Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 18, 2023 9:07:13 GMT -8
In Tyranny of Dragons we had 2 humans (Caelin and Benyt), I mean, they eventually left, but they were still there for a sizeable lenght of time.
This means that Humans, along with Elves and Halflings (depending on how you count kenders), are the most represented race in your games, being present in 3 out of 5 of them lol
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Post by Daos on Oct 18, 2023 9:22:53 GMT -8
Sure, I was only including characters who made it to the end (or present day, for the on-going ones). And if you include all the characters who joined up and then quit within a week or two (remember Mathias?), those numbers skew even further.
My point, though, is that in all four of those 5E games, humans are either non-existent or the minority.
However, this fact remains true if you apply it to my 2E games, as well.
Module Matinee: Elf (x1), Minotaur (x2), Irda (x1), Half-Elf (x1) Renosia: Elf (x3), Dwarf (x1), Human (x1) Past Glory: Elf (x2), Goblin (x1), Dwarf (x1)
So I'm not sure what to make of that. That wasn't the case back in the day, I remember that much.
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 18, 2023 10:11:07 GMT -8
Sure, I was only including characters who made it to the end (or present day, for the on-going ones). And if you include all the characters who joined up and then quit within a week or two (remember Mathias?), those numbers skew even further. Of course I didn't count Mathias since he never posted more than one post ic lol, or the characters that were there before I joined (because I never bothered to learn about them lol). But if I think back at Tyranny of Dragons for me the party was: Caelin, Eliana, Zakkoth, Henry, Chantilly, and Benyt. How can you say that they are either minority or non existent? I mean, if you compare them to all the other races packed together maybe so, but if you count each single race by their own Humans are one of the most represented. Dwarves, Gnomes and Tiefling are rarer, and you never had half-orcs: those are minorities / non existent, not humans.. I think you just want to prove a point that humans are not played in 5e when it's just not true xD
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Post by Daos on Oct 18, 2023 10:32:29 GMT -8
When I say humans were non-existent or a minority (and by minority, I mean less than half) in every 5E game I ran.
LMoP: Humans made up 0% of the party (non-existent). ToD: If you want to include Caelin and Benyt, then Humans made up 33% of the party (minority). CoK: Humans made up 0% of the party (non-existent). CoO: Humans make up 33% of the party (minority). Actually, wait, I just realized I completely forgot Terani existed. So it's actually 25% (minority). JRC: Humans make up 20% of the party (minority).
I've never had a 5E game where humans made up more than 33% of the party.
Even if you want to lump all of those characters together, humans only make up 20% of all five groups together if you include Caelin and Benyt (4 out of 22).
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 18, 2023 11:04:44 GMT -8
Like Matt indicated, that’s mathematically true for all 5E races.
So, if I have things straight: your point is that, “back in the day, Humans were significantly more popular than other races, usually being a majority of the party. These days, they’re no more popular than any other race.” Matt and I are arguing with you about it because we misunderstood your point to be “humans are significantly LESS popular than other 5E races,” which isn’t true.
does that sound right?
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Post by Marvoch on Oct 18, 2023 11:22:13 GMT -8
There is a lot of information on this topic on the Internet, usually in the form of surveys. One example is this one: survey
(Which is literally the first one I found looking for it now). From what I have observed playing 5e and watching others play, actually humans continue to be the most played race in d&d (followed by elves and dwarves).
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Post by Daos on Oct 18, 2023 15:59:38 GMT -8
Basically, I was just saying in my own experience, very few people play humans in 5E. Even in the survey Marvoch provided, I'll point out that 401 out of 1897 is only around 25%--hardly a majority.
If you are all telling me that most 5E parties are largely or entirely human, I'll have to take your word for it. Because that has not been my own experience at all.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 18, 2023 16:02:23 GMT -8
Basically, I was just saying in my own experience, very few people play humans in 5E. Even in the survey Marvoch provided, I'll point out that 401 out of 1897 is only around 25%--hardly a majority. If you are all telling me that most 5E parties are largely or entirely human, I'll have to take your word for it. Because that has not been my own experience at all. No, no, 5E parties are NEVER largely Human! But a party is as likely to have a human as it is to have any other race, give or take. They're not one of the more popular core races, but they show up a lot more than some of the supplemental races. I don't have access to your experiences, but I think the number of 5E humans you're looking at, I PERSONALLY wouldn't call 'very few.'
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 18, 2023 17:39:50 GMT -8
Yup, exactly what Gravity said. Nobody is saying that many parties where humans are the majority exist. (I doubt many parties where a specific race constitute the majority exist in the first place). I was mostly contesting this sentence: Nobody really plays humans in 5E, either. 25% is a big number. It means out of 4 PCs, one of them is a Human! I think this is one of the things that 5e did best: it made humans palatable and one of the most used races. And the free feat definitely played a part in this: it gave them huge versatility and allowed for a huge variety of builds. You can have a wizard in armor (Lightly Armored), a priest that dabbles in arcane magic (Magic Initiate: Wizard), a monk with a familiar (Ritual Caster), a bard that's really good at fist fighting (Tavern Brawler), a barbarian poliglot (Linguist), etc. Yes, they cannot fly, see in the dark, cast innate spells or laugh in the face of fear, but they can be whatever they want to be and get better at it much faster that other races will be able to.
