I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters. Is it perhaps that you're effectively required to be creative? Lots of non-human characters I've seen tend to have personality traits that essentially boil down to "I am a dwarf", "I am a tabaxi", "I am a yuan-ti", etc., while humans are much more varied in their morals, ideals, etc.
I understand that humans, lore-wise are the most diverse and varied of all the races. My point is actually from the other end; dwarf characters seem to always be "I am a dwarf, I like drinking ale and digging holes", halflings are always "I am short and stealthy and I enjoy eating a lot", orcs are "I am big and strong and unintelligent".
There's nothing wrong with playing an archetype, but when practically every single member of a race is that archetype, it gets incredibly boring.
It might even be overall better to have players make the character part of the character first, then choose a race afterwards.
Simple Answer: Humans are accustomed to interacting with humans and we've seen first hand that there are a billion types of personalities that humans can have. When we create a character that is of a species that only exists in the fantasy world, it can be easy to get bogged down by stereotypes and our limited experience interacting with those species, so we are sometimes able to create a less deep character despite the fact that their personalities should be as varied as ours.
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In what context are we talking about? PCs? NPCs? Un published adventures? The descriptions in the PHB? In people's homebrew adventures?
I'd need to know what the context is to be able to speculate. The response for each of those would be different (although related).
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters.
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Simple Answer: Humans are accustomed to interacting with humans and we've seen first hand that there are a billion types of personalities that humans can have. When we create a character that is of a species that only exists in the fantasy world, it can be easy to get bogged down by stereotypes and our limited experience interacting with those species, so we are sometimes able to create a less deep character despite the fact that their personalities should be as varied as ours.
That makes sense. Many of my non-human characters have personality traits that pertain to stereotypes of their race, though I generally try to ensure they're interesting characters first and foremost.
One example is Breadcrumb Jasper, a backup character for my sibling's campaign. He's a bald Tabaxi, Inquisitive Rogue. The main reason for his profession is because he's naturally curious. Though character-wise he'd still be interesting if he was a human, for example.
In my experience, the people who do not write interesting backgrounds because they rely on fantasy stereotypes do not write interesting human backgrounds either - just, as BoringBard said, there are more different human fantasy stereotypes those players can choose from.
And the game encourages that for a while, with D&D being pretty inhospitable to deviating from racial archetypes for decades. This inhospitality came from two sources - rules which heavily favoured certain styles of play for certain races (set alignments for races and fixed ASI forcing races into certain play styles if you did not want to be suboptimal, while letting humans have more flexibility in creation) and the gatekeeping players who wrongly and sycophantically insist on forcing their tired fantasy stereotypes on other players.
Wizards, to their credit, has been working diligently to undo this decades-old inertia favouring cliché. But the two years since Tasha’s can only make a dent against decades of the game’s history, and many players still are (often angrily) mired in the old.
The popularity of streaming, especially shows like Critical Role, is also helping - these shows often show complex backstories for non-human characters, and I have seen firsthand some folks who leaned toward cliché try to create more complex backstories because they were inspired by these shows.
I am hopeful Wizards and community perception will change and make the game more welcoming of complex non-humans. That probably won’t change the reality that many folks who play are not exactly creative thinkers, so will still rely on cliché, but hopefully there will be more archetypes out there for non-humans they can choose from.
I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters.
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
Really? I've seen in my group and online, that practically every Goliath, for example, is a big strong serious buff guy, and practically every Kobold is a mischievous scoundrel. And the fact that barely anyone plays as humans means that we've got a slew of these boring archetypes.
I get it, making an interesting character is hard. But people could at least try to make their character unique.
In my experience, the people who do not write interesting backgrounds because they rely on fantasy stereotypes do not write interesting human backgrounds either - just, as BoringBard said, there are more different human fantasy stereotypes those players can choose from.
And the game encourages that for a while, with D&D being pretty inhospitable to deviating from racial archetypes for decades. This inhospitality came from two sources - rules which heavily favoured certain styles of play for certain races (set alignments for races and fixed ASI forcing races into certain play styles if you did not want to be suboptimal, while letting humans have more flexibility in creation) and the gatekeeping players who wrongly and sycophantically insist on forcing their tired fantasy stereotypes on other players.
Wizards, to their credit, has been working diligently to undo this decades-old inertia favouring cliché. But the two years since Tasha’s can only make a dent against decades of the game’s history, and many players still are (often angrily) mired in the old.
The popularity of streaming, especially shows like Critical Role, is also helping - these shows often show complex backstories for non-human characters, and I have seen firsthand some folks who leaned toward cliché try to create more complex backstories because they were inspired by these shows.
