I don't care much for alien species as PC's

By Archlyte, in Game Masters

32 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

To be fair, Farscape has 2 "human" looking main characters in the cast for the entire series run.

One of the prominent villains in the early first few seasons looks like a normal dude.

The creepy as sin villain of the series just looks like a sickly man with a leather fetish.

The crew later takes on a human looking dude with a mask on half of his face.

Technically most of these are aliens in the series, yes. They still look all or mostly human though.

You aren't wrong. But with 3 truly non-human looking alien crew, two of which were puppets that's already more than most than I can think of. Also they had a lot of villains and other aliens that were puppets or very non-human looking.

*Edit: 4 if you also count the ship as an alien character

Edited by ThreeAM
4 hours ago, Endersai said:

I took it as gay people have less hangups about the idea that a female character might have a fully fleshed out, not "lol bewbporn" approach to same sex relationships or not be petrified the idea of playing a hetero female with a male romantic interest would instantly make them gay (it sounds silly, but I've had players balk at that option). Not "gays are basically women" or anything like that.

I've definitely seen it - though more in your online games like World of Warcraft, SW:TOR and GTA Online - where men play hypersexualised and attractive women for gratification purposes. It's not ok - especially after Rey and Jyn were broadcast into our consciousness.

On the alien question - I take the OP's point, and would point out that unless a player really wants to play an alien for lore, story or cultural reasons, there's no reason to mandate it. The worst is "because I want to shoot people and they get a 3 in AGI at creation!".

Hey thanks for bailing me out, you said that better than I could have. MMORPG = Many Men Online Role-playing Girls. :) I can't believe that others share this opinion about non-human characters with me, I'm kind of floored. No one in my actual player group is down with this idea, and none of my former players/GMs think it is anything other than me being fantasy racist or something stupid like that. One friend of mine does accept the idea that certain non-human characters are just boring characters with a make up department head attached for slap-on interesting.

3 hours ago, ThreeAM said:

I think this statement is fairly accurate to how things pan out in fiction in general, but I don't think it has to be inherent to Humans.

Your typical story that has a hero is one in which you want your audience/viewer to identify and empathize with. Being Human does not immediately accomplish this but is simply one of the pieces that can help to build this identification. You have to consider all of the other "layers" that individuals identify with. Yes its true that you're a human so boom, instant relate-ability there, and for some others race and sex, but there is so much diversity that it only goes so far. For example I can think of plenty of "human protagonists" that I completely do not identify with. A successful writer/author/director can present an alien that might be far more relate-able or possibly more empathetic, but it seems less common in fiction than perhaps I would like, and specifically with the Star Wars Movies it is unfortunate that all of the main characters are human so as you said the aliens are largely relegated to supporting roles.

Honestly it's not just Star Wars, its the majority of science fiction. Straying from Star Wars for a second; it's always somewhat disappointed me that Science fiction writers don't take a little more risk in this area. Humans can be super evil. Its fiction! Lets make the Humans the villains! (despite its other flaws I really liked this about "Dances with wolves in spa..I mean Avatar")

^Btw if anyone has suggestions of books where protagonists are aliens (meta-humans don't count) and humans are villains, hit me up^

Well you have a point, and in Star Wars it applies mainly to near humans, but it is also in something like the Hobbit movies where characters aren't technically human but you can see them as human in every important way. As for the make-up thing, if it was easier to relate to Aliens then main characters would have the make up budget allotted to them, but this isn't so. The truth is that psychologically we stereotype other people to be our kind, and as such we have the ability to empathize, sympathize, and otherwise understand their life events. The simplest answer is that humans are main characters because that is who we care about the most (our violent nature notwithstanding). Your children are human, your parents were human, and you are human. It's natural for you to that share that viewpoint with the most clarity and ease.

4 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Let's have a Mofference to talk about that.

This is precisely why my group wanted, nay, needed , the MarcyVerse...

8 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Let's have a Mofference to talk about that.

*snerk*

And while we're at it, Mofferences are not part of Legends. As stated in the Essential Reader's Companion, though the overall story of those books is considered canon, the stupid details such as Mofferences are not.

11 hours ago, jnrschulz said:

I did not even notice that. Then again Durrak is kind of single minded !

(It is only directly referenced once, so if you blinked, you might have missed her coming-out):
On 5/1/2017 at 2:34 PM, Cartergame said:

"Wordplay leads to foreplay... " & on Dantooine, females are usually the initiators...

(and Astrid's response):

I am usually the initiator, but I'm afraid you're just not my type. Don't take it the wrong way- I like you- I'm just not into guys in that way. Not how I'm wired. Clearer now?

The two still flirt a little. She plays along, but basically tells him to dream on.

Maybe it is a cop-out, but I see it as an improvement over my last female PC from many years ago, whom I played as essentially asexual.

