The REAL Problem with Races in D&D

If you think about it, it makes no sense that humans are the predominant race in D&D. There are attempts to explain how humans could possibly outcompete elves, dwarves, gnomes, and so forth, but they amount to little more than mental gymnastics. The other races are smarter or tougher, and they have magical abilities and advanced technology-along with multiple-century lifespans. So the truth is, they would dominate the world.
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#dndcharacter #dungeonsanddragons #dnd5e

[@esperthebard]

8:39 This point can apply to all D&D characters, but the issue is really exacerbated by elves and other long-lived races.

[@mdalsted]

Personally, in the world I created, humans are few and far between, most of them living in their own realm (or "dimension", I guess), called Terra Firma, while all the fantasy/mythological/folkloric creatures (as well as those that are extinct in the "human world") live in Terra Fantasia. Don't worry too much about how it happened; it's all meant to be in good fun. Fun takes priority over realism here.

[@PiiskaJesusFreak]

I think the birth rate is not as easy to solve as you say, considering that humans haven't been able to solve it thusfar at all. Population is exploding globally, and in developed countries where population is declining, NO industrialized country has been able to solve it with policy. Other races societies being more advanced might also be working against their reproduction rates, especially if their female representatives have similar opportunities to their males. This is often the case in many modern settings. A elven wizard might be able to create a fertility spell (gods permitting), but would the elven people want it? What does pregnancy mean to elven women, how long it lasts etc? Would they agree to it? I think the real question is why orcs haven't taken over. They have explicitly higher reproduction rates than humans, mature faster, are physically superior and aren't that dumb either.

[@TheRealBillBob]

This is going outside the scope of the game. However, since you brought up consent ("would Elven women agree to be magically fertilized?"), we all agree as society, that survival of our species outweighs a woman's consent. And it means exactly how you think it means. @JesusFreak

[@manfredconnor3194]

@@TheRealBillBob You are trolling too hard Billy-Bob. We don't all agree about that.

[@TheRealBillBob]

It's okay, we don't expect for twinks to get involved. @@manfredconnor3194

[@sketchasaurrex4087]

One of the things I always thought of was humans breed 10 to 1 compared to every other race. They also can breed with almost any other race which is why there's so many halfbreeds. The way I usually run a game is it's a new age "The Dawn of Man" as they are steadily becoming the dominant race setting up settlements everywhere unlike the other races that don't venture out as much and stick to a preferred region.

[@ethans9379]

Like in the Lord of the Rings, where elves, dwarfs and goblins are fading from the world, and an age of humanity begins.

[@sketchasaurrex4087]

@ethans9379 kinda, but instead of the elves leaving it's the humans who have recently sprouted. The elves are the old forest and the dwarves are the old unmoving mountains and the humans are the new weeds springing forth.

[@ethans9379]

@@sketchasaurrex4087 that sounds very interesting and poetic!

[@sketchasaurrex4087]

I'm glad you find it interesting. It was unintentionally poetic by using the stereotypes of elves and dwarves.

[@THELUBINTHEMORNING]

Does no one realize that humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and orcs are the same exact species? You could argue that even more DnD races are as well. Different species can't have offspring with one another, but the races or breeds within one species can. Humans are the most prevalent "breed" because they are the average of all other races heighth and skill, elves and dwarves primarily. Humans have shorter lifespans to both progenitors just as mules live shorter lives than horses or donkeys. This would mean a dwarf would be the male jack, and an elf would be the female mare required to give birth to the first humans. We are the ligers and tigons of the fantasy world.

[@Okami1313]

You kinda answered a bit of your problem. It takes a hundred years for an elf to reach the same place as a human does in a fifth of the time. So even with an increased fertility rate humans can produce warriors, casters, etc much faster than elves and dwarves. Humans also usually are considered to be over ambitious compared to other races. It's kinda a trope throughout fantasy and scifi. Yeah maybe there are a few power hungry elves and dwarves, but they don't have the drive to expand and grow like humans do. humans are to elves what orcs are to humans essentially Another big point is that humans are extremely adaptable compared to the other races. Elves are nimble, but not strong. Dwarves are sturdy, bit not quick. There are fast humans, strong humans, smart humans, etc. The whole idea of humans being everywhere is that they are numerous and can adapt to any circumstance

[@Delta-ef5uo]

Pretty sure Esper's point was that it shouldn't take longer for a member of longer lived species to reach lvl 20 when all pc's regardless of species can reach lvl 20 in the same time frame. The fertility issue is also kinda bs because even if an elven woman's fertility is so low that she has the same average number of children that a human woman does there would still be more elves than humans because elves don't die as fast. Not to mention if fertility dictates the dominant species then goblins would rule the world. A human's adaptability is entirely due to our intelligence so beings with comparable intelligence and other advantages on top of that would out compete us.

[@fred_derf]

@@Delta-ef5uo, writes _"The fertility issue is also kinda bs because even if an elven woman's fertility is so low that she has the same average number of children that a human woman does there would still be more elves than humans because elves don't die as fast."_ If my kids' kids' kids' kids' kids are having kids about the time you're having your second child... my family is going to be much bigger than yours.

[@Delta-ef5uo]

@@fred_derf Not if you and your kid' kids' kids' are dead of old age. Or to put it another way an elf child might know their great great great great great great grandparents where as a human child will be lucky to know their great grandparents.

[@fred_derf]

@@Delta-ef5uo, writes _"Not if you and your kid' kids' kids' are dead of old age."_ That doesn't matter. Example: Assume humans and Elves both have four kids (that survive to reproduce) per generation. Assume that a Human generation is 15 years while an Elf generation is 150, and further assume the human parents only make to to 30 (so there are only 2 generations alive at any one time. So in the time for the Elves to have four kids and there now be 6 Elves in their family (i.e. none of them died), there are... let's do the math. G1: 2 + 2 * 2 = 6 (two parents and two kids per parent) G2: (6 - 2) + (6 - 2) * 2 = 12 (four parents and eight kids, the two grand parents died) G3: (12 - 4) + (12 - 4) * 2 = 24 G4: (24 - 8) + (24 - 8) * 2 = 48 G5: (48 -16) + (48 - 16) * 2 = 96 G6: (96 - 32) + (96 - 32) * 2 = 192 G7: (192 - 64) + (192 - 64) * 2 = 384 G8: (384 - 128) + (384 - 120) * 2 = 768 G9: (768 - 256) + (768 - 256) * 2 = 1,536 G10: (1,536 - 512) + (1,536 - 512) * 2 = 3,072 So in the same 150 years where the Elf family went from 2 to 6 individuals (1 generation), the Human family grew to 3,072 (10 generations) even though there were 1,022 deaths in the family).

[@Delta-ef5uo]

@@fred_derf Oh it very much does as more of the elves are still alive by G10 even though it takes longer for the elves to get to G10. The calc i did is a bit long but i will post it if you want.

[@purplehaze2358]

"Plus, the population is all brave and courageous, which would have an _enormous_ impact considering just how much fear and anxiety hold us humans back." Fear and anxiety also have the potential to keep humans alive, my bardic friend. Natural selection is, in large part, predicated on the fight or flight response, and fear _is_ the fight or flight response.

[@esperthebard]

True, the reason we have these systems is for our survival. Keep in mind this reference was to the halflings though. They are much less constrained by fear and are able to take greater risks (therefore achieving greater rewards). These risks are mitigated by the fact that the halflings require less resources to survive, they are innately lucky, and they are nimble and stealthy.

[@Jakhjam]

Agreed. Both Goblins and Kobolds are known to reproduce extremely quickly and they are considered adults at 8 and 6 years old respectively. Goblins can live up to 60 years old and Kobolds 120 years old. Why isn't the world overrun with these races? Natural selection at its finest. They have risk seeking behaviour and they have little in the way of fear, which results them taking on extreme risks for minimal gain.

[@Klaital1]

@@esperthebard Take a look at Kender from dragon lance novels, who at the time were completely immune to fear, and how reckless and sometimes downright suicidal that made them with no sense of self preservation.

[@esperthebard]

@Klaital1 Excessive positive emotion (mania) is extremely dangerous, for sure. However, all I'm covering in this video is what's presented in baseline D&D, not any specific author's setting.

[@dracos24]

@@Klaital1Ironic that you mention Dragonlance, because my first thought was that in a world where DRAGONS actually exist, bravery is a genetic liability.

[@lexhardrein2596]

Most of the cannon Faerun lore is about these longer lived races having bloody conflicts, getting wiped out by magical super-weapons, and getting strait-up cursed by the gods. An example would be when elves cursed ALL of the dragons to go into a bloodlust and eat their own young whenever a certain commit flew overhead - which is the ONLY reason they’re not literally everywhere ruling the world. I’d believe that would hold them back enough to stop them from taking over the world.

[@westonwalker6974]

Humans fight amongst themselves all the time, though. If we came into conflict with one of the older, more powerful races, couldn't they easily wipe us out with a plague or curse.

[@lexhardrein2596]

@@westonwalker6974 I'd assume they wouldn't take us seriously, and wouldn't launch a full-on attack like they would if dwarves or drow were encroaching on their territory. It's kind of the only thing humans have going - pretty sure "but you're the worst one!!" is the last thing going through most monsters heads before losing to human adventurers. Also, I assumed humans became populous (maybe not dominant) because they breed faster. Long-lived races wouldn't seek to solve any low-fertility issues because they wouldn't view them as an issue - its normal from their perspective, and humans populate weirdly fast. They'd let a few humans camp out near their land, then come back 50 years later ("not long later") to find a small town had popped up in the area, and wonder where everyone came from.

[@SnowWolf9999]

@@westonwalker6974 in the lore of Fearun by the time the humans establish huge kingdoms that start expanding (the Orcs also start expanding at same time) the elves and dwarves numbers are devastated and no longer have the power to fight off the large Human and Orc armies Humans have some conflicts with southern Elves/Dwarves kingdoms, further weakening them and the Orcs almost completely eradicate the northern kingdoms of both.