I am hopeful Wizards and community perception will change and make the game more welcoming of complex non-humans. That probably won’t change the reality that many folks who play are not exactly creative thinkers, so will still rely on cliché, but hopefully there will be more archetypes out there for non-humans they can choose from.
Agreed. I'm kind of in two minds; I think that humans should generally be seen as the standard, but also that players of the unusual races, such as Dragonborn and Tieflings should be encouraged to detach their character's race from their personality.
It's possible that there isn't any correlation between humans and interesting characters. The players in my group generally are split between "humans and common races" and "unusual races", and the former half is generally better at making interesting characters.
I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters.
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
Really? I've seen in my group and online, that practically every Goliath, for example, is a big strong serious buff guy, and practically every Kobold is a mischievous scoundrel. And the fact that barely anyone plays as humans means that we've got a slew of these boring archetypes.
I get it, making an interesting character is hard. But people could at least try to make their character unique.
I think that says more about the people you're playing with than it does goliaths and kobolds
Between the campaign I DM and the ones I'm playing in, there's a kobold paladin working on her history dissertation, a drunken dragonborn druid in an old west-themed campaign who's a cross between Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles and Walter Brennan from Rio Bravo, a halfling pirate pyromaniac, two DIFFERENT loner misanthropic elves who like animals better than people (one ranger, one druid), a satyr monk bandit who tries very hard to be mysterious (that's the old west campaign, so more of a Satyr With No Name riff)...
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
On one hand, you are right that stereotypes might be overexaguated. However, maybe nuanced character traits are also overshadowed by them. I like my non-humans to be a bit stereotypical. Otherwise you could just play a human imho. For me, an important part of playing other races is that they are different on more than just the physical appearance. That doesn't mean tough that those characters can't have other interesting quirks about them. Just like in real life, character might be reduced to stereotypes by other despite their rich differences. So, it might not just be the players of those character but also the perception of it ;-)
On one hand, you are right that stereotypes might be overexaguated. However, maybe nuanced character traits are also overshadowed by them. I like my non-humans to be a bit stereotypical. Otherwise you could just play a human imho. For me, an important part of playing other races is that they are different on more than just the physical appearance. That doesn't mean tough that those characters can't have other interesting quirks about them. Just like in real life, character might be reduced to stereotypes by other despite their rich differences. So, it might not just be the players of those character but also the perception of it ;-)
The important thing, however, is to know the difference between using fantasy tropes to inform backstory and relying on them in lieu of backstory. This thread addresses the second.
Now, that does not mean you are incorrect - personally, I feel a good non-human backstory sets out to do something new; but a great non-human backstory takes established tropes of the world and creates a new, nuanced, and complicated character that feels like it organically grew out of the world itself, taking into account its non-human origins and different upbringing. That second option, however, takes a fair bit of effort and skill, and I’ll settle for the first rather than get the walking cliché OP expressed concern about.
I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters.
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
Really? I've seen in my group and online, that practically every Goliath, for example, is a big strong serious buff guy, and practically every Kobold is a mischievous scoundrel. And the fact that barely anyone plays as humans means that we've got a slew of these boring archetypes.
I get it, making an interesting character is hard. But people could at least try to make their character unique.
I think that says more about the people you're playing with than it does goliaths and kobolds
Between the campaign I DM and the ones I'm playing in, there's a kobold paladin working on her history dissertation, a drunken dragonborn druid in an old west-themed campaign who's a cross between Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles and Walter Brennan from Rio Bravo, a halfling pirate pyromaniac, two DIFFERENT loner misanthropic elves who like animals better than people (one ranger, one druid), a satyr monk bandit who tries very hard to be mysterious (that's the old west campaign, so more of a Satyr With No Name riff)...
Yeah. I guess it doesn't matter that much tbh. I just think that people in general rely too heavily on tired clichés.
I want to throw it in there that this is the same as the difference between "Fat People ar Lazy" and "Lazy People are Fat".
Chances are, your player wanted to make a big, serious, muscly outlander with a big axe and bad table manners. They then consulted their list of races and said "Hey, I'll be a goliath!". Another player wanted a mischevious character with no concept of personal ownership outside of their own, and who they can give a silly voice to, and said "Hey' I'll be a Kobold".
And on that front, there are perhaps reasons why these stereotypes exist - because that is what these races in the game were made to fulfil. Goliaths were invented to be huge, strong, outlanderesque characters. Goblins were made to be small, vicious characters. Nobody ever said "I want to be a 9-foot tall barbarian with hulking muscles, I know, I'll be a Halfling!", because they decided the traits they wanted and then picked the race which fit them.
