How People Screw Up Nonhuman Races in RPGs

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THIS RAMBLING IS SPEAKING WITH THE ASSUMPTION THAT YOU ARE PLAYING IN A SETTING THAT IS EITHER HUMANOCENTRIC OR VERY MIXED.  IF YOUR SETTING HAS ANOTHER RACE THAT'S THE MOST COMMON, SUBSTITUTE THAT FOR WHAT I'M SAYING HERE.

I think there are a few reasons why people ultimately decide that they wish to play a nonhuman.

1. It sounds cool.

2. It looks cool.

3. It makes me better at something.

#2, I don't really give a shit about.  There's nothing to really opine on.  You like how it looks? Awesome, go for it. Numbers 1 and 3 are where the real meat and potatoes are.

It sounds cool, sure.  Why does it sound cool?  Is it because the lore surrounding the race is intriguing?  Perhaps there's a compelling history surrounding this race that strikes you as being fertile ground for a neat backstory?  

Unless there are actual implications in the game world that come with being the race that you've chosen, this is little more than set dressing.  By actual implications, I mean that when a human looks at that nonhuman race, they have several things come to mind that are unique to that race.  Generally speaking, these would be considered stereotypes.

But wait!  Isn't stereotyping based on arbitrary characteristics a bad thing?

Well, yes.  In real life.  We're playing a game, here.  Look, I'm not going to pretend that this doesn't broach some uncomfortable territory for some people.  That's a legitimate thing, I'm not going to belittle that.  HOWEVER, for those of us that are comfortable with these themes, this can be a dimension of depth for our roleplaying experience.

All right, so let's give an example.  A human encounters an elf in the forest.  The human, based on the lore of this particular world that I'm using as an example, can pretty safely assume that the elf is more in touch with nature, rather uninterested in the affairs of civilization so long as civilization does not broach upon their territory, that the elf has a rather alien way of looking at things (partially due to the long life span, partially due to differences in philosophy between cultures), things of that nature.

This is the kind of thing that adds a particular richness to fantasy worlds featuring a mixture of races.  If someone is playing an Elf, as in this example, they should probably reflect some of these implications with their character.  If not, there should be a good reason for it.  Perhaps they were raised among humans.  Perhaps they live in a big metropolitan area where races have lived together for such a time that the cultural differences are nearly negligible.

Unfortunately, I feel that this "metropolitan" D&D is kind of a trap.  It often results in a game in which what races your characters choose are purely aesthetic and/or mechanical in how it affects the game.  In those games, you may spend the entire campaign playing as though you're just a bunch of humans with funny ears, tails, horns, scales, whatever.  So... why bother?

On the other end of the spectrum, you (usually) don't want to play in such a manner that no matter where the group goes, the larger world is going to be inhospitable toward them because they aren't human, or goblin, or whatever the prominent race of the region is (if any).  If it's treated as an ever-present issue, it can provoke resentment in your players, to the extent that they may decide to burn down your setting.  The people in the world need to be redeemable to the extent that your players are going to be willing to keep them alive.  Even if it doesn't bring on resentment, it can simply be an annoyance after a while.  Like Preston Garvey telling you that the Minutemen need your help.

I think a good balance is to make sure that civilization is more inhospitable to all of the characters on the grounds that they're wandering adventurers, and that the "not being human" bit is more of a curiosity that you bring up from time to time.  Your players will very likely be much more forgiving of NPCs if they're jerks because you wander around and kill things for money than if they're jerks because you don't share their background.  People don't like racism, but they can understand a hesitation to accept mercenaries.  If you're going to explore the whole "NEVER TRUST AN ELF" thing, it's probably a good idea to make sure your table is cool with it.  Not everybody wants that particular kind of stress in their dungeon crawl game.

So that covers the whole "how do the races relate to each other" thing, perhaps the more important side of it is to try to figure out the cultural values, the psychology, the history, and things like that of the various races and to put these things at the forefront.  It's a lot of extra homework for you, as the worldbuilder, but it's also extra homework for the players.  They need to understand these things if they are to properly portray a character belonging to that race, unless, again, it's a "I was raised by X" situation or a metropolitan situation.  And, yet again, I personally find that uninteresting.

This race makes me better at things. All right, well that's not an inherently bad things in RPGs.  As someone who is more concerned with immersion and exploration rather than mechanical advantages (ie Gamism), I'm not really on the same page as you.  But if you're going to do this, do it right.  One of the most common reasons I've seen people pick a certain race in Fifth Edition D&D is because they're picking a certain class and this race has the correct ability score bonuses for your class.  I know this because there are hundreds of YouTube videos and build guides that teach you how to choose the perfect combination to be super badass.

I mean, I get it.  You want to be good at what your character does.  But to be perfectly honest, I really don't like the fact that you see so many Dragonborn Paladins, so many Tiefling Warlocks, so many High Elf Monks/Rangers, so many Dwarven Life Clerics.  I enjoy even less the fact that there are so many players (from my personal experience) who put very little consideration into what it means to be that race.  It has something of an MMORPG feeling where you're picking the one that has the best benefit, looks the most interesting, and then it really doesn't come up again.

Personally, I'm not a fan of static ability score bonuses with races.  Traits, sure.  Traits make sense.  It's probably not a surprise from how I've been talking that I like the old school Race as Class notion.  But if we're going to have race be a separate function, here's what I will do in my games: make those stat bonuses kits you can take irrespective of which race you have.  You get +2 in something and +1 in something.  End of story.  You want a smarter Orc?  Fuck it, there you go!

Or we can just stop giving them bonuses altogether.  Or we can do like Five Torches Deep and have them roll stats differently depending on what their race is.

To wrap up my advice to fellow DMs and players, if you want to make nonhumans more interesting:

1. Don't minimize the fact that they are different from humans.  Embrace it.

2. Develop the idea in all relevant ways: history, psychology, philosophy, cultural norms.

3. Make sure that the world acknowledges these differences without making the players resentful.

4. Portray nonhuman characters faithfully, unless you've got a damn good reason why they're basically humans with different morphological features.

While concluding this entry, I can't help but think there's good cause to start putting together another article.. one that is a defense of Race as Class.