Why is Humanity always depicted as the dominant race in fantasy?

Because people have no imagination.

because if it was some freaky alien thing, it'd be confusing and you'd just be playing/writing them as humans, anyway
and if it was just humans-but-green or humans-but-with-funny ears, they might as well be humans
(once you get into furry shit you're just making everyone uncomfortable)

It's easier than using ant-mermen hybrids or 4d hypercubes

Because stories are humanocentric? I’m serious. It’s why your elves act more like humans than an actual inhuman (if still a humanoid one) race.

>>96261941 (OP)
chances are that settings dogshit

>>96261969
I really hate how most fantasy elves act nothing like the real ones.

>>96261941 (OP)
Traditional games?

>>96261941 (OP)
Are they?
>>96261974
How many elves have you met?

Anyone remember the thread that went
>How did the sword become the most iconic melee weapon?
I think about that OP almost fucking daily. You can try and look it up in the archives. It makes me think, who makes these threads?

>>96261941 (OP)
Most populous =/= dominant, or else you'd have to concede orcs and goblins are actually the dominant race.

Also dungeon meshi has em as rare and possibly dying out.

>>96262061
>the thread that went
>>How did the sword become the most iconic melee weapon?
Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?

>>96261941 (OP)
Because nerds take it really fucking personally when they aren't.

>>96262055
I have met the same two elves an infinite number of times. Never trust an elf when he asks you to complete a short errand.

>>96262070
It's this one
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/91532831
I don't know how to put it into words. I thought this was the nadir of stupidly obvious questions, but OP outdid himself now. What's next?
>Why is armor so common in fantasy?

>>96261941 (OP)
Cause you only read books where it is? Literally, quick google shows this isn't even true lol.

>>96261956
FPBP

Humans are literally the audience surrogate. And as surprising as it may be, most people like to see humans thrive. In fact one could argue that art that doesn't say anything about humanity is inherently worthless.

Source on OP pic?

>>96262326
That means it's AI-generated, anon. Which you should be easily able to tell by the wonky chainmail texture, the weird perspective issues with his skull shape not matching his face's orientation, and of course the fucking hands. How is he holding that sword? Look at what his hands are doing. What are they even doing?

It's 2025. If you don't understand how to recognize the output of generative AI, you're functionally illiterate.

>>96261958
spbp

>>96261956
retard

>>96261941 (OP)
because humans are us, you fucking mongoloid

>>96261974
>real elves
take your fucking meds

>>96261941 (OP)
also, kill yourself slopspammer

>>96261941 (OP)
Because the writers are human.

>>96262336
Damn, AI has really came a long way. No wonder artists are so upset.

>>96262105
Anon, hownew.ru? That's one of the most common bait threads, right up there with casters vs martials

>>96262337
why are you mad

>>96262630
because this board used to be good before gooks and jews ruined it

>>96262326
ai generated, just like the rest of OP's post.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because we humans can do this:
*rips a greasy pepperoni fart in your face*

>>96262839
Not in his mouth this time?

>>96263104
Bound to be a bit that makes its way in.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because of the insidious power of human hands.

>>96262318
There’s nothing more annoying than “Humanity Fuck Yeah!”.

>>96261941 (OP)
He’s hot.

>>96261941 (OP)
image sauce?

>>96261958
This

>>96264268
puckee on reddit

>>96261941 (OP)

Because most of the audience are human.

>>96262101
How and where did you first meet them?

>dominant
>their entire society can be upturned by a well-positioned succubus
lol

>>96264676
Work on your art

>>96261941 (OP)
the average person is a raging narcissist who cannot even begin to perceive losing.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because we are the epitome of evolution, created in the image and likeness of God.

Mod thread.

>>96261974
I know what you mean. I read The Lord of the Rings AND The Hobbit, and Elrond didn't even make ONE toy!

>>96262464
post 520 examples

>>96261941 (OP)
Its not always but often.

Humans just want to see majority (good-looking) humans in their fantasies. Either for relatability or self-insertion. That's a blackpill for our capabilities of fiction - we just can't and don't like imagining worlds without us being the poster boys everywhere and/or at least being in them. It's like "error not found" for our brains.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because they fuck.

>>96262336
>>96262359
>>96262750
Oof yeah, I didn't look that closely at first but those hands are fucked.

>>96261941 (OP)
I can think of a few exceptions, not necessarily fantasy.
>Time Machine: the Eloi and the Morlocks. Crab Chads take over later.
>Dark Crystal: main characters are Elfen archetypes.
>Breed to Come: main characters are sapient cats.
>Children of Time: only characters worth following are spiderbros.
>Adventure Time: candy people.
>Wings of Fire: dragons are the Big Cheese, humies are rodents.
>I am Legend: humanity is on its way-out his successors rebuild in the legend's wake.

