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hymer
2013-07-12, 01:43 PM
I'm coming up with ways to describe various species in a Sci-Fi setting. With humans, I've chosen two of them already, but with the third I'd like to make a nod to Douglas Adams. So that one of three ways I talk about humans is that they're Mostly Harmless.
But where things like Humans Are Warriors and Humans Are Diplomats are easy to talk about in game terms, giving easy directions for character focus, what sort of game mechanics could I tack onto Mostly Harmless?
I can make up stuff if I want to, so this needn't be system specific.
Thanks for your time! :smallsmile:

Arkhosia
2013-07-12, 01:55 PM
Maybe a small penalty to attacks made by humans against extraterrestrial objects and creatures, with a small bonus to nonmilitary technology uses, such as a human with a greatsword doing 1d10-2 damage, and goggles of +2 perception giving a bonus of +4 perception instead if being worn by a human, to use D&D as an example.

vulcanbardmoon
2013-07-12, 02:00 PM
maybe it's a matter of comparison. Maybe you don't have to nerf humans, you just have to make everything humans run into be incredibly dangerous

Arkhosia
2013-07-12, 02:07 PM
maybe it's a matter of comparison. Maybe you don't have to nerf humans, you just have to make everything humans run into be incredibly dangerous

Wouldn't that mean that if a Martian PC runs into a monster as well, then the monster would also be incredibly dangerous as well, as you would have to balance the races?

Alex12
2013-07-12, 02:15 PM
Give the humans advantages in things that aren't easily translatable into direct danger.
Using D&D terms, perhaps a bonus to Diplomacy, or Appraise, or something similar. Stuff that, if used appropriately long-term, is beneficial, but lacking immediate utility from the perspective of committing violence.

Arkhosia
2013-07-12, 02:42 PM
Give the humans advantages in things that aren't easily translatable into direct danger.
Using D&D terms, perhaps a bonus to Diplomacy, or Appraise, or something similar. Stuff that, if used appropriately long-term, is beneficial, but lacking immediate utility from the perspective of committing violence.

The reason that those stats weren't included by me in my suggestion were because of the fact that one of the other bonus choices that the guy posted seemed to be focused on those stats.

Alex12
2013-07-12, 03:12 PM
The reason that those stats weren't included by me in my suggestion were because of the fact that one of the other bonus choices that the guy posted seemed to be focused on those stats.

That was an example. The goal is harmless, but that doesn't mean useless. Humans don't have to be the best diplomats. They might be the best at some other non-combat-related skill. I don't think there are many stories where humans are the top craftsbeings in the universe, for example. Or artists.

Or, to go a little darker, humans have some sort of psychic/magic/whatever ability that makes it difficult or impossible to attack them if they're not attacking you. Mostly harmless taking on an entirely different connotation.

Thomar_of_Uointer
2013-07-12, 03:19 PM
You could give humans a passive ability that makes it hard to be hostile against them if they're not doing anything obviously hostile (and joke about how it's hard to take a human seriously, considering their backwards technology and pitiful natural defenses). Something like the D&D Sanctuary spell, where if you try to attack them you have to make a saving throw and if you fail you have to attack something else.

Dragonmuncher
2013-07-12, 04:20 PM
Honestly, this seems more like a flavor thing than a mechanical thing. Something like 3.x's "Humans get an additional skill point" would probably work fine.

Arkhosia
2013-07-12, 04:54 PM
You could give humans a passive ability that makes it hard to be hostile against them if they're not doing anything obviously hostile (and joke about how it's hard to take a human seriously, considering their backwards technology and pitiful natural defenses). Something like the D&D Sanctuary spell, where if you try to attack them you have to make a saving throw and if you fail you have to attack something else.

I absolutely love this one. Seconded, if it counts for anything

navar100
2013-07-12, 06:35 PM
maybe it's a matter of comparison. Maybe you don't have to nerf humans, you just have to make everything humans run into be incredibly dangerous

That's what almost every sci fi does. Everyone else is stronger, faster, more technologically advanced, have magical powers, long lived. That's boring.

Put the accent on "mostly" instead of "harmless" and take a page from Larry Niven's Kzinti. Let all the aliens be oh so superior than humans in every way. However, if any species dares to rile Humanity, they have a rage no alien species can match. Humanity will hunt your homeworld down and obliterate it.
Humanity has millennia of practice doing it to themselves.