[@manfredconnor3194]

​@@SnowWolf9999Orcy-orcy-Orc!!!😊

[@westonwalker6974]

@lexhardrein2596 that is 50 years. They would notice humans encroaching on their territory like weeds getting out of control. Maybe humans could appeal to their goodwill, but they would make an easy target for the drow to capture and enslave. Only chance we would have is to make alliances with the elves and dwarves, and probably depend on them for survival( which is extremely difficult for humans in a midevil/ancient setting, even without giant monsters running around and wanting to eat you)

[@jameyhej3]

So I agree with everything that you said in the later part of the video, but TBH the leveling problem applied to Humans, too. Yes, it's much more _pronounced_ with Elves, but even for a Human the "going from 2-20" part of your life is a small fraction, that part is really just a "problem" with the game in general, not so much races. But for the rest, I don't think as much mental gymnastics are required as you might think. Just take _modern Human_ society as an example. In the "first world," the people with more resources and technology at their disposal, the more comfortable they are with life, the _less_ likely they are to have children. So, think of Elves as "upper class Americans" and immediately see plenty of reasons why their birth rates might be much lower. Also, in a lot of fantasy literature, Elves and Dwarves and other races are presented as "more powerful" than Humans, but in D&D, they are not. The races are "balanced" to a reasonable degree, and for every advantage a race has over Humans, they either have a corresponding disadvantage or the Humans just have a different one. So while it might make no sense that the Elves in LotR didn't take over, but in D&D Elves aren't "better" than Humans.

[@Im-Not-a-Dog]

How many times have the elves nearly wiped themselves out? Thats why they arent in charge.

[@tjcross2]

We've had two world wars, we humans ain't that special when it comes to not murdering each other.

[@Rells2coolpeoplehavebadtastes.]

They're us but more reckless.

[@hawkname1234]

@@Rells2coolpeoplehavebadtastes. More hubristic, according to most lores.

[@esperthebard]

Where are you finding that? It's not in any PHB of any edition. Perhaps in a specific campaign setting? I'm just covering baseline D&D, and as mentioned, authors of campaign settings (or novels) can find creative solutions to the power disparity between the races.

[@kira68200]

@@esperthebardthe crown wars

[@ShineDark]

About the idea of Elves all being brilliant, if we’re going purely by in-game stats, only the High Elves have a bonus to Intelligence, and it’s equal to what baseline Humans have. Based on that, all other Elves would be innately dumber than Humans if it weren’t for their longer lifespans allowing them to accrue more knowledge.

[@drekbleh7081]

I only have time to go off by the description- but my take is similar to the history of chinese humiliation China, for the longest time, was technologically eons ahead of europe. And did nothing with the technology. Europe, not wanting to be owned by the french, couldn't afford conservatism. Eventually, European forces came to dominate and bully China Same thing with humans and elves/dwarves. Humans start out weaker and behind, but they never sit on their laurels. Even when they do, human civilizations stagnate for a century, while elven/dwarven civilizations stagnate for eons

[@suddennemesis6154]

All valid points worth considering, however I'll take the jankiness of the beloved classical fantasy races and having to work out these mental riddles over the new modern push to have races reduced to simply being an ever-expanding catalogue of aesthetic choices.

[@tristansylvester1079]

To defend the elemental thing, i would rule you can't SET a water elemental on fire but they can't resist fire. Usually water turns to steam when it douses intense fire (like what living flame would be), and thats the water elementals body. It's not a steam elemental, so it's essentially dissolving it's body and taking that same amount of damage

[@s-o-tariknomad6970]

This is why I like Conan style worlds, or even worlds closer to tLotRs, where the Non-Humans are closer to Physical Spirits, rather than the Humans+ we see in modern Fantasy. There's a reason the Elves go away and the Dwarves vanish in Tolkien's works.

[@esperthebard]

This is a great solution. Actually, this was the original way. It's the later (and lesser) works that made things like elves and dwarves just regular people yet still with their mythical properties.

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

And in the Hyborian age the different countries/cultures made as much or more difference than the different races in D&D

[@rcschmidt668]

I was looking for this comment. Plus, halflings/hobbits were added more recently than the others. 2 things… The character could play a younger-aged person of any ancient race or have a reason for their weakness being a level 1 person. Also, given the argument, we would expect the apex predator of the realm to consume all others… Dragons are in the name of the game, but there are very few of them by comparison to the other beings.

[@Cheeky_Bandit]

LotR elves are far more powerful than D&D ones. Just read the Silmarillion. They are not just long lived but biologically Immoral and have Super human hearing, vision, and dexterity. But most of all they have a direct connection to the literal creator God of the universe. Then when the rings are made some of them basically become God's themselves. The only reason they didn't remain in control is because they decided to leave all the B.S politics of humans behind to go live in heaven on earth. Lol

[@froztrollbru]

I'll put it this way, in the lore dwarves have a saying "breed like a human" which is their version of the human saying "breed like a rabbit", sure their weak and defenseless compared to everyone else, but they are everywhere, and have access to magic like everyone else, so even if elves use magic to populate more efficiently, the humans could do the same thing and it would still be better, and in the lore the elves have a religion where their souls are limited and their can be so many elves at one time and if their population starts going up rapidly, it's seen as an omen meaning "elf genocide incoming" so they wouldn't want to use breeding magic out of fear.

[@IshanekonWorldShapers]

You are forgetting that humans are the most ambitious and adaptable of all the classic races. All other races are mostly specialists and locked to specific environments in addition to having flaws that keep them in check. Not to mention the stagnant cultures they have. When talking about the forgotten realms: Dwarfs have abysmal fertility, most of them actually being sterile. They are optimized for one environment only, too. Elves are aloof and isolationist. Gnomes are so stuck in their inventions that they forget what's going on around them. They are also physically very weak. (I am saying that even though they are my favorite) Halflings actively seek out simple lives. It is ingrained in their nature. The adventurous ones are the anomaly among them. Also, they are small and not made for war.

[@alguldandoce7982]

This. Plus, you have to take into account other creatures and races, such as orcs, who have a particular hatred towards elves and would harm their overall numbers. Also saying fertility can just be solved by magic is just as bad as saying humans are not overtaken because of divine intervention or something like that. It's just pulling things out of nowhere to justify how they would actually be able to solve their fertility problem, as if it was super easy. Also I found it weird that it didn't seem taken into account that all those races aren't competing just with humans, but with eachother as well. If elves get too big and powerful, dwarves could ally with humans to take them down. If dwarves get too powerful, elves can ally with humans to take them down as well. He did seem to approach this towards the end but it seemed more about deities.

[@AdamK1095]

Humans are the 'rabbits' of playable races. Even if elves decided to have kids every 50 years to keep on the family you have two generations of human peasants that are needed to tend to expand the farm (into that dark forest area).

[@alguldandoce7982]

@@AdamK1095 True enough, actually thinking about it more throughly: if elves, even if not sterile, only reach maturity around one hundread years old, in that time humans are already dying of old age and leaving behing 30 descendants at least lol.

[@THELUBINTHEMORNING]

When it comes to fertility, demi humans will never be as horny as the human because humans are the offspring of the the horniest dwarves and elves.

[@christianlangdon3766]

So my issue with this is it works only when that is actively built in and expanded upon. Elves in the world of DND are varied, so to say they are all aloof is rather just not true. Sure hobbits and gnomes are sequestered, and not made for war yet they also somehow have all these advantages and this one downside is supposed to mean their numbers and abilities are smaller than that of humans. If anything they should be more populous, given less food and space available to them along with gnomes having technology and strong magic for defenses shouldn't their protective warrens be as big as castles having as many gnomes in there as a major modern city. These issues compile on top of each other when just a singular trait or two are given to try and justify why they aren't the top. Elves had a civil and or is a dying race is a good one along with being aloof, along with being slow to breed along with many many other factors that is what makes the elves of Tolkien the elves, they are quite literally from a different time, a different age, their aloof nature is becouse of this, they are leaving the world at a faster rate than they are building it. But faerun and the coast has like this one trait idea, which isn't even true, aloof elves yea cuss halsin, and all the elves of baldurs gate are so aloof and not just humans with pointy ears. Drixzt is a black allegory character(or any character who has a lot of racism toward them) and they are stronger characters for it most of the time. I see this more of a criticism that the border of the fantasitical elements of having other races is basically non-existent now and days elves are just better humans in most things at the moment even rings of power does this.

[@DrPluton]

I think part of what let humans become empire builders in Forgotten Realms is that the largest ancient human kingdoms (Netheril, Ilusk, etc.) were built after the dwarves shut themselves away underground and the elves secluded themselves in certain areas for survival after the Crown Wars. Gnomes have always been reclusive and not interested in conquest, and halflings mostly settled in a single nation which they protect by being everybody's trading buddies. Orcs and goblins have always been a threat to humans since they breed rapidly, but dwarves and elves hate orcs and goblins more than humans do.

[@jessepbigjdp]

I think the biggest issue with your take here is that you're assuming these other races have the same ambitions of conquest as humans, many of them don't and that's part of why within the balance of the world building they were given all these amazing traits. If halflings were warmongers then they wouldn't be so lucky, if gnomes were out to dominate the multiverse they wouldn't be so technologically ahead, and so on. If conquering was all the elves cared about maybe they could be like the Kryptonians and create kids in pods, but that's not how most of them approach life. The other major thing being disregarded is that it's ignoring that these more gifted races have to contend with each other; githyanki are too focused battling the mind-flayers to conquer humanity, elves have to contend with drow, mind-flayers are the enemies of the majority of races, etc. Whilst they contend with each other, humans are out there breeding quickly and expanding their reach. The only thing I agree with in the video is that the lifespans of these races are problematic from an RP standpoint. Even if it is to be assumed that say elves are spending a good chunk of their lifespan frolicking, talking to plants, meditating, and other activities that don't improve their skills... that's still a lot of time to become skilled in many things. You can give them a longer lifespan without going to such extremes, just 150-200 range makes them fantastical whilst not breaking suspension of disbelief

[@jun_sheng]

We can compare reality where many developed nations have declining and much lower birth rate compared to less developed nations. The population in developed places do experience longer lifespan from better living conditions, yet often very prudent, picky or even hesitant when it came to reproducing. While the less developed populations often reproduce more voraciously, though often unable to support their population size resource wise. In D&D scenario, humans would fall in the frequently over populated 3rd world culture profile when compared to the more advanced creatures.

