Why do humans exist?

[Hotrod]

So I was browsing through Phase World, and a thought struck me. In the megaversal system of Palladium, the deck is heavily stacked against the normal human. They have no intrinsic powers, no special abilities, and no special aptitudes. They get no mega-damage capacity, no natural AR, and no bonus SDC. They can't see in the dark. Humans breed slowly, with great difficulty, and they take a long time to reach maturity (compared to, say, Gargoyles). They also don't live long.

Despite this, we see humans in every dimension, often in positions of great power and influence.

What's their secret?

[eliakon]

So I was browsing through Phase World, and a thought struck me. In the megaversal system of Palladium, the deck is heavily stacked against the normal human. They have no intrinsic powers, no special abilities, and no special aptitudes. They get no mega-damage capacity, no natural AR, and no bonus SDC. They can't see in the dark. Humans breed slowly, with great difficulty, and they take a long time to reach maturity (compared to, say, Gargoyles). They also don't live long.

Despite this, we see humans in every dimension, often in positions of great power and influence.

What's their secret?

Well one is that who is saying we breed slowly? Yah we might be slower than say orcs, but we are probably much faster than elves or dwarves (or other long lived species) Maturity is a modern concept, historically many humans were off soldiering or doing professional work at 14-15.
We organize well, its insanly easy to get humans to work together as a team....as long as you have an 'other' to compeate against.
Meta game reasons include the fact that humans are capable of bonus stats in all areas, can take almost any class with no restrictions, have access to magic, psionics, super powers, etc. And of course the players and writers are humans so its easisest to relate to humans, which is why most fiction is human-centric.

[Zamion138]

Will to live and expanded, our relativly short life spans compared to say dwarves and elves make us earn to leave our spot on the world /galaxy in a big way as we wont be around much longer. Stats were all around average, but at the same time we can openly take the good and bad from any other culture, we strive for our short years to be so much more.
Its the human spirt and need to be "something" that drives us on. no one in our race lives for 2k years so our wealth and power changes hands and thusly ideas and ideals more rappidly, we are reasonably versitile in skills and body so that other races use us. We are one of the older races out there and have vast histories as well.



In summation....our short lives and tenacity to survive are our greatest abilites. that and other than orcs goblins and ratlings we breed like flies compared to other races.

[Qev]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

[flatline]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

Perhaps the groups I've played with are not representative, but except when the GM made us play humans, the only human PCs I ever remember seeing in Rifts were either full conversion borgs (which hardly qualify) or super powered characters (which hardly qualify).

--flatline

[Nekira Sudacne]

Even in old AD&D, there were always some groups who rarely played humans when you could play an Elf or a Dwarf and have all kinds of special abilities with no real drawbacks except a distant levelcap they figured the game would never reach: and if the group had the common houserule to ignore the levelcap would never play humans.

But on the other hand, there have always been players who don't like playing anything BUT humans, regardless of the stats, because they have trouble empathising with a dwarf or elf. Sometimes whole groups of them.

[glitterboy2098]

Evolution taught humans to cheat.
and to be honest, we had to learn. we're descended from small, weak, slow apes with no fangs, no claws, no venom, no natural armor or defenses.. just relatively large brains and opposible thumbs. nor did we live very long (studies of our ancestors remains indicate that most died before 40.. until civilization showed up)
as a result, and unlike other races in the game, humans can learn to be just about anything. they can learn magic. they can build powerful weapons. they can out think many races, and out wit many others. they also actually have a much wider range of psionic mutations than most other racesto.

this last actually makes sense, when you consider the fact that the new Beyond the Supernatural claims Human psionics are a sort of "anti-body effect" in the human race to deal with the supernatural. that exposure to the supernatural has placed evolutionary pressures on humanity, even before the rifts, that encouraged psionic mutations to thrive and spread through the population. post rifts this same selection pressure seems to have resulted in stuff like the bursters, the mind melters, the psi-nullifiers, and all those other high powered psychic types.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

Perhaps the groups I've played with are not representative, but except when the GM made us play humans, the only human PCs I ever remember seeing in Rifts were either full conversion borgs (which hardly qualify) or super powered characters (which hardly qualify).

--flatline

Those parties would have been killed pretty mercilessly in any game i played in. Having to travel through Coalition territory to get pretty much anywhere unless you want to go WAAAAYYYY out of your way means that it can be hard to get any large number of non-humans in the party, unless you're playing in an alternate setting. You might kill one or even two patrols (if they are small enough), but eventually you're going to get run to ground by a whole platoon of SAMs and/or an amount of overwhelming firepower that you simply cant take on.

However, i have seen parties make it work with a few non-humans; one group would fake up bounty papers on their nonhumans and claim to be transporting the "dbee prisoner" to their destination for their pay and his execution.

Why humans exist in any meaningful fantasy/sci-fi setting:

Humans are almost always depicted as the one race that can adapt to anything. The harder the adversity the harder humans fight to overcome it. As a race, if you tell us we cant do something, we're likely to spit in your face and do it just to prove you wrong.