UFO sitings were aliens keeping a look out. Space Civilization avoided bringing Earth into the fold for the aliens' own safety. However, the isolation could no longer be maintained once Humanity broke the light barrier and achieved space travel. As long as Earth is treated in a fair manner and takes part in normal Space Civilization matters, everything is fine. Humanity works in Politics as ruthlessly as they do War. You can say "no" to Earth. That doesn't rile them. What you never do to Humans is remind them of The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, The Blitzkreig, 9/11. Do that, kiss your planet goodbye.

Grod_The_Giant
2013-07-12, 06:36 PM
You could give humans a passive ability that makes it hard to be hostile against them if they're not doing anything obviously hostile (and joke about how it's hard to take a human seriously, considering their backwards technology and pitiful natural defenses). Something like the D&D Sanctuary spell, where if you try to attack them you have to make a saving throw and if you fail you have to attack something else.
I was just thinking something like that.

erikun
2013-07-12, 06:45 PM
Just a few thoughts:

Humans are physically weaker/less dangerous than other aliens. Something with claws and armored plating is going to consider humans "mostly harmless" by themselves.
Humans are relatively unconnected to other aliens or not well known for their diplomatic or merchantile skills. As such, a warship is a threat but as a whole, the species is "mostly harmless" to other alien species.
Humans could be technologically deprived, not having knowledge or tech that other species possess, and thus are "mostly harmless" when it comes to such areas.
Humans haven't expanded and tend to stick close to home. As such, they're "mostly harmless" because unless you stick your foot into their backyard, they're pretty much ignorant about anything happening elsewhere.


And of course, all this could simply be false impressions that aliens have of humanity. There could be rather common speciesism that humanity are homebodies and don't check outside their front doors, even if this isn't widely true.

nedz
2013-07-12, 07:58 PM
To paraphrase Bertrand Russell

The Greatness of a species is measured by how many planets it has destroyed.

So far Humanity hasn't destroyed any, though you could argue that we may have left one a little shop spoiled.

Grinner
2013-07-12, 08:41 PM
It's not completely relevant, but I've just realized that defining one species as being the best at something says a lot about the rest of the setting's species.

So really, it depends on what sort of atmosphere you want the game to have. Are humans the fiercest? Then it's quite likely that the rest of the galaxy is relatively placid.

It seems that many fictional aliens are merely the personifications of certain human traits.

The Grue
2013-07-12, 09:00 PM
To paraphrase Bertrand Russell

The Greatness of a species is measured by how many planets it has destroyed.

I'm curious what the quote you're paraphrasing is, because I've just been reliably informed that Bertrand Russell probably never said anything of the kind.

Doorhandle
2013-07-13, 01:02 AM
It's not completely relevant, but I've just realized that defining one species as being the best at something says a lot about the rest of the setting's species.

So really, it depends on what sort of atmosphere you want the game to have. Are humans the fiercest? Then it's quite likely that the rest of the galaxy is relatively placid.

It seems that many fictional aliens are merely the personifications of certain human traits.

Hard not to that in any speculative fiction story, seeing as humans are the only sapient species we have for comparison.

hymer
2013-07-13, 01:39 AM
Thanks for all the thoughts and suggestions so far!

I'll just say that Mostly Harmless is supposed to be a good thing for the character, giving them an extra option or bonus or something. I'll also mention that the playable races tend to have a handful or so of lesser bonuses to get the flavour of the race. In the end, species is going to be a fairly small part of the crunch, but as it is, it should be decently fluffy. If you know what I mean.

Ashtagon
2013-07-13, 02:10 AM
Mostly Harmless: It's hard to take humans seriously as a threat. As long as there are non-human allies present, an enemy must make a DC 15 Will save to attack you in preference to other targets.

If you ever successfully attack a creature and he is aware that you attacked him, he no longer needs to make this save to attack you, in this or future encounters.

Jeff the Green
2013-07-13, 02:37 AM
Put the accent on "mostly" instead of "harmless" and take a page from Larry Niven's Kzinti. Let all the aliens be oh so superior than humans in every way. However, if any species dares to rile Humanity, they have a rage no alien species can match. Humanity will hunt your homeworld down and obliterate it.
Humanity has millennia of practice doing it to themselves.

UFO sitings were aliens keeping a look out. Space Civilization avoided bringing Earth into the fold for the aliens' own safety. However, the isolation could no longer be maintained once Humanity broke the light barrier and achieved space travel. As long as Earth is treated in a fair manner and takes part in normal Space Civilization matters, everything is fine. Humanity works in Politics as ruthlessly as they do War. You can say "no" to Earth. That doesn't rile them. What you never do to Humans is remind them of The Alamo, Pearl Harbor, The Blitzkreig, 9/11. Do that, kiss your planet goodbye.