Personality traits are different. I agree that more often than not, people default to the stereotypes, but seeing as these are fictional creations, the stereotypes can in fact be considered "normal" for those races - Goblins are "normally" small and vicious and have bad table manners with little broken voices which use short words. Orcs are "normally" a bit less intelligent but very strong and hard to knock down. Dwarves are "normally" alcoholics who like rocks. Elves are "normally" insufferably haughty and better-than-thou. Dragonborn are "normally" incapable of showing feelings and regard the world through unsympathetic eyes. Lizardfolk do "normally" eat raw corpses and suggest eating everything that moves. So you can make any character, but frankly if you make a halfling who's 9 feet tall and suggests eating everything that moves, people will say that it's not a halfling, and that this is just weird not coming from a Lizardfolk!
I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters.
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
Really? I've seen in my group and online, that practically every Goliath, for example, is a big strong serious buff guy, and practically every Kobold is a mischievous scoundrel. And the fact that barely anyone plays as humans means that we've got a slew of these boring archetypes.
I get it, making an interesting character is hard. But people could at least try to make their character unique.
I think that says more about the people you're playing with than it does goliaths and kobolds
Between the campaign I DM and the ones I'm playing in, there's a kobold paladin working on her history dissertation, a drunken dragonborn druid in an old west-themed campaign who's a cross between Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles and Walter Brennan from Rio Bravo, a halfling pirate pyromaniac, two DIFFERENT loner misanthropic elves who like animals better than people (one ranger, one druid), a satyr monk bandit who tries very hard to be mysterious (that's the old west campaign, so more of a Satyr With No Name riff)...
Yeah. I guess it doesn't matter that much tbh. I just think that people in general rely too heavily on tired clichés.
I mean, those cliches and stereotypes have their place. I realize my original comment seemed a little "those players suck", but that wasn't what I meant -- if you're a new player, or one that isn't really comfortable with the whole role-playing thing because you think you won't be as good as the cast of CritRole or whatever, leaning on those easy characterizations as a kind of shorthand is helpful
The point is to have fun, and if someone's having fun playing a big dumb goliath barbarian, let them go smash stuff. Maybe someday they'll feel ready to try a cerebral, machiavellian goliath rogue mastermind instead
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters.
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
Really? I've seen in my group and online, that practically every Goliath, for example, is a big strong serious buff guy, and practically every Kobold is a mischievous scoundrel. And the fact that barely anyone plays as humans means that we've got a slew of these boring archetypes.
I get it, making an interesting character is hard. But people could at least try to make their character unique.
I think that says more about the people you're playing with than it does goliaths and kobolds
Between the campaign I DM and the ones I'm playing in, there's a kobold paladin working on her history dissertation, a drunken dragonborn druid in an old west-themed campaign who's a cross between Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles and Walter Brennan from Rio Bravo, a halfling pirate pyromaniac, two DIFFERENT loner misanthropic elves who like animals better than people (one ranger, one druid), a satyr monk bandit who tries very hard to be mysterious (that's the old west campaign, so more of a Satyr With No Name riff)...
Yeah. I guess it doesn't matter that much tbh. I just think that people in general rely too heavily on tired clichés.
I mean, those cliches and stereotypes have their place. I realize my original comment seemed a little "those players suck", but that wasn't what I meant -- if you're a new player, or one that isn't really comfortable with the whole role-playing thing because you think you won't be as good as the cast of CritRole or whatever, leaning on those easy characterizations as a kind of shorthand is helpful
The point is to have fun, and if someone's having fun playing a big dumb goliath barbarian, let them go smash stuff. Maybe someday they'll feel ready to try a cerebral, machiavellian goliath rogue mastermind instead
Well put. I have seen that new players generally model their characters after well-known archetypes, myself included.
It hasn’t been my experience. People in my group play all kinds of various characters, like belligerent Hobgoblin Warlocks, shady Dragonborn Assassins, noble Dragonborn Eldritch Knights, honorable Hobgoblin Barbarians, short-tempered Earth Genasi Hexblades, all kinds of stuff.
It hasn't been my experience, I've been around people playing fantastic characters human or no. Though the people I play with/run games for are mostly in a friend group that comes from an RP background before we got into D&D.
It could just be a sample size thing. You just happened to run into a couple groups where the humans were just more interesting. Or maybe you ran into some 'why would you want to play a human in a fantasy game' people who prioritize playing a fantasy species as more interesting than a compelling motivation or personality who made flat orc or tiefling or whatever characters without thinking beyond that. (Which is a fair way to play if that's what they enjoy.) I couldn't really say without interacting with your groups myself and seeing what specifically they're doing.
