There are more factors than just individual strength out there. For one thing, Humans are the most numerous race in most D&D worlds; for another, they're ambitious, adaptable, and creative, more so than pretty much any other race out there. And humans breed like rabbits. Even in the real world, humans have a huge population, inhabiting everything except continental ice sheets and the ocean depths. Other races--except possibly for orcs, goblins, and Drow--don't have those sorts of ambitions.
Humans are more likely to have class levels--even NPC classes--than the vast majority of non-Human races, just due to their adaptability and ambition. With orcs and goblins, there's a balance of power between the Humans, who use strategy and stick together and help each other; and orcs/goblins, who are "every creature for themselves" sorts of races. And the Drow are underground creatures who would prefer to exert dominion over each other rather than over the surface world.
Some races aren't numerous enough; some don't have the will to dominate others; some are too Good or too Chaotic to make a go of really taking over the world. So the Humans, weak as they are, simply out-reproduce, out-strategize, or out-cooperate those of their enemies who would kill them.
Remember that violence is really more likely to break out among similar creatures. For example, in our world, if there's a murder, generally both murderer and victim are the same race. So it follows that Orcs make war on Orcs; Drow aginst Drow; et cetera, more often than they go out to kill humans. (Exceptions are "racial enmities" like Elf/Orc, Dwarf/Goblinoid, or Githerazi/Githyanki; and in these, the balance is preserved because both races train to fight the other). Study ecology and you'll learn that most systems tend to come to a balance, sooner or later. Some balances (generally the ones with more species involved) are just better than others.
There are more factors than just individual strength out there. For one thing, Humans are the most numerous race in most D&D worlds; for another, they're ambitious, adaptable, and creative, more so than pretty much any other race out there. And humans breed like rabbits. Even in the real world, humans have a huge population, inhabiting everything except continental ice sheets and the ocean depths. Other races--except possibly for orcs, goblins, and Drow--don't have those sorts of ambitions.
Wrong: Rabbits breed like humans. Why does everyone have it wrong?
Humans being the most numerous race is a bad excuse, for humans don't generally have creator deities or patron deities. And, in most worlds just isn't good enough, what about all the rest?
IRL, there are no competing races.
Humans are more likely to have class levels--even NPC classes--than the vast majority of non-Human races, just due to their adaptability and ambition.
By that logic, elves have more wizard and fighter and ranger and druid levels than anyone else, just because they all very magic and have somewhat martial culture and live in the wilds. Monstrous races, OTOH, would have practically only warriors and PC classes, because they lead such dangerous lives. Not a very good explanation.
Some races aren't numerous enough; some don't have the will to dominate others; some are too Good or too Chaotic to make a go of really taking over the world. So the Humans, weak as they are, simply out-reproduce, out-strategize, or out-cooperate those of their enemies who would kill them.
Goblins breed like humans, are just as intelligent, occasionally have will to co-operate, and certainly aren't more good or chaotic than humans.
Remember that violence is really more likely to break out among similar creatures.
Exactly. Humans will slay each other just as eagerly as others slay themselves, only uniting against common threads. If they are detected early, as goblins often are not.
Likewise, the savage races (orcs, goblins etc) do have mostly warriors and adepts , rather than commoners and nobles. They wont usually have PC class levels because, just like humans, its usually the above average members that do. Most humans are commoners and experts after all.
Goblins may indeed be almost as intelligent as humans and nearly as cooperative. They are also, however, much more evil. And being evil usually means that treachery and violence is more prevalent among the goblinoids than among humans. sure, they dont all slaughter each other constantly (more's the pity
) but the amount of backstabbing that does go on pretty much puts paid to any racial ambitions. Just like, yes, most human murders are between humans. However, the instances of such things occurring are fewer than similar occurrences among the evil races of the world.Reason
Principia Infecta
Some have uses for them even if they don't need them - use them as slaves, or such. They might kill them if it was better then their current set up BUT the way things have been for a while they just don't have a reason too. Certain evil races would gladly kill humans off if it wasn't an large investment of time or energy, but aren't the type to make it a large on going project. Examples might be Evil Dragons. Others are good or neutral and those creatures simply don't kill of other races. I will even go out on a limb and say good races wouldn't allow genocide to take place, if they have a decent chance to stop it.
If I am not mistaken this varies with setting? In FR humans where one of the first 5 races and had time to get set up before others arrived. Council of Wyrms didn't even have humans in 2nd. I'm not aware of if/how it has been updated.
I think another important point is that even if all the humans in an area are killed that doesn't mean they are as a breeding population are dead. If a dragon get mad, and burns down a village to the ground are most of them going to take the time to hunt down and kill every villager who runs away? Sure they might get 95% BUT I think it would safe to say a few will get away, live in other places and breed.
Evil creatures do not cooperate as well as Neutral or Good creatures, simply because their fellow beings are always a threat, no matter the threat from the outside that faces them all.
Heard of Nazi Germany? I hear they cooperated quite nicely, so LE is cooperative. And even evil races are people, and people always put xenophobia before anything else. Evil races even more than neutral or good, one could presume. Xill, for example, are described as extremely xenophobic.
[Regdar's note: Although the example is a relevant one, please do not use the reference to Nazis as a segue to a discussion of them. They will not be approved.]
The one thing that the GOOD races have going for themselves is cooperation. The humans and elves and dwarves may not always get along, but they can build longer and more stable alliances than the evil creatures.
Traditionally, evil races are portrayed as short sighted, and good races as long-sighted. It is this long-term view that usually works for the good peoples. However, the occasional baddie does come along who also has a good long-haul view, like Sauron, and that can result in some unbelievable badness.
But I think the real reason that humans dominate is that when there is a need, heroes rise up among them and turn the tide. That's the way of heroic fantasy.
Simple , really :D
Traditionally, evil races are portrayed as short sighted, and good races as long-sighted. It is this long-term view that usually works for the good peoples. However, the occasional baddie does come along who also has a good long-haul view, like Sauron, and that can result in some unbelievable badness.
Which has no basis in any game mechanics. Or anything else, really. The only reason evil is portrayed as short-sighted is to give good any chance of winning.
But I think the real reason that humans dominate is that when there is a need, heroes rise up among them and turn the tide. That's the way of heroic fantasy.
And why would others not do that? Other races, I mean.
Evil races are an invented product of the game. Even in barbaric societies where 'kill or be killed' is the rule, Neutral would still be the average alignment. If 'kill or be killed' is the what society dictates, then neutral people would go with the flow.
So, the idea that goblins aren't as prolific as humans because they are evil is simply a justification for their arbitrary status and alignment in the game. chaotic vs. Lawful is another matter. Lawfuls are more likely to work together than chaotics, which would account for higher survivability and greater technological and magical progress.
Not to discuss a certain German political party in depth, but most Germans would not be considered evil. Many were Lawful to an extreme, but not necessarily evil. Likewise, powerful goblin leaders might be evil (helping them rise to power through terror and brute force), but that doesn't mean the goblin patrol you encounter in the woods is anything other than a bunch of conscripts who pulled the short straw for dawn patrol.
Now, as to in-game speculation regarding why more powerful races haven't killed them off...why haven't we killed off all urban cockroaches in the real world? They certainly are a nuisance, and many people are disgusted by them.
They breed, they hide, they live where we aren't willing to live, they feed on our garbage, they can survive for a week after their heads are cut off, they adapt to our pesticides.
Humans are like cockroaches compared to dragons, giants, titans or whatever powerful race you would care to name. They have an optimized life span that allows them to breed quickly while still maintaining a large enough adult population to pass on knowledge to the next generation, they are at least as intelligent as any other standard race.
Compare that to Elves - just as intelligent, but it takes decades for them to reach puberty. Thy live longer, but are killed just as easily, so in chaotic times, they can't replenish their populations as quickly.
If Dragons were as populous as Humans, they would quickly run into food shortages - a dragon requires a tremendous amount of food to survive.
Given the way the game is written, Humans are simply an optimal race.
Traditionally, evil races are portrayed as short sighted, and good races as long-sighted. It is this long-term view that usually works for the good peoples. However, the occasional baddie does come along who also has a good long-haul view, like Sauron, and that can result in some unbelievable badness.
I think the term Evil is being confused more on the Chaotic v Lawful aspects of alignment. Chaotic people tend to be individualistic and less against society. As such, they work together less. Lawful people respect society and the laws created by such - in turn working together to help one another. It has very little to do with Good or Evil, which are more about Moral Codes and less about Organization - in my mind.
Most "Classic" literature has a villain who has a very long-term goal. Sauron is a great example, as you mentioned before. The Emperor from Star Wars is another, having manipulated the galaxy; only being caught before its too late. The majority of "evil villains" out there have long-term goals, especially in what is considered to be recognized literature.
However, there is always the element of Fantasy in most D&D games. The reason so many creatures are evil and of high CR ratings is simply because D&D is designed for people to be of the Good Alignments, and need challenges so they may level up and gain experience. Somewhat hard to just bite the bullet and accept that, but it is the underlying principle of game mechanics at work.
But, to help justify such a problem as to why humans haven't been wiped off the face of the planet yet, take a look at some of the other traits such as Intelligence and Wisdom. Some evil races have low Intel and Wisdom on the average, with every once in a great while a person rising up to lead them. Orcs are a perfect example: Classically evil, penalties to Intelligence and Charisma preventing thinkers and natural leaders to emerge. Sure, every so often someone rising ABOVE the commoner/warrior NPC class (who generally have base stats for their race) comes along and unites them in a Orcish Holy (or Unholy) War. This is why movies, books, TV shows, etc.. have MAIN villains - someone who isn't the red ensign.