Humans adapt well to an "us vs them" mentality - the race, as a whole, is willing to endure terribly hardship for the betterment of all when push comes to shove, and humans are often portrayed as having a totally indominable will (as a race, not necessarily individual members) - where a lot of races would give up and be enslaved, humans will fight to the brink of extinction.

Humans are also one of the few races presented in most games/settings/fiction as being able to master anything. Part of our infinite adaptability is the ability to think in ways that some races simply cannot - we can alter our worldview to accept new ideas more quickly and firmly than almost any other race in fantasydom. Yes, we may only roll 3d6 for all those attributes, but we're the only race that can also have across the board 30s if we get lucky - so while the average human is just that - strictly average - as a race we can also produce specimens far outside the norm.

For roleplaying reasons, also, humans are just often easier for people to play. In the LARPs i've played and adminsitered and developed for, one of my biggest pet peeves is "humans with pointed ears" syndrome - people playing non-humans who simply behave like humans with a better/different stat block.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Those parties would have been killed pretty mercilessly in any game i played in. Having to travel through Coalition territory to get pretty much anywhere unless you want to go WAAAAYYYY out of your way means that it can be hard to get any large number of non-humans in the party, unless you're playing in an alternate setting. You might kill one or even two patrols (if they are small enough), but eventually you're going to get run to ground by a whole platoon of SAMs and/or an amount of overwhelming firepower that you simply cant take on.

Well, a lot of games I play in never even go near coalition territory. leaving out the possibility of lots of support of playing not even in north america--making the coalition completely irrelevent to a lot of rifts games, there's plenty to do without going near CS territory even IN north america.

In fact, I can't think of any games I ever played in where crossing CS territory was an issue, simply because there was never anything on the other side of CS territory we wanted to get at.

[Zamion138]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

Perhaps the groups I've played with are not representative, but except when the GM made us play humans, the only human PCs I ever remember seeing in Rifts were either full conversion borgs (which hardly qualify) or super powered characters (which hardly qualify).

--flatline

Those parties would have been killed pretty mercilessly in any game i played in. Having to travel through Coalition territory to get pretty much anywhere unless you want to go WAAAAYYYY out of your way means that it can be hard to get any large number of non-humans in the party, unless you're playing in an alternate setting. You might kill one or even two patrols (if they are small enough), but eventually you're going to get run to ground by a whole platoon of SAMs and/or an amount of overwhelming firepower that you simply cant take on.
However, i have seen parties make it work with a few non-humans; one group would fake up bounty papers on their nonhumans and claim to be transporting the "dbee prisoner" to their destination for their pay and his execution.

Why humans exist in any meaningful fantasy/sci-fi setting:

Humans are almost always depicted as the one race that can adapt to anything. The harder the adversity the harder humans fight to overcome it. As a race, if you tell us we cant do something, we're likely to spit in your face and do it just to prove you wrong.

Humans adapt well to an "us vs them" mentality - the race, as a whole, is willing to endure terribly hardship for the betterment of all when push comes to shove, and humans are often portrayed as having a totally indominable will (as a race, not necessarily individual members) - where a lot of races would give up and be enslaved, humans will fight to the brink of extinction.

Humans are also one of the few races presented in most games/settings/fiction as being able to master anything. Part of our infinite adaptability is the ability to think in ways that some races simply cannot - we can alter our worldview to accept new ideas more quickly and firmly than almost any other race in fantasydom. Yes, we may only roll 3d6 for all those attributes, but we're the only race that can also have across the board 30s if we get lucky - so while the average human is just that - strictly average - as a race we can also produce specimens far outside the norm.

For roleplaying reasons, also, humans are just often easier for people to play. In the LARPs i've played and adminsitered and developed for, one of my biggest pet peeves is "humans with pointed ears" syndrome - people playing non-humans who simply behave like humans with a better/different stat block.

Travling through CS territoy isnt that bad, if your in a car or big boss ATv and your driving through the woods and not stoping at a mega city to ask for gas and veggies the CS would A. Have no reason to bother you. B. inless you run into the most hardcore of the troopers most DB's are not kill on sight, other wise the burbs would not have so damn many of them there. and C. If you allowed your players to take these races and then penilized them for doing so by making them curier stuff back and forth through CS territory Id probaly just keep telling you as a player "Naa I think will stay here in Kingsdale and/or go no where near that rats nest of badness I dont care if your game is written to have me go there its not in charecter to go on suicide runs for this elf im playing that lives to be 900 years old."

[Nightmask]

Not that surprising, humans simply developed in conditions isolated enough from other more physically powerful species until enough existed that they had the numbers to compete effectively on the larger scale.

[wyrmraker]

Humans have been historically and scientifically proven to be innate dominators. If humans enter a region, they will dominate the area, exterminating whatever interferes with them. History has proven that humans are the deadliest, most vicious, savage, cunning, underhanded animal on Earth. By extension, humans spread throughout the galaxy would be that much worse in their capacity for violence in the name of 'survival of the species'.

[Akashic Soldier]

I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you.

[taalismn]

Humans are snack food that have been spread across the megaverse by Alien Intelligences so they will always have something to chow down on, wherever they go.

[wyrmraker]

Humans are snack food that have been spread across the megaverse by Alien Intelligences so they will always have something to chow down on, wherever they go.

