Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Playing as Monster Races

On the topic of Elves, I would roll a Fey'ri.
They kinda neat.

Unfortunately, as interesting as they were, I don't think 5e has them as a race or subrace option (I might be wrong) so it is unlikely they will be implemented as a playable race. Though that doesn't make it impossible for us to have one as a companion as we have a vampire spawn as a companion and typically 5e doesn't have that as a starting option.

I think you've got that there backwards.



If you're saying that the race of a character is irrelevant to a character's interestingitude (which I agree with and is another reason humans are more interesting), and also that races are usually used to symbolise an aspect of humanity, then you agree with me. Something that embodies an aspect derived from humanity's full set of features is by extension less interesting than the full body of humanity. The whole of humanity is more interesting than any one part of it.


Easier? Sure. But easy? No. There's still a huge workload of assets that need to be created before they could be realised as player characters.

Well fortunately I said easier, not easy, and I didn't say humans aren't interesting. You're the one saying people that prefer to play other races are immature. I'm just trying to highlight why I and others like playing fantasy races.

(Edit: Having given your post some more thought, I'm not sure the two ideologies "race of a character is irrelevant to a character's interestingtude (which I agree with" and 'Humans are more interesting)' are *entirely compatible.

If we agree that various races represent aspects of humanity, that's great, but that doesn't mean a fantasy race represents only a fraction of humanity as a whole and is therefore less interesting. Especially since just because a person may play a Human, it doesn't mean they are representative of all of humanity. One human does not necessarily represent all aspects of humanity at all times. A goblin can feel love, loss, wealth, poverty, family, etc. Depends on the writing.

To use my previous post about Dwarves/Elves, say I'm playing a Human who is a 'down to earth' Coal Miner whose brother is killed by kobolds, so he becomes an adventurer who wants to kill kobolds for vengeance. First off none of that story is reliant on the fact that he is human. Could be a dwarf, could be a goblin, could be a firbolg. The 'interesting' part is his relationship to his brother and opinions on kobolds. An 'analysis' of the story would find that this character does not necessarily represent the 'loftier ideals of humanity.' Then you can get into a 'micro vs macro' aspect of story analysis and playing into type or against type.

Subjectively finding humans more interesting is fine, more power to you, but that doesn't mean people who prefer playing other races are wrong, immature, or just want attention, to want to play those options.)

Technical you are all human and are bound by human aspects. What I mean is that even playing as another race you can only roleplay so far. If you are playing as a human it really is no different than an alien. Unless in real life you live in dnd.

The only difference is culture. Even humans have variety in culture. So from my perspective what is the big deal what race you play? How are dnd humans boring? They are better than regular humans and you have exciting opportunities to take part in and roleplay.

Seems to me the only boring thing is lack of imagination.

This reminds me of the Greek phrase 'Man is the measure of all things'.




At the end of the day, the various races in DnD (and any well-written Fantasy) have deep lore people want to explore on a deeper level in an RP game OR other races offer mechanical benefits that they prefer over humans.

Philosophically I don't agree. Mankind is the measure of faliure of which all they covet is built on. Faliure is not all things. Success lies among the cosmos to which some humans use to aspire to. Till the Internet was born lmao. Been downhill since.

I like the variety of races i just don't see humans as any less exciting inherently than the others. If you have a particular build in mind then I can see them as less effective, but so are other races. The curiousity in me find them all fascinating. Imagine getting into a bar fight and a mo fo uses second wind and his wounds instantly heal. Wtf lol. Don't get me started on spells.

That's a really interesting perspective!
(Edit: And just for clarity, I didn't put a moral judgement or opinion on the phrase I quoted. It was just what came to mind when I read your post)
(Edit 2: Coolcool! ^_^ )

Oh no I know. No worries lol.

We often use the term "human" in a very speciesist manner. The human experience is not unique to humans. The human experience is shared by all intelligent life.

We just happen to live in a world where the only intelligent life still alive is humans. But what if we didn't live in that world? What if hobbits were still around? How much could we learn from them about the human experience?

I'll make a very clear example of an element of the human condition that is easier to explore without humans:

Consider the abortion debate. When a human egg is fertilized, it is hosted in the mother's womb until it's ready to be born. However, imagine a species of lizard people, where the mother lays a fertilized egg in some kind of nest, and this egg needs to be actively cared for until it's ready to be hatched.

