Quote from: estar;1021401I 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.

Oh God, that's fucking hilarious.

BFRPG does the same thing (human XP bonus). BFRPG has no racial level limits and IMO the bonus is only significant from Name level.

Personally I prefer an attribute bonus, say +1 any 2 stats.

Quote from: joriandrake;1021403Playing 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.

The Altanian & Amazon bonuses actually total to +6, same as 5e Standard Human. I designed it that way.

Instead of allowing the players to choose their species, have them roll for species. Set the probability for the roll based on the setting demographics. Problem solved.

It's an interesting inverse of the older limitations of level limits and or slower XP progression for the non-human races. Noticeably this paradigm shift -- "Turn that Frown Upside-Down," turning limits into restricted benefits -- makes the medicine go down for these modern times. I am curious what your challenges were with +20% vs. +15%, because I would rather simplify the math as much as humanly possible.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1021477It's an interesting inverse of the older limitations of level limits and or slower XP progression for the non-human races. Noticeably this paradigm shift -- "Turn that Frown Upside-Down," turning limits into restricted benefits -- makes the medicine go down for these modern times.

If you are going to have imbalance it better as far as perception goes to have a baseline and add to it, than it is to subtract from it. It doesn't mean that you are automatically going to have better odds or more abilities than older designs. It all about what you set the baseline at.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1021477I am curious what your challenges were with +20% vs. +15%, because I would rather simplify the math as much as humanly possible.

Either I am running the campaign using a VTT like Roll20 and everyone on a computer with a calculator. Or I am running it face to face and 2/3rd of the players have a device or smartphone with a calculator app. What important is keeping the procedure down to one step.

Up untill around 2000 every session I was in or DMed for D&D was composed mostly of humans, sometimes all humans. Sometimes the rare elf, half-orc or half-elf. For some reason dwarves and halflings were really rare and I can not recall anyone ever playing a gnome. Jan is our regular non-human PC player. Mostly half-orcs as noted in threads past.

Of course at other times Ive been the only human PC in the group.

Race selection from what I have observed tends to be most often a personal thing. What fits an idea or ideal the player held. Sometimes influenced by what they have recently read or seen on TV. Then there are of course those out only for the perceived bonuses.

As for a humanocentric campaign. Those are fairly common it seems. Even some human only campaigns. TSR Conan and D&D Conan were both human only PCs for example. All you have to do is say "these races are not present in this setting/campaign.". and you can do that with any race. All elf campaign, all halfling, etc.

Quote from: Bren;1021415Instead of allowing the players to choose their species, have them roll for species. Set the probability for the roll based on the setting demographics. Problem solved.

As DragonQuest does.  Then if you are lucky enough to get a non-human race, they tack on a major XP cost multiplier on top of that.   To really ice that cake, though, they make you assign your attribute points before you roll to see which race you may qualify for.  It's a sledge hammer approach to making the game mostly human, but fairly effective for all that.  But as a D&D solution, that's almost the opposite of a "with least violence to the RAW" approach.

Normally, I prefer bonuses to a baseline instead of a penalty.  I've noticed more than a few players that seem to more quickly internalize such rules.  One thing that I do like about assigning a penalty to non-humans though, is if the goal is to have mostly human, then if the penalty works, not very many people need to worry about it.  So it matters whether you are trying for something like 70%+ human, or merely trying to put the brakes on the travelling circus.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1021526But as a D&D solution, that's almost the opposite of a "with least violence to the RAW" approach.

Only if you assume a key game element of RAW is the player gets to choose to be anything they want. To my mind adding a bunch of bonuses (to incentivize choosing to play a human) or penalties (to disincentivize choosing a nonhuman) is a greater change to the RAW than dealing with the issue of demographics at character creation.

Quote from: Bren;1021578Only if you assume a key game element of RAW is the player gets to choose to be anything they want. To my mind adding a bunch of bonuses (to incentivize choosing to play a human) or penalties (to disincentivize choosing a nonhuman) is a greater change to the RAW than dealing with the issue of demographics at character creation.

I meant the full DQ package would be violent to RAW D&D, not using the roll for the race by itself.  

That DQ combination of roll for the race after you assign your attribute is effectively a salvo fired at every player that the only way to optimize a non-human is to risk playing an extremely poorly put together human.  Or at least it is, in most cases.  The practical effect is to get anyone that wants a non-human to hedge.  So even if your roll works, you'll still be somewhat below the humans in many ways.  In a D&D version, having to roll to get to play an elf, and if it succeeds, then I get to make my character, is hardly an impediment at all.  It simply expands the lottery, the same way AD&D did with rolling attributes and only occasionally does someone qualifies for paladin.

I agree with you that if the goal is to stop the circus, then putting a limit on the number of non-humans is a good way to do it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1021582I meant the full DQ package would be violent to RAW D&D, not using the roll for the race by itself.  

Sorry my mistake. I misread you.

Main issue with humans in older editions from what I recall is they cant see in the dark. This is a major problem for a party that wants to sneak around. no can do if you're waving a torch about in some dark corridor. In 5e, this is still an issue, but the bonus feat outweighs it enough that all I've played are humans. Course that only works if you use feats.

I believe the best solution to anti-human is to remove darkvision from all PC races. Only monsters see in the dark. Gives the game more atmosphere for one, and helps even the playing field for humans vs demihumans. Sure, fluff wise dwarves and elves etc see better in the dark than humans, but they are just as blind in the absence of light.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1021628I believe the best solution to anti-human is to remove darkvision from all PC races. Only monsters see in the dark.

You keep talking like that and Gronan is going to ask you to marry him.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1021628Main issue with humans in older editions from what I recall is they cant see in the dark. This is a major problem for a party that wants to sneak around. no can do if you're waving a torch about in some dark corridor. In 5e, this is still an issue, but the bonus feat outweighs it enough that all I've played are humans. Course that only works if you use feats.

I believe the best solution to anti-human is to remove darkvision from all PC races. Only monsters see in the dark. Gives the game more atmosphere for one, and helps even the playing field for humans vs demihumans. Sure, fluff wise dwarves and elves etc see better in the dark than humans, but they are just as blind in the absence of light.

Its called... working around your limitations and... taking risks.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1021628I believe the best solution to anti-human is to remove darkvision from all PC races. Only monsters see in the dark. Gives the game more atmosphere for one, and helps even the playing field for humans vs demihumans. Sure, fluff wise dwarves and elves etc see better in the dark than humans, but they are just as blind in the absence of light.

Perfect solution.

So many players confuse low light vision with dark vision with infravision. I can find no passage in 5E that says torches ruin LL/dark vision, even though players insist it does,  due to years of tradition. If you can find a cite that says so, let me know.