[@rhejul]

3.5 D&D's Races of the Wild already had a good explanation for the lvl 1 110+ year old elf, their psychology as a long lived race. Well, long lived from our perspective, normal in theirs. For them we humans are the freaky ones. What humans do to master their trade by their 20s is akin to then seeing a 10 year old child doing the same from their perspective. Thought they can learn at the same pace as a human, they choose not to due to them seeing it as "improper". To them (at least in the book) anything that they want to be learned should deserve several decades to learn. Alien race with alien perspectives, who knew?

[@davidecolucci6260]

Technically it depend on how hot is the fire, if it is hot enough it can make water evaporate or straigth up explode by separating oxygen from hydrogen and the igniting them

[@sidecharacter7165]

It should also reduce Cold and Acid damage

[@Reddotzebra]

In the Swedish translation the line is something like "A word can change its definition faster than a snake strikes, if you're looking for snakes, you should look behind words that have changed their definition." Usually I prefer the English original but for once they managed to add a double pun that still holds up when you translate it back to English.

[@manfredconnor3194]

I don't remember there being many snakes in Sweden. Plenty of lemmings though. 😂

[@whitedwarf9090]

Human can breed quickly is why they are dominant. There are more of them. Humans win my numbers.

[@alexanderwilliamson7431]

same with orcs and goblins being the menace they are.

[@westonwalker6974]

He addressed that in the video. Intelligent and magical races could easily find a solution to the fertility problem

[@alexanderwilliamson7431]

@@westonwalker6974 it's not a fertility problem it's an aging slowly problem. An adult elf is life 100 years old lol

[@westonwalker6974]

@alexanderwilliamson7431 it's like dogs and cats become mature much quicker then humans, but they also die quicker. Generations of humans would come and go while an elf would stay young and beautiful.

[@alexanderwilliamson7431]

@@westonwalker6974 You would have me more adult humans... Breeding with more adult humans breeding with more adult humans. Than elf's taking 100 years to reach adult hood the population would continue to rise especially if left alone to breed and populate. I dont see elves just attacking and killing to lower population.

[@DUNGEONCRAFT1]

Great video! In AD&D races were balanced by strict level limitations. Halflings, for example, could ONLY reach 6th level as fighters. This created a world with natural verisimilitude. Most players, not wanting to limited, would choose to be human. This desire for power drove humans to become the dominant race. It made sense in terms of lore, and made sense in terms of game balance. 5E's "lore" is designed to allow anyone to play anything without any limitations. It's lore designed to sell books, not create create verisimilitude. Not saying AD&D was better. The rules were jenky, but the world made sense. Just MHO. -Professor DM, Dungeoncraft.

[@happy911]

Another note, I notice most of your replies mention "Baseline DnD." What's baseline DnD? The races have changed SOOOOOOO much through the editions. There was a time where half elves were the only hybrid. Level caps, humans could dual class, demi humans could multiclass. Infravision vs darkvision. Heck, earlier elves had no death age, they'd just wander off and nobody would see them again. Dwarves couldn't be wizards and only humans could be paladins.

[@damienfeymont3433]

In my games there are no gnomes. The humans are the ones good with technology.

[@almostanarchybro9129]

I think you are underplaying numbers and will. Historically the British ruled over India in spite of mere fragments of the population. A large part was a lack of will and tech to compete. However if the colony had a united and consistent rebellion I doubt the british could have heald onto most of it. In a fantasy world the Humans if they have numbers don't need tech and magic parity. Just enough competition ruling or conquering them becomes too difficult.

[@taragnor]

This might work in a real-world scenario, but in D&D, it's more of a superheroes game. Wars aren't really won with numbers, they're won with high level characters. A handful of 15th level elves could pretty much cancel out any advantage to just having numbers. It's a main reason why orcs, kobolds and goblins don't dominate. Simple numbers don't account for much, D&D is much more of a quality over quantity type of world. After all the fundamental most basic D&D trope is there's some threat against the town/city/whatever, and instead of rounding up a village militia, or the king's army, they hire a handful of skilled adventurers to take the job.

[@almostanarchybro9129]

@taragnor a handful of elves can only actively survey and manage a certain threshold of people. Sure if the 15th level mages are intent on genocide then that's a different story. But you need numbers to rule, administrate, enforce, and occupy a place. Mind you this gets Harder the more despotic the rule is. Spreading out a few dozen trained soilders with bows, crossbows, balistas and the like could kill a mage. And there will likely be hundreds of countermeasures that could pop up and a limited amount of mages. I will concede perhaps a kingdom or two devoid of magic with a poor and untrained populous would likely be ruled with little effort. However I think you are underselling the power of organized and populous resistance.

[@taragnor]

@@almostanarchybro9129 : Yeah, it's probably not worth conquering the humans. Having numbers isn't a big deal in D&D land, and as such having a large number of slave workers isn't a big benefit either. Big societies with complex worker infrastructures are important in the real world where supporting and equipping big armies is the key to military might, but in a superhero setting like D&D, it's just not a big deal. Hell a few mages with invisibility, fly and teleport are effectively unbeatable to a group of random low level soldiers. They can essentially fight a never-ending war of attrition at near-zero losses. So yeah, the elves probably wouldn't outright conquer the humans in the same way that the humans don't outright conquer the orcs or kobolds. It's not really worth it to them to do so and generally more of a waste of time than its worth.

[@herrfantastisch7489]

@@taragnorNot exactly. Realistically, and even mechanically, 15 level elves are getting dominated by waves upon waves of humans. Even mechanically, a level 15 character is not soloing over two hundred level 4s, level 4 traditionally being the level of a foot soldier. Accounting how big real armies could get, I don’t see four level 15s beating over 2,500 level 4s. DnD isn’t really “superheroish” either. Nonetheless, realistically speaking, not approaching this from a game scenario, a couple of elven wizards are not beating thousands of humans. They can survey an area and tactically take territory, but I do not see them holding territory. We have examples of one man armies in real life. Not many, but some. However, you know what they all have in common? They’re always tactical victories, but strategic losses. A small group of people cannot contest an entire territory. You need numbers. At the end of the day, numbers win. As OP said, the British won wars outnumbered and held vast territory; if India and China had the will to fight, they could very easily make British occupation not worth it. No matter how much guns and tech you have, or magic, hundreds of thousands of unruly humans is not worth the hassle if you don’t have the numbers to suppress it.

[@taragnor]

@@herrfantastisch7489 Well yes, on an open field a big army is going to win against a small group of 15th level characters. But these guys aren't stupid. They're not going to just send a letter telling the humans to amass an army and face them in direct combat. They're going to fight dirty. They've got flight, invisibility, teleportation, summoning. They're going to assassinate leadership, fireball their tents at night and spoil all their food. The thing with armies is they're sluggish and costly to keep assembled. The operations cost of a few high level adventurers is almost nothing. They can create their own food if they need to, they can get all their spells back and fully heal in a single night. It's a war of attrition that simply can't be won. Even the best case scenario of a human army managing to assemble in complete secrecy and take the elven capitol forcing the high level characters to flee, that's a temporary victory at best. As for holding territory, you have to consider the raw fear tactics. You're talking about superhuman badasses that can turn invisible, read your thoughts, change their shape to anyone and divine the future. They know when you've been naughty or nice, they can ferret out traitors with little problem. These are guys that routinely take multiple arrows to the face and survive. And even if you do get lucky and kill one, they've got resurrection magic, so they'll be back. Fighting these guys is going to seem utterly terrifying. It's going to be hard to find volunteers to sign up for that rebellion.

[@Nkwenkl18]

In my head canon, elves are isolationist prejudiced supremacists, dwarves are also supremacists but they’re collectivist and perfectionists, gnomes are fragile, vulnerable and are very populous but hidden from view, and halflings are just too damn content and care too much about “hygge” or “lagom” to do anything like conquer a kingdom. I think of animals that live a long time in real life like the Greenlandic shark. They’re not absolutely dominant here on earth , they simply have a slower metabolism and live in an environment which necessitates it. I could imagine similar conditions for other races in d&d.

[@internetcatfish]

A big part of why the Inheritance Cycle book series was so compelling to me was the, for lack of a better word, race-building. There are different races with vastly different qualities and capabilities, but basic humans are the dominant race in the setting, and for good reason. The dragons weren't really a factor anymore, despite being individually capable of altering the course of entire nations, because they had been largely wiped out by the mad emperor Galbatorix and his followers, which included renegade dragons and their Riders as well as unnatural creatures of incredible power and insatiable bloodlust. At the time the books were set, there were only two dragons alive, one in service of the emperor, and the other living in exile to ensure that the ancient wisdom the dragons had amassed would not be lost. Along with being the only race that was effectively immortal, the elves were the only race that was entirely magical, and as a rule were far stronger both physically and magically than other races. However, they were not dominant because of their reclusion, abundance of caution, and their limited numbers. The elves rarely ventured forth on conquests from their woodland home because they were more interested in subtly influencing things from afar. Instead of making any gambles or taking any risks, they would sit and plot things out for years, decades, or centuries in advance, similarly to a chess player mapping out every possible combination of moves before touching a single piece on the board. Furthermore, elven children were incredibly rare, with key elf cities only having one or two children among their populations, making any losses on the battlefield have an exponentially higher impact on their entire race than any other humanoid race. The dwarves, though also having extremely prolonged lifespans and being some of the finest craftsmen in existence, did not have much influence outside their walls because of the losses they took at the hands of Galbatorix, and because of their constant infighting. For a time, they had to entirely abandon all their surface cities and flee underground because of constant attacks from dragons that they were powerless to defeat. Entire dwarf clans were lost to the raids, and the remaining clans were willing to war among themselves about what to do about it. The urgals fell victim to their own warlike ways, having built a society in which the only way to advance was to have defeated enough opponents in battle. They existed as small tribes, with no central leaders, constantly fighting simply for the sake of fighting. On the rare occasion they did band together as a race and fight as a whole, they were terrifyingly effective, in one such event destroying an entire army so thoroughly that no one else knew what had happened to it. However, these alliances between the tribes never held very long, neither did any alliance they made with other races, due to their individual need to win fights as rites of passage. All the races had their own flaws and advantages, but it was ultimately humans, with their vast numbers and inescapable drive towards conquest and dominion, that came out on top. All the other races were too few in number to do anything, or they were too cautious or too distracted to capture and hold large swaths of territory.