Edited by Edgehawk
formatting issues..

I was thinking about this and started thinking more broadly about Role-playing in general. And the motivations one would have to play a Human or Non-Human.

So I feel like there are two reasons an individual might want to role-play. (An oversimplification? perhaps.)

  1. Admiration of a known hero character and want to emulate that character or to play a hero themselves.
  2. Pure fantasy; act and say things you wouldn't normally, and to escape reality.

I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth but I seems like the OP, and several other expressing preference for playing Humans perhaps fall more into #1. With Star Wars specifically I can see the appeal more. This is because unlike DnD or other RPGs, Star Wars is a specific Universe with a lot of sources and characters, and therefore has specific characters to identify with. I myself often feel pulled more toward "oh man if could only live in this universe". So I can see that with that line of thinking it would also make sense to create a Human character to live in this universe that is essentially yourself.

However, personally and seemingly within my group as well, we fall more into #2 for most of our Role-playing. In real life I am a Human male that will die, and be hurt emotionally, that'll never change, but now Iv'e got an opportunity to play a creature that is a potentially emotionless being that is nigh immortal (droid)? I want to explore what that might be like, Sign me up! I will also never get to be a 14 year old Oracle girl, who's been cursed her whole life, speaks in tongues, and has imaginary demon friends. Sounds like it could be a blast! (...It was a blast btw )

Is there overlap between the two? Sure, everyone usually wants to be a Hero of at least minor repute. But I think it mostly comes down to what you are looking to get out the role-playing in general, and that's why some are more drawn to playing humans or non-humans.

2 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

And while we're at it, Mofferences are not part of Legends. As stated in the Essential Reader's Companion, though the overall story of those books is considered canon, the stupid details such as Mofferences are not.

That's just a cop-out. The exchange was about the quality of the books. Whether they're considered canon long after the fact is entirely irrelevant with regards to their quality.

52 minutes ago, ThreeAM said:

I was thinking about this and started thinking more broadly about Role-playing in general. And the motivations one would have to play a Human or Non-Human.

So I feel like there are two reasons an individual might want to role-play. (An oversimplification? perhaps.)

  1. Admiration of a known hero character and want to emulate that character or to play a hero themselves.
  2. Pure fantasy; act and say things you wouldn't normally, and to escape reality.

I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth but I seems like the OP, and several other expressing preference for playing Humans perhaps fall more into #1. With Star Wars specifically I can see the appeal more. This is because unlike DnD or other RPGs, Star Wars is a specific Universe with a lot of sources and characters, and therefore has specific characters to identify with. I myself often feel pulled more toward "oh man if could only live in this universe". So I can see that with that line of thinking it would also make sense to create a Human character to live in this universe that is essentially yourself.

However, personally and seemingly within my group as well, we fall more into #2 for most of our Role-playing. In real life I am a Human male that will die, and be hurt emotionally, that'll never change, but now Iv'e got an opportunity to play a creature that is a potentially emotionless being that is nigh immortal (droid)? I want to explore what that might be like, Sign me up! I will also never get to be a 14 year old Oracle girl, who's been cursed her whole life, speaks in tongues, and has imaginary demon friends. Sounds like it could be a blast! (...It was a blast btw )

Is there overlap between the two? Sure, everyone usually wants to be a Hero of at least minor repute. But I think it mostly comes down to what you are looking to get out the role-playing in general, and that's why some are more drawn to playing humans or non-humans.

Thank you for this excellent post. I don't think you are really the subject of my OP, as you put thought into how you want to portray your droid/alien character beyond just the cool factor. I think your post also highlights something else, that those of us who prefer humans are more than likely Simulationists or Narrativists, whereas the average player is Gamist in their approach per GNS Theory .

I am usually trying to present the setting as I see it, and in doing so I am looking for characters that act most like I feel they should from the setting. In a Narrativist sense I am also looking for players to act out something other than pulling a trigger or flying their ship through an asteroid field (though I do love those things too), so for me Human Characters have been, in my experience, the best way to get that.

If I have a thoughtful player such as you seem to be who wants to play something exotic there is two aspects to this: 1) I am losing a good role-player to a rubber head so I will not be getting much other than eating weird foods or demonstrating disgust at Human tropes. 2) I will now have to adjust to this as a group dynamic, so while the humans are acting out relationships the exotic character will be hibernating in an egg, or be switched off getting a power infusion, or will be doing something else other than interacting in those moments.

