Human Domination

[Thrivol]

Why is it that in every official campaign world the humans dominate the world? If humans are the youngest race as often told, wouldn't they have a smaller population?

[Maryring]

The most common reason I have heard is "humans bun (mate) like rabbid rabbits"... sounds pretty plausible to me. They are apparently also "incredibly apt at everything", as signified by their bonus feat.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Humans are more entreprenerial. No I can't spell that.

Try comparing the age of real world religions (from a purely ethnographical point of view) with their extent across the globe. Most of the older religions are in smaller regions. While elves claim to be older than humans, humans still have millenia of history in most settings. Also elves might be lying.

[Khoran]

Well, the reason is often this. Humans, while the youngest race, have a few things going for it.

First, they're numerous. I'd imagine humans breed a lot more than the other races. Second, humans are adaptable. This adaptability means that Humans can live anywhere that is hospitable (and maybe some places that shouldn't be considered such.) Third is two part, humans are often portrayed as ambitious and have a shorter life span then everyone else; that would mean that humans would want to get more done in less time, and given their adaptability, they'll probobly be able to do it.

[Driderman]

Well, for all manner of reasons, some of those which are stated by Maryring. Personally, I think it is because it is always easiest to relate to humans, seeing as we are humans ourselves. We know how humans work, how they build their societies etc, so we have an easier time identifying with the human race of the fantasy world. Which might also explain why other races are usually portrayed as varying human-inspired archetypes ( the scottish dwarves, the hippie elves and so on).
Also: All modern fantasy is inspired by and based on the works of Tolkien... In which it is the age of men, where humans dominate the world. Guess we just aren't that creative, seeing as we can't come up with anything new.

As for the ingame reasons, well the typical ones are what Maryring said + the rather cliché ' The Elves and Dwarves lived in harmony, then they had a war, then they realised in horror what they had done and retreated to their sanctuaries to brood and lick their wounds, shunning the outside world. Humans arise, settle the old remnants of the dwarven and elven lands and since humans for some odd reason are so gosh-darn likeable, the elves and dwarves don't combine forces to wipe this upstart race with their ridiculously low gestation time and their slash 'n burn treefelling and agriculture methods.
Thus, humans grow and prosper while elves and dwarves are relegated to being tall skinny girly that lives in trees and sings and dour, taciturn scottish smiths that live underground and like beer.

Edit: Actually, when I first read the topic title I thought it said 'Human Donation'...

[ufo]

Because we need something to relate to. That's also why all the "+2" s and so on in descriptions are calculated from human standards. For example, if we were elves in real life, and humans were some mysterious mythological race, the DnD rule wouldn't say that elves have +2 Dexterity and -2 Constitution. I would rather say that Humans have -2 Dexterity and +2 Constitution!

It's all because we're so xenophobic.

EDIT: Semi (not simu) ninja'd by Driderman.

[Driderman]

Because we need something to relate to. That's also why all the "+2" s and so on in descriptions are calculated from human standards. For example, if we were elves in real life, and humans were some mysterious mythological race, the DnD rule wouldn't say that elves have +2 Dexterity and -2 Constitution. I would rather say that Humans have -2 Dexterity and +2 Constitution!

It's all because we're so xenophobic.

EDIT: Semi (not simu) ninja'd by Driderman.

Thats because we danes have an uncanny insight into human nature, Ufo :smallbiggrin:

[Wraithy]

Because we need something to relate to. That's also why all the "+2" s and so on in descriptions are calculated from human standards. For example, if we were elves in real life, and humans were some mysterious mythological race, the DnD rule wouldn't say that elves have +2 Dexterity and -2 Constitution. I would rather say that Humans have -2 Dexterity and +2 Constitution!

It's all because we're so xenophobic.


he he... xeno, xin xan xorn x
also you'd probably have to call humanoids elvenoids and monstrous humanoids... well, i don't thing elves can come off their high horse to call them anything

problem solving the elven way - ignore it and hope it dies

[ufo]

Thats because we danes have an uncanny insight into human nature, Ufo :smallbiggrin:

The final prove he's a psionic. Cheese-y!