[@fleetcenturion]

Ugh! How many times do we have to go over this? Do a little research, man! - Elves have a maximum number of souls that can be incarnated in the Prime Material at any one time. Their reproduction rate is painfully slow, and are isolationist by nature. That reverie vs. sleep rule was introduced in the 2e splat books, and made no sense then, either. - Dwarves have a _huge_ fertility problem, and males typically outnumber females by 4-1. Most of them also stay in their mountains, having no ambitions to establish large settlements on the surface. - Gnomes have similar reproduction rates to elves, and have the same mentality of a lack of urgency as the other long-lived races. - Halflings have never had ambitions to expand their influence or live an adventuring life, and are content to stay isolated in their small settlements. Halfling heirlooms are handed down to their children on their _second_ adventure, because of the few halflings who go on a single adventure, most never want to go on another. Remember: _They're Hobbits!_ - Tieflings, aasimar, and genasi (who all used to be just tieflings) can reproduce with most races, but are considered cursed, and usually left exposed on the side of a mountain as infants (Yep, in a medieval, non-Christian society, that's what happens!). That there are so many on the Prime Material at all in 5e, breaks all previous canon. - Half-orcs... see above. Plus, they're orcs, so any chance of consent would be non-existent. It would also explain why so many half-orc barbarians seem to have been raised by bears or wolves! - Orcs reproduce in vast numbers (and can do so with just about anything!), but spend more time fighting among each other than expanding settlements, and their influence is nonexistent-- apart from influencing others to want to eradicate them. Plus, most are dumb as dog sh*t. - Hobgoblins are smarter and more organized than orcs, but just as savage. They also have to manage their even more savage goblinoid brethren. Goblin hordes grow, then shrink-- then disappear-- like plagues of locusts. - Gith spend very little time in the Prime Material, only establishing small settlements to reproduce. Then they head back to the Astral or Outer Planes. - Dragonborn required a global, magical, multi-dimensional event, just to justify their existence, _in a single campaign world._ They shouldn't be there at all. Again, this isn't mental gymnastics; this is D&D canon, going back even as far as Tolkien. Other humanoid races simply don't have human expansionist ambitions, combined with ingenuity, and the desire to trade. If the other races thought and behaved like humans, they would be serious competition. But they don't, and so they aren't. *If you're stopping to question why other races don't behave like humans, they you aren't playing that race. You're playing a human in a funny costume!* In the words of Olivier, "Why don't you try _acting,_ dear boy?"

[@CooperAATE]

Yeah, this video seems like clickbait at best and "I just don't like it" at worst

[@fleetcenturion]

Quick addendum: The minotaurs of the DragonLance campaign are the only demihumans that approach the ambition and desire for expansion of humans. On the continent of Taladas, they even have their own pseudo-Roman Empire. Like dwarves, however, males outnumber females by 4-1. Though this makes for an exceptional army and navy, they still have to supplement their ranks with humans and other races, both to increase their numbers, and provide specialties for which the minotaurs haven't the natural aptitude.

[@insertname9736]

All those things can be resolved with magic, technology, or just mentality change. Again, THERE IS NO EXCUSE OF WHY HUMANS DOMINATE EVERY SCI-FI AND FANTASY SETTING OUTSIDE OF US BEING HUMANS IN REAL LIFE AND BEING BIASED FOR THEM! Let's say that all those mental gymnastics work for humans in D&D, then _why all fantasy and sci-fi settings still have humans the most dominant race?_ It's always humans that are the Mary Sue race that somehow overpopulate and are very special and adaptable, more so that pther races more wiserand with hundreds of years of experience who could easily solve all their shortcomings. Stop wanking humans!

[@MRDLT00]

11:08 Starting D&d in edition 3.5, I always thought humans were able to be so prominent due to them having access to so many different gods to aid them. That’s the work around I use in my games, that humans have the strongest United pantheon that protects and lifts up their race as a whole. A fact that has other races pissed, but not able to do a whole lot about it. 😅

[@robertcain7630]

Watching this a couple of points come to mind... Firstly, having a much shorter lifespan would give humans much greater drive and energy to do things, learn things, claim new territory, make an impact on the world. Where other races have centuries to pursue their goals humans have only decades which would give their lives a lot more urgency. Elves competing with humans would be like an adult trying to run around after a young child with the boundless energy of youth, the adult would soon be exhausted and be unable to keep up! I have to say I think you are underestimating the effect a much slower reproduction rate would have on a society, while individual elves would be able to achieve wonderous things their society as a whole would not grow and expand at the same rate as humans and not have the same diversity and drive that comes from a large and energetic population. And I'm sure you are quite right, they *could* solve any perceived deficiencies in such matters, but would they *want* to? Beings who live such long lives would likely not have the same drive to reproduce and have someone to carry on the family name as shorter-living humans would. If a human has children say around when they are 20-30 years old, by the time those children are ready to have children of their own their parents will be say 50-60 and coming to the end of their own lives. Elves on the other hand, even if they are not considered adults until 100 and then have a family at that age, by the time those children are 100 and start a family the parents will be barely 200 and still young by elf standards! Carry that on, by the time an elf gets to 700 then they will have great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren being born! Humans give birth to generations that will replace them, elves would give birth to generations that would compete with them which would lead to all sorts of complications for their society. If you look at the animal kingdom you find different species of different sizes and different lifespans sharing habitats. Generally the smaller, short-lived species reproduce more often and produce more offspring which helps them compete and survive in a world containing bigger, stronger, longer-lived species. Plus of course there is evolution, a shorter life-span and higher reproduction rate would lead to faster evolution to adapt and overcome changes and problems

[@HenriFaust]

3:42 Fear and anxiety exist to protect us from danger. It's true that in the modern world that is separated from nature, these emotions are often expressed out of proportion with reality. However, in a world where dragons and beholders could be hiding around any corner, these emotions become assets rather than hinderances. Thus, while halflings' bravery may be an advantage within the context of an adventuring party, for the average commoner on the street the situation is entirely different. It is analogous to mice infected with _Toxoplasma gondii;_ such infected mice will simply will walk right up to cats, heedless of the danger, and then get eaten. Their only protection is their luck, and luck is not reliable, _by definition._ You can only encounter a slavering beast so many times before your luck runs out. 6:16 Ouch. I literally winced at this. At the rate we are going, South Korea and Japan are set to be giant graveyards within two generations, and the situation isn't much better in the Western world. The population of the developed world, for all of it's advanced culture and technology, is in free fall. Despite all of our advantages, people aren't having children and our lifespans are getting shorter, year after year. While there are several proposed explanations for this in the real world, one thing of which we can be sure is that our supposed advantages are not helping or they aren't helping enough. This is one aspect of reality that D&D gets right: whatever natural advantages you may have you may have inherited, it doesn't matter when your society is too dysfunctional to support the population. And of course, population decline isn't a problem that has only occurred in recent times. It has occurred repeatedly throughout history, around the world, and within every great empire. Not a single civilization in our history managed to get their act together without first suffering a dark age lasting multiple generations. The progenitors of the dark age have to die out before civilization can renew, and that would take a very long time for races with lifespans in the centuries.

[@reaperlight]

Now imagining a Dark Forest (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis ) type scenario where all the intelligent species are trying to wipe each other out and your party is truly aberrant as a group of individuals of these different peoples who have learned to trust each other regardless...

[@timetrnr7380]

My reasoning in one of my first worlds for the humans being on practically equal footing with the elves (dwarves in this setting did not want to move outside of the mountains, and gnomes and halflings liked their own territories of peace more than others, in general) was that the elves were starting to die out earlier due to a magical disease that began to wipe out the people most immersed in magic, causing magic to be used less by elves. Since they relied on it so much, while they still were the cornerstone of the Empire, they were weakened, but humans were largely unaffected due to being far less magically-inclined. Gnomes were also unaffected, due to their magic generally being of a technological nature, and due to not making contact with elves often because of past grievances. That is the biggest thing I give to humans. They are industrious, persistent, and will fight harder in their short lifespans for something they believe in than most non-humans will in their entire centuries-long lives.

[@thorgornironfist]

Aren't Faerun's elves limited in number because Corelion created fix number of them? I believe Jorphan made video about it. Elves exist in the circle of metempsychosis and in trance actually they recollect previous lives. But for dwarves there is no simple explanation why they are not dominant race.

[@fabianpohl4335]

Yes the explanaition is elves have reincarnated spirits and there is only a limited number: In times of elve genocide the elves become by this more fertile than normal. Dwarfes have the problem that the are not enough women (only 20%) and even than they are not very fertile in most cases.

[@animefan3794]

Dwarves are canonically limited by their own genetics and stubbornness/pride. About 50% of all dwarves are sterile (reason speculated. Some believe a curse from the gods, some lay the blame at metal poisoning and the heat of their forges cooking their swimmers, others blame the effectively magic radiation of Faerzress energy from the underdark). On top of that, the dwarves that are born are 2 males born for every 1 female, and they still need both to procreate. So when 2/3 of your population can’t have children together, and half of all of them can’t have children at all, you end up with a race in decline, doomed to a slow march towards extinction. On top of that, I think there’s something somewhere about their pregnancies having a longer gestation period than humans, meaning what numbers they can replenish come slower, and since it takes longer for them to mature that slows things down even further. Thing is, there is a known fix to this. Mate with a human. The offspring only differentiates from a “pure” dwarf in two notable ways. An extra foot of height on average, and being properly fertile 100% of the time. That’s it. That’s all that separates them from “pure” dwarfs. And anytime a dwarf realizes this and tries to tell others, they get mocked and shunned. Because dwarven pride/stubbornness will not let them accept this solution as viable.