>>96267464
It's always a rare treat to get a non-human perspective, even if it's the hobbits of Tolkein or the robros of Transformers.

>>96261941 (OP)
Given this is the /traditional games/ board...

Wanting something nonhuman as your personal character to RP at the table likely means there's something going on in your brain. I don't like getting accusatory, but I can't escape the realization lately. Maybe it's not something direly wrong going on in you, but there's something going on in there. Humans are for the PCs, and nonhumans and strange goings on are, essentially, for the humans to wonder and gawk at.

>>96261941 (OP)
Your claim is not true, idiot.

>>96268264
Oh no! I forgot to take my meds and now I rolled up an Elf!

>>96262101
The caretakers of the gates of time aren't elves. They're temporal anomalies who just look elfish because you expected them to.

>>96268277
>Maybe it's not something direly wrong

>>96261941 (OP)
We breed like rabbits I guess.

>>96261958
>>96261958
>it'd be confusing and you'd just be playing/writing them as humans, anyway
UNLESS
>and if it was just humans-but-green or humans-but-with-funny ears, they might as well be humans
This is your problem HFYkun. You're not making them freaky enough. You're making green humans with pointy ears which is not a big enough biological difference from humans to influence culture, psychological mindset, and general way of life. Yes there are a few laws of nature that the race HAS to obey (how to get sustenance) but changing biology enough creates implications based on that biology. Whether that be adaptations or weaknesses. Look at disabled people and see how they think differently than non disabled people and how they see the world and how they tackle a problem.

If you can't worldbuild anon just say so.

>>96264109
Well OP picture sure has nothing to do with those.

>>96261941 (OP)
Simply put it's a easy way to make a baseline with the setting. Can it be lazy at times. Yes, but at the same time we seeing people be lazy making all the races human but a random quirk to make them "different." Let's be honest most people don't read or watch shows for the worldbuilding. Keeping it human make it easier to focus on what they want rather then make a whole culture up to make it make sense when it really wouldn't matter.

>>96269155
>We should make settings that are lazy and appeal to normies.
leave.

>>96269259
No, you leave.

>>96261941 (OP)
>two most important characters in the setting are undead
>highest level human male fighter and his armies are completely mogged by one of them by casually summoning one million reanimated corpses
>the other two most powerful martials are also undead

>>96262061
probably a pseudointellectual spearfag who thinks that because polearms are better in formation warfare, they were superior to swords in every way (in reality a sword is still better in a duel or skirmish, they are the most popular melee weapon for a reason)

>>96269286
>the closer a character is to you the more you relate to them
bitch please

>>96269467
You're kind of proving the point since Wall-e's design is extremely humanized in ways that make zero sense if you just wanted to design a trash collection and compaction robot.

>>96261941 (OP)
self-inserters get confused and angry otherwise

>>96261956
>every fantasy race is just humans but with forehead ridges

Wow such imagination I'm so engrossed

>>96261941 (OP)
Dunno about others, but as I have a lowish kind of fantasy setting, there are a few reasons than humans are dominant. First and foremost, humans are Smart, reproduce easily and can live in lots of biomes, and live long. Other humanoids are either dumb, slow to reproduce, too adapted to they biomes and/or have fast lives.
Another big one, humans are one of the few humanoids than Sweat. So they are one of hte few than can use heavy armor, and are incredible enduring. Other races can be bigger, stronger and have other advantages, but be sheer durability, humanity can out-fight nearly anything via numbers or tenacity/stuborness. Another big one, humans can throw things, other races barely can use weapons than aren't adapted to them, and most barely can use crossbows, better to not talk about throwing spears, rocks or using slings.
The average human warrior of my setting is more like an imperial rome legionary (tough far more tribal), using heavy javelins to pierce ogres, darts to break goblins and big shields and stabing swords to herd and slaughter orcs if they survive various projectile volleys .

>>96270423
>Another big one, humans are one of the few humanoids than Sweat. So they are one of hte few than can use heavy armor, and are incredible enduring.
Oh boy a guy who watched a tierzoo video and thinks he understands biology. I'd pity your players if you had any.

>>96262336
Only artists who are assmad at being replaced care that much anymore
>look at the slight dispatterning of the chain mail
OK ill regenerate another image out of the infinite instant options at my fingertips, you are definitely not replaceable artistkun

>>96270423
>Low Fantasy
>Roman Empire
>Races are more than just humans with special feature added on.
So you playing ACKS?