Just my view, but being a human means that your primary identity is about everything else- what you do, where you came from, etc. Being a human isn't going to be as much of a support to your character identity.
If you're a changeling, then being a changeling is going to factor into how being a changeling has affected your identity.
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I've noticed that, in general, humans tend to be more interesting characters. Is it perhaps that you're effectively required to be creative? Lots of non-human characters I've seen tend to have personality traits that essentially boil down to "I am a dwarf", "I am a tabaxi", "I am a yuan-ti", etc., while humans are much more varied in their morals, ideals, etc.
[REDACTED]
I understand that humans, lore-wise are the most diverse and varied of all the races. My point is actually from the other end; dwarf characters seem to always be "I am a dwarf, I like drinking ale and digging holes", halflings are always "I am short and stealthy and I enjoy eating a lot", orcs are "I am big and strong and unintelligent".
There's nothing wrong with playing an archetype, but when practically every single member of a race is that archetype, it gets incredibly boring.
It might even be overall better to have players make the character part of the character first, then choose a race afterwards.
[REDACTED]
Simple Answer: Humans are accustomed to interacting with humans and we've seen first hand that there are a billion types of personalities that humans can have. When we create a character that is of a species that only exists in the fantasy world, it can be easy to get bogged down by stereotypes and our limited experience interacting with those species, so we are sometimes able to create a less deep character despite the fact that their personalities should be as varied as ours.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.In what context are we talking about? PCs? NPCs? Un published adventures? The descriptions in the PHB? In people's homebrew adventures?
I'd need to know what the context is to be able to speculate. The response for each of those would be different (although related).
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I'm talking about player characters. My bad, should have mentioned in the original post.
[REDACTED]
If we're talking about PCs, that hasn't been my experience
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
That makes sense. Many of my non-human characters have personality traits that pertain to stereotypes of their race, though I generally try to ensure they're interesting characters first and foremost.
One example is Breadcrumb Jasper, a backup character for my sibling's campaign. He's a bald Tabaxi, Inquisitive Rogue. The main reason for his profession is because he's naturally curious. Though character-wise he'd still be interesting if he was a human, for example.
[REDACTED]
In my experience, the people who do not write interesting backgrounds because they rely on fantasy stereotypes do not write interesting human backgrounds either - just, as BoringBard said, there are more different human fantasy stereotypes those players can choose from.
And the game encourages that for a while, with D&D being pretty inhospitable to deviating from racial archetypes for decades. This inhospitality came from two sources - rules which heavily favoured certain styles of play for certain races (set alignments for races and fixed ASI forcing races into certain play styles if you did not want to be suboptimal, while letting humans have more flexibility in creation) and the gatekeeping players who wrongly and sycophantically insist on forcing their tired fantasy stereotypes on other players.
Wizards, to their credit, has been working diligently to undo this decades-old inertia favouring cliché. But the two years since Tasha’s can only make a dent against decades of the game’s history, and many players still are (often angrily) mired in the old.
The popularity of streaming, especially shows like Critical Role, is also helping - these shows often show complex backstories for non-human characters, and I have seen firsthand some folks who leaned toward cliché try to create more complex backstories because they were inspired by these shows.
I am hopeful Wizards and community perception will change and make the game more welcoming of complex non-humans. That probably won’t change the reality that many folks who play are not exactly creative thinkers, so will still rely on cliché, but hopefully there will be more archetypes out there for non-humans they can choose from.
Really? I've seen in my group and online, that practically every Goliath, for example, is a big strong serious buff guy, and practically every Kobold is a mischievous scoundrel. And the fact that barely anyone plays as humans means that we've got a slew of these boring archetypes.
I get it, making an interesting character is hard. But people could at least try to make their character unique.
[REDACTED]
Agreed. I'm kind of in two minds; I think that humans should generally be seen as the standard, but also that players of the unusual races, such as Dragonborn and Tieflings should be encouraged to detach their character's race from their personality.
It's possible that there isn't any correlation between humans and interesting characters. The players in my group generally are split between "humans and common races" and "unusual races", and the former half is generally better at making interesting characters.
[REDACTED]
I think that says more about the people you're playing with than it does goliaths and kobolds
Between the campaign I DM and the ones I'm playing in, there's a kobold paladin working on her history dissertation, a drunken dragonborn druid in an old west-themed campaign who's a cross between Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles and Walter Brennan from Rio Bravo, a halfling pirate pyromaniac, two DIFFERENT loner misanthropic elves who like animals better than people (one ranger, one druid), a satyr monk bandit who tries very hard to be mysterious (that's the old west campaign, so more of a Satyr With No Name riff)...