With creatures more powerful than standard races (such as Giants, Dragons, Titans, etc), these creatures are suppose to be very few and far between. A better question maybe why wouldn't a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon kill the Tarassque (sp?) when it emerges from its slumber. A Great Wyrm Gold Dragon is one of the most powerful (CR wise) creatures in the standard MM without any templates. Wouldn't a world with just a few of these beats be perfectly good, since they've gone around wiping out everything evil, since practically nothing can meet its match? As it was mentioned before - a stasis arrives in the system. A Good Dragon is about to wipe out all evil, and that's when the Champion of Evil appears to kill the dragon and wipe out good. Giants about to raze every human city to the ground? Here comes the Human Heroes, possibly aligned with every other lesser race (Elves, Gnomes, Halflings, Orcs, Dwarves, etc...) because if humans are wiped off by Giants - what's to say that the Giants won't come after them?
An entirely different explanation could easily be the use of spells. High level Cleric can cast Miracle, asking his GOD to INTERVENE in the War and make sure that Humans survive. One person, casting one spell (of course...it being 9th level.) If that God sees it fit, it'll possibly send a Solar or two to help the tide of battle. With high-powered spells, it's easy to see how a "puny" race was able to survive for so long.
My question is: Why do elves exist? And I don’t mean elves like drow that kill each other on a daily base but get offspring only once every 30-50 years.
I mean all elves. Okay, they could probably survive on there own. With the long life expectancy, it should not matter, that a female elf usually only gets one child in 100 years. Or does it? It becomes a great problem, if you put Orcs into the same area. And Orcs and Elves start war.
With some trying, the female elves will get pregnant within 20-30 years, One or two years more and they have the baby. A hundred years, or more, later, this elf is ready to serve as a 1st level warrior/wizard/whatever.
So in 120 years two elves get a third. Say in times of war, youth are needed, this is an additional child, in addition to those that compensate those elders that die of age.
That means an elven population can grow to 150% within 120 years, if it needs to.
On the other hand we have orcs. One generation is about 15-16 years. So in 120 years they have about 8 generations. Say, they could triple in size every generation, this would make 3^8=6561 times as much orcs in 120 years.
6561 vs. ½. Looks bad for the elves. :D Of course, the orcs will not wait this 120 years. There is no way to get enough foot for that much orcs. They will probably attack once every 15-25 years, With about 1 or 2 warriors for every elf (combatant or not). This produces an enemy, so that the orcs don’t attack each other, else take lawful evil hobgoblins. It also provides weapons and such. And even if, by any mystery, the elven civilization survive the first wave, it will definitely kill some of the warriors and a lot of women and children (orcs do such evil things). And 20 years later a new generation of orcs will attack the wounded elves. There is no way the elves could even stand 100 years against the fast breeding, evil orcs.
There are more factors than just individual strength out there. For one thing, Humans are the most numerous race in most D&D worlds;
Isn't that Kobolds?
Wait...
ARG!! THE WORLD LEADERS ARE ALL KOBOLDS!
No really, it's all level adjustment man.
Goblins are disorganized. Their crude language is tactically oriented and not really any good for long-term planning. They do not build, a trait unique to more Humanoid creatures. Their weapon creation skills rarely exceed tearing a limb off a tree and beating you to death with it. Not to mention that their size (Same as halflings) makes even the most rudimentary of defenses incredibly effective against them. They are weak and relate poorly to each other. Human ingenuity will crush tem before they can blink.
Elves would have a chance, if they weren't all tree-hugging hippies. They embrace nature, and only live in forests. Conveniently, Humans do not live in forests. Elves have no reason to come after us.
Dwarves could want to do us in, for our treasures and whatnot. In fact, if a race were to run the world and not be human, it would be Dwarves. Dwarves construct the most ingenious weapons ever (I believe they are credited with the Catapult in most areas of the multiverse) but feel no malicious intent. They live underground peacefully and mine. Humans represent an economic opportunity for them. Not only that but they live with Humans often, and can interbreed. I think that factor stops the heinous murder as well.
Orcs are dumb. No, seriously, they get Int scores of 8 by default and wis of 7. It takes organization to overcome humanity, and they just don't have it.
Dragons need us. They can't mint treasure alone, and were it not for treasure, where would they sleep? Not to mention, we're ant-sized to them. So here comes the question: Why haven't we killed all the ants?
Actually, i think humans haven't been killed by powerfull races because many points, first, since they're all so weak (at least generally spealing) they had to form alliances in the early ages, those alliances tend to survive for many reason, be it tradition or convinience or true friendship. Together, humans can grow more powerful in time. Besides, pretty much ALL humans cooperate with ne another if the rigth motivation is given (money). Humans are the most money driven race of all, beign money the number one motivation in all of their activities.
Thinking like a powerful race, i'll say that killing all the humans is just to much work for so litlle gain. Besides, beign at war with such a massive quantity of meat shields would take a lot of time and resources, thus becoming easy for another powerful race to come and kill us all.
The only thing that would eventually kill all humans (fantasy and real world alike) are humans themselves.
And a very big comet
Like Gilean showed, Lawful Evil can cooperate nicely. And evil doesn't necessarily mean chaotic mass murderer. A race which wants to kill all other races on the world but live in harmony with each other is still evil. So, just look at hobgoblins. In nearly all ways they are better than humans. Why don't they have kingdoms? Because hobgoblins are monster and no traditional PC races.
Why do elves still exist and have great kingdoms despite being even more rare than dragons and a walking target for anything evil? Because they had great kingdoms since Tolkien.
*I subconsciously began to write 'famil...' before I stopped myself
Plus "The best and worst are found in humanity." Blackguards aid the fiends, making humanity their friend, while Paladins aid the celestials, making humanity their friend. Humanity is not one unified force. No one has a reason to kill all humans, because chances are that some of the humans are friends with them.
The real questions here are "Why haven't the more powerful races wiped humans out?" "Why do humans have the biggest cities?" and "Why among the most common races are humans the ones holding the most power?"
To answer the last question first, SHUT UP!! (Just kidding, a dollar to anyone who recognizes that quote.) Seriously, humans are the power holders among the common races for a few reasons. First, they are probably the most ambitious. This is actually reasonable since they don't live as long as other beings. Thusly, humans have a short time to make their mark on the world and attempt to with all their might. Not only are humans ambitious, but they are also not as bound to goodness as the other races. They run the gamut from good to evil. Halflings are the same way, but aren't as ambitious (although arguably more adventurous, which may explain why they are the second most numerous race.)
Why do humans have the biggest cities? Well for one thing, ambition plays a role. Also, humans are very social and desire and need other people. Humans get along better with other races than any other, and I suspect get along with themselves better than most races on a personal level. Humans may wage war, but they also are very patriotic (to the point of blindness). Humans also have taken little bits and pieces from other races to help themselves. Humans also, as mentioned before, are willing to be amoral, but on the whole attempt to be moral and work together. Not only are they amoral sometimes, but even moral people tend to forget and leave things in the past. Humans move on.
Finally, why haven't they been wiped out? Well as a race, humans may be able to be wiped out if not scattered to the wind by a powerful race such as mind flayers or the goblin hordes on a number to number scale. However, the other race or races would have to be unified in purpose to wipe them out, and among the evil races, unification is at best short term, and even then it wouldn't be long enough to exterminate humans. Secondly, humans are adaptable, and even if scattered would reunify in a couple hundred years anyway. Also, VERY importantly, humans have allies. You think the dwarves and elves would sit idly by while an entire race which they have diplomatic relations with is being attacked nonstop? Lastly, humans do outnumber most other races anyway, and in sheer numbers could take on races such as mind flayers.
Summary:
Most of these have already been touched upon but human dominance, using real world historical models, would be based on four things:
1) Good geography that allows for access to resources and new ideas.
2) A technological edge that allows humans to either have an edge or maintain the status quo with their neighbors.
3) A high birthrate and the means to turn it into stable population growth.
4) Enough competitive pressure that they’re forced to adapt to better technologies and ideas as they come along.
So, in answer to the question: Why haven’t the more powerful races killed all the humans? It’s because all of the other races are lacking in at least one area necessary for true long-term dominance, whereas humans have all four evolutionary factors currently working in their favor. That has allowed humans, on the whole, to become the most powerful race in the D&D world.
Long answer with examples:
The answer to the question of “Why powerful races haven’t killed all the humans” lies in the way the races are set up. You could just as easily ask “Why did the Industrial Revolution start in Europe and not someplace else?”
The answer is luck, since there are several factors that play into the ability to one race/nation ultimately to “dominate” others and no one really selects for it.
1) Geography. A people must have geography favorable enough to their existence that they can have whatever resources they need with some work. This allows them to rise above subsistence levels of existence, with some work, but doesn’t make things so easy that they fall into complacency.
Ex. Because of a “favorable geography” that allowed for trade Europeans were able to take advantage of horses and domesticated wheat, both of which came out of Asia, within a few hundred years of their “invention.”
2) Technology. A society must be have access to new ideas and advancements, whether they originate internally or are brought back from other places, and then have the resources necessary to take advantage of those changes.
Ex. The domestication of the horse, the invention of the stirrup, and the domestication of wheat all offered significant technological advantage to those peoples able to take advantage of such things, giving them both military and social advantages over those peoples who were unable to use such innovations, such as the people of Southern Africa. (Since it’s close to a thousand miles from where wheat can be grown in Northern Africa to where it can again be grown in Southern Africa.)