>>96270423
Come on, don't tell me the redditfag endurance hunter shit is still parroted when it's been discredited.

>>96270607
Proof?

>>96270423
>reproduce easily
They really don't and I hate that this kind of bs always gets used. Humans before modern times literally fuck themselves with their giant ass heads that commonly kill human women among other issues, and we take around 13+ years for children to be even viable for combat let alone replacing an adult. Being the prideful creatures we are, we hate to admit we get by often on plot armor and get excused from Mary Sue status just because.

>>96270640
https://afan.ottenheimer.com/articles/myth_of_persistent_hunting

>>96270658
>Go down to evidence section
>He immediately mistakes seasonal migrations for how far an animal can move in a day
Kek, well that was a short read.

>>96261941 (OP)
because evewrything is made by humans, you know, what we all are, and we like seeing ourselves in positions of power.
Would youy enjoy a story where humanity is a minor underdog faction that gets snuffed out after overwhelming odds are launched at them?
you might for a few minutes, but deep down, its going to gnaw at you,it won't sit right with you, it'll be disgruntling and its not because of anything I did, its because we, as aspecies, don't like the concept of seeing ourselves get eradicated, going extinct, although there's a lot of brain-washing about that going on in the world and sit but that's a different, more /pol/ kind of subject

>>96270658
>Afan Ottenheimer, Enterprise IT Architect, SecDevOps Consultant & DBA
Got anything with real credentials?

>>96270607


Hunting is overblown because the males who determined the framings and the research projects of “science” all fantasized about being related to violent hunters. The very fetish word “Hunter-gatherers” is based on that..notice “Hunter” comes first. People who understand the facts of anthropology use the word foragers for non-agcultural civilization.

Animal bones preserve better than the berry a person ate. Only a moron would live on hunting in a lush environment. And humans, while we can be dumb, are known for intelligence. Would you want to run a 400 meter dash and have a wrestling match for every meal?

>>96270743
Forager is a more inaccurate term since we don't forage, we hunt and gather.

>>96270665
>>96270672
A main issue of it is it's a single source in favor for persistence hunting. It's like the Yasuke controversy where it's just one guy saying he's right, and coincidentally in both cases it is from guys trying to push their books.

>>96270582
My own version of ODnD, but yeah, along ACKS, I have some beyond the wall and pendragon influences.
>>96270607
Don't care, I will use it anyway. Also the Neandertal predator theory with my ogres/orcs is full blown too. Any kidn of pseudo biology you can think, I posible use!

>>96270835
Use for not playing games?

>>96270823
Persistence hunting simply is one of those theories that makes for such a great story that people are unwilling to abandon it, even when there's no evidence. It is not even an established scientific theory. It was an idea originally floated in the 80s by one (1) doctoral student that now has about as much evidence for it as there is additional evidence against it that got picked up by a sports-writer who used this to hype up his book. The idea went viral and has now spread on the internet as fact, even though it's at best conjecture.

>>96270863
>Persistence hunting simply is one of those theories that makes for such a great story that people are unwilling to abandon it, even when there's no evidence
Except when there is https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/508695

>>96270883
How dare you! You should know peer-reviewed research isn't valid here! I demand you immediately delete this link and post some techfag's blog drivel instead!

>>96270883
And according Leibenberg there, only 50% are successful. And again, it is based on modern people trying to recreate it as though it were fact and not post justification. Even then, someone like this could not successfully get it down.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/story/hunting/ultra-runner-persistence-hunting-pronghorn-wyoming-with-recurve-bow/

>>96270981
>And according Leibenberg there, only 50% are successful
...And? Many predators have a success rate a tenth of that.
>Posts an unsourced article from the techblog
Yeah no I already checked this and it's pure nonsense, the guy being referenced doesn't exist and nobody knows what part of his running is or isn't working. I'd bet he has zero skills in tracking and just loses sight of the pronghorn.

>>96261941 (OP)
It isn't. Earthdawn's dominant race is dwarves.

>>96271000
>muh tech blog
I like how you immediately disregard how it had all that other shit in it too, like the director of the documentaries getting exposed for lying and sensationalizing the stuff, and only choose to nitpick other parts as a way to get around that.

>>96271000
That's pretty much exactly what happens.

>So they cross a road and bolt up a hill. Wolfe follows them, at one point hollering at them, because why not? But somewhere around 13 miles, even running sub-six-minute miles, he loses them.

Pronghorns are pretty impressive endurance runners themselves mind you, but being a retard who can't track is what ensures defeat.

