This referee has a complaint that not uncommon, all the players in his campaign made non-human characters. Let's face it, non humans are cool kids of fantasy roleplaying. Most races have interesting backstories, memorable characters, and of course the racial abilities. Sometimes all three like with the Drow.

Starting with DnD 3.0, later editions attempted to rectify this by giving Humans their own racial abilities. Typically extra flexibility by granting a feat or two, increased ability of the player's choice, or more skills. But still it seems lacking and rather bland.

The primary way I fixed it was to grant a 15% XP bonus for humans that works the same as the XP bonus due to having a high prime requisite.

After publishing Majestic Wilderlands I ran more campaigns using it and soon ran into an issue related to the one Joshua complains about. While the roleplaying complications I used for non-humans in a human dominated culture tended to make party majority human, the players complained about the disparity in abilities between humans and non-humans.

Some of it was due to the players desire to have "better" characters. But I felt they had a legitimate gripe. I found through designing the supplement is that when there is an imbalance it is better to "reward'' than it is penalize.

This can be seen in my ability system for skills. Every characters can use any ability, but some classes, particularly the rogue classes, are better at some abilities than others. Rather than saying to the fighter player, "you can't pick locks". I say "You can pick locks, but the burglar is always going to be the best at it.".

While there is no negatives for playing humans, most players in my campaign acted like there was. So I searched for a way to fix this. Being based on OD&D my rules didn't have feats, so that was out. I didn't want to grant more attribute bonuses or extra points to use on abilities/skills. Other editions did that and it didn't seem to fix the issue. Then while fixing some typos with the prime requisites XP Bonus it hit me. Why not give human a XP bonus over and above the other races?

It is simple to implement and easy to understand. And it has the virtue of pandering to one of the things that the players are interested in, gaining XP to level. The question is now how big of a bonus it needs to be to make a difference. As it turns out after several months of playing with different numbers 15% hit the sweet spot. So I added that to the +1 to a chosen attribute that I wrote in the original release.

So the write up for Man (humans) now reads as follows

QuoteMan is the dominant race in the Wilderlands. The combination of hardiness, birth rate, and intelligence has allowed them to spread to every corner of the land. The wide range of conditions that humans face has left them highly adaptable. The gods have not chosen to reveal the mystery of Man's ultimate destiny. Among the wise it is said that Man's ability to leave the Wilderlands after death is an integral part of this destiny. Some consider this to be a bitter gift.

• Humans gain +1 add to the attribute of their choice.
• Humans gain +15% to all earned experience
• Human base move is 120 feet per round.

Since then it worked well, and the complaints about that issue disappeared. The +15% proved just sweet enough that despite the advantage of the Elves, Dwarves, and other non-humans, the human players felt they were holding their own. And it had no effect on how combat and roleplaying encounters were resolved.

For Dark Passages I went with allowing humans to swap out one attribute roll for a 16.  It doesn't work as well as I'd like because it benefits a character with good rolls more than it does one with poor rolls.  In the Arcane Confabulation there's an experience cost for races that is essentially a one time balancing cost that usually means that second level is a little farther away.  A percentage bonus might be good as it reflects the fact that the abilities gained continually provide an advantage while a straight modifier really only applies once.

I think it is a great subtle solution to "everybody want's to be an elf".  I have some players with game-balance hang-ups, and others who are repressed munchkins.  Both are bothered by the mechanical weakness of humans vs demihumans, especially in my  human-centric worlds.  Allowing humans to advance more rapidly would work for them. Some players just want to be different and weird which is a better reason to play an elf.  

Do you allow the human XP bonus to stack with the bonus for exceptional prime stat?

Quote from: Madprofessor;1021331Do you allow the human XP bonus to stack with the bonus for exceptional prime stat?

Yes so the max bonus is +20%. (15% for human, 5% for prime requisite). I use OD&D as the base.

That is a great solution from within the context of the OD&D base rules.