[Konig]

Think in terms of racial mindsets.

Dwarves:

Mostly content to stay in the hills/mountains/underground. To a dwarf, everything can be strengthened, so there's always ways to fortify a home, (Literally or symbolically). They don't explore.

Elves:

The glacial slowness of their generations and their relatively narrow comfort zones mean they aren't really prone to exploring.

Halfling

At least in the old-school D&D, Halflings were family oriented, small town creatures, almost xenophobic at the extreme. The kind of halfling that sets out to explore isn't the kind of halfling that settles down to have a family in a foreign place & birth a nation. (He's more liable to return home for family)

Orc, Goblin

Infighting and the wages of disease, poverty and famine wipe out the worst of the orc/goblin hordes. Actual war wipes out the remainder of the 'masses'.

Humans

Humans explore, by necessity or just by destiny. They settle on new lands across oceans, seek new trade routes and new valuables. They settle in, and spread with relative ease.

[Skyserpent]

Because humans are made of Win and Awesome.

No really, it's the whole relatability deal. And plus it's easier to assume that all NPCs are human unless otherwise stated which makes other races more unique and flavorful while humans can remain bland as a whole relying on individual uniqueness to stand out.

[Ulzgoroth]

Mostly the author-related reasons people have brought up.

But that bonus feat doesn't hurt any. Also, humans are the shortest-lived civilized race, in general (orcs and such never get out of advanced barbarism, for no adequately explained reason), so they're a good candidate for the breeding like rabbits explanation.

[Vespe Ratavo]

Well, I'm in the middle of writing something right now, and my explanation is that yes, humans breed like rabbits.

To go into more detail-

Dwarves: Ok, so I don't have an adequate explanation for Dwarves, but I imagine it has to do with a high mortality rate. (I mean, they have forges lying out in the open. Seriously.)

Elves: Elven children are teenagers for about 70 years. You see where this is going.

Gnomes and Halflings: Curiosity killed the cat, ya know. ("Hey Dad, what's this?" "Dear, that's a Necronominon." "Cool!")

Orcs, Orks, and Orques: They're too busy killing each other. (And yes, Orcs, Orks, and Orques are seperate races. This is a rather silly world I've got going here.)

[Wehrkind]

If you want to look at it another way, animals with incredibly long life spans (particularly at the top of the food chain) tend to have slow reproductive cycles or single/twin offspring to avoid over population. Elephants, horses, whales (tortises might be an exception). Shorter lived species tend to have litters of offspring, and/or reproduce more than once a year, while tending to have shorter lives.
Typically when the shorter lived species compete directly for a niche, in the elf/dwarf/human example as "dominant humanoid", the faster producing species tends to win out by simple attrition. If a species has one offspring reach mating age every 70 years (inclusive of mortality etc.) then it takes twenty years to replace every individual killed in battle say. If another species can replace mating age adults every 17 years, then the slow species needs to kill them off at a rate of 4:1 just to keep parity of numbers, assuming equal populations to start.

It would be interesting to have a campaign set up where the elves are just at the end of their empire, with humans the "barbarians at the gates" and the dwarves the competitors at the elve's level. Sort of a fall of Rome period, portraying the humans almost as orcs in advancement, elves and dwarves at full typical advancement (or slightly less than standard), halflings and gnomes as side line races, orcs as distant threats that periodically show up to inflict huge problems (sort of a Hun type).
Alternately, you could do a similar Peloponesian war scenario, where the Dwarves (Sparta) are a declining society intimidated by the new found dynamism of the Elves' (Athens') sea faring empire. The Orcs (Persians) want to conquer both, but want to bleed them agains each other a bit, while Humans (Romans/Trojans) are building a nascent civilization that is destined to rebuild from the ashes and take control.

[Stephen_E]

A large part of it comes from the original Gary Gygax DnD.
That was truly a xenophobic world with the supereority built in.
All the other races were massively restricted in what they could do, except for Humans. The Human supereirity of DnD has largely dissappeared in modern 3.5 DnD.