So what other fun biological stuff could we mog other races?
Why should other races be even a fraction of our intelligence, being able to manipulate all the stuff we do etc?
If you guys will be salty, at least lets make it fun!

>>96261941 (OP)
>be me, human
>create a fantasy world
>my species is the dominant
Yeah, seems based. Praise be Thy Emperor.

>>96271036
>I like how you immediately disregard how it had all that other shit in it too
Why should I assume any of it is even slightly accurate or not misconstrued if the author legitimately thinks Elephants run over 500km a day? It's retarded on multiple levels because
1. It's just a straight up lie
2. We did not persistence hunt elephants.
3. His follow up comparison is saying giraffe travel 20km in a day when humans can run over 300km a day.

>>96271075
You are just daisy chaining unrelated things to suit your view at that point. Which is a known thing anyway.

>>96271141
>You are just daisy chaining unrelated things
Getting basic assertions you claim are key evidence for your points hilariously wrong isn't unrelated.
Offer me a single reason why I should listen to someone who can't get basic facts correct or you implicitly admit you shit your pants and are retarded.

>>96262337
We aren't fantasy humans, retard.

>>96271165
Because if you bothered to use your eyes you would see they are repeating a statement in that case and not their own spin on it, instead of "shitting your pants" and already clearly making up your mind ahead of time. https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526147295/9781526147295.00012.xml

>>96271192
>Because if you bothered to use your eyes you would see they are repeating a statement in that case and not their own spin on it
Wrong, he directly says Elephants will travel 500km on an average day.
Time to use your own eyes, pants shitting retard.

>>96268264
Maeve, my beloved!

>>96261941 (OP)
Because the people making them...us, are human. So you can't help but have some subconscious bias, unless you deliberately decide to go full on misanthropic.
And also because >>96261956. It's familiarity and taking the easy way when worldbuilding - aka laziness.

Personally, I don't have much of an issue of including us in every fictional story ever. Nor having us possess a solid place in the world. The issue I have is making us so blatantly protagonistic EVERY single time. And not just from a POV kind of thing. But actually having the majority of the world being ran by humans and major forces of good and evil favoring us in some way (some examples being Tiber Septim/Talos/etc in TES and on the other hand Sigmar vs Archaon in WHF).

Also, let's face it, humans at this day and age are OP. Both lore and mechanics-wise compared to the other staple playable races. We've been calling Elves as the mary sues of fiction, but things have changed since ye old days. That's no longer true.
To post a quote I found:

>Orcs - big, strong, dumb, melee brutes - shoot them.
>Dwarves - short, stocky, miners - seal the mine.
>Elves - magic, flawless marksmen, live in trees - start a forest fire.
>Halflings - light weight - toss them off a cliff.
>Humans - big, strong, dumb, melee brutes, short, stocky, miners, magic, flawless marksmen, live everywhere, light weight, heavy weight, middle weight, highly intelligent, inventors, reproduce every two or three years on average instead of one kid per century or at a sorcerer's whim, infesting the planet, and how the hell do you kill them???

>no matter how common magic is and how crazy the world is the human civilization is the patented renaissance fair generic kingdomville that show zero adaption to the presumed effects of the world around them

>>96271348
you know there are a lot of different kinds of elves and not all of them live in forests
>some of them live in the sea, some of them live in the sky, some of them live underground
and you forgot the gnomes, I can't believe you forgot the gnomes!

>>96271281
I'm not talking about the elephants, retard elephant obsessed faggot.

>>96271671
>I'm not talking about the thing we were talking about
Ok, guess you had nothing and admit you were wrong then.

>>96271680
Please tell me you merely pretending to be obtuse.

>>96271837
Please tell me you're not this mad over being proven wrong.

>>96261941 (OP)
>Why is Humanity always depicted as the dominant race in fantasy?

1. No matter what you do, your players will always be more invested in humans than in anything else simply because your players ARE humans.
2. Keeping that in mind, if some other race rules the world and humans are stuck in periphery somewhere, that situation will be upsetting to your human players, and the only valid campaign idea will be "take over the world for humanity".
3. If humans aren't present at all, your players won't care about anything in your world. You can pretend all you want, but you don't ACTUALLY care about how Aa'kh'naktu are doing. It's psychologically impossible.
4. It follows from the above that if you want to have variety in your campaigns, you need to start from the position where humanity as a whole is secure. Otherwise everything will be sidetracked by the primary concern of making humanity secure.

>>96264166

Hating your own group is not a healthy attitude anon.

>>96264166
Thousands of thigns are more annoying, like the ones than hate humanity.