Fasa flipped a couple of the common tropes with Earthdawn when it was first published. Dwarves are the most common settled race of Barsaive, and Dwarf is also the "Trading Common Tongue". This is due to a setting conceit that before the Scourge, when the Horrors came, the Dwarf King of Throal was the satrap ruling the whole province for the Theran Empire. When everyone went and hid in their Kaers (Fallout Shelters), the Dwarf King made sure most of them has a copy of "The Book of Tomorrow" a text in dwarfish that was a combination of elementary-school math and reading lessons and a description of the lands above, kingdoms, legends, etc. This all but ensured that the Kingdom of Throal would become the major trading operation after the Scourge, thus the place of dwarves in the setting.

Any Human tribes were either already integrated into their local culture, which then hid in multi-cultural Kaers or Citadels (when you "Elemental Shield" up a whole city), or survived on their own in the wild and jungles (some of them having Dragons as patrons). To give mechanical weight to the Human's place as the origin of the Demi-Human Races (as this is tied to Shadowrun & the whole magic-cycle meta-cosmology), human characters are granted the magical Talent of Versatility.

This lets Humans Adepts learn the magical talents of other Disciplines without multiclassing. The Human cultures who focused study on this Talent actually developed a Discipline based around it called the Journeyman, who can basically pick and choose magical Talents from any Adept willing to teach them, building their own Talent Tree as they go up in levels (Circles). I have always thought this was a really neat example of tying the game mechanics directly to the world metaphysics.

Even with the mechanical benefits humans have in 5E, I'm still running into this problem - no human out of the five PCs in my latest campaign. The culture of character customization has sunk deep roots into the game, and for some reason everybody wants a unique or different character. I couldn't even get anybody to be a straight Wizard, even though I strongly hinted that it would come in real handy. Elf trickster-clerics, tiefling warlocks, dwarf barbarians, halfing druids - every party is basically a freakshow. Part of me just wants to mandate an all-human sword and sorcery campaign, straight Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue class options. But that would be bad DMing, I suppose.

The trouble with increasing XP awards for humans, in a 5E context, is that like many groups we simply level up collectively every second or third session.

Quote from: Haffrung;1021374Even with the mechanical benefits humans have in 5E, I'm still running into this problem - no human out of the five PCs in my latest campaign. The culture of character customization has sunk deep roots into the game, and for some reason everybody wants a unique or different character. I couldn't even get anybody to be a straight Wizard, even though I strongly hinted that it would come in real handy. Elf trickster-clerics, tiefling warlocks, dwarf barbarians, halfing druids - every party is basically a freakshow. Part of me just wants to mandate an all-human sword and sorcery campaign, straight Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue class options. But that would be bad DMing, I suppose.

The trouble with increasing XP awards for humans, in a 5E context, is that like many groups we simply level up collectively every second or third session.

I actually see the opposite.

EVERYBODY plays Variant Human because the +1s and feats are considered flat out better than everything else. Every now and then someone will play another race for strong RP reasons, but the default is Variant Human, hands down.

Quote from: Haffrung;1021374The trouble with increasing XP awards for humans, in a 5E context, is that like many groups we simply level up collectively every second or third session.

In that case then slot in additional +2s, or feats. How many will continue to play non-human if a human starts out with any combination of +10 to attributes or 5 feats. I know that example is extreme. But somewhere between where it is now and that number is something will make them go "mmm maybe humans are worthwhile to play."

It effects the game more than a XP boost but on the other hand it front loaded at the beginning.

And there always the roleplaying alternative but that require time and multiple campaigns run n the same setting to sink in.

The choice here seems fine, but I'll throw out some potential caveats -

1) There is some tension in trading off between an option being more boring and being more powerful. Certain options (like fighter, cleric, and human in some circles) are chosen less often because they are seen as less interesting - and sometimes there is a push to make them more powerful to balance that. But that can potentially result in, say, a player who takes the unpopular choice being overpowered compared to the rest of the party.