I think I like your answer better than my own.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

Perhaps the groups I've played with are not representative, but except when the GM made us play humans, the only human PCs I ever remember seeing in Rifts were either full conversion borgs (which hardly qualify) or super powered characters (which hardly qualify).

--flatline

Those parties would have been killed pretty mercilessly in any game i played in. Having to travel through Coalition territory to get pretty much anywhere unless you want to go WAAAAYYYY out of your way means that it can be hard to get any large number of non-humans in the party, unless you're playing in an alternate setting. You might kill one or even two patrols (if they are small enough), but eventually you're going to get run to ground by a whole platoon of SAMs and/or an amount of overwhelming firepower that you simply cant take on.
However, i have seen parties make it work with a few non-humans; one group would fake up bounty papers on their nonhumans and claim to be transporting the "dbee prisoner" to their destination for their pay and his execution.

Why humans exist in any meaningful fantasy/sci-fi setting:

Humans are almost always depicted as the one race that can adapt to anything. The harder the adversity the harder humans fight to overcome it. As a race, if you tell us we cant do something, we're likely to spit in your face and do it just to prove you wrong.

Humans adapt well to an "us vs them" mentality - the race, as a whole, is willing to endure terribly hardship for the betterment of all when push comes to shove, and humans are often portrayed as having a totally indominable will (as a race, not necessarily individual members) - where a lot of races would give up and be enslaved, humans will fight to the brink of extinction.

Humans are also one of the few races presented in most games/settings/fiction as being able to master anything. Part of our infinite adaptability is the ability to think in ways that some races simply cannot - we can alter our worldview to accept new ideas more quickly and firmly than almost any other race in fantasydom. Yes, we may only roll 3d6 for all those attributes, but we're the only race that can also have across the board 30s if we get lucky - so while the average human is just that - strictly average - as a race we can also produce specimens far outside the norm.

For roleplaying reasons, also, humans are just often easier for people to play. In the LARPs i've played and adminsitered and developed for, one of my biggest pet peeves is "humans with pointed ears" syndrome - people playing non-humans who simply behave like humans with a better/different stat block.

Travling through CS territoy isnt that bad, if your in a car or big boss ATv and your driving through the woods and not stoping at a mega city to ask for gas and veggies the CS would A. Have no reason to bother you. B. inless you run into the most hardcore of the troopers most DB's are not kill on sight, other wise the burbs would not have so damn many of them there. and C. If you allowed your players to take these races and then penilized them for doing so by making them curier stuff back and forth through CS territory Id probaly just keep telling you as a player "Naa I think will stay here in Kingsdale and/or go no where near that rats nest of badness I dont care if your game is written to have me go there its not in charecter to go on suicide runs for this elf im playing that lives to be 900 years old."

Never said i was GMing, and, quite honestly, if you knew the game was set in North America and chose to play a D-bee, the GM isn't penalizing you. One of the ways the game balances really cool races (like, say, Dragon Hatchlings) is by making them difficult to play sometimes. It's part and parcel of the system. Any CS patrol that stops an ATV full of people may let random Dbees go by, but if there's a magic user in the party, you're pooched. Dog boys can sniff you out in a moment. Same with a hatchling or a lot of other supernatural creatures. These are all things that can be planned around (party i used to play with, the Dragon would vamoose out of the back, invisible, the moment they got stopped, and stay half a mile or more away while the shakedown happened), but it IS part of the setting you have to deal with if you travel North America, and it would make having an entirely non-human party difficult, at best. Even if the CS doesn't auto-shoot Dbees on sight, theyd be a LOT more likely to skrag an entire party that didnt even have a single human. A mixed party, the CS guys could at least mentalize to themselves "hey these guys have dbee slaves/inferiors" - theyd talk to the humans, etc, and you could probably talk your way out of a problem. A car full of Dbees? That sounds like a story you tell at parties when passing the beers around.

Kingsdale is nice and all but it is literally only 200 miles from a CS city-state (Newtown, or, later, it is INSIDE a CS claimed territory, CS El Dorado). Travelling from there to, say, the New West, puts you at risk of being stopped by border patrols (a pretty decent risk), particularly if you stick to the few established roads.

You dont have to persecute a party, but just turning a blind eye to their choices, allowing them all the benefits of playing a non-human without any of the negatives, isn't the way to go either.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Humans exist because they were written in so they could exist. Otherwise, they would all be long since dead from the horrible conditions the Rifts started. Also, humans are boring to play. With the exception of changing your background/situation, you're never going to be as interesting as a race from another dimension that can see in the infrared and likes to eat cookies. Or looks like a giant talking lion with massive amounts of PPE, or a dolphin/human hybrid that shapechange into both.

That's sort of a matter of opinion. I find humans to be far more interesting than most d-bee races.

[flatline]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

Perhaps the groups I've played with are not representative, but except when the GM made us play humans, the only human PCs I ever remember seeing in Rifts were either full conversion borgs (which hardly qualify) or super powered characters (which hardly qualify).