>>96272061
>>96271974
Hating humans is fine. We're shitty enough that we kill eachother, destroy the planet, commit genocides and holocausts and slavery, and only a few of us even feel bad for any of it. Why shouldn't humans die? Give me an argument that doesn't appeal to tribalism.
Protip: You can't.

>>96272086
You are completely brainwashed dude, go tell your mom you love her because one day she will not be there anymore.

>>96272100
Mmm nope appeal to emotion, not an argument next.

>>96272086
Why are you gay?

>>96272111
Loaded question, not an argument next.

>>96271974
>if you don't constantly feel the need to suck off your own race, if you even for a moment acknowledge it isn't perfect, you must hate it

>>96261941 (OP)
Anyone writing a setting where there are no humans or they're irrelevant and the world is full of qlorvorz from sploonkyulvania only will have their shit flop and nobody care or ever hear about it, sorry freakshitbros

>>96272165
Yes, and that's fine. Humans suck. You're an example of why they suck. Fuck humans and fuck HFY for trying to lie and make us look better. We deserve to get shit on more, maybe it'd keep more than 2 or 3 people's egos in check at a time.

>>96272198
Be consecuent.

>>96272256
Be less of an ESL.

Orcs Elves humans and dwarves work for a reason. They are all a reflection of actual human nature to some degree and are relatable for better or worse. I do not give a fuck about the plight of a 3 eye'd noodle demon from Xishi planet garbage dump. It's trash. Sorry to be cruel, but it's just true. Everyone has youtube. I've seen the videos, the ideas. I've seen it all. It sucks. Removing the human element from a human idea is not interesting to other humans. Things that become too bizarre and too fanciful are not appealing.

>>96270641
That's why fantasy authors try to come up with excuses like "Elves only give birth once a century" and "Dwarves are literally carved out of rare veins of dwarfinite deep in mountains" to excuse why humans in a perpetually medieval setting can out-breed them.

>>96272168
Warhammer fantasy Malus Darkblade series is pretty much 99% druchii doing druchii things, while humans appear only as slaves and as fodder (or both)
Drizzt, especially the first three books, are like only about the drow and I can count the number of important humans on one hand
>there's that ugly grizzled dude who has a hate-boner for Drizzt, Cattie-Brie, Drizzt's ranger master and one girl and her friend(s) who were like looking for Drizzt whose name I can't recall
same for War of the Spider Queen (which has exactly one human with some sort of importance who was basically like a pet to a noble drow house until she got sick, and they had to kick her out)
>that must have been so weird, to go back home from a raid and there's that human chick who followed you all the way to the Underdark must have really wanted that BBC

>>96271054
Literally limited psionics to humans in my games as their "thing". Humans evolved to have psychic powers as a counter to magic. Can't cast a spell if I'm digging around in your head or just using pyrokinesis to yank your fireball right out of the air.

>>96272498
Based, I use the old Harn psyionic stuff, what do you use?

>>96271348
>Also, let's face it, humans at this day and age are OP. Both lore and mechanics-wise compared to the other staple playable races. We've been calling Elves as the mary sues of fiction, but things have changed since ye old days.
This. If humans are supposed to be the generalists of the world, then they shouldn't be 8-9/10 in pretty much every category while all other races can only get a 10/10 in maybe one or two at the cost of dumping many others to a 4-5. Especially when those few upsides don't even matter because of the downsides, such as dwarves and elves living for a gazillion years with such a severe learning disability that they end up at basically the same level as humans.

>sci-fi setting
>human civilization is a known, but minor player on the galactic stage
>Earth is a backwater planet
>humans get around, but most aliens would never have seen one

>>96261941 (OP)
I would disagree with your suggestion that they are "always depicted as the dominant race," but their prominent place in many settings is absolutely on purpose.

Humans are relatable, because they're us. It's very easy to put human behaviors and human problems on those character. Additionally, because humans are present, you can compare and contrast non-human characters against humanity. They can be stand-ins for fringe ideas among humans. They can be "what-ifs" about ourselves. Their placement in relation to humans allows us to understand them to some extent, even though they aren't us, and to explore themes about humanity in turn.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because the world is gay and lame. What's the fun of dominating other races when Humanity is already on top? Give me a setting where Humans are small-fry both statistically and expansively so conquering the world has real meaning. Real Zarusian shit.

>>96269477
>has eyes and hands
>GUISE, ITSA HOOOMAN!!!1!
Try harder.