Now yo say that's not really how it goes with you, and I believe you, but my experience has been that the Pure Fantasy character is more often a temporary interest rather than a long term engaging character to play. At some point the weird characters always end up as basically sidekicks while the humans (and near-humans) are at center stage. Humans have primacy in this universe as is shown by nearly every important character. The Emperor, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Wedge, Padme, Captains of Naboo Security, Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Jan Dodonna, Carlist Riekaan (sp?), Lando Calrissian, Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, Hux, Phasma, Kanen, Ezra, Sabine, Hera. Yoda and Snoke are probably the biggest of the two alien characters and we don't even know for sure that Snoke is an alien. Chewbacca, R2, 3PO, and others are certainly lovable characters, but they are not capable of the things the humans are capable of.

When a strong player chooses the Droid/Alien character I know I will get an excellent rendition of that type of character, but I also just lost another main protagonist to the sidekick job.

Edited by Archlyte

31 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

That's just a cop-out. The exchange was about the quality of the books. Whether they're considered canon long after the fact is entirely irrelevant with regards to their quality.

As I said before, Forces of Destiny. If ignore the bottom 5% of books, Legends is great.

36 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

As I said before, Forces of Destiny. If ignore the bottom 5% of books, Legends is great.

The bottom is far bigger than 5% in Legends.

Penguin and Vader I don't think the question of whether or not the EU sucks can be resolved lol.

12 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Penguin and Vader I don't think the question of whether or not the EU sucks can be resolved lol.

Like anything in life, a lot of it sucked and a lot of it didn't because blah blah blah... a certain point of view.

In my experiences GMing, a player who is going to do a crap job of portraying an alien character is probably just as likely to do a crap job of portraying the character traits of their human PCs. The attitude of not putting much effort into thinking about how your character's background influences them and how they relate to the world tends to be pretty evenly applied, I don't see it more or less often with alien PCs.

I also don't really have any major issue with players who just play up a couple of minor species quirks and then more or less treat their character as a human, as long as the rest of the character's traits make them an interesting part of the story. I mean, that's how half the alien characters in canon act. Naturally I'd prefer if the character's species reflected how they're played in a serious way, but it's hardly a dealbreaker to me.

Edited by Tom Cruise

While the OP makes a point that it's sometimes hard to accept non-humans as main characters, i have to wonder about the possibility that humans are the first choice of lazy/bad roleplayers. Sure, its easy to think that stereotyped aliens will be a sign of a bad roleplayer, but "being a human playing a human like a human" is really the ultimate in creative slacking, right?

because we humans are all alike. Indeed

9 hours ago, Maelora said:

This is precisely why my group wanted, nay, needed , the MarcyVerse...

Alternate universes just don't feel right in Star Wars, to me. That's the wrong kind of science fiction.

21 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

While the OP makes a point that it's sometimes hard to accept non-humans as main characters, i have to wonder about the possibility that humans are the first choice of lazy/bad roleplayers. Sure, its easy to think that stereotyped aliens will be a sign of a bad roleplayer, but "being a human playing a human like a human" is really the ultimate in creative slacking, right?

Or the aliens are the refuge of the lazy. Just play the race instead of coming up with an actual character.

4 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Or the aliens are the refuge of the lazy. Just play the race instead of coming up with an actual character.

Better to be an average member of a race with unique traits than be an average human not have any unique traits at all.

The concept of average human is quite curious to me. Especially in a system like that of EOTE.

Playing a bland uninteresting character has nothing to do with average-ness.

54 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

That's the wrong kind of science fiction.

Oh well, I guess I'll stop it then. Heck, almost five years, we had a good run.

Nobody wants to have the 'wrong kind of science fiction', after all.

Edited by Maelora
On 9/26/2017 at 0:04 AM, Archlyte said:

They don't try to engage in anything relevant to their culture or physiology unless it involves removing setbacks or adding boosts

Then you have terrible players.

My Twilek, raised on Tatooine with adopted human parents completely isolated from her culture doesn't know the language, cant speak Leku twitch (she's more like a Inflatable Wacky Waving Tube Man when trying to communicate), doesn't get the whole slave class stratification thing and otherwise stumbles around like a uncultured bull in a twilek china shop when it comes to her people. And it's been a blast.

So yeah, your players suck.

As I said before, good players can make good characters out of both humans and nonhumans. Bad players can muck up a human just as easily as a nonhuman.

49 minutes ago, Maelora said:

Oh well, I guess I'll stop it then. Heck, almost five years, we had a good run.

Nobody wants to have the 'wrong kind of science fiction', after all.

Way to take something out of context. Notice how I wrote "to me" in the sentence before that, clearly setting up that I was talking about what my take on Star Wars is, not what yours should be.

1 minute ago, Stan Fresh said:

Way to take something out of context. Notice how I wrote "to me" in the sentence before that, clearly setting up that I was talking about what my take on Star Wars is, not what yours should be.

Then you called it ' the wrong kind of science fiction.' That is what she was referring to. I have to agree with her sentiment, considering my Star Wars becomes more divergent every time I run a new game.