--flatline

Those parties would have been killed pretty mercilessly in any game i played in. Having to travel through Coalition territory to get pretty much anywhere unless you want to go WAAAAYYYY out of your way means that it can be hard to get any large number of non-humans in the party, unless you're playing in an alternate setting. You might kill one or even two patrols (if they are small enough), but eventually you're going to get run to ground by a whole platoon of SAMs and/or an amount of overwhelming firepower that you simply cant take on.

We rarely had issues with the CS. As DBs and magic users, we weren't interested in spending time in or near CS territory. If we ran into CS troops we treated them like any other hostile party where the decision was made to attack or avoid or whatever based on the needs of the situation.

I don't ever remember needing to cross through CS territory to get to the other side, but I don't think it would have caused us much concern. Having access to things like Teleport:Superior, Dimensional Portal, and Circle of Travel make short work of such things. At the time, I don't think there was anything of interest defined in the East Coast, so unless you wanted to go hunting for Splugorth Slavers, there was no reason to pay attention to that part of the continent.

--flatline

[wyrmraker]

Remember the Victim class from Beyond The Supernatural?
Humans

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Back then, there was nothing out *west* either. The original game was damn sparse, actually, in terms of adventure opportunities, unless the GM was creating a lot of his own stuff.

But i take your meaning, though teleportation is awfully expensive, PPE-wise, particularly back int he day when even a Line Walker started with like.. what, HALF the PPE they start with now?

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Humans exist because they were written in so they could exist. Otherwise, they would all be long since dead from the horrible conditions the Rifts started. Also, humans are boring to play. With the exception of changing your background/situation, you're never going to be as interesting as a race from another dimension that can see in the infrared and likes to eat cookies. Or looks like a giant talking lion with massive amounts of PPE, or a dolphin/human hybrid that shapechange into both.

A character shouldn't be interesting because he's got a strange race on top of his character sheet. A character should be interesting because of the interesting personality you've developed for him, nuanced roleplay, and a great story to be told. I should be able to hand six players the same character sheet and get six very different characters that are all interesting people.

It's one of the reasons i dislike the aftermath of the d20 system on the roleplaying scene in general. 'Back in the day' when people would talk about their cool character, it would always be how interesting his personality is, the interesting things he did, how he affected the story, etc. THese days, it is almost always "man check out my awesome Half Dragon/Half Planar Whosawhatsiits and these kick-ass feats that make him a one-man army with natural +10 to everything".

Personal opinion here, of course, but if that's what excites you, you'd probably be better of playing a game like Diablo - youre missing the point of a tabletop RPG.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Remember the Victim class from Beyond The Supernatural?
Humans

Tell that to Tolkeen....
..... if you can find anyone to tell.

[wyrmraker]

Remember the Victim class from Beyond The Supernatural?
Humans

Tell that to Tolkeen....
..... if you can find anyone to tell.

I believe you have proven my point.

But in all seriousness, humans are the base standard of roleplay, what we are familiar with, what all else is compared against. And yeah, Palladium is notorious for it's ability to be min-maxed, but playing a human can be fun.
By all rights, humanity probably should not have survived Chaos Earth. But the setting says we did, so we did.

[Dr. Doom III]

Humans are generalists. Evolutionarily speaking a generalist is what you want to be as a species if you want to survive for a good long time.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Humans are generalists. Evolutionarily speaking a generalist is what you want to be as a species if you want to survive for a good long time.

pretty much this.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

By all rights, humanity probably should not have survived Chaos Earth. But the setting says we did, so we did.

Dont know that i agree with that entirely. Never underestimate humankind's tenacity or ability to sacrifice to save loved ones/the species.

If you have never watched Babylon 5 (you missed out) you wont get this one, but in the prequel movie, Londo Molari has this to say about humans:

The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage…their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end…they ran out of time.

I think that sums it up pretty well; shortly after, the scene shifts to Earth:

Earth President: This is…This is the president. I have just been informed that our midrange military bases at Beta Colony and Proxima 3 have fallen to the Minbari advance. We have lost contact with Io and must conclude that they too have fallen to an advanced force. Our military intelligence believes that Minbari intend to bypass Mars and hit Earth directly, and the attack may come at any time. We have continued to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy, and they have not responded. We therefore can only conclude that we stand at the twilight of the Human race. In order to buy more time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for support of every ship capable of fighting, to take part in a defense of our homeworld. We will not lie to you. We do not believe survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle, will never come home again. But for every ten minutes we can delay the military advance, several hundred more civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the Human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people, but I ask you now, to step forward one last time–one last battle to hold the line against the night!… May God…go with you all.

In the follow battle, The Battle of The Line, literally tens of thousands volunteered - basically every non-transport ship, even non-combatants. Cargo ships crashed themselves into Minbari ships, etc.

Dont mess with humans. We dont know when to quit.

Edit: An additional B5 quote that fits, from the pilot The Gathering

Delenn: There is something I've been wondering. Why Babylon 5? If the prior four stations were lost or destroyed, why build another?
Sinclair: Plain old human stubbornness, I guess. When something we value is destroyed, we rebuild it. If it's destroyed again, we rebuild it again. And again, and again, and…again, until it stays. That, as our poet Tennyson once said, is the goal: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

[taalismn]

[q
Dont mess with humans. We dont know when to quit.