[@Wallheadofbutter]

I guess if you look at it from the perspective of elves would perfect fertilization and reduce infant fatalities and such you could say they would sure have a stronger population. I would say however that they couldn't just have their population run rampant. Sure in a fantasy world they could produce supplies for survival but space is still a thing. More importantly, any war a civilization of elves was involved in would likely have a stronger impact on their population than a human, or any other faster maturing race for that matter. Humans hit adulthood at 18. Elves at 100. Lets say an elf and a human are born on the same day. That human could have been born, had children, their children had children, and have all 3 of those generations ready to fight, all before they are considered elderly. The elf is is still a solid 40 or so years before its reaches adulthood. That would mean if in that time the two peoples went to war and tried to conquer one another again, the humans would still be able to produce another 2 generations worth of ready to fight people still potentially before that same first elf has reached adulthood. This is of course as long as total annihilation of a people isn't the end result of any of said war, but that is typically a rarity. That's just my thoughts on the matter though. the beauty of D&D is that any of these races can hold different levels of power varying from world to world. Interesting video for sure. Very thought provoking.

[@Nyo_Fight]

I always thought that 1 Elves had a limited number of souls, the number of elves doesn't grow because of that 2 They do the Reverie to remember their past lives 3 After the Corellon incident, Elves are always reincarnating because they are barred from their afterlife 'life', like, they don't live in their heaven or something that I remember reading this in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

[@redfaux74]

I didn't expect this from Esper. 😕 Fertile Myrtle of the human race 3,000 years ago didn't PLAN on having 13 children in her years from 13 to 40. Abortion wasn't a thought back then for sure. But mom and dad put those children to work early because they had to. There was no Atari or Pokemon. There were farm chores. Work or starve. You had to stay ahead as there were no 911 services and winter might be much worse than last year. No AC. No convenience store. You want heat? You MAKE heat. A bull in the barn meant you could till ground faster and feed more children or they starve. An injury could mean infection, becoming maimed or death. I know because my mother was 17 of 18 children from one grandma but 3 grandpa's (all 3 died). And who says Elves WANT a child every 2 to 3 years? Maybe the mother Elf CHOOSES to develop an egg every 10 or 50 years to focus on that child's development, arts, singing, dancing, instruments, manners, skills with a bow, short sword, attunement to the world (Reverie), etc. Maybe the mother and father must agree in a ceremony? Now that we're "civilized" most humans wouldn't live a week in the wild. 3 days without clean water and you're dead. Not so 100 years ago.

[@Sylentmana]

There’s also just to goddamn many of them. WotC created a race for every half formed thought or concept in existence. Also, for solving the issues you mentioned, I like to take the Final Fantasy 14 approach. All “races” are offshoots of the same base race: humans. Whether they were created by an external force or evolved naturally is another matter.

[@BuboStabbins]

I thought the whole thing that gave the humans the edge is that we breed, mature, and peak WAY faster than any other race? So while you spent the last 50 years working on your next best accomplishment, legit 100s of thousands of humans were born, made it to maturity, learned 95% of what you spent your entire life learning, then bred again and taught their kids that. It's like trying to outpace a plague that is sentient and and can learn most of what you know in ~25 years. There was a 3.5 supplement that I can't remember the name of right now that went into depth about all the race's fertility rates and mating rituals. Humans outpaced everything but orks by a huge margin. Fun topic of conversation either way tho.

[@goblincookie5233]

You have to remember that humans are also dying off pretty fast due to old age.

[@Dereliction2]

The dilemma you posed of elves or other long lived races might be answered with two concepts. First, that the non-human races don't have the same psychology as humans and don't see slow reproduction rates as a problem to be solved. They're much more concerned with other abstractions, like mining the biggest gems from the deepest mines, or merely enjoying the passing moments of nature, not the ambitious spread of their race and peoples as conquerors of all! Second, the explanation for the rapid level advancement is something akin to evolution's punctuated equilibrium. For most of us, our lives are marked by periods of slow, even somewhat static existence, marked by "punctuated" achievement that stands out as the highlight of our lives. In the same way, an elf's youthful life to 100 might not be memorable or meaningful in any way, no more than a human child's. And that period where the elf went on an adventure and helped to slay a red dragon? That was the highlight of his life, his crowning achievement before he receded back into a more stable existence doing, well, the things that elves mostly do. We should not forget, too, that adventurers who keep adventuring are probably going to meet an end that doesn't lead to these sort of questions. Either they slink away with their reputation and treasure in tow, or they learn that life is short for their types.

[@tarvoc746]

6:08 - "I'm pretty sure a highly intelligent... species would solve something like reproduction rates." - Is there actually some easy fix for low birth rates in written D&D rules or lore? Because if not, then this is a Thermian fallacy. If the creator of the setting doesn't (at least implicitly) introduce such a solution for them, then it doesn't exist. I cannot believe I actually have to explain this, but there is no law of the universe that forces a writer or world-builder to introduce some kind of easy fix for low birth rates of his elf race, that just isn't a thing. Sure, you can invent all kinds of weird random stuff that negates all disadvantages non-human species have over humans, because you can make up anything you want, but why the hell _would_ you?? Your argument actually works both ways: One can just as easily make a setting where humans dominate everything because of some factor one simply made up. Also 6:46 - "Birth rates, in the grand scheme of things, are not a very difficult problem to solve"... for a premodern society?? Are you f*ing kidding me??

[@garvinanders2355]

The thing is Tolkien would agree. The elves were the dominant race for most of history but exhausted themselves fighting Morgoth and later Sauron. The reason a lot of elves leave Middle Earth is they are simply worn out from the constant wars with orcs and the losses and tragedies they have suffered. We should keep in mind that the Professor didn't feel bound by the laws of biology as we understand them. He created a life cycle for elves that made small families the norm (bluntly elves lose interest in sex and having children when they get past their first couple of centuries). Meanwhile, men, who die in decades don't carry these traumas and benefit more from elvish victories than the elves do bluntly. Dwarves simply weren't interested in controlling the surface and found the humans useful for doing things they didn't want to do, like farming. An example is the relationship between Lonely Mountain and Dale. The men of Dale did the work the Dwarves didn't want to do, like growing the food and moving the goods. Your average Dwarf doesn't want to travel in a caravan to far-off lands, he wants to be at his forge or in the mine. Humans on the flip side often enjoy the experience of traveling to far-off lands and meeting new people. This was incredibly beneficial for both parties but the Dwarves were the senior partner here. None of this really applies to modern DnD however so I think Esper's points make sense.

[@esperthebard]

These are great examples of how to use story elements and worldbuilding to portray elves and dwarves well. Of course, it comes from the grandmaster himself, and we are all making our own renditions of the stage he set.

[@jamesedward3619]

In my campaign setting, the three major races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves) are about equal in terms of how much of the world they dominate. My explanation as to how short lived humans can be on equal footing with the long lived Elves and Dwarves is that they are much more versatile, innovative, ambitious, and adaptable than they are; and because of their short lives, they also act with an urgency the others just don't have. Plus, humans mature so much faster too, while the others take more than a human lifetime to do so, which means humans can produce contributing adults to their society at a significantly faster rate than the others. Finally, humans have a much higher birthrate because, again, they feel such urgency to reproduce while the other races generally don't.

[@trip9845]

5:50 complins about mantle gymnastics show a good argument then dismiss it with mantle gymnastics

[@amoney1421]

This, If anything. Is a good reference video to keep in mind while world building. I actually have it written in that the humans in my world were primeval cavemen like beings that were taught everything they knew by the elves, Until the elves realized how easily corrupted they were, how petty beings with such short lifespans really are, and before they knew it the humans declared war on the elves thinking they would "reclaim their lost lands" all a paranoid "what if" that ended in the elves bringing down a magical barrage on the humans armies and feeling so ashamed they had to stoop to their level that they left them to their own devices all together and populated their own continents, barring humans specifically from entering. I see humans as very easily manipulated and corrupted beings, but very versatile, they can adapt to any climates but their short lives prevents them from really becoming a major thing. Their "home" continent is shared by other races so they have no true home, sort of the "Muts" of the humanoid realms. Humans in real life can be vile creatures, seeing the ugly through social media really influenced my depictions of them. Not to say they're evil races, they're not evil they're mostly neutral-neutral good.

[@esbenandersen2168]

Regarding production rates, which I think is a fair argument, they would only "solve it" if they saw it as a problem to be solved. And why would they? We don't see rats and think "how do we match their reproductive rates!?"

[@LordOz3]

So how long are elves infants? Do their parents have to change their diapers for the first 10 years of their lives? In my campaign worlds, all the races hit puberty at roughly the same time, and longer lived races hit maturity after only a little longer than humans (like 1 to 6 years depending on the race). While long lived races age slower after they hit maturity, it's not to the degree of by-the-book races. My elves live a little over 200. Since I built the world, other races have not discovered a "fix" to offset humans' fecundity. On the player side, I give human characters a 10% xp bonus. In my most recent campaign, only one player opted for a non-human.

[@samuelbattershell3413]

6:18... the dropping birthrate in 1st world nations all points to 'no, if anything the more advanced the culture, the lower the birthrate', that's not metal gymnastics, that's simple observation.

[@trentonbuchert7342]

With the reproduction thing, I think the issue is not with the capability of elves and such to reproduce but the need for them to. They live for centuries. It makes sense they wouldn’t have as intense a reproductive instinct as humans. Humans could outnumber elves simply because our short lives require us to mate more frequently. This is, of course, not even getting into how humans and elves would interact. Elves would likely still see humans as lesser beings, assuming that they have the same tribalist tendencies as humans.