3) Birthrates. A society must be stable enough and have sufficient technological advances, such as domesticated wheat, to allow its people a stable food supply. The fewer people necessary to feed an existing population the more specialization that can occur, speeding innovations, thereby raising the standard of living which, in turn, allows for higher birthrates and faster growing populations. The faster a population grows the greater the need for expansion and the more they’re able to assimilate smaller societies.
Ex. The inevitable absorption of nomadic societies into agrarian societies as “civilization” expanded in all parts of the world.
4) Competition. A culture blessed with good geography, good technology and higher birthrates could still lose out if there was insufficient pressure to force them to consistently test new ideas and adopt new technologies to survive.
Ex. China, which was undergoing a cultural renaissance while Europe was still in the “Dark Ages”, eventually stagnated when it became so centralized internally and had no truly threatening enemies externally, that unfavorable technologies, such as gunpowder, could simply be outlawed, or limited by law in their uses. Europe, however, had enough competing nations, with close enough parity in power, that a nation could only ignore a new technology at its own peril.
How does this apply to fantasy worlds and humans?
1) Geography. Humans can, and typically do, live anywhere they can scrape out a living. Simply because they tend to settle in so many climates geography naturally works in their favor as those human communities living in areas with “good geography” tend to flourish, expanding further into those areas most favorable to them, thus giving them an advantage.
a. Those races that either by choice, like elves, or bad luck, like orcs, only live in one basic kind of geographic area are less likely to be able to hear about new ideas and then have the resources, or desire, to exploit them.
2) Technology. Humans, because of their natural lust for power, medium intelligence, and short lifespan are quick to experiment with new technologies, including magic, adopting what will work and discarding what doesn’t. Those human societies that don’t are often quick to fall to those that do.
a. Powerful races/nations/people are often slow to adopt new technologies because they feel secure in their dominance, and most people only change when they have to in order to survive. Besides, why should a dragon, or a giant, learn to use a magic sword (Who wants to spend the feat on that?) when their claws, or a huge boulder, seem to work just as well.
b. Races with longer life spans will get tired of adapting to what seems to be the continual changes in the other cultures. As an elf, you’ve probably seen seven different styles of human swords come and go in fashion during the time you were growing up. The next new design may actually be better, but where humans will take it up in a matter of months it could be decades, maybe even centuries, before its common among elves.
c. Some creatures, even if they had the resources, don’t have the means to exploit them. The naturally low intelligence of orcs means they’ll forever be confined to stealing most existing technologies, never mind creating new ones. And, hobgoblins could field an army large enough to threaten human dominance, given a few generations, but that would require a major culture shift towards a more agrarian society so that they could train specialists to equip and feed the large numbers of soldiers that such an undertaking would require.
3) Birthrates. Humans, it has been argued, have an optimal birthrate. Whether that's true or not, because humans reproduce so much faster then most other races they have to expand faster to keep up with pressures resulting from growth. In addition, they have the technological innovations to make such expansions relatively stable.
a. Races with slower birthrates, such as elves, dwarves, dragons, et cetera, have less need to expand as quickly and casualties cost them a lot more, so are less inclined to go to war. And when they do the cost of losing one individual is higher since it takes longer to recover. Assuming one dragon is equal in power to 1,000 humans, anytime less then 1,000 human lives are lost in slaying a dragon the humans come off the winners. Same for elves and orcs, a battle the elves are doomed to lose.
b. Races with faster birthrates, such as orcs, goblins, hobgoblins and kobolds should dominate the world, all things being equal, but typically they lack other necessary components, such as fertile farmland (Geography), good grains (technology) or metal plows (technology) that allow for stable expansions. Further, most humanoids, including hobgoblins, seem to pillage, burn, and then move on, but a stable expansion requires reclaiming the conquered lands and putting it back to productive use, something most humanoids don’t seem to have the patience for.
4) Competition. Humans excel here because their societies tend to be stable enough that people can specialize in a task, yet chaotic enough that a new idea can be offered up and compete with other ideas. (Assuming you're not using a historically accurate medieval European guild model.) Thus, the tendency of humanity to have individuals who fall all along the alignment spectrum actually works in their favor, by creating both internal pressure, with competing ideas and belief systems, and external pressure, as they compete with others, humans and non-humans alike, for dominance in trade, military power, et cetera. This competition that rests at the heart of humanity forces them to continually compete to survive.
a. Some races that seem to hold up on the other three factors fall apart here. Ex. Mind Flayers should dominate everything but in a society as powerful, ordered and isolated as theirs no threat is great enough to make them feel insecure, so there is no impetus to spur them into a continuous cycle of innovation. i.e. without an ever-present threat they've grown lazy and complacent. And, since most races prefer to avoid them, and most Mind Flayers seem content to live their lives of ease, this is unlikely to change in the near future. (I smell a campaign idea in there somewhere.)
Thus, humanity is dominant because all four evolutionary factors necessary for such dominance, whether by chance or choice, happen to favor humans, while all the other races are lacking in at least one significant area. (And missing out on that coveted bonus feat as well. ;) )
**Some ideas for this post taken from Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond**
And why would others not do that? Other races, I mean.
Why wouldn't other races have heroes rise up? They might, but that isn't the genre of D&D. So you need to suspend logic a bit and just accept that this is the genre. Don't let an explanation stand in the way of a good story. Many storytellers say, "All these stories are true, and some of them actually happened."
Why aren't the orcs all wiped out by humans? Why haven't all the dragons been killed? Why haven't humans been wiped out? Well, the easiest reason is because it hasn't happened yet. Everybody's trying.
How about this: all those humanoids get great heroes, but when they get past 4-5th level, humans don't provide enough XP, so they start killing ogres, giants, and good dragons instead, as they give better XP.
They create architectural wonders, and then others come along and marvel at these deeds (even if they can't fathom HOW the deed was accomplished). Human's ability to acquire knowledge is, in some cases, just slightly faster than their ability to lose or forsake knowledge. They HAVE to stick their noses into everything and ferret the reason (or wonder) of it out.
In every generation, there are those who impose a goal on themselves to accomplish something. Humans are hard-headed, ingenious, adaptable, pragmatic, versatile, and every so often raise their eyes above the workaday world to look beyond the horizon.
Now, some will argue that most people are not this way (except for the hard-headedness), and I agree. But those humans who believe in something, who do something about it, and who make their will happen, attract those who would be doing something anyway to their cause.
Humans are also opportunists. They may see opportunity in varying scopes, but they tend to have that trait in common. That is why they congregate to cities, why they follow strong leadership, why they endeavor in all manner of projects an all manner of places and with all manner of attitudes.
And attitude is everything, right?
Go read about the monkeysphere.
While D&D does not (always) assume evolution, as a point of fact all humanoids are tribal. This extends even to creatures who aren't technically humanoids: giants are a good example.
For tribal beings like ourselves, making large, dominant societies (and the governments/armies/royalty/religions to go with them) is not natural. It takes some kind of pressure to make them. That pressure is difficult to get with extreme behavior along any moral spectrum.
Societies that are tribal at their core need to be formed by beings who are not actively trying to betray, backstab, rob from, and murder their fellow citizens at the earliest opportunity. Evil races tend to do that a lot: if the tribal unit isn't stable, the greater society has problems.
Good races have a similar problem of extremes. Civil progress tends to involve some kind of economic pressure, and that pressure requires that people sometimes do bad, or at least selfish, things. Good races tend to adopt concepts like closed economies and population control, which explains their often-small sized. The tribal unit feels no pressure, so its members don't leave or try to improve their lives, except for notable heroic exceptions.
Really, the further you get away from a moral centerpoint, the less likely you are to have a dominant society. Humans, as a rule, are very good at hitting that centerpoint, so all worldbuilders subconsciously make them dominant.
If you want to start playing with fantasy concepts, try incorporating the few types that are anti-tribal and see what kind of societies they build: Ebberon started doing this with Argonessen (dragons) and Sarlona (Inspired), which are probably waiting to develop, in addition to altering racial alignments (Darguun) or creating unconventional 'monster nations' (Droaam). Fey, Hive-minded creatures, Constructs, Dragons, Mind Flayers, and Slaad readily spring to mind as good races to incorporate.
Heard of Nazi Germany? I hear they cooperated quite nicely,
No. Those with power were simply very effective at keeping most of the "sheeple" happily ignorant. Meanwhile, they were encouraging children, vie the mandatory membership youth organisations, to report "inappropriate" behavior, speech, etc on the part of their own parents. Orwell didn't make that one up for 1984, he borrowed it from the Nazi's.
IMO, that's more demonstrative of control, not cooperation. I'm not trying to open a discussion on the Nazis, just counter the one example that was used. I've said my piece, and that's all I'll say on the matter.
so LE is cooperative.
Only in the sense that outside-the-rules behavior is less obvious, because a victory you can't color as "legitimate" within the rules/Law isn't a victory worth having.
And even evil races are people, and people always put xenophobia before anything else.
Humans behave thusly. Not all races need be identical on that front.
The Orcs (who seem the example here) are given a favoring of barbarian. That means that when the war gets started the humans can wait in armies with multiclass support. As the orcish barbarians tumble at them they can fire a plethora of magic missiles, fireballs and other magicla attacks. Not to mention conventional arrows and slings. And when they reach the line of battle they will reach a wall of numerous, well-armed, cooperative (the Law vs Chaos discussion) and capable warriors. The humans also have the inventiveness to fight with newly made weapons from their experts such as catapults and stored magical effects, necklace of fireballs. And when it comes time to carry the war back to the orcs they are still able to benefit from class diversity. They will have great rangers to scout it out, great paladins for cavalry raids and damn fine rogues to assassinate the leaders and generals.