We don't know HOW to quit.
Oh, sure, in a given percentage of the population, there will be people who give up, roll over, and wait for the end(whatever that may be) in a situation, but no matter how reasonable and logical an argument, or how overwhelming the odds against, there will be people who JUST WON'T QUIT, be it arguing a point of commonsense, or fighting for survival.

[glitterboy2098]

babylon 5 has some great lines about humanity, but i think Londo's speech about human bravery isn't quite the right quote for this.

i think this is.

"Humans share one unique quality: They build communities. If the Narns or Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people. But everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift, and a terrible responsibility—one that cannot be abandoned."
— Delenn

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

1. We didn't survive the battle of the line and the Earth-Minbari war because of our willingness to never quit. The Minbari would have exterminated humanity if it hadn't been for scanning one human and finding out Minbari had been reborn in human bodies. All work of the Vorlons, not anything to do with humanity.

The quote wasn't about winning, it was about the qualities that make humans so tenacious.

2. I'm not missing the point of roleplaying at all. Playing a character with a strange race allows one to go outside the box even more, especially when they have well explained backgrounds and unique abilities that differ from humanity. That's roleplaying. Diablo and almost all action RPGs fail to grant you the ability to play different races at all. Grand example from sci-fi: Heinlein's stranger in a strange land. A human raised without humanity that learns how to communicate and understand from the alien's point of view, proves to be far more worthy of the virtues humanity professes to expound due to his unique ability, and teaches humanity to truly comprehend those virtues. Or elves, beings that are immortal but only acknowledge memories when they are important. Fey, lacking morality but are the manifestations of universal ideals. Robots that decide emulating humanity is redundant, and work to create new societies where new thought and processing become expansive. Those are fare more interesting roleplaying hooks then I'm a orphan from the back streets, trying to sing a song so I can become popular. I'm a mercenary finding redemption once again because pay isn't enought. Blah blah.

I'm always amused when people head for the cleches. Would you consider Kwai Chain Caine (II - From Kung Fu: TLC) a boring character? He wasnt an orphan, wasnt a mercenary, didnt care about the money, had a good family life and everything. He's still an interesting character - because of how he behaves and what kind of person he is. A character informed by his decisions and experiences in life, who doesn't need to be anything more than a person. Those are the kinds of characters i like.

Honestly, i look at the rest of your paragraph and pretty much see "oh, hey, another human-raised-by-x-cool-thing, etc" Seen a million of those. Give me an interesting person. Give me Ben Cisco, the most nuanced Starfleet captain ever. Give me Garak, Dukat, or Ivanova. Dont let your mega-special class/race/feat/jubbie combo define your character. Let your character define itself. Give me Constable Benton Frasier (and if you've never seen that show, you *really* missed out).

I dunno, maybe because ive been roleplaying for 20+ years, i'm over and done with needing my character to be special in some way. My favorite character from 17 years of LARPing was James Dashel, Bartender. I can tell you every detail about the man, his kids (illegitimate, may not be his), his mother (dissaproving spinster), his father (sailor, never around), his cousins, friends, acquaintances, you name it. He's lively, full of wit, sarcasm and keenly intelligent. He's also just a guy. A plain old, not-special human dude who tends a bar. I could go entire weekend-long events without even involving game mechanics in the character. And it was easily the most satisfying character i've ever played.

That's what im talking about.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

babylon 5 has some great lines about humanity, but i think Londo's speech about human bravery isn't quite the right quote for this.

i think this is.

"Humans share one unique quality: They build communities. If the Narns or Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people. But everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift, and a terrible responsibility—one that cannot be abandoned."
— Delenn

Hmm, nice one. Not one i remember, but i haven't sat down with my DVDs for a few years.

[glitterboy2098]

And we tear them down even faster.

no that's just entropy. the fact they don't fall apart right away is due to the fact humanity is an instinctively social creature. when subject to outside stress and danger we instinctively band together and form groups, and work as a group towards whatever our goals are. and when conditions are not in our favor, we find way to change things so that they are. we invent new tools, new tactics, new approaches.

[wyrmraker]

Human instincts aside, as I recall North America was covered in several feet of ash, and the skies were ashen for years. At the very least, the fimbrul winter should have killed most of us off. Add to that demons and monsters...
To be honest, given all of that I am deeply surprised that the Coalition had enough of a gene pool to produce some 2 million troops for the Tolkeen war, even after 300 years.

[Killer Cyborg]

Humans are generalists. Evolutionarily speaking a generalist is what you want to be as a species if you want to survive for a good long time.

pretty much this.

Yup.

And anybody who finds human characters "too boring" to bother playing must not get much enjoyment out of life.

[The Dark Elf]

So I was browsing through Phase World, and a thought struck me. In the megaversal system of Palladium, the deck is heavily stacked against the normal human. They have no intrinsic powers, no special abilities, and no special aptitudes. They get no mega-damage capacity, no natural AR, and no bonus SDC. They can't see in the dark. Humans breed slowly, with great difficulty, and they take a long time to reach maturity (compared to, say, Gargoyles). They also don't live long.

Despite this, we see humans in every dimension, often in positions of great power and influence.