[@michaelconner9208]

Most of your points are addressed in lore or can be explained by the fact you're looking through a human lens. Halflings - They are brave because they are lucky, and they are lucky because they are blessed by a god. Halflings are blessed by a good aligned god. If the collective Halflings went on a conquest to dominate or eradicate other races there is a good chance that god would no longer bless them which removes their luck and bravery. At that point Hafling's only advantages over humans are longer life span and agility, with humans having a strength and stamina advantage. Halflings got it good why would they risk it? Dwarves - Dwarves are too busy crafting to go on a conquest. In lore they are notably more patient due to their longer life span. Dwarves are more likely to come to the conclusion humans are a better ally than an enemy. Gnomes - Similar to Dwarves they're to busy inventing and experimenting to think about conquests. Being more inclined to intellectual or magical pursuits Gnomes probably ran the numbers and figured humans are a better ally than an enemy. Elves - Due to their long life spans elves approach problems differently than humans do. A human would be satisfied with 1 answer to a problem. For an elf they must understand not just the answers but why all other possibilities are wrong. So just like Dwarves and Gnomes they come to a conclusion that humans, who are more or less interested in surviving, are better friends than enemies. Birthrates/Populations - Look at our more technologically advanced society and those who are more intellectual or wise. Humans had fewer children per household following the industrial revolution. Fertile couples that don't have kids usually don't want to because they'd rather save money or don't want to sink the time. This shows they had time and thought out having kids. This could easily apply to the races above. Ambitious/Evil outliers - They could very well happen and could succeed. Generally that would be harder in those societies though. With smarter and wiser members of society they could better recognize and rehabilitate those individuals on average. Dwarves have a very structured society so good luck getting through the red tape. Halflings, Elves, and Gnomes have very decentralized societies so what power they could take won't be much and is going to be met with resistance/non-compliance. "Evil" Races - If they destroy the humans why don't they also destroy the other "good races"? Races with Shorter life spans - Since you didn't address these I will. Orcs have shorter lifespans but greater physique than humans. Due to this they value martial prowess over knowledge or wisdom as they don't have the time to accumulate a latter 2. Goblins have maybe have 20%-30% of a human's lifespan which leads to them breeding like rabbits to keep a population and act impulsively. Humans have ambition and versatility because it's what they need to survive given the above.

[@masterolimario]

There being no true limits for what magical effects that could be created and replicated in dnd is a larger problem in general for worldbuilding. So yeah elves could solve their slow reproduction speed problem with magical potions, but by the same logic, humans could solve their limited lifespans with magic potions too. You have to draw the line on magic somewhere, so may as well be on potions that drastically change the properies of entire civilizations, as any line you draw will be arbitrary.

[@angelocano6041]

this is a problem only due to the changes made since 3rd edition. previously the rules for dnd limited the classes and levels other races could take. the whole concept were the older races were in decline and stuck in their ways. and that humans were a driving force because of there versatility and ambition (being able to play any class and attain any level). since dnd 3e, all races can be everything and level up to any level, so what made humans unique was basically removed.

[@jasonbertram4960]

I have a bit of an issue with the sheer quantity of races in DND. Fantasy world's can have multiple races, sure, but I feel like having more than 20 different races of intelligent species is too many. I don't have an issue with multiple races being in the game, but, I do think from an in game socio-political perspective it doesn't make sense to me.

[@Person-Man67]

9:05 They would “waste” time An extremely long-lived species would perceive time differently. They would spend it on things which others would consider “worthless”. Like in Frieren.

[@kakalukio]

You're missing two important points; 1) You're assuming there are no real downsides for these races. For example; a common trope is that dwarves are deeply conservative and actively reject change as they hide in their mountainholds. Elves are often portrayed as arrogant and slow to react to threats, underestimating the lesser races. Gnomes tend to be chaotic and scatterbrained, often being too distracted with their newest shiny toy. Various evil races are just flat out too destructive and constantly stuck fighting internal wars etc. These can be cultural, or some kind of inherent behaviour. But they are very important, and can relativly easily explain why humans who are usually the "average" are relativly succesfull. Or at the very least why isn't dominating the world despite being super duper magical. 2) You're assuming that if there are problems with the race, they'll immeadiatly start fixing it using their superiour lifespan/magic/etc. E.g. the lower birthrate thing. However; it's entirely possible the problem simply can't be fixed. Or that the race simply doesn't view it as a problem to begin with and never bothers to try and fix it. Also; with respect to the years of experience during which they don't achieve much. At best player characters are exceptionally talented adventurers trust into exceptional circumstances causing extreme growth in an extremely short period of time, at worst it's just a gameplay mechanic and you shouldn't take it quite that literally.

[@KermodeBear]

Taking only 2 years to hit level 20 one of my huge criticisms of typical fantasy systems. A L20 Wizard can throw Wish around. So, in the space of two years, we go from "Hey, I graduated mage school!" to "I can grab reality and shape it into whatever I desire." Ridiculous. Why isn't the world full of wish-casting wizards, then? High Fantasy brings so many problems with it. If you are all powerful, if you can trivialize a problem, any problem then your story isn't going to be very interesting. You're not going to grow or change, you're not going to learn, there's no real problem to be solved. There's no risk. And if there's no risk, is there really a reward? That's not a story worth telling. I saw many years ago a method of addressing this on a mechanical level. It was the E6 (or E8) system. Your characters gain experience and level up to 6 (or 8). After that, they no longer gain levels. They can gain additional feats, but no class levels. This means that your character cannot break the world. It means dragons are always terrifying. It means they can't take on an army by themselves. I like that idea. It does have the problem of, "Well, I'm a L6 mage, I'm done progressing, but why can't I go train to be a fighter, and then progress that way?" So there's some adjustments that could be made, but I think having a sensible power cap (like elves having standard life spans) makes WAY more sense and produces a much better game. A great story is not damaged because the characters have limitations. A great story is great *because* of those limitations and how the characters respond to them.

[@Kayplay120]

I wouldn't as readily dismiss the fertility argument. That making fertility magic is possible, is an assumption I wouldn't take for granted. Given the fact that in DnD souls are a confirmed fact, it is very much possible that is what prevents fertility magic, as pregnancy in DnD is not a purely biological process, but a spiritual one that either creates or reincarnates a soul. That is besides the unknown factor of how healing magic interacts with pregnancy. Given that spells like lesser restoration purge many other creatures eggs or larvae, I'd be worried about how healing magic effects an unborn child. All of this, of course, doesn't automatically explain humanitys dominance in DnD, if anything it just gives more of an advantage to more fertile creatures, like orcs or goblinoids, but regardless I wouldn't simply dismiss the point with a 'magic fix it'.

[@lightninjohn5651]

That +1 to all ability scores really helps them out

[@davewilson13]

Esper, the things you love about fantasy worlds are so well aligned with the things that I love and bug me. I can only imagine in a parallel universe we are great friends. In my setting Elves only live to about 120, though they look very similar to one of their parents, so it's really just a myth/stereotype that they live so long.

[@chrisseymour2848]

This is why I like the Red-Wizards of Thay, its seems logical that a kabal of Necromancers and Liches who are ruthless and ambitious would be able to compete with the more long lived races, indeed there society would justify dark magic like necromancy otherwise the other races would dominate humanity, therefore we Red Wizards need to rule.

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

I am exploring this issue with ageless characters a bit myself in the D&D group I am part of. In it I play a warforged (Battlemaster-8/Zealot-Barbarian-4/Artillerist-Artificer-3/War-Wizard-2) and while he is vastly powerful in certain aspects (predominantly sheer resilience plus melee capabilities), the fact that he is an artificial creation and has been abused for warfare before, heavily influences his interactions with those he calls "organics" Although he has emotions, he is not governed by them. So much so that (in keeping with his backstory) he still tends to see himself as disposable to a point, when it comes to preserving lives - which has on occasion resulted in quite lovely and wholesome moments in the campaign. And when this campaign is over, I plan on having him disappear to the place of his creation, leaving behind a message that if the world needs him once more, he would return, but until then he would take his destructive capabilities off the board.

[@dreadqueenmaeve]

Okay so I agree actually with the premise here, and in my D&D and other TTRPGs I run humans are always the least powerful and populous race. However, all my races don’t get lives longer than 120 years with that being the top end. But the point about birth rates you have completely wrong. There’s no lore saying that the other races have an issue with giving birth, the idea is that they simply don’t want to. They’re very picky about producing offspring, so they actively choose not to reproduce faster. They don’t need any potions or magics to help them.

[@jimmydean7219]

I figure in general it’s more of a society or cultural thing. Could you imagine a prolific, intelligent species that lives for over 500 years? There’s a reason why Galapagos turtles are endangered for example. If they were as prolific as roaches, they would eat out their environment too quickly. Perhaps once upon a time, some of these races actually bred similar to humans, but suffered mass starvation or overcrowding, leading to great downfalls and an eventual cultural shift.

[@tixodioktisdeviant46]

I can understand your point of view to an extent, but I would like to mention 2 points that I think are worth taking into account. 1. Most other races, especially Elves, in more or less all the worlds that I have read the lore of, have actually been the most dominant race probably for millenia, same for dragons, titans, demons, (ro even your off shoot Goblinoids, or giants). I think that idea is that we "happen" to be playing on an age where humans have taken advantage of the fall of other more dominant civilization and are coming in their own. Your Myth Drannor, Daakhanni Empire, Age of Dreams etc take your pick of epic setting and you will find that it was once ruled by a race than humans, that fell to hybris, sacrifices to stop a larger foe, got destroyed by some god or another. 2. I think that the idea behind the longer lifespans of other races is that, a longer life, does equate to more *meaningful* experiences, just more experiences. An elf might take 120 year to reach adulthood, but those years do not *mean* the same to them as a 120 years would mean to a human for example. I would compare an elven adolescent year, to a 40 year old human year, in the aspect of learning something new, or adapting to a new situation. So, for every extra decade of life, efficiency in those years drops by the same amount. I am under the impression that Keith Baker had some article on that, how an elf learning magic does simply learn a spell, they speak with the spirit of the wizard that created, learning al the intricacies, philosophy and meaning above and beyond that actual application.

[@naterslayer8924]

Yeah, I can agree with your arguments about why a lot of the other non-human races are just better on a lore end. That is why most of the races that are not human have flaws that they need to deal with, and can only live around two times as long as a human. In my lore, humans stand out because they are more tied to chaos while letting them live in areas that no other race would dare go. This also lets them understand elemental magic and make deals with deities. I have to say very good video man.

[@chrisg8989]

The Elves couldn't just "magic" their reproduction rates. They literally have a limited number of Elf souls. It's a whole lore thing. Look it up.