When finally the battle lands on the doorstep of the orcs, the talents of the humans will give them victory. But that isn't the end of the human advantage. Their long collective memory means that they will remember orcs as enemies for a long time to come. They will watch for new advances in orcish strength. Their ambition also insures that they are always pressing against the enemies who don't even expect them yet.
My thesis is that the only races that would have the ability to be as dominating and strong as the humans, and to take their throne, is half-elves. Assuming half-elves have retained their collective memory and ambition from humans, they are destined to fail at world domination. They will have trouble banding together because they are used to being outsiders. Even if should you arbitrarily create a pure half-elf country it will quickly deteriorate. Due to the nature of reproduction they will eventually end up split into 50% half elves 25% elves and 25% humans. Those who have returned to their elven roots will suffer from the elven class handicaps. Those who have returned to human roots will either become the ruling class or leave. Of the two, humans would most likely leave and return to human cities.
Pure-bred humans would set themselves aside and their ambition would lead to their attempt to rule the community. In victory the humans will build egotistical rules. Pure elves may either be exiled or used as slaves. This would leave the half elves as lower class citizens. Eventually you would be left with a human society with elven slaves. If their ambition fails, the humans would leave resulting in a human population.
In conclusion, class diversity is the reason humans ain't dead yet. I have addressed the benefits of this as well as how the only other race with no favored class would eventually fail. I have also discussed how the uniquely human mindset ensures victory.
Thank you for your reading time, and keep up the great debate.
Very well done in my opinion.
1) Geography. A people must have geography favorable enough to their existence that they can have whatever resources they need with some work. This allows them to rise above subsistence levels of existence, with some work, but doesn’t make things so easy that they fall into complacency.
Geography translates to arbitrary decisions. A coincidence that humans were thusly favored by luck, if I ever saw one.
2) Technology. A society must be have access to new ideas and advancements, whether they originate internally or are brought back from other places, and then have the resources necessary to take advantage of those changes.
Resources aren't a factor, for they depend on the game world, and can arbitrarily be assigned to anyone. One thing humans have: Contacts. They have contacts with many, if not all, other races, on one level or another. Would it be so if humans weren't the most common race? This might be a symptom of circular logic. Not entirely.
4) Competition. A culture blessed with good geography, good technology and higher birthrates could still lose out if there was insufficient pressure to force them to consistently test new ideas and adopt new technologies to survive.
This is the point in favor of hostile (evil) cultures. They do a lot of wars. IRL, wars always bring advancements of technology.
c. Some creatures, even if they had the resources, don’t have the means to exploit them. The naturally low intelligence of orcs means they’ll forever be confined to stealing most existing technologies, never mind creating new ones. And, hobgoblins could field an army large enough to threaten human dominance, given a few generations, but that would require a major culture shift towards a more agrarian society so that they could train specialists to equip and feed the large numbers of soldiers that such an undertaking would require.[/QUOTE
Where are your resources of hobgoblin culture? I have always portrayed them as spartan and extremely orderly martial nation.b. Races with faster birthrates, such as orcs, goblins, hobgoblins and kobolds should dominate the world, all things being equal, but typically they lack other necessary components, such as fertile farmland (Geography), good grains (technology) or metal plows (technology) that allow for stable expansions. Further, most humanoids, including hobgoblins, seem to pillage, burn, and then move on, but a stable expansion requires reclaiming the conquered lands and putting it back to productive use, something most humanoids don’t seem to have the patience for.
Hobgoblins are lawful and as smart as humans, so they do know when they have the force to keep the city. If not, it can be burned just as well to slow down return of the previous owner.Thus, humanity is dominant because all four evolutionary factors necessary for such dominance, whether by chance or choice, happen to favor humans, while all the other races are lacking in at least one significant area. (And missing out on that coveted bonus feat as well. ;))
This granted by chance were shameless "we are the best" declaration by designers. Average hobgoblin is better combatant than average human. They are, in fact, quite superior to humans, except for the skill boost.
Aardobard, are you actually saying that humans thrive because they are chaotic? Most points of yours do tell of that. The human society isn't particularly chaotic, nor is it lawful. A mix it is.Really, the further you get away from a moral centerpoint, the less likely you are to have a dominant society. Humans, as a rule, are very good at hitting that centerpoint, so all worldbuilders subconsciously make them dominant.
The worldbuilders are (probably) human, so they unconsciously make humans the dominant race.
Anyway, that is a fairly good theory. Now, remember, all evil characters aren't crusading for their respective alignments, or paragons of it. Some just think that way. Also, not all evil characters are murdering psychopaths. There is the "milder" evil, which most cultures are probably representations of. How long would a culture of pure backstabbing anarchists survive, in any case?IMO, that's more demonstrative of control, not cooperation. I'm not trying to open a discussion on the Nazis, just counter the one example that was used. I've said my piece, and that's all I'll say on the matter.
The control worked in creating an efficient force of war. (The leader wasn't all that sane, in the end at least. But let us not get into that.)And even evil races are people, and people always put xenophobia before anything else.
Humans behave thusly. Not all races need be identical on that front.
An example of LE society could be an extremely xenophobic culture, to the point of slaying all of others, for the good of society, they would say.
True, not all must behave like humans do. However, as our experiences are quite limited on the front of nonhuman behaviour, and aberration creature type says something of completely alien psychology, I'm inclined to think that most evil races have exaggerated "negative" behaviour.
Rogue Newb, PC classes make very small amount of total population. Having something as favored class means that the race in question has more somewhat skilled (low-level) representatives of the class in question. In case of humans, more multiclass characters. According to DMG (by RaW, the only source of any credit, albeit very negative on the matter at hand) around 95% of population is commoners. Average hobgoblin commoner is stealthier, more dextrous and tougher than average human commoner. That's what counts.
The article went on to describe what that would mean in the D&D world. Elves and dragons take a long time to reach sexual maturity which means that their numbers would grow very, very slowly. Kobolds reached sexual maturity quickly, so their numbers grow very quickly. The article went on to describe how that might mean for their respective cultures. Quick lived races would have population pressures and would probably be expansionistic and aggressive - like kobolds/goblins/orcs. The long lived races would have a harder time replacing their numbers so they would be less likely to be expansionistic. Dragons, for all their power, would find out of the way places to live and raise children because the lost of just one egg is a major disaster to the dragon community.
What has any of this to do with why humans aren't wiped out? Humans are somewhat interesting. They breed almost as fast as most of the evil humanoid races, yet are generally more powerful individually than those races due to more people with character classes and so forth. The combination of numbers plus exceptional individuals result in racial power.
In the conflict between humans and creatures that breed faster than them (like evil humanoids), humans rely on better organization, more individuals with class levels and perhaps alliances with dwarves/elves/etc. Of course, if you play in a world where evil humanoids frequently have class levels or are highly organized, you would have to come up with some other justification.
In conflicts between humans and creatures that breed more slowly than they (like dragons) humans can rely on great numbers. In a long-term war between humans and dragons, the dragons might kill 500 humans for every dragon lost and they would still lose the war due to simple biology.
In sum, I don't think that humans can be considered "cockroaches" that live at the whim of more powerful creatures. In most D&D campaigns, the simple growth and talents of humans would quickly put titans, dragons and gods on notice that they are not to be messed with. Granted, this all takes into account "normal" starting conditions. One could certainly envision a world where dragons exist in great numbers and they constantly hunt humans to keep the human's numbers down. But in a "normal" D&D world, I think things are fairly logical.
Also since this Dragon Magazine article appeared, the edition has probably changed and with the new information is isn't so logical anymore. There is no more restriction on character levels and there is no explanation why evil races wouldn't have "heroes" which negates one advantage of humans. And, dragons now breed very fast. That's another advantage gone.
Also human society depends on unlimited resources and many high level casters. Much of their power comes from high level magical items and without a constant supply of sometimes very exotic spell components and materials they have no means to defend themselves against high CR monsters. Also those high CR monsters could collapse a human civilization in no time by attacking the infrastructure of it. Before the high level characters notice that something is wrong and are fully prepared many farms are torched and humans would starve.
Because there is nothing to suggest that humans are the best suited to dominate the gameworld.
It's just that, in this particular setting, humans are more numerous/dominant than anyone else at the time the game is set. That's just the way things worked out. It may well be that humans aren't the strongest, and that some kind of evil race is due to try and take over. That's the plot to many games right there.
I would prefer to avoid any kind of historical-determinist interpretation for why Humans are so common in a gameworld. Blame it on fate, blame it on the gods, blame it on blind luck, but don't just say that humans are 'bound' to emerge as the strongest race, because it spoils the herosim. Mankind hasn't survived because of it's inherent qualities, but because it has been saved by its heroes and champions.
In other words, your character, and your deeds, actually mean something. You could claim that PCs only ever defeat foes technically weaker than themselves, and that technically speaking the world should be run by mindflayers, dragons, or bands of legendary apes. But that is missing the point. The point is that that the PCs should strive against the odds, that mankind should be in danger, and that the PCs should, ultimately, be able to save the day, defy fate, or at the very least make a difference to the outcome.
Almost by definition, a gameworld in which society is under threat should not have the strongest race in charge, but one of the weaker ones. Humans fit fine. If humans are the strongest race, and the natural rulers of the gameworld, then your great threat doesn't mean much...
Also human society depends on unlimited resources and many high level casters. Much of their power comes from high level magical items and without a constant supply of sometimes very exotic spell components and materials they have no means to defend themselves against high CR monsters. Also those high CR monsters could collapse a human civilization in no time by attacking the infrastructure of it. Before the high level characters notice that something is wrong and are fully prepared many farms are torched and humans would starve.
So... Deliciously... Evil... That's going right into my campaign...