What's their secret?

The RPG is played by humans.

[Hot Rod]

Human instincts aside, as I recall North America was covered in several feet of ash, and the skies were ashen for years. At the very least, the fimbrul winter should have killed most of us off. Add to that demons and monsters...
To be honest, given all of that I am deeply surprised that the Coalition had enough of a gene pool to produce some 2 million troops for the Tolkeen war, even after 300 years.

What they're capapable of taking a dog and making a soldier of it, and you think they don't have secret clone faculties pumping out CS Grunts by the hundreds (fully grown)? That's the only way they's amass that kind of troops without spending ridiculous amounts of time patrolling farmland to support the cities...

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Human instincts aside, as I recall North America was covered in several feet of ash, and the skies were ashen for years. At the very least, the fimbrul winter should have killed most of us off. Add to that demons and monsters...
To be honest, given all of that I am deeply surprised that the Coalition had enough of a gene pool to produce some 2 million troops for the Tolkeen war, even after 300 years.

What they're capapable of taking a dog and making a soldier of it, and you think they don't have secret clone faculties pumping out CS Grunts by the hundreds (fully grown)? That's the only way they's amass that kind of troops without spending ridiculous amounts of time patrolling farmland to support the cities...

They do do that. Even if they were cloning folks, those folks still need to eat. Those dog boys have to eat, too. The number of troops under arms is still below 10% of the population of the CS, AFAIK, which is pretty standard for a fascist state during time of war.

[cornholioprime]

Humans are Special. Standard sci-fi/fantasy trope, not much point in examining it any further than that. XD

Also, the majority of humans are (*gasp*) very human-biased, so having humans extinct isn't going to draw a lot of players. I mean, how many people do you know who have played, say... The World Tree RPG?

This.

The reason why there are so many human characters in Rifts is the same reason why there are so many human characters in D&D.

Or Shadowrun.
Or The Elder Scrolls.
Or Comic Books.
Or the United Federation of Planets.

There's just not that much of a market out there in the wider world for "no humans here!" fictional media.

Even where, as other Posters here have pointed out in other games like D&D, a large number of selected characters are/were Elf or Dwarf.....those other selected races look essentially human, just a little different.

[cornholioprime]

So I was browsing through Phase World, and a thought struck me. In the megaversal system of Palladium, the deck is heavily stacked against the normal human. They have no intrinsic powers, no special abilities, and no special aptitudes. They get no mega-damage capacity, no natural AR, and no bonus SDC. They can't see in the dark. Humans breed slowly, with great difficulty, and they take a long time to reach maturity (compared to, say, Gargoyles). They also don't live long.

Despite this, we see humans in every dimension, often in positions of great power and influence.

What's their secret?

The RPG is played by humans.

On planets with quadriped reptiles with tentacles for arms and a single eye in the center of their heads, guess what the most adaptable, most numerous, and potentially most versatile species are in their Role-Playing Games??
(On a side note, I wonder if the Xenobiologists and Science Fiction Writers on other worlds in the Universe come up with human or human-like beings as a possible outcome of evolution on extraterrestrial worlds...or if they think that it's simply not possible?)

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

1. We didn't survive the battle of the line and the Earth-Minbari war because of our willingness to never quit. The Minbari would have exterminated humanity if it hadn't been for scanning one human and finding out Minbari had been reborn in human bodies. All work of the Vorlons, not anything to do with humanity.

The quote wasn't about winning, it was about the qualities that make humans so tenacious.

2. I'm not missing the point of roleplaying at all. Playing a character with a strange race allows one to go outside the box even more, especially when they have well explained backgrounds and unique abilities that differ from humanity. That's roleplaying. Diablo and almost all action RPGs fail to grant you the ability to play different races at all. Grand example from sci-fi: Heinlein's stranger in a strange land. A human raised without humanity that learns how to communicate and understand from the alien's point of view, proves to be far more worthy of the virtues humanity professes to expound due to his unique ability, and teaches humanity to truly comprehend those virtues. Or elves, beings that are immortal but only acknowledge memories when they are important. Fey, lacking morality but are the manifestations of universal ideals. Robots that decide emulating humanity is redundant, and work to create new societies where new thought and processing become expansive. Those are fare more interesting roleplaying hooks then I'm a orphan from the back streets, trying to sing a song so I can become popular. I'm a mercenary finding redemption once again because pay isn't enought. Blah blah.

I'm always amused when people head for the cleches. Would you consider Kwai Chain Caine (II - From Kung Fu: TLC) a boring character? He wasnt an orphan, wasnt a mercenary, didnt care about the money, had a good family life and everything. He's still an interesting character - because of how he behaves and what kind of person he is. A character informed by his decisions and experiences in life, who doesn't need to be anything more than a person. Those are the kinds of characters i like.

Honestly, i look at the rest of your paragraph and pretty much see "oh, hey, another human-raised-by-x-cool-thing, etc" Seen a million of those. Give me an interesting person. Give me Ben Cisco, the most nuanced Starfleet captain ever. Give me Garak, Dukat, or Ivanova. Dont let your mega-special class/race/feat/jubbie combo define your character. Let your character define itself. Give me Constable Benton Frasier (and if you've never seen that show, you *really* missed out).