[@henriquecamboim]

With all due respect for the old man, this phrase of Pratchett implies that Tolkien said that elves were nice. He never did. In Middle-Earth some elves, when confronted with the utmost evil, chose to do heroic deeds, not nice deeds.

[@forestdweller01]

For me its always come down to adaptability and breeding. Because of their atrocious life span ( and their weakness to disease and sickness) when compared to the other races, Humans have to have more children. Much the same way animals have massive litters of babies, if you lose half you still have a good chance of your genetic info making it into the future.

[@Jakhjam]

When it comes to DnD 5e a lot of the issues explored are explained in the Forgotten Realms setting. DnD 5e is a system, where race abilities are directly inherited from the lore of the Forgotten Realms. When you are doing world building outside the designated setting you definitely need to have an answer for these glaring issues. I would even state that the change in character ability scores to a "choose your own" is a great service for homebrew, but it's a giant disservice for the setting the rules are founded upon. DnD 5e started with inherited abilities based on lore, where ability scores was such a characteristic. By stripping away the innate physical and mental aptitudes of each race, whilst racial abilities are left unchanged, they have just made an unintentional plot hole, which you as the DM need to resolve. In DnD 3.5 where the Forgotten Realms setting really has been fleshed out why you are in the human era. Several of empires have used humans as a subservient race, and their adaptability was of great utility. Then there is the talks of half-races and genes, which is also fleshed out, where human genes are one of the more dominant traits to carry. In the Forgotten Realms having a child for elves is akin to a minor tragedy, as you are taking the soul away from their heaven and robbing them of their mutable form.

[@ronathan02]

I’ve always said that in a war an army of Lizardfolk would be an incredible choice if you had to pick a race for your soldiers to be. They might not be the strongest, but they are resource saving! Let’s look at some examples. 1. Lizardfolk have a natural Armor Class, so no need to spend gold on iron breastplates. 2. Lizardfolk are happy to eat their fallen enemies, that will cut the cost of food down. 3. Lizardfolk make weapons out of bones, so you’ll always have backup options if weapons get damaged on the battlefield. They’re also aquatic, so that adds even more versatility. Essentially you can focus your extra funds on any number of things a normal army could never afford.

[@Titan360]

I've had many of the same thoughts as you theorycrafting about the D&D world. I would like to mention a few other arguments for human survival, and especially for the longevity issue: -Level=Combat Power, not total skills learned. or it should be case. Some skills (like the old school thief class) are actually class features, or they are dangerous or difficult to practice and gain real world experience (points) in, but I digress. 0th level academy sages can max out their "Knowledge: Philosophy" skill without every growing past 2 maximum hit points. The local "medicine witch" has trained to identify which herbs are potent with magic, to create herbal medicine on par with simple potions, without even killing a single goblin and reaching level 3 to pick up the "Brew Potion" feat or learning a single real spell. The alchemist in the city is similar, but with the help of literacy, education, and fully stocked laboratory, he can brew, crush, grind, calcify, purify and transmute those exotic ingredients into an potion, oil, dust, or tangleroot bag you can imagine. 90 year old elf kids might have more skills than they are letting on, but unless the elf kingdom is recruiting child soldiers, they probably were not trained for real combat until they choose to become a 1st level fighter at age 100. -Incidentally, is it just me, or should Elves be the most risk-adverse humanoid species ever? Almost the exact opposite of how you describe halflings' adventuresome behavior. Even if some weirdos leave the forest to become wandering mercenaries, the individual has to worry about losing centuries of remaining life, and the collective have to worry about providing a safe and secure environment to raise children to an age that they can breed. And 3e elves have a -2 to constitution just to make the whole world even scarier.... -Humans being "dominant" in this stories might just be naked anthrocentrism, but do not overlook the racial bonuses that your game system of choice gives humans. -If you are tinkering with racial traits, more recent versions of the game Dwarf Fortress has a pretty decent solution for the paradox of human survival: all the other races are short! We got dwarves, goblins, kobolds, surprisingly small elves, and humans are the only medium sized major race. Humans are the goliaths of this world, armed with infinite short jokes if nothing else! -Speaking of goblins, all of the "one HD" PC races are also woefully inadequate in the face of all the different types of intelligent creatures, or even just monstrous humanoids. Ogres, Bugbears, Gnolls, and basically any species with a natural armor bonus should mop the floor with anything in the PHB. The other races might team up with humans not out of the goodness of their heart, but simply because THEY are in danger of being wiped out, too. Perhaps their shortcomings might be seen as a feature, not a bug "these guys don't have darkvision? Fan. fucking. tastic! That means they can't steal our provisions in the middle of the night and retreat into the underdark, like when we tried to recruit the kobolds!"

[@thedragonknight3600]

As for the issue of the character not really gaining levels for a majority of their life and so on, that IS an issue. But there are other questions that are important. The first is what defines how a character grows? Because sure you could have an elf who’s 400. But their first 100 is them developing as an individual, first physically for the first 20 and then spiritually for the last 80. And then, well, you perceive time different when you live that long. You could have spent the next 250 working a trade, or being an artist, or so on and so on. And then things in your life change, and you spent the last few years working on your skills. Now we start wondering why you’re only level 1. But the point still stands. Elves, while they have more life than others, aren’t going to spend that life the same way a human will. Not will a dwarf, nor a gnome. Also an adventurer gaining a shit ton of experience in a short time is simply due to the sheer amount of experiences you’re having. Your average Warrior might train most of his life, which is important. But our player characters are going through life threatening experiences day after day after day. You’re gonna figure that shit out pretty quick. But those with long lives are definitely gonna be dealing with the loss of that excitement

[@VideoClam]

Yes! I just discovered your channel last week & found it to be the most enjoyable D&D channel I’ve encountered so far. I was a bit worried you had abandoned the channel because all the videos that were first displayed to me were from 3-5 years ago. So glad to see you are still active. Thanks for providing this for your viewers.

[@WhatIsNumberOne]

Birth rates could certainly be tied to psychological differences or physiological differences. Births are easier now than ever in our life and birth rates are down. I don't buy your argument. If the entire world is constantly at war (as you seem to imply would be the case), a 750 year lifespan doesn't matter - no one would live a full natural life. Humans are more skilled and learn feats others take much more experience to learn. In addition (in the next version of the game), humans will be quite lucky as well. Add in that each race has other things to worry about in addition to the other races and I think it's quite easy to understand how humans could have become dominant. The Dwarves constantly dealing with the Drow or the Elves might be to concerned about constant orc raids. Perhaps early human civilizations settled in areas with less competition for territory and as they expanded, they had a strong numerical advantage the Dwarves and Elves could never muster. You can attempt to explain it any way you want. Perhaps in your world, the Elves caught all the breaks and are dominant, but in the default setting, I would say the Humans have caught the breaks and now vastly outnumber the other races.

[@jamestitus472]

I think its important to understand "leveling" as an abstraction necessitated by the fact that its a game to help along the narative. It doesn't have to be relevant to worldbuilding. So i don't think that bit is particularly salient. Similarly, PCs are meant to be exceptional, non-normative. Both these ideas are necessary to remember to properly construct the world of a game campaign. I also think handwaving fertility is somewhat silly. It takes an immense effort to solve infertility issues in our modern world, and we still have demographic collapse on the horizon due to cultural shifts, like in Japan and China. Indeed, often attempts to address the concern backfire and make it worse. This problem would be compounded for long lived races, not trivialized. Moreover, assuming magic can even do anything, the cultural elements haven't remotely been addressed. If a society of elves is used to having one or two offspring over several hundred years of life, or even less often (think Tolkien), they aren't going to just simply start breeding like rabbits with the aid of magic big pharma just because their population gets slaughtered by orcs or they're getting outcompeted by humans or whatever. Cultural norms on mating, breeding, etc would hold far more strongly for long lived races, within groups and in individuals over time. That's bolstered by what we know of psychology. I mean can you seriously imagine the elves being like, "oh shit, we're losing numbers, time to make babies for the elfish nation-state"? So abnormal, "sacrifice your dignity for the nation, inject this fertility drug and become a breeder cow, we need soldiers." That's nazi tier eugenics. Like, yes, maybe some elvish crank would want it, but they're running against all of elven culture for millennia before humans show up, and are gonna get beat down. And otherwise having that be a base setting for elvish society in a D&D world totally removes the game from the realm of fantasy and into dystopian fiction. It also just presumes elves would have the same concerns as humans. But if reproduction is not a constant state of being / mind, it doesn't make sense to ever become a major political motivator in a natural way. Sexual Fascism just doesn't seem reasonable as a solution, and I can't imagine individual geniuses being able to garner enough influence to totally transform the most intimate and base element of the social fabric, no matter how many centuries they're given to do it. This is obviously more pronounced with canonical elves and dwarves than other creatures, but some of it carries over. Overall I agree that these things should be more richly thought out and that D&D tends to do a pisspoor job of it. While I think some of your assumptions are off, I do think its an important discussion to have. It is certainly something I've thought about for my own world, as I've wanted it to be very intentionally human centric. But my project also has the benefit or curse of being profoundly more a theological and philosophical exercise than a functional gameworld. Anyway, thanks for posting. Intriguing stuff as always.

[@xenmaster2203]

In older editions, leveling was directly tied to the narrative of the game. You would gain enough gold dungeoneering to level up. You would then spend a few weeks of downtime to gain that level. Not just that, but being a certain level meant you had a title. A level 1 fighter was a “Veteran”, while the level 10 fighter was a “Paladin” (Or Anti-Paladin if you were of chaotic alignment). It these games, your level was important narratively as it also meant you were granted holdings to establish yourself in the world more. A lot of these aspects were lost to d&d after 3rd edition.

[@jamestitus472]

@@xenmaster2203 which is good.