How would this species of lizard people view the concept of "pregnancy" and "abortion" differently when the egg is not physically connected to the mother's body? And when we compare their views to our own, how well can we justify our philosophical position when faced with this new set of biological facts?

You can do the comparison by having actual humans in the story to compare them to, but I'm going to be blunt. I'm a human. I'm smart enough to make the comparison without the handholding. Additionally, if you have a diversity of species, it's easy enough to have another non-human species which has human-like pregnancies, and then just let that species serve as the human analogue on this particular matter.

@Ayvah "The human experience is shared by all intelligent life" that's your limit as a human. That's a large assumption you can't prove till you have actually fully become something else.

You made other similar assumptions. All speculation from a human perspective. The races in dnd are all human based no matter how hard you try. It's like making your own Xmen character.

How about this question: If you were all alone, you being the entirety of a species, how would you measure intelligence?

You have to see the edge of the world before you can understand what's inside.

Never expected to find philosophy here lol. Amazing really.

Good question. Maybe we'd have something to learn about the human experience if you wrote about it?

Everything is philosophy. Everything is politics.

There is no escape!

I would also like Kobolds, Kobolds are fun.

I just don't find Humans enjoyable, cause I'm human in real life, why would I want to play as what I already am?

Me write a book? Na. Lol I share what learn with few that are close to me sometimes, but it's always best to go through it yourself. For better and worse.

Hmmm to be honest I'm not actually 100 percent sure philosophy can be in all things. That would require some certainty. Thats a difficult statement to back up if at all possible. I'll think on that. Politics is a social construct however. A small frail box that can hardly contain a small child let alone everything. That I can say with certainty lol.

Edit: philosophy is bound to interpretations of creation and things not of creation. So yeah I'm like 80 percent sure you have that right. I just never thought about it. *shrugs*

Yeah, but what else is there ...

Pointy ear human ... Pointy ear, gray skin human ... Michael Jackson's nose green human with long pointy ears ... Small human with huge beard ... Even smaller human without without huge beard ... Human with horns and tail.
Is there really so much difference? :P

My votes go to (this order):
The Tortle
Warforged
Loxodon
Minotaur
Orc

More the merrier. I would not mind at all if some races could be "combined" storywise as long it means they are in. I will not paly all them through anyways.

I can only play third person games and would rather look at something other than a human if possible when playing a fantasy game since I see humans all day long. I have no issues with playing human in non fantasy games but I prefer playing elves when they are an option. Except Elder Scrolls games, for some reason most of my characters are Breton or Nord. :P I also won't play a short race because I am short in rl and it can make me quite grumpy at times.

Funny part is even though I would rather see something different to a human on my screen I would pick playing a human any day over anything with a tail. I have an occasional Tiefling character for DnD but I don't have to actually see the tail and I wanted to break away from always playing elf/half elf. Doubt I will be able to play him in BG3 unless I can find or make a mod to remove the tail.

As for the imagination part, it is the same to create a human as it is for almost anything else. Sometimes the race is important, sometimes not. I can easily come up with ideas even for races I will not play. For humans in DnD games though Darkvision is an issue. Don't want to have to play Warlock or waste a feat just to get this, and I don't like light spells or torches (usually play stealthy characters.)

Just additional warning ... there is potentialy serious spoiler here:

Well fortunately I said easy, so are you trying to make the point that 95% of the workload is less than 100%? You don't have to. It is self evident.



They are entirely compatible -- strip away a character's race, and what are you left with? A human.



Well fortunately I said humanity, not one human. You and me, arguing on the internet? Completely uninteresting. The entirety of humanity? Near infinitely interesting. A representative of a fraction of humanity? Much less interesting. I guess I'm making the point that 95% is less than 100%. That should be self-evident.



And that there is a strawman argument. I never said anything of the sort.

I think I really need to throw out some more philosophy here.

We talk about the human experience as if it is "the shared experience of all humans", but that's a flawed and limited interpretation. I'll make this simple by assuming I'm talking to men. As a man, do you know what it's like to get pregnant? In what way have you shared the experience of physically having a child grow inside of you?

For a man, the experience of being pregnant is as alien as the experience of a lizard woman laying an egg. We can never share in that experience; we can only share in the human experience by having it described to us and empathise with it by doing the best we can with our imagination.



The only experience you can truly connect to is your own experience. Everything else is the realm of fantasy.

And this is why I need to play an orc.

Thank you for your time.