I dunno, maybe because ive been roleplaying for 20+ years, i'm over and done with needing my character to be special in some way. My favorite character from 17 years of LARPing was James Dashel, Bartender. I can tell you every detail about the man, his kids (illegitimate, may not be his), his mother (dissaproving spinster), his father (sailor, never around), his cousins, friends, acquaintances, you name it. He's lively, full of wit, sarcasm and keenly intelligent. He's also just a guy. A plain old, not-special human dude who tends a bar. I could go entire weekend-long events without even involving game mechanics in the character. And it was easily the most satisfying character i've ever played.

That's what im talking about.

Kwai Chain Cane was a boring character, especially when they raised him from the dead to play in the second Kung Fu series, which had horrible writing, poor acting, and was interesting as watching Route 66 translated into Esperanto. He's an example of another cliche, the exiled monk that walks the earth. Garak, Dukat, both aliens. Ben Sisko was the greatest Starfleet captain, that I will give to you. Good for you that you LARPed a bartender for 17 years. I've roleplayed for 30 years and still have never found any human characters to be very interesting to play, whether blessed with great power or not. I don't let mega-special anything define what character I play. I find an interesting hook drawn from the world's background that is given on non-human races, and use it. A Shing temporal wizard, who wishes to explore the universe, drawn to find the artifacts of King Arthur in Britain. A True Atlantean dillentatte who specializes in creating songs from inspiring and performing heroic deeds, named Troubador. The Titan Glitter Boy Pilot, who is a midget of his race, gathering people into a local mall to act as their protector. These things provide far more roleplaying experience for me then a human sitting behind a bar, or at a desk writing reports, or producing gun barrels for Naruni enterprises. I work out the details of their background as needed, and then let play define the rest of the character.

Wooooooosh

[Nekira Sudacne]

Kwai Chain Cane was a boring character, especially when they raised him from the dead to play in the second Kung Fu series, which had horrible writing, poor acting, and was interesting as watching Route 66 translated into Esperanto. He's an example of another cliche, the exiled monk that walks the earth. Garak, Dukat, both aliens. Ben Sisko was the greatest Starfleet captain, that I will give to you. Good for you that you LARPed a bartender for 17 years. I've roleplayed for 30 years and still have never found any human characters to be very interesting to play, whether blessed with great power or not. I don't let mega-special anything define what character I play. I find an interesting hook drawn from the world's background that is given on non-human races, and use it. A Shing temporal wizard, who wishes to explore the universe, drawn to find the artifacts of King Arthur in Britain. A True Atlantean dillentatte who specializes in creating songs from inspiring and performing heroic deeds, named Troubador. The Titan Glitter Boy Pilot, who is a midget of his race, gathering people into a local mall to act as their protector. These things provide far more roleplaying experience for me then a human sitting behind a bar, or at a desk writing reports, or producing gun barrels for Naruni enterprises. I work out the details of their background as needed, and then let play define the rest of the character.

So why can't you do that with human characters?

Especially the true atlantian Troubador. There is litterally no reason a human couldn't have had that exact same storyline, so why is the true atlantian innately more interesting?

[Daeglan]

I play a human in real life. I role play to escape real life.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Kwai Chain Cane was a boring character, especially when they raised him from the dead to play in the second Kung Fu series, which had horrible writing, poor acting, and was interesting as watching Route 66 translated into Esperanto. He's an example of another cliche, the exiled monk that walks the earth. Garak, Dukat, both aliens. Ben Sisko was the greatest Starfleet captain, that I will give to you. Good for you that you LARPed a bartender for 17 years. I've roleplayed for 30 years and still have never found any human characters to be very interesting to play, whether blessed with great power or not. I don't let mega-special anything define what character I play. I find an interesting hook drawn from the world's background that is given on non-human races, and use it. A Shing temporal wizard, who wishes to explore the universe, drawn to find the artifacts of King Arthur in Britain. A True Atlantean dillentatte who specializes in creating songs from inspiring and performing heroic deeds, named Troubador. The Titan Glitter Boy Pilot, who is a midget of his race, gathering people into a local mall to act as their protector. These things provide far more roleplaying experience for me then a human sitting behind a bar, or at a desk writing reports, or producing gun barrels for Naruni enterprises. I work out the details of their background as needed, and then let play define the rest of the character.

So why can't you do that with human characters?

Especially the true atlantian Troubador. There is litterally no reason a human couldn't have had that exact same storyline, so why is the true atlantian innately more interesting?

They get free magic powers?

yousaiditnotme.

[Killer Cyborg]

I play a human in real life. I role play to escape real life.

You play a being with arms and legs in real life.
Does that affect your escapism?

[Zamion138]

1. We didn't survive the battle of the line and the Earth-Minbari war because of our willingness to never quit. The Minbari would have exterminated humanity if it hadn't been for scanning one human and finding out Minbari had been reborn in human bodies. All work of the Vorlons, not anything to do with humanity.

The quote wasn't about winning, it was about the qualities that make humans so tenacious.