In most game worlds, humans are the only race that really uses the benefits of sowing and reaping. Most powerful races eat only meat - or prefer to do so, at least. Now, even if we assume orcs and hobgoblins and gnolls etc. to be owners of huge herds of cattle instead of simple deer hunters, they still have a much less efficient source of food than humanity with its farms. So, even if orcs have more favourable birth rates, they can't feed all their offspring as well as humans can.
Then there is also the aspect of work separation: human farmers specialise in food growing so that other humans may specialise in fighting or spell casting. Therefore, while the average orc beats the average human in power, the mighty knight who owns the plundered human village and his cleric and wizard friends will hunt down the orcish horde and give it a sound beating.
Still, a quite logical solution would be a mixed society: a human country gets conquered by evil humanoids of greater fighting power (say hobgoblins). They replace the human elite and rule the human masses of farmers and workers with their military power. In time, the cultures would merge.
Actually, that´s something that happened more than once in human history. Remember William the Conqueror and his Normans. Or the Turkish Empire, the conquests of the Mongols, etc. In every example, a group of beings with superior individual fighting power conquered numerical superior enemies and ruled them for many centuries.
What has any of this to do with why humans aren't wiped out? Humans are somewhat interesting. They breed almost as fast as most of the evil humanoid races, yet are generally more powerful individually than those races due to more people with character classes and so forth. The combination of numbers plus exceptional individuals result in racial power.
Why do humans have more people with class levels? If anything, it should be less, for the evil and monstrous creatures have more dangerous surroundings.
In the conflict between humans and creatures that breed faster than them (like evil humanoids), humans rely on better organization, more individuals with class levels and perhaps alliances with dwarves/elves/etc. Of course, if you play in a world where evil humanoids frequently have class levels or are highly organized, you would have to come up with some other justification.
Hobgoblins and kobolds are usually lawful. That speaks for stronger organizations than humans have.
And, dragons now breed very fast.
Is that thread gone and forgotten? Anyway, let us not derail this one.
Carpinal Teplin, what if the player characters aren't humans? Other races have just as much heroes as humans do.
Half-elf + half-elf = all babies are half-elves, buddy. QUOTE]
Now here's where it becomes obvious you either haven't taken HS bio or have forgotten it.
Let H=human
Let h= Elf.
Mother
H - h
H HH Hh
h hH hh
Now, If you remember your punnet square this is easier. If you don't...
Okay, Each Half Elf has one chromosome set human, and one elf. Since they are different species the crossing over is minimal. Now the child in the upper left is in fact entirely human. The lower right is entirely elf. The others are half elf.
Ultimately, dominance boils down to the luck. If you change enough of the necessary factors, ie. geography, technology, birthrate, or competition, for any given race they would come to dominate while humans would fall from grace. Ex. Give hobgoblins their own nation and change their alignment spectrum to match humans, or change the birthrate of dragons, or shift the alignment spectrum of elves, up their birthrate, make them just as competitive as humans and your new race will rise to ascendancy.
That said, whatever history/geography should dictate I believe that everything should take a back seat to story. So, ultimately, humans are still alive, or struggle for survival, or are coming into dominance, or dominate, or have fallen into decline while another race looms ascendant, or have been wiped out, because it makes for a better story line and, hopefully, a better campaign.
Specific reply to Gilean:
You're right when you say that geography is arbitrary. If you'll look closely at my reply you'll see that I also say that the biggest factor “is luck, since there are several factors that play into the ability to one race/nation ultimately to ‘dominate’ others and no one really selects for it.” Change the geography of most humanoid races and you change their dominance in the pecking order.
Gilean said: Resources aren't a factor, for they depend on the game world, and can arbitrarily be assigned to anyone.
That’s true. That’s also why massive armies of orcs, tens of thousands strong, can roam the land threatening kingdoms and nations when, in reality, such an army would require more resources then all but a great nation could muster and the farther they got from home the more skill would be needed to keep them in the field. The bureaucracy alone that would be necessary to make sure everyone was fed everyday and broken equipment was repaired would be a challenging task for most races, let alone one as chaotic as Orcs. That said the messy details of "reality" are often ignored in favor of a good story, as they should be. (Although I personally feel that most of the time the story is found within the messy details. Ex. So, who’s supplying the orc army and what are they hoping to get out of the problems the orc army is creating?)
Gilean said: One thing humans have: Contacts. They have contacts with many, if not all, other races, on one level or another. Would it be so if humans weren't the most common race? This might be a symptom of circular logic. Not entirely.
Those contacts, unless they’re assigned arbitrarily, should be a direct result of a geography favorable enough to allow such contacts to be formed, i.e. easily accessible and typically along major trade routes, a desire to make such contacts, and be well received by those you contact, and the technology necessary to maintain such contacts ability, such as horses, teleport spells, et cetera.
Gilean said: This is the point in favor of hostile (evil) cultures. They do a lot of wars. IRL, wars always bring advancements of technology.
Actually, war actually slows the advancement of technology because the command economies they typically rely on result in an inefficient use of resources.
And, an optimal military today actually requires a conflict to test out their weapons, about a decade to assess weapon performance and then upgrade, assuming they have sufficient resources to do so, and then another war to field test the new equipment and tactics.
Gilean said: Where are your resources of hobgoblin culture? I have always portrayed them as Spartan and extremely orderly martial nation.
The key word in your reply is “nation.” If the hobgoblins in your campaign have their own city state, like the Spartans, along with "helots", i.e. slaves, to farm, act as tradesmen and merchants, et cetera, then they would certainly pose a threat to their neighbors.
Gilean said: Hobgoblins are lawful and as smart as humans, so they do know when they have the force to keep the city. If not, it can be burned just as well to slow down return of the previous owner.
Or, the city could be burned before the hobgoblins reach it, but that's beside the point.
The lawful natures of most hobgoblins would actually work against them long term. While such behavior is vital to militaristic cultures, and necessary for survival in war, such broad based tendencies throughout a society have been shown to stifle independent thought, thus reducing innovation, resulting in a culture/nation that can quickly become stagnant beneath all the rules and rituals such a culture quickly spawns. Real life historical examples include Sparta, certain periods of Imperial china, along with most modern day militaries and large corporations. There’s a reason 90% of all new technologies originate outside such organizations, despite their superior resources, since the focus on order and efficiency, creates a “group think” that’s useful for stability, something all the examples mentioned strongly desired/desire but it does so at the cost of creativity and new ideas, which are disruptive to society and culture as a whole.
This means that while hobgoblins might be quick to recognize a good idea used against them in battle, and may strive to perfect it they will always be behind the curve in the creation of new technologies, since the lawful nature of their society, while speeding efficiency and improvements within existing technologies, provides a natural drag on innovation to breakthrough technologies. Paradoxically enough, the axis spanning alignments among humans, falling broadly across the entire spectrum, actually works in favor of their race since it creates a society that’s chaotic enough to spawn new ideas and lawful enough to adopt such ideas, when they’re use is readily apparent, so that such breakthroughs aren’t lost.
Gilean said: This granted by chance were shameless "we are the best" declaration by designers. Average hobgoblin is better combatant than average human. They are, in fact, quite superior to humans, except for the skill boost.
In a straight one on one fight, right now? Yes. Across time? That's debatable. There are other factors besides combat to consider, however, otherwise we’d all just declare “Dragons are king,” since they’re so much better then any other race one on one, and the issue would be settled. I’ll say it again, it all starts with the luck of geography. It’s mere luck that the right combination of geography, technology, birthrates and competition put humans on top and kept them there in most campaigns.
Change enough factors and there's no reason any race couldn't knock humans off their perch. Ex. Give hobgoblins some good geography, shift their alignment slightly, while keeping the culture, so that they more closely mirror a broader range of alignments, and there's no reason they shouldn't be a contender for dominance.
All of that said, I don’t think most DM’s create a world and then say, “Here’s the geography, what would the result be?” Most of them start with a story and work backwards. (As an aside, I agree with your hobgoblin vs. human comparison, I just don’t think most campaigns give hobgoblins enough resources to properly exploit their potential.)
Carpinal Teplin, what if the player characters aren't humans? Other races have just as much heroes as humans do.
They may well do. And who is dominant may be ultimately down to which race has produced the most influential heroes recently. What I'm saying is that the dominant culture should not necessarily be the dominant culture for solid, dependable and inherent reasons. It could be luck, fate, etc. Making it the results of the efforts of past heroes makes things far more fragile, the forces the heroes are fighting against far more threatening, and the heroes triumph or failure something of real consequence.
Do you really want to run a game where the last stand against the orcs, that routed them from human lands and spared the capital from destruction, the one that bards sing about even now, is ultimately less important than the human's habit of three-field tillage?
When it is the first you can bring any numbers of random reasons why this is so: divine intervention, geography, etc. You only need to watch out that the reasons you bring are actually backed up by the rules. For example saying that non-human races have less classed characters and that humans have better contacts with other races are not. But, imo, this discussion will boil down to "The designers said so" and "Otherwise you couldn't play in the world," so it is kinda useless.
When we try to discuss which races would really be advanced, people have first to accept that the PHB races are not necessarily one of them, despite being portrayed so in the PHB and fiction. This sounds trivial, but I have observed often in other discussions that people are not able to do this.
When we want to discuss this we have to first decide how the world looks like. Divine Intervention? Evolution? Starting technology level? etc. Or we could simply discuss the pros and cons of the different races and then look which race is better than other races.
And now something to the above posts.
Here I see the problem I have mentioned above, that people can't accept that humans might not be the best, because they are in the PHB. It was said that a Lawful alignment is a disadvantage. But are the humans really better? Not really. The nonexistence of a major alignment means that there is more intra race strife. Humans fight other humans very often, so much that it equals the strife found in evil races.