You can run a game in a setting where humans aren't the dominant race.
I don't really know if they always are anyways.
The one thing I don't really get is why people get so worked up about it either way.
If you think humans suck and you prefer other species, why not just run a game where humans suck and other species are the best.
If you think humans are epic and you don't like other species, why not run a game where humans are epic and other species suck?
I guess we could try to discuss it all day but it seems like the only thing these conversations provide is misanthropes, xenophobes, and xenophiles flinging shit at each other over their excessive egos and not really producing anything especially cool.
I guess it's on me for even coming into this thread.
Does someone have that image of the fat autistic guy going GRRR I came into a thread full of things I don't like and now I am mad? That's me right now.

>>96273380
Got you, anon.

>>96261958
But what if everyone grew long ears they wear like clothes that also grow back naturally when you cut it, mostly have no hair (hair is seen as an exotic feature, which sometimes enhances beauty) and had Vigilante (1980) style endurance and healing factor with somewhat longer lifespans (average death age for someone who survives childhood is around 80 to 90, oldest known ones can live up to 250) this makes them the dominant species/race compared to the others in their portion of the world?

>>96269319
The reason is that swords can actually practically be carried. If people had a pocket dimension to hold spears that's all they'd use in most situations.

>>96269477
The only humanized aspects of Wall-E is the way he acts and his actions. Otherwise his physical features are suppose to invoke those parts of our brains that makes us attached to him as one would a puppy.

>>96261941 (OP)
100% of stories are about humans. Even if they claim not to be, they are.

>>96262055
During my last trip to Agartha I frequented a teahouse run by one of the Alminthe, whom I'm told are a cadet-Race to the Atlanteans who left for Cygnus some time in the late Jurassic.

They recall that at one time the high races of man were kin to the Elves, as men once lived to ages in the hundreds of years and were far wiser and closer to the Divine. With the degeneration of man by dark forces and the corruption of the surface of Ïelthiera by the hateful sun, we have grown thin in our noble heritage and may only regain it by spending long years in the undersunlit kingdoms, closer to the Life-Current.

Very friendly people, tall as young trees and fair. They miss the stars, but can no longer venture above to dance in the light of their kinsmen in distant nebulae because the radio waves that suffuse the air above will poison their spirits and degenerate their blood, but they hope that someday they will be able to return and reunite with their human friends.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that their very memory has been profaned into sex-obsessed idolatry, hopefully we will have eliminated that problem by the time the world is healed.

>>96279453
Nobody cares about that kind of pedantry.

>>96262105
I admit I'm a brainlet, but is it really that obvious how the sword achieved its place as the iconic, heroic weapon? Did I just manage to be such a smooth brain that when everyone else got clued in that I missed the moment when my generation got the "okay lads, here's why swords are the it weapon" talk?

>>96261941 (OP)
most writers are human

>>96261941 (OP)
creating an uneven or disadvantaged position for humanity both takes work and disappoint/frustrates the average prole, so it's less feasible from a fantasy standpoint

>>96270552
>AI sloppa assumes everybody who thinks his slop is ugly is an artist
No, we just have eyes.

>>96268264
>Maybe it's not something direly wrong going on in you, but there's something going on in there.
Yes, it's called thinking. You can't even imagine an apple.

>>96270552
>OK ill regenerate another image out of the infinite instant options at my fingertips, you are definitely not replaceable artistkun
Ok. Let's see it. Where's your updated image?
I'm not an artist, by the way. You seem really defensive and sensitive about your use of generative AI, anon. Why are you so anxious to attack others in defense of your use of AI?

>>96271671
>I'm not talking about the elephants, retard elephant obsessed faggot.
NTA, but you gave this source: https://afan.ottenheimer.com/articles/myth_of_persistent_hunting

In that source, he states:
>Thanks to GPS, we can tag animals and see how they roam about on an average day:
>Elephants will travel close to 500 km looking for water

He links a source - https://elephantaidinternational.org/elephant-facts/ - which says:
>Elephants are built to move walking tens of miles a day. They will walk more than 300 miles to get to water. African savannah elephants walk for 4 months every year, walking at dusk when temperatures are cooler.
>
>Unlike horses who have three gaits, elephants have only one and can reach top speeds of 15 miles per hour.
The elephant would have to walk for 20 hours straight to hit 300 miles in a day; clearly, that is not the intent of the source. He is simply misreading his sources. If he can't master this basic understanding of his cited material, I can't trust him anywhere else.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because we're good at two things: fighting and fucking. Logically, if you fight and fuck all your neighbors, you're going to propagate your species far and wide.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because elven and beast races are degenerates deserving of cleansing.
Human supremacy is the only hope for the future.