I like this idea. Humans pretty much never start wars with aliens*. We'd rather be diplomats/traders/scientists. If you screw us over, however, prepare to die. Prepare your spouse to die. Prepare your children to die. Prepare your pets to die. Prepare your houseplants to die. Because if there's one thing we learned over the course of however many alien invasions we fought off, it's that leaving behind survivors is a bad idea.

*This would necessarily be a more philosophically advanced version of humans.

Xuc Xac
2013-07-13, 06:05 AM
Mostly Harmless: It's hard to take humans seriously as a threat. As long as there are non-human allies present, an enemy must make a DC 15 Will save to attack you in preference to other targets.

If you ever successfully attack a creature and he is aware that you attacked him, he no longer needs to make this save to attack you, in this or future encounters.

I think this is the best one. "Mostly Harmless" doesn't mean that every single human is weaker than everything else. Humans as a group are mostly harmless because they're 99% dirt farmers. In older editions of D&D for example, an elf is at least a 1st level elf and a dwarf is at least a 1st level dwarf, but most humans are 0-level nobodies.

Maybe the other races are typical "warrior" races or they have caste systems that mean you never meet their nobodies because the peasants aren't allowed to travel off their home planet. But when you meet a human? Probably just another hydroponic technician or grade 32C bureaucrat or water desalinization vat cleaner. But then once in a while, you meet a competent one and they take you by surprise.

Kitten Champion
2013-07-13, 06:26 AM
Make the humans the Halflings of the setting. They strike me as mostly harmless and basically what you're going for.

For the setting fluff, well, the Halfling stuff works fine here too if you tweak it a bit. Lucky, and more cunning than most races give them credit for, but are generally not a factor in the setting as a whole and they acknowledge it. No centralized human nation, a species whose power is fractured into countless colonies. Usually they come with strong isolationist streaks and community-oriented societies which evolved as settlers worked together over generations to survive. Their participation in the galaxy is minimal at best, most human adventures are indulging in a youthful need to explore or are outcasts from their particular society for violating their laws or social norms.

LordChaos13
2013-07-13, 09:06 AM
Mostly Harmless: Unless you don't piss them off


Give them the following:
Mostly Harmless: Unless the enemy or his allies have been attacked by you or he is aware he is the target of a War state you must make a Will Save DC15+HD in order to target them in an attack. You may target them in an AoE without the will save only if there is more than 1 non-human target in the radius.
You must make this check even if you would otherwise be Immune to Will Saves though you do gain a +10 bonus to the save

Unless you PISS THEM OFF!: if their enemy attacks them or their ally (colonies count as allies for every Human for this purpose) they may declare War. Only 1 War 3/HD (min1) may be active at any one time
When in a War state they may not cancel said War unless some other threat seems more deadly and the only way to defeat them is to team-up OR by destroying them utterly, including conquering or destroying owned planets, killing them and their families/species
When in a War state gain the following:
+3 Damage against the allies and families of the person causing the state and the causor
Auto-pass the Tracking check to pursue or discover them Hiding if actively looking and knowing there are some there.
+1 AC against people of the same Race as the causor

avr
2013-07-13, 09:18 AM
If humans are much lower tech than the other races in the setting, they might get stuck with all the dirty jobs. This isn't bad for setting up adventures. And, of course, people stuck using projectile weapons might have no easy way to harm aliens who always have personal shields which stop bullets.

David Brin's Uplift books might be helpful for ideas for this setting.

jedipilot24
2013-07-13, 10:22 AM
If humans are much lower tech than the other races in the setting, they might get stuck with all the dirty jobs. This isn't bad for setting up adventures. And, of course, people stuck using projectile weapons might have no easy way to harm aliens who always have personal shields which stop bullets.

David Brin's Uplift books might be helpful for ideas for this setting.

Try Stargate SG-1. The Goa'uld do have personal shields that stop projectile weapons; that doesn't stop them from repeatedly getting whomped by the less advanced humans.

This is partly because the Goa'uld spend so much time fighting amongst themselves and partly because they don't initially take the humans seriously as a threat. By the time they learn better, they're in no position to do anything about it.

SethoMarkus
2013-07-13, 12:20 PM
I think this is the best one. "Mostly Harmless" doesn't mean that every single human is weaker than everything else. Humans as a group are mostly harmless because they're 99% dirt farmers. In older editions of D&D for example, an elf is at least a 1st level elf and a dwarf is at least a 1st level dwarf, but most humans are 0-level nobodies.