Stephen

[Droodle]

In nature, shorter lived creatures reproduce faster. They always have. Orcs and other mostrous races, if they weren't so busy killing each other, would end up dominating the world because they age (and probably reproduce) even faster than humans.

[Orzel]

The domination race is usually the race that actually wants to conquer the world and can actually do it. In DnD, most races lack the ambition or the means for even world exploration. World domination is out of the question for many groups.

[Wehrkind]

A large part of it comes from the original Gary Gygax DnD.
That was truly a xenophobic world with the supereority built in.
All the other races were massively restricted in what they could do, except for Humans. The Human supereirity of DnD has largely dissappeared in modern 3.5 DnD.

Stephen

Keep in mind that the really old school D&D wasn't so much xenophobic as it made races equal classes. It followed the Tolkien0-esque model of every race other than humans being monolithic; ie. all elves used magic and fought well, all dwarves were stout and good with axes, etc. You were not an "elven mage" or "dwarf fighter", you were "elf" or "dwarf". Later level caps were in place to counter balance the racial bonuses they had. Not necessarily done well, but "xenophobic" is hardly a useful world to describe it.

[Gavin Sage]

Consider the real world. What are to two biggest countries on Earth population wise. China and India, moderately developed nations on the rise. Where as the older more developed European nations have nil or even negative population growth. Many developed countries are going to have extreme problems not to far down the road as massive portions of their populations will suddenly be retired senior citizens.

D&D settings are akin to what we will see in our lifetimes, Elves are Europe while Human's are China. Heck compare past Empires to today more globalized society.

[Idiotbox90]

I would like to answer the question from the perspective of the other races.

Elf: There are only so many forests. Why should we settle for areas that are less than perfect? Let the humans have their plains and deserts. After all, their lives are so short, we should let them get whatever happiness they can with the little time they have. Poor, pitiful little creatures.

Dwarf: Whit dae ye mean the humans ur expandin'? When wer the last time ye saw wan o' thaem under the groond? We dwarves huv oor mines. Who cares aboot the surface?

Gnome: Umm... yes, the humans. They... are sort of... let's just say... dumb. Yes, dumb's the precise word for it. They lack... foresight. I mean they... well... they kill each other all the time. So, even though it may look as though humans are doing better than any other race... in reality... they are doing terribly... what with their internal arguments. They are not like gnomes. We do not build empires. We build legacies.

Halflings: Expansion? Silly big folk with their talk of expansion. Halflings have the largest nation in the world. In elven lands, in dwarven lands, from the human empires to the gnome city-states, the halfling nation covers all of it. Honestly, why build permanent settlements? It's so much more fun just to wonder wherever you fancy takes you. When you own land, you just get the urge to defend it. This leads to people dying. When was the last time you saw halflings dying in a crusade against the orcs? I thought so.

Humans dominate the world because no other race has both the means and the desire to do so. Hobgoblins are an exception to this.

[Damionte]

Speaking of Hobgoblins, In our home capaign our Hobgolbins have grown to nearly the same hight as the humans. The only thing restricting them is the reason loss of a major "world war-1 type war. Where they were decimated. Thus having to eassentially start over. Despite that they've rebuilt and over the last 3 centuries have re-established a kingdom. They've started asserting political control over the sorounding orc/goblin lands and are putting the pieces in place to take up a campaign against the human and re-claim what they consider thier homeland. (An area they took from the elves in the first place.)

The other races are pretty much covered int eh threads above.

The thing priomarily holding back the hobgoblins in our world is th elack of powerful enough allies.

[greenknight]

The main reason Humans dominate is their relatively fast breeding cycle and the fact that they tend to have lots of farmers. None of the other humanoid races are known for growing large amounts of food, so they have a problem feeding a large population (Halflings used to be known as farmers, but that changed in 3.xe). Also, races with a racial Evil alignment tend to be too busy fighting everyone (including each other) to really dominate, although if they're fast breeders they might be a threat to the other races. All that said, I can't really explain how the Drow with their slow breeding cycle and racial CE alignment seem to prosper.