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
On one hand, you are right that stereotypes might be overexaguated. However, maybe nuanced character traits are also overshadowed by them. I like my non-humans to be a bit stereotypical. Otherwise you could just play a human imho. For me, an important part of playing other races is that they are different on more than just the physical appearance. That doesn't mean tough that those characters can't have other interesting quirks about them. Just like in real life, character might be reduced to stereotypes by other despite their rich differences. So, it might not just be the players of those character but also the perception of it ;-)
The important thing, however, is to know the difference between using fantasy tropes to inform backstory and relying on them in lieu of backstory. This thread addresses the second.
Now, that does not mean you are incorrect - personally, I feel a good non-human backstory sets out to do something new; but a great non-human backstory takes established tropes of the world and creates a new, nuanced, and complicated character that feels like it organically grew out of the world itself, taking into account its non-human origins and different upbringing. That second option, however, takes a fair bit of effort and skill, and I’ll settle for the first rather than get the walking cliché OP expressed concern about.
Yeah. I guess it doesn't matter that much tbh. I just think that people in general rely too heavily on tired clichés.
[REDACTED]
I want to throw it in there that this is the same as the difference between "Fat People ar Lazy" and "Lazy People are Fat".
Chances are, your player wanted to make a big, serious, muscly outlander with a big axe and bad table manners. They then consulted their list of races and said "Hey, I'll be a goliath!". Another player wanted a mischevious character with no concept of personal ownership outside of their own, and who they can give a silly voice to, and said "Hey' I'll be a Kobold".
And on that front, there are perhaps reasons why these stereotypes exist - because that is what these races in the game were made to fulfil. Goliaths were invented to be huge, strong, outlanderesque characters. Goblins were made to be small, vicious characters. Nobody ever said "I want to be a 9-foot tall barbarian with hulking muscles, I know, I'll be a Halfling!", because they decided the traits they wanted and then picked the race which fit them.
Personality traits are different. I agree that more often than not, people default to the stereotypes, but seeing as these are fictional creations, the stereotypes can in fact be considered "normal" for those races - Goblins are "normally" small and vicious and have bad table manners with little broken voices which use short words. Orcs are "normally" a bit less intelligent but very strong and hard to knock down. Dwarves are "normally" alcoholics who like rocks. Elves are "normally" insufferably haughty and better-than-thou. Dragonborn are "normally" incapable of showing feelings and regard the world through unsympathetic eyes. Lizardfolk do "normally" eat raw corpses and suggest eating everything that moves. So you can make any character, but frankly if you make a halfling who's 9 feet tall and suggests eating everything that moves, people will say that it's not a halfling, and that this is just weird not coming from a Lizardfolk!
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I mean, those cliches and stereotypes have their place. I realize my original comment seemed a little "those players suck", but that wasn't what I meant -- if you're a new player, or one that isn't really comfortable with the whole role-playing thing because you think you won't be as good as the cast of CritRole or whatever, leaning on those easy characterizations as a kind of shorthand is helpful
The point is to have fun, and if someone's having fun playing a big dumb goliath barbarian, let them go smash stuff. Maybe someday they'll feel ready to try a cerebral, machiavellian goliath rogue mastermind instead
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Well put. I have seen that new players generally model their characters after well-known archetypes, myself included.
[REDACTED]
It hasn’t been my experience. People in my group play all kinds of various characters, like belligerent Hobgoblin Warlocks, shady Dragonborn Assassins, noble Dragonborn Eldritch Knights, honorable Hobgoblin Barbarians, short-tempered Earth Genasi Hexblades, all kinds of stuff.
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It hasn't been my experience, I've been around people playing fantastic characters human or no. Though the people I play with/run games for are mostly in a friend group that comes from an RP background before we got into D&D.
It could just be a sample size thing. You just happened to run into a couple groups where the humans were just more interesting. Or maybe you ran into some 'why would you want to play a human in a fantasy game' people who prioritize playing a fantasy species as more interesting than a compelling motivation or personality who made flat orc or tiefling or whatever characters without thinking beyond that. (Which is a fair way to play if that's what they enjoy.) I couldn't really say without interacting with your groups myself and seeing what specifically they're doing.
Just my view, but being a human means that your primary identity is about everything else- what you do, where you came from, etc. Being a human isn't going to be as much of a support to your character identity.
If you're a changeling, then being a changeling is going to factor into how being a changeling has affected your identity.