2. I'm not missing the point of roleplaying at all. Playing a character with a strange race allows one to go outside the box even more, especially when they have well explained backgrounds and unique abilities that differ from humanity. That's roleplaying. Diablo and almost all action RPGs fail to grant you the ability to play different races at all. Grand example from sci-fi: Heinlein's stranger in a strange land. A human raised without humanity that learns how to communicate and understand from the alien's point of view, proves to be far more worthy of the virtues humanity professes to expound due to his unique ability, and teaches humanity to truly comprehend those virtues. Or elves, beings that are immortal but only acknowledge memories when they are important. Fey, lacking morality but are the manifestations of universal ideals. Robots that decide emulating humanity is redundant, and work to create new societies where new thought and processing become expansive. Those are fare more interesting roleplaying hooks then I'm a orphan from the back streets, trying to sing a song so I can become popular. I'm a mercenary finding redemption once again because pay isn't enought. Blah blah.

I'm always amused when people head for the cleches. Would you consider Kwai Chain Caine (II - From Kung Fu: TLC) a boring character? He wasnt an orphan, wasnt a mercenary, didnt care about the money, had a good family life and everything. He's still an interesting character - because of how he behaves and what kind of person he is. A character informed by his decisions and experiences in life, who doesn't need to be anything more than a person. Those are the kinds of characters i like.

Honestly, i look at the rest of your paragraph and pretty much see "oh, hey, another human-raised-by-x-cool-thing, etc" Seen a million of those. Give me an interesting person. Give me Ben Cisco, the most nuanced Starfleet captain ever. Give me Garak, Dukat, or Ivanova. Dont let your mega-special class/race/feat/jubbie combo define your character. Let your character define itself. Give me Constable Benton Frasier (and if you've never seen that show, you *really* missed out).

I dunno, maybe because ive been roleplaying for 20+ years, i'm over and done with needing my character to be special in some way. My favorite character from 17 years of LARPing was James Dashel, Bartender. I can tell you every detail about the man, his kids (illegitimate, may not be his), his mother (dissaproving spinster), his father (sailor, never around), his cousins, friends, acquaintances, you name it. He's lively, full of wit, sarcasm and keenly intelligent. He's also just a guy. A plain old, not-special human dude who tends a bar. I could go entire weekend-long events without even involving game mechanics in the character. And it was easily the most satisfying character i've ever played.

That's what im talking about.

Kwai Chain Cane was a boring character, especially when they raised him from the dead to play in the second Kung Fu series, which had horrible writing, poor acting, and was interesting as watching Route 66 translated into Esperanto. He's an example of another cliche, the exiled monk that walks the earth. Garak, Dukat, both aliens. Ben Sisko was the greatest Starfleet captain, that I will give to you. Good for you that you LARPed a bartender for 17 years. I've roleplayed for 30 years and still have never found any human characters to be very interesting to play, whether blessed with great power or not. I don't let mega-special anything define what character I play. I find an interesting hook drawn from the world's background that is given on non-human races, and use it. A Shing temporal wizard, who wishes to explore the universe, drawn to find the artifacts of King Arthur in Britain. A True Atlantean dillentatte who specializes in creating songs from inspiring and performing heroic deeds, named Troubador. The Titan Glitter Boy Pilot, who is a midget of his race, gathering people into a local mall to act as their protector. These things provide far more roleplaying experience for me then a human sitting behind a bar, or at a desk writing reports, or producing gun barrels for Naruni enterprises. I work out the details of their background as needed, and then let play define the rest of the character.

Not only would this make more sense for a human char as, the legend of king aurther is an earth/human tradition and is all aobut humans, from tellers to actors in the story to the villians and makers of the artifacts. To the point that only humans and very very rarely human like Debees can be temporal wizards as you have to aprentice under a temporal raider to be one. and temporal raiders only teach their magic to humans. The raiders see us as kindred spirts and "little brothers". In england where it talks about these things it states it it is extermely uncomon for anyone but a human to be a temporal wizard or warrior.if the magic is shared willy nilly and you arent a 6 year aprentice the mage and the student would be hunted down and destroyed.

[Daeglan]

I play a human in real life. I role play to escape real life.

You play a being with arms and legs in real life.
Does that affect your escapism?

Nope.

[Killer Cyborg]

I play a human in real life. I role play to escape real life.

You play a being with arms and legs in real life.
Does that affect your escapism?

Nope.

Why not?

[Nightmask]

I play a human in real life. I role play to escape real life.

I've noticed that some seem to miss that motivating factor for many Rpers, that we get enough of RL in RL and would like to spend some time anywhere other than RL.

[Killer Cyborg]

Atlantans are a kind of human, iirc.

[Zamion138]

atlanteans are the cheasy humans, they are everything humans are plus magic tattoos to start and more/better stats, they are pretty and smart and have no failings

[eliakon]

I think what the sides here are forgetting is that its all about FUN. Some people like humans, some like 'humans if funny suits' (play an alien but do it like just a different human) and some like aliens (try and play as non-human as the race is). The POINT is that as long as your having fun, there is no WRONG way to play. Its that diversity that is one of the strenghts of RPGs. If we all had the same tastes, and we all had to do things 'the right way' it wouldnt be a game......