As for the mentioned dragons reproduction. Dragons do reproduce quite fast. Imagine a human would have at average a single child every 2 years (and while I don't know how it was in medieval ages, this is fast). A dragon has about 3-4 children every 10 years. That is only 1-2 children less/decade. Considering that a dragon is much stronger than a human that is not a big advancement and certainly a high reproduction rate is not the reason why humans would be better than dragons (if they actually are) and elves certainly lack behind.
The more serious reason, however is simply this: Most D&D settings simply function as a backdrop for dungeon crawling. They do not work. The make no sense. No sense whatsoever. Essentially, powerful monsters stop existing the moment the PCs stop having to fight them.
Half-elf + half-elf = all babies are half-elves, buddy.
Now here's where it becomes obvious you either haven't taken HS bio or have forgotten it.
Let H=human
Let h= Elf.
Mother
H - h
H HH Hh
h hH hh
Now, If you remember your punnet square this is easier. If you don't...
Okay, Each Half Elf has one chromosome set human, and one elf. Since they are different species the crossing over is minimal. Now the child in the upper left is in fact entirely human. The lower right is entirely elf. The others are half elf.
This isn't "red rose white rose pink rose." There are probably a thousand genes that control your elvishness or humanness. There have been cases where hybrid tiger/lions bred. Surprise surprise! We didn't get a lion, and we didn't get a tiger. We got a tiger/lion.
Now here's where it becomes obvious you either haven't taken HS bio or have forgotten it.
Let H=human
Let h= Elf.
Mother
H - h
H HH Hh
h hH hh
Now, If you remember your punnet square this is easier. If you don't...
Okay, Each Half Elf has one chromosome set human, and one elf. Since they are different species the crossing over is minimal. Now the child in the upper left is in fact entirely human. The lower right is entirely elf. The others are half elf.
Even if you ignore the fact that there is *no* reason to presume that Mendeleevean genetics hold true in a fantasy setting, you're actually getting your biology very wrong here. The Punnet square only works if you've got a single gene or chromosome to worry about. Elves aren't elves because they have two "elf genes". Even in the real world, it doesn't work the way you describe: If two mixed race humans have children, they won't have one black kid, one white kid, and two mixed race kids, they'll have four kids who are all somewhere in the middle.
But really, genetics makes no sense in a fantasy setting *anyway*. Are you going to assume that Drow are evil (sorry, "usually Neutral Evil") because they have an evil gene? Or that Sorcerer powers come from dragons having a magic gene?
The more serious reason, however is simply this: Most D&D settings simply function as a backdrop for dungeon crawling. They do not work. The make no sense. No sense whatsoever.
Very true.
The D&D worlds would not exist as they do now if they were build after a logical evolution. "Monsters" would rule the world and the PHB races would be extinct or a small minority without civilisation and without the ability to support adventurers with training, magic and equipment.
Let's start with the human. In D&D humans reach adulthood by age 15. In 20 years it is quite feasible for a human to gain 20 levels in class X. If we compare this to dragons, a Black Dragon, IIRC, takes 2,500 years to reach Great Wyrm status at which point he'd have more CR than our little human buddy here. A 2,465 year difference is pretty big isn't it? Even if we compare our human friend to a Red Dragon, they still have to rank into old before they reach an even CR. I'm not sure what the age difference is, but it's big enough. Not to mention that the Red Dragon is the top of the pack for Chromatic Dragons.
Very true.
The D&D worlds would not exist as they do now if they were build after a logical evolution. "Monsters" would rule the world and the PHB races would be extinct or a small minority without civilisation and without the ability to support adventurers with training, magic and equipment.
Precisely. The problem , I think, arises because somewhere along the line, people forgot that D&D was essentially a kit game. For any given Monster race, you can more or less accept it not having enslaved or destroyed humanity, despite its general intention to do so. "Long ago the Illithid came from another dimension, and tried to enslave us all. They would have succeeded, but a bold group of adventurers managed to close their planar gateway and halt the invasion, but now for the first time in a thousand years blah blah blah..." Put it far enough in the past, and you can more or less cope with it. Particularly if it only happens once, and it's a Big Important History Thing.
Unfortunately it instead became policy to have *every* core monster exist in *every* setting, and so it has become standard practice to include *every* rule, monster, and concept in *every* game. Suddenly you don't just need to explain why the Illithid haven't taken over this world, but also why the Beholders, Baatezu, Bodak, and Barghests haven't just killed every living thing on the face of the planet. Twice. Of course the could be too busy fighting each other, but then the world would look like a warzone, and as we've all seen from the news over the past, well, century really, warzones ain't pretty.
Very true.
The D&D worlds would not exist as they do now if they were build after a logical evolution. "Monsters" would rule the world and the PHB races would be extinct or a small minority without civilisation and without the ability to support adventurers with training, magic and equipment.
How do know? I admit many settings aren't well thought out but who can say what would "really" happen if you had a world with D&D type gods, hundreds of races, and magic? It seems this thing should vary by setting, but doesn't.
I just thought of something. Now if the argument is the powerful races against the humans (E.G. Dragons v. Humans) it could be calculated out simply.
Let's start with the human. In D&D humans reach adulthood by age 15. In 20 years it is quite feasible for a human to gain 20 levels in class X. If we compare this to dragons, a Black Dragon, IIRC, takes 2,500 years to reach Great Wyrm status at which point he'd have more CR than our little human buddy here. A 2,465 year difference is pretty big isn't it? Even if we compare our human friend to a Red Dragon, they still have to rank into old before they reach an even CR. I'm not sure what the age difference is, but it's big enough. Not to mention that the Red Dragon is the top of the pack for Chromatic Dragons.
And exactly what stops these dragons of yours from taking class levels?
When it is the first you can bring any numbers of random reasons why this is so: divine intervention, geography, etc. You only need to watch out that the reasons you bring are actually backed up by the rules. For example saying that non-human races have less classed characters and that humans have better contacts with other races are not. But, imo, this discussion will boil down to "The designers said so" and "Otherwise you couldn't play in the world," so it is kinda useless.
That is what I'm pointing out. It is easier to argue for "hobgoblins should overrun humans" and, even if the other guy doesn't agree, point that it depends on arbitrary decisions.
As for the mentioned dragons reproduction. Dragons do reproduce quite fast. Imagine a human would have at average a single child every 2 years (and while I don't know how it was in medieval ages, this is fast). A dragon has about 3-4 children every 10 years. That is only 1-2 children less/decade. Considering that a dragon is much stronger than a human that is not a big advancement and certainly a high reproduction rate is not the reason why humans would be better than dragons (if they actually are) and elves certainly lack behind.
Let us not get into that. Just assume that dragons breed slowly enough, or else they would overrun everything.
Do you really want to run a game where the last stand against the orcs, that routed them from human lands and spared the capital from destruction, the one that bards sing about even now, is ultimately less important than the human's habit of three-field tillage?
Swap words human and orc. It is not necessary to save humans. Some other race can be saved just as enjoyably.
Also, another reason why other races wouldn't kill humans-the dwarves and orcs may have great military might, but they don't have spellcasters, elves may be great spellcasters, but they don't have many fighters. Halflings may be sneaky, but when it comes to fighting they aren't that great. Humans have warriors, spellcasters, and sneaky type people.
Every elf can use martial melee and ranged weapon. That is quite an edge in warfare.
Actually, war actually slows the advancement of technology because the command economies they typically rely on result in an inefficient use of resources.
Radio. Radar. Nylon (or nailon, the material used to make durable clothing, for example). The war forces even lawful cultures to come up with something new to stay competitive. Remember, in wars the entire nation thrives towards single goal. The chaotic members of lawful culture, for example, might normally be too busy being rebels, but in times of war they are more likely to be of benefit to common cause.
Unfortunately it instead became policy to have *every* core monster exist in *every* setting, and so it has become standard practice to include *every* rule, monster, and concept in *every* game.
That's why my personal philosophy is its possible that any world could contain any monster but no world contains every monster.
(Imagine trying to work out the ecology of that ecosystem)
For those people who don't believe humans should be on top, or even still be around, I say, "It's your campaign do whatever keeps you and your players happy."
Swap words human and orc. It is not necessary to save humans. Some other race can be saved just as enjoyably.
See: "Orkworld", by Johnathon Wick.
You are, however, missing the point.
Yes, you could have a great time playing a game where (for example) the PCs are citizens of the Underdark, trying to save their civilisation from the depredations of the filthy surfacers. You could have a great time playing Orcs, or Elves, or Dwarves, or whatever. This thread, however, is not based on a *narrative* objection to human-dominated gameworlds. There are certainly narrative arguments to be made: we are after all human, and we can relate to human societies more easily than nonhuman ones (and before you all chime in, yes your fascinating ability to relate better to drow than to humans because you're evil makes you a terribly interesting person, but I'm not interested in discussing it).
This thread, however, was about logistics, and Cardinal Teplin's point was not that it was intrinsically more fun to save humans from orcs, but that it was intrinsically more fun for society to be saved by a Band of Unlikely Heroes(tm) than for society to be saved by the comparative reproductive rates of two species.
Even if you ignore the fact that there is *no* reason to presume that Mendeleevean genetics hold true in a fantasy setting, you're actually getting your biology very wrong here. The Punnet square only works if you've got a single gene or chromosome to worry about. Elves aren't elves because they have two "elf genes". Even in the real world, it doesn't work the way you describe: If two mixed race humans have children, they won't have one black kid, one white kid, and two mixed race kids, they'll have four kids who are all somewhere in the middle.