Maybe the other races are typical "warrior" races or they have caste systems that mean you never meet their nobodies because the peasants aren't allowed to travel off their home planet. But when you meet a human? Probably just another hydroponic technician or grade 32C bureaucrat or water desalinization vat cleaner. But then once in a while, you meet a competent one and they take you by surprise.



My take on it was always along these same lines. "Mostly harmless" doesn't refer to an individual human, but humanity in general. In the Douglas Adams universe, humans are "mostly harmless" from the perspective of extra terrestrials not because humans are unable to do harm, but because they are so far behind scientifically and technologically that they a) don't formally recognize other life forms in the universe (so they are not a threat to other lifeforms), and b) they do not have technology capable of long-distance space travel, and even short-distance travel is a huge hassle they'd rather not deal with.

I believe it was even alluded to at some point that official contact was not made with humans out of fear that they would attempt to colonize and conquer the new planets as they did their own...

This is all my opinion, but I suppose humans were considered "mostly harmless" because they were ignorant and technologically inferior. It's the same reason that orangutans aren't seen as a threat to the human species as a whole; any "rebellion" could easily be put down before it escalated out of control. Sure, any given orangutan might be dangerous compared to any given human, but we don't say a prayer every morning to stave off bowing down to filthy monkey overlords.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-13, 02:16 PM
Give humans a bunch of silly little mundane bonuses to everything.

hymer
2013-07-13, 02:40 PM
filthy monkey overlords.

Ook! As I believe the Librarian would choose to retort as a beginning.

Anyway, my thanks to those who participated but haven't yet received it. I'm done, but feel free to debate further, of course. :smallsmile:

Alex12
2013-07-13, 04:50 PM
Give humans a bunch of silly little mundane bonuses to everything.

Or one big bonus to something useless.

For some reason, I find the idea that all humans have a +30 racial bonus to Profession (underwater basket weaving) to be hilarious.

Ashtagon
2013-07-13, 06:42 PM
Ook! As I believe the Librarian would choose to retort as a beginning.

Anyway, my thanks to those who participated but haven't yet received it. I'm done, but feel free to debate further, of course. :smallsmile:

Out of curiosity, what rule did you decide to implement?

hymer
2013-07-14, 01:12 AM
@ Ashtagon: The quick answer is that Mostly Harmless Humans get a Species Trait called Low Profile (which does pretty much what you suggested, but without a will save mechanic - there isn't one in the system), a slight boost in skill versatility, and a similarly slight boost in gossip/gather information, since people are a little less wary around those who are Mostly Harmless.

Slipperychicken
2013-07-14, 02:56 AM
Here's my 2 cents. Let's hope this is good.

Strategic Level (i.e. Humans Start Out Sucking)
The Human faction(s), being new to the interstellar scene, will start off with worse tech (they barely have manned spaceflight) and weaker units. This means they will need to avoid early confrontation and hide behind allies (hence their reputation as "mostly harmless") while trying to secure colonies and trade. However, their accelerated growth and faster research rates mean that they can become formidable if they survive to mid-game. Their main early-game defenses are xenophobia (which increases planetary defenses via militia/insurgents, but this weakens considerably as people get used to aliens), and their natural plethora of diseases and bacteria, which can cripple invaders that haven't researched medicine. Also, their planet is good, despite the fact the race starts off really inefficient (pollution, primitive tech, etc). Basically, it makes invading the humans straight off really annoying, but letting them go too long isn't a good idea either.

They're harmless in the sense they aren't much of a threat early on, lacking any real offensive capabilities. You're tempted to let them go because they can't do much to attack you now and you might have bigger fish to fry. Rushing them is a high-risk/high-reward strategy, since if you can knock them immediately (doable, but not likely), you can take their starting planet's vast resources, which will finance more expansion, but getting bogged down with them will drain resources and possibly cripple your army.


Individual Level (i.e. Most Humans Suck)
Humans are, for the most part, garbage. They cower in the darkness their planet faces every day, cut themselves on paper, die from failing to eat properly, and are for the most part ruled by their petty fears. They are "harmless" because a majority of humans will have relatively poor stats and morale, which leads most aliens to generalize this to the entire race. Aliens usually reject the idea of human heroes from personal experience in dealing with sucktastic humans. This results in the "heroes" often being underestimated or ignored (which works to their advantage as aliens will be prepared for just another loser -not a hero).