>>96287135
lol lmao

>>96287135
>>96287151
>wrests control of the world from the gods and gives it to humanity
>humanity then goes and turns the world into an utter shithole apocalypse that destroys all the other races, and utterly destroys what was considered the golden age of the world, and all the wonders and technology of the age never ever come back and are lost forever by man's hubris

>>96261941 (OP)
I feel like elves are depicted as dominant far more

>>96270552
>OK ill regenerate another image out of the infinite instant options at my fingertips, you are definitely not replaceable artistkun

It still going to look bad anon.

Side note I live how we simultaneously have people who hate all modern fantasy art because of how generic it looks and now a new subculture of people going "WOAH I can have INFINITE generic modern fantasy art that's even lower quality?????"

>>96261974
stfu and remember the masquerade

>>96261941 (OP)
His hands can't hold a sword like that

>>96287223
Elves are often an old fallen empire or just an TALL empire more than currently in control and all.

>>96287202
better to shit the bed than share it, that's our motto

>>96287243
I don't want to pay an artist to make "generic fighter with longsword" art. AI can do that for free.

>>96290250
Yes, of course you don't want to. You lack something critical inside you that allows you to look at a picture and say "that picture is ugly," and this absence causes you to inflict your ugly AI slop on the rest of us, and then get angry and upset when we say "please, stop posting your ugly AI slop." We know. Everyone constantly tells you that it's ugly as shit and to stop posting it and to do literally anything else, because we are well aware you are not capable of recognizing beauty on your own. You are envious of those with this basic capacity.

Like Morgoth, you corrupt beautiful things into ugly, shitty things because of your low character, but at least Morgoth could tell that orcs were worse than elves, whereas you show off the ugly final product of your AI and demand to be praised and feted for assaulting everyone else's eyes.

>>96261941 (OP)
>Humans are the dominant race or at worst they're a decaying Empire past its prime
>They're skill monkeys and can adapt to any situation
>They beat other races in sheer population number because they reproduce like crazy
>No special traits, just good all around

I hate these tropes.

>>96261941 (OP)
most fantasy is written by humans

Okay, now I'm curious to know if there's a truly misanthropic or outright nihilistic fictional setting out there. Even grimdark settings have a bit of hope in them.

>>96290338
>You lack something critical inside you that allows you to look at a picture and say "that picture is ugly,"
NTA but it looks fine. Pretty good actually.
>T. someone who actually makes money off of actually drawing their own art
Get bent faggot.

>you corrupt beautiful things into ugly, shitty things because of your low character,
Lol, imagine thinking chris-chan's dogshit looks better than OP's image. You're the one who has no artistic sense.

>>96272457
But that's perfectly reasonable for two reasons. One, being that long lived races who breed at the same rate as humans will overpopulate like crazy. Two, it gives flavour to the non-human races that emphasizes the mysterious nature of an unknown and magical world. I think that non human races with perspectives and psychologies different from ours are compelling, but it's also more than acceptable for most fantasy stories to mostly focus on humans. Elves and dwarves evolving from different apes or whatever isn't a concept worth exploring more than once, and reusing elves and dwarves for the umpteenth time grows increasingly tiresome.
>>96271176
What the fuck is a fantasy human?

>>96291277
sure there are. In the Corum books humanity fucked up the world, killed and tortured the much superior and wiser and nicer older races because we're mad rabid dogs that only know destruction and rape. In the Amber series most humans are half projections of the world with barely any identity, NPCs for the sons of god to play with.

But I think that putting the main character in a position above humans and resenting them is seen as cringe now a days, a bit of a school-shooter-core vibe.

>>96290338
I agree there is a factor similar to a child with cognitive disabilities lashing out in frustration when pushed to confront them. But I think the main issue is that they don't experience things all that much. They look at a picture, get a general contour and detect some elements, and move on. They interact with art the same way they interact with a 6/10 thot on instagram, they vaguely care and maybe like it before moving on in under 10 seconds. And it's fine, it's not part of their lives, same way cooking or excercising is not part of everyone's lives. But some of them go to AI to show the world their vision, and it's the vision of someone who doesn't even like that thing. They don't get it's inferior because everything looks that bad to them, they don't catch issues because they never pay more than a glance, they promote boring pictures because all images are boring too them.

It's like gym bros eating chicken with no seassonings three times a day to max their gains, they don't care for flavor and probably never did.

>>96297249
I think the schism is that medieval humans wouldn't have high birthrates PERIOD because they don't have access to medicine and proper sanitation. Therefore, you have to kneecap the longlived (yet still strikingly behaviorally human) races giving excuses why there isn't a current IRL global population of them, since they've had untold millennia to discover germ theory and/or make magic that works in place of modern medicine.
But when you really lean into elves/dwarves having completely inhuman perspectives on things, they stop being interesting and are basically just little more than ambiguous nature spirits again.