[Orzel]

Drow defy logic when it comes to dominance. Sure most of the free underdark races have pathetic numbers but drow are so self destructive. Somehow humans, hobgoblins, drow, and giants conquer everybody.

[Ben7el]

If you really think about it, the Kobolds should be one of the most dominant races. They have one of the fastest breeding times (2 weeks for egg to be birthed (meaning a female can lay another egg in maybe 2-3 weeks later, or continue working) and a 6 month hatching period). They also only take 10 years to reach adulthood and can live up to above 120 years (60 years to middle age I think, meaning 50 years of mining from every single Kobold that doesn’t die). Dragonwrought Kobolds live at LEAST 600 years if there chromatic, 1200 years if they are Metallic.

Not only that, but they are obscenely rich and one of the best mining races(They can fit 4 Kobolds mining in a 5 foot area and mine as well as a dwarf), are allies to DRAGONs and have one of the highest population to magic user (Sorcerers) in the world.


If it wasn’t for the fact that basically every single race wants to kill Kobolds, they would probably have committed genocide on the Gnomes YEARS ago, at least weakened the Dwarves and hunted down and killed most of the Feys.

[caden_varn]

Not always the case in other RPGs, actually, although almost always. The official location of Earthdawn is a Dwarven kingdom (Throal if I remember correctly), but then Earthdawn races are somewhat different to standard ones in age terms at least.

[Storm Bringer]

I think the reason humans Dominate is because the other races are more.......typecast.

Think about it. Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halfings....they all tend to have a common pattern of thought, action and such on a racial level. the differences between their nation states is fairly small, in that the often run along simmilar lines, in simmilar places. you'll oftenfind dwaves in or around mountains, mining for all thier worth. The elves either stick to the forest like good little hippies or mooch about in byzantine cities, too held down by the wieght of ages to keep up with humans. Gnomes and halfings don't have the drive to Dominate, seeming to preffer a comfortable second fiddle.

Each race also tends to lean towards a few roles/sterotypes. Elven wizards, dwarf fighters, halfling rogues, and so on.

Humans......are different. they form kingdoms, republics, theocaries, city states, the works. Thier isn't a single human sterotype. Thiers dozens of sterotypes.

It's a side effect of us being human, really. we see the other races though the eyes of humans, and note how they differ form us.

In the end, each race is seen as having traits which define how it differs form us. but we don't have this effect with humans, so we find it easier to fit them into a wider range of concepts

[Dausuul]

Elves, gnomes, and dwarves are slow to breed and slow to die; this means their populations are going to be very stable, with minimal ups and downs in the growth rate, and they have little impulse to expand. All three races also have preferred environments (underground for dwarves and gnomes, forests for elves), and given the aforementioned lack of population pressure, they have very little incentive to go elsewhere. That leaves huge swaths of territory for humans to fill.

Orcs and goblins are the opposite--fast breeders who can eke out a living in the most desolate regions. What they don't have is organization. Their constant squabbling, infighting, and lack of discipline put them at a decided disadvantage compared to human tribes.

Halflings lack the martial prowess to compete directly against humans for territory, and they aren't much interested in conquest anyhow. They get along well in human civilization and are probably quite happy to encourage its growth.

It's even quite likely that in the early days, elves and dwarves encouraged human expansion as a counterweight to the orcs. Human kingdoms generally make much better neighbors than orcish hordes, and since elves and dwarves breed so slowly, it takes them a long time to recoup losses in battle--they could kill twenty orcs for every elf and still rue the exchange. They were probably overjoyed to find a fast-breeding, friendly race that would do their fighting for them in exchange for being able to settle on the territory it took back from the orcs.

Eventually, of course, human expansion would start to pose a problem in itself... but by then it would be too late. Like Imperial Rome, the elves and dwarves would end up being sacked by the very peoples they had once enlisted as mercenary allies.


Drow defy logic when it comes to dominance. Sure most of the free underdark races have pathetic numbers but drow are so self destructive. Somehow humans, hobgoblins, drow, and giants conquer everybody.

Yeah, drow are a little hard to explain... as far as I can tell, the only explanation for their power in the Underdark is sheer arcane might. Then again, what's their opposition? The only race in the Underdark with the organization and the power to pose a threat to the drow is the mind flayers; and drow versus mind flayers is mostly a battle of slaves versus slaves anyway. Apparently drow slaves tend to win out over mind flayer slaves, probably because drow slaves don't get their brains zapped three times a day, seven days a week.

[Parasocrates]

I agree with Idiotbox90. We tend to see humans as dominating the world because we judge success as humans judge success. Dwarves, elves, and so on do not necessarily have the same goals that we do; they may not want to build kingdoms across the surface of the earth, and they may not judge humans to be succesful as a race for doing so.

[Tormsskull]

This is one of the joys of being a homebrewing DM. You can decide to change it up however you want. Want a world where humans are slaves to the orc-controlled world? Go ahead. Want a world where humans appear on "Save the Children" commercials as kids living in squalid conditions that you can help for only $.25/day? Do it.

As to why the default method is for humans to be dominating the landscape, its, as others have said, because we know what humans are, generally how they act, what they build, etc. And to keep the non-human races as unique and flavorful.

[Jayabalard]

Why is it that in every official campaign world the humans dominate the world? If humans are the youngest race as often told, wouldn't they have a smaller population?adaptability; the elder races are not able to adapt as well as humans.

[Tyger]

Just think of humans as the cockroaches of the D&D realm. We adapt, we breed like rabbits, and we're basically bloodthirsty enough to need to expand at constant rates. :)

Personally, I always preferred to think of the elder races as more in tune with the nature of their world. They have had millenia longer than humans to come to understand their places in the order of things, and as such have achieved a more homeostatic existence. Humans, due in part to our short lifespan, have yet to realize this, and thus are still constantly expanding and conquering. We haven't encroached too much into the realms of the elder races, nor done too much damage to the earth at this point, so they are content to let us live and continue for now, albeit with some very wary watching.

I've always wondered what would happen if the D&D races were around for an Industrial Revolution. Would the elven nations stand by and watch as the human began to radically alter the very foundations of the earth's eco-system? Something tells me no. And it would be damned interesting to play a world like that... Hmmmm.... time to do some research and writing. :smallsmile:

[Dausuul]

As to why the default method is for humans to be dominating the landscape, its, as others have said, because we know what humans are, generally how they act, what they build, etc. And to keep the non-human races as unique and flavorful.

Not that it works very well in my experience. Non-humans usually end up being played as humans in funny suits. Hell, in my gaming group there's a guy playing a neraph (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040613a&page=2) (basically a slaad scaled down to +0 LA), and there's no qualitative difference between him and a human character except that now and then somebody makes a joke about how he looks like a toad. The only time I can ever remember somebody's race making a real difference in the character was when I played an elf druid in an Arthurian campaign; I played her as a classic pagan faerie, and her interaction with the Christian setting was quite interesting.

IMO, if non-human races are to be genuinely "flavorful," they need fundamentally different mechanics. A few stat modifiers just doesn't cut it--they should have whole different class options and radically different rules.

Of course, that's a lot of extra work for WotC. On the other hand, it would sell even more splatbooks. Maybe I should suggest it for 4E...

[Morty]

I've always wondered what would happen if the D&D races were around for an Industrial Revolution. Would the elven nations stand by and watch as the human began to radically alter the very foundations of the earth's eco-system? Something tells me no. And it would be damned interesting to play a world like that... Hmmmm.... time to do some research and writing. :smallsmile:

See Arcanum computer game. It's preety close to what you've explained.
As for human domination- as said above, it's because it's easier to 'live' in the game world if NPCs are humans.
In my campaign setting though, I made humans about an equally numerous as other races, but they're looked down upon. They live where no other races except orcs would live- on open, temperate plains. Otherwise they'd be wiped out by dwarves, elves, goblins and so on. Now they just constantly struggle with orcs and occasionally halflings.