2) Besides the bookkeeping aspect, boosted XP can be tricky because the effect depends on how long the campaign will last. In a short campaign or one with high turnover, it might not make much difference. In a very long campaign, it might be completely dominant. This is offset by D&D's rising XP to level scheme, though.


For other options, I might try to think of an option that makes humans cooler instead of just more powerful. That's a very subjective question, though, obviously.

I let Setting Balance handle it, a
lways.

• If you're a human, you're not likely to get killed by humans who resent other races.
• You can actually blend in to human towns and move around without sticking out like a sore thumb (look up Dave Chapelle's bit on Idris Elba as James Bond trying to run from assassins in White Europe).
• If you're an Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, or one of the Freak Races, you're going to have to deal with the expectations of others of your race.  Humans - other humans don't give a fuck.
• Other obvious stuff applicable to most settings.
• Other stuff specific to certain settings.

Someone wants mechanical balance - Fuckin' Waaah

The only time I ran into mechanical imbalance with this was in AD&D2 play during the RPGA. Most players were elves with their long lifespans who would cast Haste before every combat encounter. This was no big deal for the elves, but for myself and one other player who was a human it became a problem. The Hasting aged both of our characters from teenagers to middle aged in just a handful of sessions. We finally solved it by getting the Haste casters to not include our characters in the spell effect and instead having land on s small wicker cage of crickets we carried along.

Quote from: jhkim;10213911) There is some tension in trading off between an option being more boring and being more powerful. Certain options (like fighter, cleric, and human in some circles) are chosen less often because they are seen as less interesting - and sometimes there is a push to make them more powerful to balance that. But that can potentially result in, say, a player who takes the unpopular choice being overpowered compared to the rest of the party.

I try to have the "less" interesting classes  have less roleplaying baggage built in. For Fighter, and Burglar, the players is pretty much a free agent to do whatever. Magic Users have a little more baggage in that there are rival orders who are protective of their turf. Most of the other classes come with roleplaying built-in especially clerics, paladins, and myrmidons.

Quote from: jhkim;10213912) Besides the bookkeeping aspect, boosted XP can be tricky because the effect depends on how long the campaign will last. In a short campaign or one with high turnover, it might not make much difference. In a very long campaign, it might be completely dominant. This is offset by D&D's rising XP to level scheme, though.

It is indeed swamped by D&D's rising XP to level scheme. Obviously it helps but it not a game changer which is why I stuck with it. A far bigger issue for me is how fast character level compared to in-game time. The per session increase seems fine, but not when only a week passes in-game for several sessions. I fiddling with some ways of dealing with. Running a Adventure in Middle Earth campaign with its fellowship phase has been informative for me.

Quote from: jhkim;1021391For other options, I might try to think of an option that makes humans cooler instead of just more powerful. That's a very subjective question, though, obviously.

I have that too with all the different things that PCs can get involved with and take advantage of in the different human cultures. But the XP Boost plus that has made it a moot issue.

In my Thursday Night Majestic Wilderlands campaign I have an out and out power gamer who is really trying to bust the rules I am using. He opted to play a full Viridian (a demonic race with per day spell abilities) and got so sick of the complications (everybody hates them) that he shoved a wand of polymorph into another players hands and had him shapeshift him into a human. Then of course his succumbed to his powergaming urges again and used an other charge to polymorph into a dopplegander.

Very useful especially with the mind reading stuff and shapeshifting but what he didn't know that my friend, Tim of Gothridge Manor, liked to use dopplegangers his campaigns. Used them to great effect in a campaign a decade ago. So much so that it became the default interpretation among my group. So I had that to draw on. The major downside of being a PC doppleganger is two fold. First doppleganger have a semi-hive mind going on. Second they tend to submerge themselves into an identity. So the player kept having to make saving throw to stop himself from thinking he was the person that he deep scanned. So he going to polymorph out of being a doppleganger soon.

But if he opts to remain one, well the campaign has become that much more interesting.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1021393I let Setting Balance handle it, a
lways.