But really, genetics makes no sense in a fantasy setting *anyway*. Are you going to assume that Drow are evil (sorry, "usually Neutral Evil") because they have an evil gene? Or that Sorcerer powers come from dragons having a magic gene?
Ultimately, it comes down to whatever works best for your gameworld. In one of my first campaigns, the child of two half-breeds (half-elves or half-orcs) had a 25% for a "human" child, 25% for a child of the other race(elf or orc) , and 50% for another halfbreed. There were two characters (one male and one female) who didn't get along (for the purpose of role playing only). Well, them and the rest of the party had an adventure where they went forward in time... and the two characters were married with kids... and the fact that the kids of this union were of a mixed breed (which considering the xenophobic nature of the two of them) helped to add fuel to the fire.
I keep balance in my world by military might. The southern continent races are too pre-occupied with a war/genocide. The elves are apathetic. The human Empire has just experienced a coup that saw their Emperor replaced with a Reagent.
This thread is helpful, I have not really thought about what the southern continent or the Empire will do once their conflicts are finished.
I'd rather play humans in a human-dominated society than orcs in an orc-dominated one. We know more about humans, and can build a better game as a result. I suspect most people would also rather prefer to play humans to orcs. Hence why most games have human cultures in them. It makes for a better game.
Also not all high CR creatures have the ability to travel planes. So they may be unable to make a massacre of the human race.
That's my two coppers worth.
I know this isn't 100% valid since they aren't intelligent, but has it crossed the minds of anyone else that if you look at creatures in nature they don't tend to whip each other? I admit it happens BUT if you look at the millions of creatures out there it is rare. Another not 100% valid but still relevant comparison is the fact that in our world strong nations very rarely try to kill every member of near by nations even if they do go to war.
Half-elf + half-elf = all babies are half-elves, buddy. QUOTE]
Now here's where it becomes obvious you either haven't taken HS bio or have forgotten it.
Let H=human
Let h= Elf.
Mother
H - h
H HH Hh
h hH hh
Now, If you remember your punnet square this is easier. If you don't...
Okay, Each Half Elf has one chromosome set human, and one elf. Since they are different species the crossing over is minimal. Now the child in the upper left is in fact entirely human. The lower right is entirely elf. The others are half elf.
Just repeating what's already been said.
This analysis only works if there's only one gene that separates elves from humans. Hell, elves aren't even mammals! They don't sleep!
This isn't "red rose white rose pink rose." There are probably a thousand genes that control your elvishness or humanness. There have been cases where hybrid tiger/lions bred. Surprise surprise! We didn't get a lion, and we didn't get a tiger. We got a tiger/lion.
A LIGER
Its a liger. Basically its a cross between a lion and a tiger. Bred for their preferable skills in magic. Its pretty much my favorate animal.-From Napolean Dynomite
Humans aren't crushed by other races because of 2 words.
Mutual Need. Dragons need people to mint their treasure. Most other races don't have the ambition to invent things like the plow. And for all you dwarf fans they need someone who can actually touch a 6 foot high ceiling (to scrape off the mold and stuff.) Also we are like bees. Individually we are weak resulting in a small loss but with our numbers we can kill anything.
No, dragons fight other dragons. It would lead to more and more bitter dragon-dragon wars. ;)
Also, I kind of like the FR-Approach (if I got it right) to this: Dragons have large territories, and while they accept humanoids in them (like they accept deers and boars, for example), they fight other dragons who try to invade them.
So the argument that dragons are constantly fighting is no reason why they would not rule the world. And certainly, humans are weak individually, but can kill nearly anything with their numbers. But the question is, how humans got these numbers and why the powerful races (which sometimes also are very numerous, see dragons) haven't kept the human population low or eradicated them completely.
I do disagree about the fact that humans stick together, i think more than other races they tend to divided on political and national lines. They will team up together to fight off an invading orc horde they are also likely to go to war over political reasons with one another.
What makes them survive is in part the connections with the "good" races, such as dwarves, elves etc. They form trading partners and have vested interests in the defence of human kingdoms. Dwarves readily trade their metals, ores and gems for gold and food. Elves living in human communities would have a 50% chance of siding with the human kingdom against invasion and bring in their expertise.
Humans are also everywhere, they tend to be the most innovative (or share it with gnomes) and therefore are likely to have good mundane defenses. Finally many races (high CR evil races esp) tend to reproduce slower, or we can assume they do.
It's likely many human kingdoms just buy off their survival.
Also, why do humans so easily ally with other races? To other races humans are unpredictable and untrustworthy because with their mixed alignment those races can't estimate what humans will do.
You would rather see elves and dwarves allying even with their complete opposite alignments on the Law/Chaos axis then with humans. With dwarves they still have to good alignment in common.
Where did all the races come from, and where did they first appear on the planet/plane? (I lurk, and don't know anything about the D&D game, so I wouldn't know. This is just my 2 cents.) If the first humans were in close proximity to the first orcs, for example, the orcs could have easily killed off the humans for whatever reason, before they were able to make use of their innovative and reproductive abilities. So the humans had to have spawned in an environment that would let them make use of what relatively few abilities they possessed--experimentation, cooperative behavior, etc.
Of course, if the game world was created as-is, then the sheer number of humans would have ensured that they survived/thrived, considering that even if half were killed off, the other half would have learned how to avoid getting themselves killed by hostile, powerful races and said races probably were bored with killing by then. Then humans can make use of their relatively high reproductive rate to repopulate.
2) Humans (on Earth anyway) have proven to be good at adopting foreign technologies and using them to their advantage. Could this apply to their survival in the DND world? In terms of Intelligence/Wisdom modifiers, for example, a human is no worse than an elf, so it stands to reason that a lvl 1 human wizard would have no racial advantages/disadvantages versus a lvl 1 elven mage, therefore lowering the power of the "powerful race" down a notch. (Of course when we get into magic we consider the ability of the magical race to prevent the non-magical race from ever discovering magic, sticky stuff and probably not a good example. But it's the best one I have.)
3) Someone brought up a point that humans are ant-sized to dragons, so why haven't we killed all the ants? Good point. Even if humans and dragons were created in the same place, the dragons likely wouldn't think the humans worth eating (and if they ate all the humans, dragon consumption > human reproduction so the dragons would die too). Of course, this was before knowing that the humans would one day invent/buy/steal shiny metal swords and armor, and run around killing off dragons.
The n00b shuts up.
(Yes, I've read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Great book.)
3) Someone brought up a point that humans are ant-sized to dragons, so why haven't we killed all the ants? Good point. Even if humans and dragons were created in the same place, the dragons likely wouldn't think the humans worth eating (and if they ate all the humans, dragon consumption > human reproduction so the dragons would die too). Of course, this was before knowing that the humans would one day invent/buy/steal shiny metal swords and armor, and run around killing off dragons.
Ehm, I guess because there is 1 Million ants per human on this our earth, their total biomass equaling ours. ;) Nothing scarier than an all-ants-crusade against humanity!
Therefore, we don't provoke them. :DFun aside, humans aren't ant-sized to dragons, not even to great wyrms. An average human is larger than a hatchling. So, they are numerous, not totally insignificantly sized and might pose a danger - like rats to humans, I think this might be a better comparison. I therefore think dragons should at least try to keep their immediate territories clean from humans (or humanoids at all, for that matter).
However, remember that half of the dragons are good aligned and would abhor genocide. They would probably also try to stop their evil cousins from trying this thing. And yes, this inter-dragon warfare IS different from inter-human wars. Because humans are not naturally divided in hostile subspecies. Wars are fought for political, economic or even religious reasons, but not because we hate each other from the core of or souls (at least in most cases).
Why is a silver dragon battling a red dragon different than a orc fighting a human? I see no difference there except for the power level.
Oh, by the way, 1/2 Elf + 1/2 Elf doesn't always = 1/2 Elf. Just ask a mule (1/2 horse or 1/2 donkey depending on how you look at it).
We don't have to go any further into fantasy than reality to see why Humans rule. Look at our planet and ask yourself, "How did humans even survive?" Granted we can adapt, but how did us weaklings last long enough to adapt? We weren't born with guns attached to our hips. We learned from trial and allot of error. If the Lions, Tigers, Bears, Disease, Disaster, Famine, Drought, and all the other great things we deal with every day in the real world haven't managed to wipe us out, how could anything else?
But that is simply because the dragons that lived back then didn't like what our meat tasted. And the elves were all busy hugging trees. Not to even speak of all the gnomes blowing themselves up. That theory falls flat when other sentient creatures, many a lot more powerful than any ancient animals, are existent.
Oh, by the way, 1/2 Elf + 1/2 Elf doesn't always = 1/2 Elf. Just ask a mule (1/2 horse or 1/2 donkey depending on how you look at it).
Mathematically speaking, 1/ 2elf + 1/ 2elf = 1 elf. Use right symbology. Anyway, you are assuming that there are genes. That is a big one with no proof (in fantasy).
Stronger (by muscle)
Smarter
Stronger and Smarter
the stronger don't take us out simply for the fact that they rarely work together. If they did get a large enough group to actually attempt to take out humanity, they wouldn't be able to work together long enough to actually pull of the necessary invasion. For example, A large band of Ogres, for whatever reason, decide to hate humans and they go to tribe to tribe and convince them to help in getting rid of humans. They start a few raids and manage to actually ransack a few villages and a small city. It doesn't take long before they get distracted from their goal, especially when loot, food and tactics, all of which must be agreed upon amongst each other, get involved.