However, humans have more diversity (especially in skill; a genius might be the brother of an idiot, a brave man brother to a coward) than any alien race. This results in humans getting far stronger "hero" units; adventurers, leaders, explorers, prophets, war-heroes, scientists, etc. These great people carry the rest of the race by being awesome enough to organize and inspire the rabble to not suck. However, their strength is also their weakness; if another faction manages to take out the heroes, the rest of humanity will be weakened until they can produce more.

Ravens_cry
2013-07-14, 04:09 AM
Diplomatic, genteel, civilized, soft, humanity is the new kid on the block and we got a lot to learn, and we know it. We're willing to kowtow to a lot if it means protecting our homeworld, still the major source of our population.
However, peel that off, go for too much, and you'll find out Humanity is still a wild animal. Don't push us.

Cerlis
2013-07-14, 04:15 AM
I'm coming up with ways to describe various species in a Sci-Fi setting. With humans, I've chosen two of them already, but with the third I'd like to make a nod to Douglas Adams. So that one of three ways I talk about humans is that they're Mostly Harmless.
But where things like Humans Are Warriors and Humans Are Diplomats are easy to talk about in game terms, giving easy directions for character focus, what sort of game mechanics could I tack onto Mostly Harmless?
I can make up stuff if I want to, so this needn't be system specific.
Thanks for your time! :smallsmile:

well my first, and main thought is to think of why an advanced species would consider humans to be "mostly harmless".

and to make this thought process True, one would have to take all the harm humans can do and make it relative. Not alter it, but consider its relativity.

Things Humans CAN do that are harmful.
1)Swarm you when angry (7 billion in the species),
2)act suicidal when necessary,
3)use unconventional hostile war methods,
4)and possibly driven "insane" to certain extents that result in aggressive or sadistic behavior.

-the first is fully avoidable by not going in interplanetary or continental war. And not doing stuff like suddenly appearing in alien form in 15th century earth
-the second can be fully avoided by not going to war with them, not killing or otherwise driving them to harm, resulting in Cornered-Rat-syndrome
-the third is again fully avoidable either through not going to war, or swift euthanization
-and the last usually happens on a very small scale. Madmen and sociopathic murderers. Not only does this happen infrequently (based on population) but can also be stopped by swift Euthanization.

In other words Humans are only a real threat under certain conditions and these conditions are easily controllable. The average human is weak, stupid and prone to living a life of normalcy and ritual (the same thing over and over). All you have to do is not eat them, herd them, or commit genocide and they generally keep to themselves and at worse mutter angrily and possibly throw sodas at you.

This is in comparison to species such as Xenomorphs, zerg, predators, Protoss, Asgardians, or Green Lantern corpse species which are either extremely merciless and violent, very clever and powerful, or able to level entire planets single-handedly or for the sake of cleanliness.

This, at least, is what i think of when i hear something like "humans are mostly harmless.

I suppose the way you would do this in game mechanics is to take these natural dangers and increase their impact significantly. For instance rare occasional humans have the drive and wit to be contenders among alien races. In other words SUCCESSFUL humans are very rare, but when you encounter one you know that he is either very intelligent, ruthless, or otherwise some other attribute that potentially makes one dangerous (by alien standards). In otherwords most humans are incapable of taking anything better than levels of Commoner, and a rare roll of the dice is what it takes to be "lucky" enough to be a human with actual potential.

Another thing is you might play up their social swarm tendencies. For instance your average human is weak, stupid and pathetic. But even these ones have a "killer instinct". Or rather a survivalist instinct. You DONT corner humans, or let alot of them all together get upset over anything. people in real life talk about how anyone when push comes to shove will be a killer when it comes to a life or death situation, and that is what you play up. Despite the lack of any potential if you do stuff like put humans in death camps, SUDDENLY any single one of them will start doing stuff like killing your guards, leaders, and blowing stuff up. And they have a tendency to form flashmobs (if 3.5 there is a Mob template in races of destiny i think) which make their weakness mostly irrelevant. I suppose you might treat this as a Roll a dice chance of ignoring fear or intimidate effects, and even acting out of character or alignment in order to do the best, quickest thing (as a suggestion?) even if it might harm them or someone else, in order to protect a themselves or a loved one. And 10 or more humans have a chance of forming a mob in a hostile situation. which fights until most of them are dead.

hymer
2013-07-14, 02:54 PM
Thanks for the thoughts, guys. I'm done, though, just FYI. :smallsmile: