Rant on Worldbuilding and Classes

[Skinwalker]

What would be interesting is a setting where fantasy races are the majority, and humans are existent, but extremely rare. How would other species think of humans if most of them had never even seen one?

 

[Arulan]

Just based on anecdotal observations, I do see a lot of people picking exotic races and/or backgrounds for their character pretty often. I can certainly see where that desire is coming from. Partly from wanting to be as fantastical as their allure for the setting itself. I'm not casting judgement here, but I find myself more drawn to more relatable and culturally grounded characters. I find that for a lot of these exotic races, it's exactly that which entirely defines them. Sometimes they're simply not even as fleshed out (in the setting) as other races. With that in mind, I find that it's easier to be more nuanced as a character with say a Dwarf or Human. Additionally, I think I enjoy experiencing fantastical things more from the perspective of someone who is less so -- more mundane perhaps.

And of course, Dwarves are fucking awesome. Why wouldn't you want to play as one?

 

[Hace El Oso]

Another thing I don't like is the schizoid nature of worldbuilding when it comes to the standard classes. They're a weird hodgepodge of influences, ranging from fantasy fiction to pop anthropology to self-referential D&Disms, that don't fit well together at all. In throwing all fantasy fiction into a blender, the result ends up satisfying no setting at all.

E.g. the clerics, druids, and warlocks seems to have roots in medieval Christianity and the Arthurian mythos, but then needlessly convolutes itself by trying to bolt on Roman paganism and post-Christian fairy lore without understanding how any of that worked. So both druids and warlocks have fairy connections that don't work at all the same way. And that's before taking into account any other classes. EDIT: Also, the three classes are eurocentric af and display a piss poor understanding of real world theologies, particularly non-European ones. (Long story short, there isn't really much of a difference. Druidism is an Indo-European religion that shares the same roots as Norse and Greek religion.)

Most published settings don't even take into account the D&Disms. Some settings like Eberron or Scarred Lands try to specifically worldbuild around the D&Disms to produce coherent settings. Unfortunately, they never got particularly popular.

Maybe I'm just overthinking it. What do you think?

Pagans like gauls and goths didn’t have theology, they had witchdoctors. Removed from the tribal social role they fill, they have little function or meaning. Christian priests and monks or Muslim imams have more going on.

Just based on anecdotal observations, I do see a lot of people picking exotic races and/or backgrounds for their character pretty often. I can certainly see where that desire is coming from. Partly from wanting to be as fantastical as their allure for the setting itself. I'm not casting judgement here, but I find myself more drawn to more relatable and culturally grounded characters. I find that for a lot of these exotic races, it's exactly that which entirely defines them. Sometimes they're simply not even as fleshed (in the setting) as other races. With that in mind, I find that it's easier to be more nuanced as a character with say a Dwarf or Human. Additionally, I think I enjoy experiencing fantastical things more from the perspective of someone who is less so -- more mundane perhaps.

And of course, Dwarves are fucking awesome. Why wouldn't you want to play as one?

One of the many problems is that the people who are usually writing these races and worlds truly wouldn’t believe how different people in their own country are right this moment, never mind people in Burma or Bolivia. Imagine how their heads would explode just to read about Calcutta circa 1950.
So all their exotic races end up being current-day first world people hanging out at the café using the WiFi in the forest or underground making constipated faces (as one does when being serious about something, right? Right?) . About as alien and exotic as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena or Hercules.

Dwarf fortress does a better job of this, and you even see it in the in-game books written for earlier elder scrolls games. They should have actually made the wood elves man-eaters in gameplay.