The Smarter races know better then to actually try to take out another race specifically. What benefit do you gain? The over seers of their community know that, assuming they have a particular hatred for any given race, that the hatred is a great way to motivate people in times of crisis. It worked for Germany, they were borderline third world country before WWII, and Hitler used their hatred to get them moving (I'm not praising him at all, just to be clear). taking out an entire race is near worthless, plus you don't want to have to storm through illithids, Beholders, Abolthes, and Archreons to take out every single last one.
The Smart and Strong don't Hate, they Loathe, and oddly enough, that is the reason that they don't take out a race. It’s more satisfying to watch them squirm and suffer, and when you take out an entire race, you only leave yourself to hate some other race afterwards.
Besides, you never live in a vacuum. Regardless, before your half way through the campaign to take out humans, elves, or even talking donkeys, you will eventually meet resistance from something or somethings that have bigger swords and more of them.
Plus, look at the DMG system for creating towns. Once you reach a point, you have to start adding variables to the NPCs like the town guard, who generates so many chars below him that are only two levels lower. A metropolis generates a character of a minimum sixteenth level for it highest class level PER CLASS. That is the eleven core classes and the four npc classes out of the DMG. Even a commoner in these town is around 20th level.
Elven royalty gets some very high level chars, but they rarely go as epic as most human chars. Proportionately, humans have more high level chars just because.
Dwarven epic chars usually live in or around human lands, which means you could count them really as another sort of human shield. I don't think I've ever seen a very high level gnome or halfling that didn't live in human lands either. Half-orcs and half-elves are the same way. That is the standard campaign setting.
In some, humans are just as barbaric as some of the other races. It just comes down in those campaigns to where each race lives. Orcs have no interest in the human barbarians who live on the edge of a small stream down the river, neither do elves or dwarves. They have nothing to offer, and so they're ignored. Humans see that the elves have all these nice trees for firewood, and that the dwarves have all these wonderful axes. Orcs would make good slaves, since they are strong. "How do we get all of these things?" they ask themselves. So they think up ingenious solutions or adopt ways that already work. The dwarves march in formation with their spears ahead of their shield, we should try that. Or the elves hide in that thick patch of undergrowth, we should burn it. Even low level-low tech humans can survive against stronger races, because they know how to adapt. That is the main reason humans survive: flexibility.
In short it’s because they have no favored class...
I would like to note that most humans that you see as NPCs in most campaign settings are much higher than first level, while the typical humanoid out of the monster manual only has their racial hit dice or a level of warrior. Humans get more EXCEPTIONALLY HIGH level characters more often (six of the seven sisters, Elminster, Khelban, Mordenkainen, and Lord Robilar just to name a few).
Unless you use DMG rules, of course. No modifiers on the character level by race. Quoting FR is a very bad point, as it is known for the great numbers of epic characters running around.
Plus, look at the DMG system for creating towns. Once you reach a point, you have to start adding variables to the NPCs like the town guard, who generates so many chars below him that are only two levels lower. A metropolis generates a character of a minimum sixteenth level for it highest class level PER CLASS. That is the eleven core classes and the four npc classes out of the DMG. Even a commoner in these town is around 20th level.
A commoner. Possibly 3. Three commoners of 20th level, 6 of 10th level, 12 of 5th level, 24 of 2nd level and 95% of the entire population consists of first level commoners. The average level is very close to 1.
Elven royalty gets some very high level chars, but they rarely go as epic as most human chars. Proportionately, humans have more high level chars just because.
Now I see it. Just because. That's a good one.
Dwarven epic chars usually live in or around human lands, which means you could count them really as another sort of human shield. I don't think I've ever seen a very high level gnome or halfling that didn't live in human lands either. Half-orcs and half-elves are the same way. That is the standard campaign setting.
Source? Just because a setting tells something doesn't mean it is logical. Dwarves, IME, often live in mountain ranges, usually far from human lands. See Dragonlance, for example.
In some, humans are just as barbaric as some of the other races. It just comes down in those campaigns to where each race lives. Orcs have no interest in the human barbarians who live on the edge of a small stream down the river, neither do elves or dwarves. They have nothing to offer, and so they're ignored. Humans see that the elves have all these nice trees for firewood, and that the dwarves have all these wonderful axes. Orcs would make good slaves, since they are strong. "How do we get all of these things?" they ask themselves. So they think up ingenious solutions or adopt ways that already work. The dwarves march in formation with their spears ahead of their shield, we should try that. Or the elves hide in that thick patch of undergrowth, we should burn it. Even low level-low tech humans can survive against stronger races, because they know how to adapt. That is the main reason humans survive: flexibility.
This sort of flexibility is a function of alignment. Chaos is flexible. Favoured class only counts with some characters of 4th level or higher, or, IOW, insignificant minority.
And where do you get the "human flexibility" from? The favored class? The favored class only comes into effect when multiclassing which doesn't happens often as it requires at least 4 levels for the XP penalty to apply and 4th level characters aren't the norm for a race. The bonus skill points? They hardly make one more flexible, actually they make humans more specialized in the field they choose to train.
Back to topic. While the question "Why are humans not eradicated by more powerful species?" might be easily answered, the question "Why are humans the dominant race of most campaign worlds?" is hard to answer without resorting to "Why, they just are"-statements.
I mean, of course a smart, powerful race would not invest unnecessary energy to eradicate an inferior race of equipped apes. However, once this apes start gaining extreme power/numbers, its time to MOVE. Elves may be to lazy, dwarves might see no need to defend the lowlands of the surface against humans, as long as they keep the mountains, but what about all the others? Giants, dragons, hobgoblins (my favourites to beat humanity face to face), mindflayers, etc..?
1) Adventurers. This was a very good point, and should be taken very seriously. If it wasn't for your party's actions in your last adventure, how many innocent humans would lie dead? Mind Flayers might be tougher and smarter than average humans, but there are a hell of a lot of above-average ones out there! Just ask Beowulf!
2) Flexibility. Humans are flexible. they can excel in any field. with their bonus feat able to go wherever they want, the extra skill points and the 'favoured class: any' ability, it goes to show that the humans are very versatile. Sure, these abilities aren't huge in-game, but if you consider the implications that these abilities have from a roleplay perspective, you can imagine humans doing well in anything they try, unlike that Orc wizard you saw earlier...
This flexibility can also be seen in human homelands. They can live anywhere aboveground. I'd like to see a low-CON elf deal with the desert.
3) Ambition, Drive and Intelligence. Much like the other PHB races, humans learn quickly. Their increased skill total hints at slightly quicker brains too. They have no LA adjustment, so gain class levels quickly. Unlike the other PhB races, humans mature quickly, so they gain these classes young.
4) Aggression. Many have said that Orcs and the like live in more hostile environments. Technically true, but if you look at our beloved Earth, it is scarred from top to bottom because of human warfare. Humans, unlike Orcs and the like, farm, build etc. but they also fight a hell of a lot, like the barbaric races.
5) Opposable thumbs. Why haven't the griffons, owlbears and hydras wiped out the humans? The same reason the saber-toothed tigers, bears and wolves didn't wipe us out! Opposable thumbs!
Puffin, humans have no level advantage over other races, its rather the opposite. As 95% of all humans are commoners, races with racial HD have a big advantage over humans. They don't have to train warriors but still can and get epic level characters. The town generation rules are not limited to humans. Make an elven town with those rules and they have the same number of epic and high level characters than humans. Generate a Bugbear "town" with those rules and mankind has a serious problem.
And where do you get the "human flexibility" from? The favored class? The favored class only comes into effect when multiclassing which doesn't happens often as it requires at least 4 levels for the XP penalty to apply and 4th level characters aren't the norm for a race. The bonus skill points? They hardly make one more flexible, actually they make humans more specialized in the field they choose to train.
Great minds think alike :D
Oh, a small correction to my points, and those of Derren, as well: More than 95% of characters are first level. Though I won't do the exact math.
All the talk of good vs evil does this really apply to humans as a whole. Humans are just as likely to be good as evil with whole nations of evil humans existing in just about every campaign setting.
1. It would take massive effort to eliminate all the humans.
and
2. It wouldn't be worth it.
1) Adventurers. This was a very good point, and should be taken very seriously. If it wasn't for your party's actions in your last adventure, how many innocent humans would lie dead? Mind Flayers might be tougher and smarter than average humans, but there are a hell of a lot of above-average ones out there! Just ask Beowulf!
Indeed, as all of the adventurers are humans. Beowulf was a good example, as the story symbolises three stages of human life: growth, maturity and weakness that comes with age. Human life, note. Dragons can take extended lifespan and get another thousand years, or such.
This flexibility can also be seen in human homelands. They can live anywhere aboveground. I'd like to see a low-CON elf deal with the desert.
Desert elves are in the UA. Elves are more flexible as race, because they have a subrace for each environment, class, climate and role.
3) Ambition, Drive and Intelligence. Much like the other PHB races, humans learn quickly. Their increased skill total hints at slightly quicker brains too. They have no LA adjustment, so gain class levels quickly. Unlike the other PhB races, humans mature quickly, so they gain these classes young.
Unlike, say, half-orcs? Maturing quickly means dying quickly, too.
4) Aggression. Many have said that Orcs and the like live in more hostile environments. Technically true, but if you look at our beloved Earth, it is scarred from top to bottom because of human warfare. Humans, unlike Orcs and the like, farm, build etc. but they also fight a hell of a lot, like the barbaric races.
Like the other barbaric races, yes. But not as much. They can't compete with any of the focused races, really, in the focused fields.
2. It wouldn't be worth it.
It wouldn't be worth it were there not absolute evil that has fun doing it and will reward those that do it. Like, say, hobgoblins.