>>96289731
Amber Heard...??? Is that you??

>>96297249
>What the fuck is a fantasy human?
Humans in fantasy usually, upon closer examination are just superficially human. Like, inexplicably unlike real life women are powerful and humanity isn't held down by half our population being ineffective in combat. Human breeding usually outstripping what should be possible in such a setting, plot armor, being able to stand toe to toe with stuff far stronger, faster, or smarter than us, etc. Humans in fantasy can function like shonen/isekai protagonists on a racial level and jump power levels on demand while feigning weakness/normality.

>>96297115
>Lol, imagine thinking chris-chan's dogshit looks better than OP's image. You're the one who has no artistic sense.
Wow, yeah, that's the comparison here, to Chris-chan's art. I bet that the AI was trained on Chris-chan's art. If it had good people to learn from, then it would draw good.

No point in engaging with the rest of your post when you're so obviously bad faith with this line.

>>96297659
This is all heroic fiction, and the embelishment is the intent. Exageration is not inherently falsehood, and in the best cases can be illuminating. Not to be relegated to the hyper or melodramatic genres, even "realistic" works through the years have varied greatly in what counts for a really "human" character, as our ideologies and expectations transform, and writing in all cases reduces whole lives and whole events to a few snippets of text.
>96297385
I'm fairly certain they did have rather high birthrates, albeit high infant mortality rates which would offset it. But 1000 year old elves popping out offspring every year would quickly strip the environment dry, without some convoluted justification. No I thinklow fertility and extreme longevity are quite sensible.
>Too inhuman reverts them to nature spirits
I'd honestly welcome this.

>>96300587
>I'm fairly certain they did have rather high birthrates, albeit high infant mortality rates which would offset it. But 1000 year old elves popping out offspring every year would quickly strip the environment dry, without some convoluted justification. No I thinklow fertility and extreme longevity are quite sensible.
All real human cultures in the Malthusian periods of our history engaged in some intentional policy to maintain low birth rates, whether it was hunter-gatherer women breastfeeding their kids until they were four, northwestern Europeans delaying marriage to their twenties, sending your excess adult children to die in the demographic black hole of the cities, or widespread infanticide in Rome, China, and Japan.

The actual problem of 1,000 year old elves is that humans, prior to modernity, almost never died of "old age". If we were biologically immortal, life expectancy in the middle ages would be barely above its historical level, and most of that would be widened healthspan so a 40yo veteran doesn't get ganked by a younger, fitter warrior.

>humans breed a lot thats why they are dominant
>woman soldiers, guards, thieves, wizards and queens are as common as their male counterparts
>players never encounter a pregnant woman
>players never interact with children
>half the population is some kind of faggot queer
Hate this shit

>>96261941 (OP)
Gygax originally wrote human effective supremacy to encourage people to play normal humans, and made them viable enough to be so.

>>96300685
>intentional policy to maintain low birth rates
Interesting. Would you direct me to a resource on that? I've only read that China (and I'm sure other high population regions in the ancient world) made extensive, yet largely ineffective, efforts to curb growth.
>problem of old elves is that humans ... never died of "old age"
Well that's where I think a major difference between almost any variation of elves and any historically informed depiction of humanity differ. Elves are not prone to disease and internal conflict the same way we are. Of course, they could be in someone's world building project, but that is rather atypical.

>>96303720
Elves typically aren't "prone to disease and internal conflict" because it's pretty much a given that they have a better developed society along the lines of what >>96297385 was talking about. They're almost always depicted as a monoculture where nearly all of their greatest tragedies are still in the living memory of said culture.

Long-lived Elves don't really make any sense without all the narrative excuses needed to make them a "playable" race. They definitely should be inhuman nature spirits if you make them beings with millennia long lifespans who no not the touch of disease or discord. Otherwise, you have to come up with excuse after excuse for why they've maintained Rome circa 180AD for 10,000 years instead of actually advancing anything or conquering the entire planet.

>>96303441
This has more to do with his Conan-boner than anything else. Same why playing an elf was the only way to be an effective spellcaster, since he didn't believe that Gandalf should ever be able to one-up Conan.

>>96261941 (OP)
Because man is the measure of all things, anon.

>>96305073
IIRC there was genuine concern that people might not play humans, which is pretty silly.

>>96261941 (OP)
Humans includes the Niggapenis.
They are not orcs, and never were.