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Post by Daos on Oct 19, 2023 12:58:52 GMT -8
My argument was that 25% is not a majority, though. As an example of what I'm talking about, look at the racial makeup of the Heroes of the Lance from Dragonlance. They consist of 1 dwarf, 1 kender, 1 half-elf...and six humans. That's 70% human. A clear majority. That's what most old school parties looked like. Half of them (or more) were human. But that's all beside the point, I guess. It's a good segue into humans, though. In 2E, humans are the default race. The game assumes most NPCs are human, and most PCs, too. The funny thing is, there is nothing special or unique about humans. What makes them useful is that they lack all of the restrictions that chain down the other races. Humans have no level limits, no class restrictions, no ability adjustments or ability minimums/maximums. They basically have full versatility and potential. They can be any class and have any ability scores. No matter what you roll, it is impossible to not qualify for human. Which is part of what made them so popular. Especially in a game where you rolled 3d6 down the line, a lot of the times human would be all that you qualified for. As I am removing level limits and allowing players a choice in character generation, likely humans' popularity will drop, at least somewhat. I can't really see a way around that, though. In many settings, humans still have a lot of social advantages (ironically, in this game is the opposite; it's tieflings who have the best social advantages). And of course, sometimes people will choose human for flavor reasons, not mechanical ones. But there is a fair chance they will be a minority (or non-existent) in most adventuring parties going forward, and I guess there's really nothing to do about it. I always thought it was funny that the only thing humans had going for them in this edition was that everyone else was shackled down to make them look better. They're like the white men of D&D races. Anyway, guess that's all I have to say on humans. Anyone else have any thoughts?
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 19, 2023 14:29:50 GMT -8
No, other than I think Humans being a minority is A Good Thing, Actually.
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Post by Daos on Oct 19, 2023 14:32:48 GMT -8
Why is that, if I may ask?
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 19, 2023 15:25:59 GMT -8
Why is that, if I may ask? Well, maybe not so much A Good Thing as Not A Bad Thing. I like it when D&D parties are varied, with the characters feeling unique and distinct from each other. That could be done with a party of mostly Humans if you had experienced roleplayers who were able to really breathe life into their characters, but most of the time a PC boils down to a race/class combo and a few personality traits, in my experience (with in-person D&D at least). More to the point, I don't think it's a problem if the party composition doesn't reflect the population of the setting. Mostly humans may be normal, but adventurers are hardly normal people!
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 19, 2023 17:06:37 GMT -8
Which is part of what made them so popular. Especially in a game where you rolled 3d6 down the line, a lot of the times human would be all that you qualified for. I'm not sure I would call it being popular, seemed more like they were just the default choice when there weren't other choices available... It may be true then, than removing all those limits etc would decrease their popularity (but I mean..even with those limits in play, in your 2e games they are barely played. I think using the makeup of the Heroes of the Lance creates a false perception..humans are always the protagonists in fantasy stories because they're easier to relate to, so of course in a narrative setting they'd chose mostly humans to give someone to the readers to identify with. I think narrative and play are two different ballparks, and the statistics of your game seems to confirm my views)..erm, that was a long parenthesis, as I was saying: if you want to make humans more palatable maybe instead of limiting the others, you can give them something else to make them more versatile? There are no feats in 2e but maybe they could gain proficiencies (both weapons and non) faster? Maybe start with 1 each more, and then gain them at smaller intervals than the other races? Like a human rogue gaining them every 3 levels, instead of 4?
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 19, 2023 17:15:40 GMT -8
Okay, I'll start with my proposals/requests. Which are mostly things that I've already said it before.
1st one, let's keep things simple: as I said I think it would be nice if priests had a nwp equivalent to a mage's cantrips. How did you call them..Orisons?
2nd one, the healing spells thing inspired by pathfinder: the healing spells tax is what turned playing a cleric into a hazing ritual for the last guy that joins the table..no more! As I said, it would make the game less frustrating for who wants to play a priest if they could just turn each of their prepared spells into a healing spell of the corresponding level. I don't think it would break the game, after all..the priest still has to sacrifice one of their spell, they still have to make a tactical choice of which spell to keep and which way to turn into a CLW.
3rd one, please lower the identify price ;_; 1000 is just too much, especially for the rhythm we're earning money (in the other game, at least). Even in the videogames Identify "only" cost 100..and there is much more money around there.
I think that's all tbh, I'm still not familiar enough with the edition to really contribute much more ideas, especially since I have only experience with the priest class.
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