inviting someone to play "ball" when really you mean "calvin ball" and they don't know that. They just get frustrated because they don't know what is going on, and when they ask the response is "we're just playing ball, you should know the rules to that... it's ball!"

Does that help to clarify things?
 
asking for info on "what's going on" is not the same as asking for a race packet. a race packet really is there to set boundaries one what you can't do and how you should act towards X. If you want a players guide that talks about the culture of the place you play in and surrounding cities, and recent history.... that's not the same as a race packet.
 
Let's clarify a few things:

National race packets talk about a race's role-playing requirements, and may have some broad, generic culture stories thrown in so that a player can get the feel for what the race is like. None of these stories name specific places and few name specific people (other than heroic mythical figures from the past). They are meant to give someone who is not a <biata, elf, dwarf, etc> an idea of what it is like to be one of those races.

The national packets do not talk about a specific culture or place. That is for your local packets to cover.

Therefore, there is no need for a national human packet. Once more, what would it possibly say?

However, if a chapter wanted to do a local human packet, that would be fine.

Even so, such a packet should only cover those things that would be known by humans and not everyone else. For instance, if you have a human-only town, then it makes sense that only humans would know about what goes on there. However, if humans travel everywhere and have no race secrets or insider information, I cannot see why (or how) there can be a human packet, as all that information should be available for all players.
 
Why shouldn't humans have heroic mythical figures of the past?

I would suspect that a national human packet should have roleplay and costuming restrictions (no colorful clothing, no being too flashy and gregarious, no furs with superstitions, etc.), It could also include suggestions for ways to modify your own physical appearance that does not run afoul of other racial costuming or makeup. (For instance, if I don't grow out a beard, I can't play a human with a beard, but what if I want to play a human with six fingers on one hand, or large dopey ears, or massive scars, etc.) Maybe there should be a story indicating that humans were once the dominant race, but they've been overcrowded by all these crazy other guys.

As much effort as is put into defining what it means to be an elf in Alliance (as opposed to the Forgotten Realms, or the Tolkienverse, or RiftsWorld, for example), I don't think it untoward to ask "What does it mean to be a human in the Alliance mythos?". Why shouldn't there be Alliance-specific human racial ceremonies that don't exist in the real world, much as the Gypsy packet is filled with them?

I suspect people aren't offering specific examples of what should be in the race packet because it isn't particularly clear what it should mean, other than being a human is apparently boring and a punishment.
 
jpariury said:
other than being a human is apparently boring and a punishment.
Click to expand...

your opinion. mine is, it's fun, it's less restrictive and it's the only race where i don't have to wear some kind of enhancement to distinguish myself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top