• If you're an Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, or one of the Freak Races, you're going to have to deal with the expectations of others of your race.  Humans - other humans don't give a fuck.

The way I roleplay it is that most of the region's human cultures treat Elves like rock stars. Unless the Elf PCs does something "bad" then reaction shift to the polar offset and the pitchforks come out*. Dwarves are viewed as assholes, as well as their cousins the Gnomes. Halflings are not taken seriously. The other more exotic races each have their own PR issues.

*I had one player in the 90s who ignored me on this and after he fireballed a village, he was seized by his fellow elves, judged by the Elven Queen, and was polymorphed into a mule. Since he treated those villagers like animals, he will be treated like an animal. He was sentenced to graze outside of the gate to the elven capital for 100 years offering rides to anybody entering the city. We roleplayed the combat encounter, the player was dumbfounded when the rest of the party didn't jump in. Anyway the next character the player made was considerably more calm.

During char-gen for my AD&D game, the human characters were given the chance to reroll their lowest ability score.  A small thing, but it did make a difference for them.  The rest is done through Setting Balance, as CRKrueger referred to it.  Both the half-elf and the halfling both have to deal with certain prejudices and social restrictions that the two humans do not.

I like the idea of a XP bonus for humans, and I wish I had thought of it when starting my campaign (I would have went with +10%, to stack with the +10% bonus for 16+ stats).

Quote from: estar;1021314This referee has a complaint that not uncommon, all the players in his campaign made non-human characters. Let's face it, non humans are cool kids of fantasy roleplaying. Most races have interesting backstories, memorable characters, and of course the racial abilities. Sometimes all three like with the Drow.

Starting with DnD 3.0, later editions attempted to rectify this by giving Humans their own racial abilities. Typically extra flexibility by granting a feat or two, increased ability of the player's choice, or more skills. But still it seems lacking and rather bland.

The primary way I fixed it was to grant a 15% XP bonus for humans that works the same as the XP bonus due to having a high prime requisite.

After publishing Majestic Wilderlands I ran more campaigns using it and soon ran into an issue related to the one Joshua complains about. While the roleplaying complications I used for non-humans in a human dominated culture tended to make party majority human, the players complained about the disparity in abilities between humans and non-humans.

Some of it was due to the players desire to have "better" characters. But I felt they had a legitimate gripe. I found through designing the supplement is that when there is an imbalance it is better to "reward'' than it is penalize.

This can be seen in my ability system for skills. Every characters can use any ability, but some classes, particularly the rogue classes, are better at some abilities than others. Rather than saying to the fighter player, "you can't pick locks". I say "You can pick locks, but the burglar is always going to be the best at it.".

While there is no negatives for playing humans, most players in my campaign acted like there was. So I searched for a way to fix this. Being based on OD&D my rules didn't have feats, so that was out. I didn't want to grant more attribute bonuses or extra points to use on abilities/skills. Other editions did that and it didn't seem to fix the issue. Then while fixing some typos with the prime requisites XP Bonus it hit me. Why not give human a XP bonus over and above the other races?

It is simple to implement and easy to understand. And it has the virtue of pandering to one of the things that the players are interested in, gaining XP to level. The question is now how big of a bonus it needs to be to make a difference. As it turns out after several months of playing with different numbers 15% hit the sweet spot. So I added that to the +1 to a chosen attribute that I wrote in the original release.

So the write up for Man (humans) now reads as follows



Since then it worked well, and the complaints about that issue disappeared. The +15% proved just sweet enough that despite the advantage of the Elves, Dwarves, and other non-humans, the human players felt they were holding their own. And it had no effect on how combat and roleplaying encounters were resolved.

Playing right now in 3 wilderlands games (5e), GMs use cultural backgrounds instead of PHB ones which add sometimes also extra attribute increases like in case of Amazon, above what is granted to basic human from PHB. Makes them more interesting both due to lore and bonuses.