[Tiki Snakes]

I never really got the whole humans-are-more-adaptable thing, to be quite honest. Oh, yeah, sure. an extra feat. Does that really seem like that much of a racial advantage that world domination is guarenteed?

consider it this way.
Dwarves have vastly supirior technology, arms and armour, are more durable by far, and no less intelligent. They can also see really well in complete darkness, which just screams night-raids to me, really.
Elves are more intelligent, more agile and generally vastly superior at all forms of magic.
Both of these have also officially had vast amounts of time to advance, before humans even became a concern. They are the ones with the hidden knowledges and so on.

Also,
Orcs are stronger and Reproduce faster.
Every single Gnome, aside from being tougher than a human, also has at least a rudimentary grip on magic.
and i'm sure with a little research i could find a dozen other species that is in some measurable way vastly superior to the humans.

Adaptable? Um. Maybe if you only ever consider the most basic of Raw? Hell, ever had a look at unearthed arcana? they have stats for Dwarves, elves, goblins and all manner of things, that could have adapted to survive everything from desert life, the arctic, or even living underwater! If it's even remotely possible that the non-human races could adapt to such extreme conditions, how can the usual human dominance really be chalked up to some kind of flexibility?

What can a Human do that anything else can't essentially do better? :)



It's an interesting issue. Obviously, humans are dominant because it gives you something to relate to, but I don't see that such a thing is so important that it must be the case in every setting.

And as for elves and dwarves reproducing much more slowly, sure, they do. but is it because that is simply how it is in most campaign settings, or are they literally physically incapable of reproducing any quicker? Do elves really go into 'heat' every 50 years or so? It seems a little ridiculous to me. ;)

[Renx]

Humans are dominant because the game creators say so.

But seriously, I'm guessing that humans win because they're short-lived. The reason why there used to be level caps and slower exp gains for different races was simply that humans learn faster. They don't have 50 years to spend just learning the basics or getting to level 2. And therefore in any given city you have an immense pressure of 'getting ahead' fast. So humanity spreads into areas where there is little resistance, gathers up strength quickly (because of said population pressure), then spreads into areas with a little more pressure, and so on.

Basically, it's evolution with the assumption that humans have won a lot of rounds.

...and, of course, that orcs like fighting orcs :P

This actually reminds me of a Warhammer Fantasy worldwide campaign... throughout the summer people around the world played battles, that would set the course for the Fantasy setting for years to come. The idea was that Chaos was surging out from every pore, and Orcs were on the move, too. Basically, humanity+dwarves etc would have been losing seriously, but the orcs up and decided as a group to ignore humans. Since, why bother fighting puny pinkskins when you have a horde of Chaos incoming. Much more fun! Waaaaaaaaagh!

[SITB]

We dump toxic waste in our oceans and air to weed out the weak!

We detonate atomic devices in our only biosphere!

We nailed our God to a Tree!

We are the Human Race! Do Not **** with us!

I just thought it seemed appropriate...

I think Orcs don't raise so prominently because of all the inter-fighting that every 50 years make them go back 40 years in development (Like the Thraddash (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Thraddash)).

Elves are simply a decadence society, they reach a certain equilibrium with thier surrounding and then stop growing. Thus while at the start of their development outshining the humans, they are later quickly overtaken by humans.

Gnomes, while initiative and creative, lack the will to develop themselves and while their society isn't a decadenced one like the Elves their society grow at a vastly reduced rate compared to humans.

Halflings are a nomad culture, like the Gypsies, and thus lack a common uniting theme that will make the whole race grow strong(or at least a vast protion of it).

Dwarves have long lives and as such probably have low population growth combined with the fact that they are intensely tribal, they have a relatively small chance of being changed from the inside(And since they are good warriors and smiths also from the outside).