[@Cheeky_Bandit]

Okay. Lets take this and place it into the real world in the perspective of countries. I think that is a fair conversion because like races in D&D, countries have a wide variety of general characteristics. With that lets look at the most powerful Country on earth, the U.S.A. The U.S.A by all means would represent the "Elves / Dwarves." The largest economy, the most powerful military, the greatest level of technology, in addition to being the only superpower on earth. Yet, America doesn't control the entire planet. Just about Half of it. North America and NATO allies, with NATO being composed of other individual countries. But half of a planet is still incredibly powerful and influential, especially when unified under a common goal. However, America and its protectorates don't make up the majority of the world population. Even with that great power, China and India have far greater numbers and a considerable enough level of technology to be considered "theats" if you became their enemies. Then there is the reality that several counties on earth today have a majority stone age population, only having access to greater technology thanks to more advanced countries being charitable or invested in them for some economic or political reasons. But how? It's simple. Cost to Benefit analysis. It is often the case that the cost of exerting influence on another group is greater than the benefit of doing so if the group is resistant to you. This is detailed in Sun Tzu's art of war, Confucius, and several roman authorities like Marcus Aurelius. This dynamic explains why so many races that are weaker by comparison to others exist and might even thrive. It is because the cost of "dealing" with them out weights the benefit especially if you consider other things a better use for your time and resources. Sure, if an ambitious Elf wanted to they could plan and prepare their entire life to wipe Goblins from the forgotten realms. But would that be logistically possible, even with half a millennia to implement such a plan? The answer is likely not.

[@Reddotzebra]

This is why gnomes are my favorite race, the backstory thing is mostly irrelevant because unlike elves, gnomes mature at the same rate as humans do. This actually kind of makes me want to write a location for a setting where a community of forest gnomes have started to secretly influence a human village. I mean, their most notable feature is that they like to build underground, and if you don't know their burrows are there it's exceedingly difficult to locate them... The gnomes may have started meddling in the humans affairs in order to keep them distracted from finding something they shouldn't mess with, subtly nudging them towards alternate courses of action while improving both communities standards of living. A few generations in you could then throw in a gnome with a different outlook on things that could set up his own faction, and when the players encounter the village there might be a shadow civil war going on in the background.

[@migueldelmazo5244]

Yeah, but every one of us gets a free feat because we all pick variant human.

[@gurugru5958]

I agree! I debate internally about having a campaign setting with a limited selection of races that all have thorough worldbuilding and character or just opening the floodgates for rabbit people, blue people, and space people to comingle (largely as PCs) because players don't response well to limitations.

[@Zarlos01]

I kinda did the opposite adjustment in my campaign setting, the long living races mature and learn more slowly and have the small birthing rate for cultural preference - "I'm just 300 years old, one child is enough for now!" - or low reproductive instincts, but now prevent have sex for pleasure. Meanwhile, the majority of the short living races mature and learn quickly and have a high birthing rate. But at the time my campaign is occurring, the world is recovering from a cataclysm, and every race and kingdom is recovering. And with this, each type of race/kingdom is advancing differently; short living is going by population growth and adapting and innovation, long living they have prior knowledge and experience, and in mixed kingdoms they are combining tactics. And creatures with extremely long life, like dragons are rare, competing for territory sometimes, and the difference between benevolent, evil, or indifferent can influence the accessibility and population of their territory (from protection, demands of tributes, rule the region, or avoiding interactions). There are few ancients, and some have their domains known, be it to avoiding, dominance, or trying to interact.

[@madaxe606]

I don't really buy the argument that an exceptionally long-lived race would see lower fertility rates as an issue per se. Look at the example of first-world fertility rates vs third-world fertility rates. Even though wealthy, prosperous nations have a ton of resources and the tools with which to maximize fertility rates, most women don't have children until well into their thirties. They have 1 or 2 children at most. A race of long-lived people might well see self-improvement, esoteric pursuits or glory-seeking as being much more desirable and important than child-rearing.

[@dandrive3249]

So the same question is brought up in Star Wars and Darth Plaguius answers it to Palpatine in one of the novels. The answer is that humans are just more ambitious than other races. We live shorter so we have so many things we want to do and get done in what is really a small time compared to other races. It causes us to do crazy and adventurous things that other races don’t care to do cause they have time to wait it out. It also gives humans a hunger for knowledge and fulfillment that we can’t wait and find the answers for. We can study as much as we want and explore but our glass will rarely be filled, we can’t be as content as other species. The other races don’t try to conquer because they’re happy with what they have while humans it takes decades to feel that way. That isn’t to say other races are not ambitious, it’s just that they can take their time and slowly get to there desires and have so much life left. Humans don’t and so humans do what they can when they can in order to fulfill there goals. I also like the idea that human will is one our greatest traits in fantasy and sci-fi. We can survive having our limbs cut off and push on or see countless horrors because we have the will to endure them.

[@AgentForest]

This is something I brought up in my dnd group once regarding economics, Elves would be almost impossible to compete with in a free market, as they would have so much more time to amass wealth to pass on to future generations. On a long enough timeline, they'd own almost all the land and resources and their heirs would inherit it. Pretty much every trade conglomerate or cartel would be elven run and could muscle out any competition with their vast resources. Having an Elven villain in the Forgotten Realms makes more sense than almost any other race. The sheer power they'd have over other races due to their longevity alone would make almost every corrupt ruler or noble an elf.

[@the_nerd_showtv5562]

About magically engeneering birth, you hvae to consider that it's actually one of the most difficult things to do. The creeping doom (aka the strongest beeing in all of Feorun) has not found yet a way to reproduce, and while I can hear you say thay he doesn't even have a reproductive system, I would like to remind that he is a living magical skeleton, so that wouldn't be the limiting factor. I just thing that fertily is one of those things thst can be hardly improved without gods or 9th level spells

[@aaronhaskins6730]

A finite amount of elvish souls.

[@SnowWolf9999]

With D&D using FR as their base campaign setting it does kind of make sense as the lore that Ed Greenwood created for the distant past. After the war between the Giants and Dragons decimated both their species, the Elves ruled the surface (where they further decimated the Dragons) and the Dwarves ruled underground, Until the Elves fought a 3000 year log civil war (Crown Wars) that destroyed most of their Empires and killed the majority of their population and forced the Drow underground, where they immediately started wars with the Dwarves decimating both their numbers, and then mind flayers captured the Deep Dwarves and when they finally killed off the mind flayers and got free they started a Dwarven civil war because they felt betrayed by the other Dwarves that destroyed the remaining underdark kingdoms that survived the Drow, then when some Dwarves rose to live on the surface, they fought with the remaining elves, and by this time the Humans and Orcs had established empires in areas that the elves/drow used to live but had been eradicated, so they were able to establish huge armies that were rolling over and taking over large areas and caused more deaths of Dwarves and Elves (who breed very slowly compared to humans and orcs) by the time that the Humans take hold and they form treaties with remaining Elves and Dwarves to push the Orcs back to the Northern Mountains the Elves and Dwarves are shadows of their once great empires and their population is tens of thousands (if not 100s of thousands) less than the humans. And with Halflings and Gnomes, Halflings were pretty secluded by mountain ranges from the other races until they started venturing out long after humans took hold and Gnomes are from the Fey realm and only came in small numbers, not enough to establish large kingdoms (by lore they are supposed to be very rare)

[@qwerty098cool1]

My solution to long-livedd races is something from a VtM splatbook called "The Fog of Time". Essentially, the longer you live, the more you forget. Ones brain cannot hold a lifetime of memories. And the body eventually forgets skills. This process of forgetting drives longer lived beings to bouts of melancholy and dispassion. Some even stop doing things in order to unlearn them, so they can have the satisfaction of relearning them.

[@projectarduino2295]

I have seen it through the lens where wealthier societies tend toward having less children as having children no longer contributes to familial wealth and support, also with reduced infantile mortality. More kids means more hands to farm a field to feed those mouths. Clockwork means you don’t need kids and people for certain things, so you are incentivized to have less kids. Perfectly maintained forest homes with wall gardens that bloom all year don’t need to be sown year after year. Also, the longer lived a species is, the longer it requires a developmental period. A human doesn’t finish maturing mentally until 26ish, and in some eras was an adult at 15. Imagine not being fully mature until 150, or having a toddler for a few decades. They are significant burdens on a family for a long time, and that de-incentivizes having another at the same time. Innate birth rates, developmental periods, and social pressures all have impacts on population sizes. Do I think DnD race-based population statistics make sense? Nope. Do I think their far fetched given given history? Not terribly. Good video, made me think of all this again.

[@datastorm75]

The anime Freiren really hits the elf thing well, on all levels. As for dwarfs, the old lore was that they had very low birth rates. A few clans have realized that the cause is repeated exposure to contaminants from deep mining over generations. These clans have started to integrate other races like humans, as children of mixed pairings tend to come out dwarfs. So in presenting a solution to them not being populous, the designers also revealed that this solution is actually a bigger problem for humans than initially presented. As for Halflings and Gnomes, no good reason is ever given.

[@Robofussin23]

Good thought exercise. I always thought the elf life span and leveling was strange, but you really spelled out what I couldn’t articulate. Been subscribed for a long time, always love your videos, man! Take care

[@docbaker3333]

You know what I think we need to lean in more into? How those long lived races perceive time because when you can live about ten thousand years or 700 years a couple of months or a just a year seem like minutes to your perspective and I think that helps high light something that I think the elf is what humans should be they look like use they talk like us but their also just better than us.

[@Yeldibus]

Meh, I (almost) couldn't watch this one to the end. The critical voices you parodied do have a point - because the world is specifically set up in a way to strengthen them. Humans are especially ambitious and reproduce rapidly, which makes them naturally predisposed to taking up a lot of land and building big cities. You say that elves could come up with magic that would make them have more children, but I don't think that's something an elf would even see as a worthwhile pursuit. I understand that elves in D&D are more in tune with nature, art, crafts and philosophy - each on a lifelong journey towards salvation/realization. They were once fey and can (at some points in their life) access memories of their past selves - because their very souls work by different rules than human ones. When you are a soul born from the blood of a god and endlessly reincarnating on a quest for atonement - would you really be concerned with having as many children as possible and brutishly tearing down some human cities just to gain more territory? Basically, compared to humans, elves ARE the dominant species - in all the ways that matter to elves.

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

1. The fewer are born, the fewer have a chance for salvation/realization. 2. Once the species goes extinct, reincarnation ends unless it continues within another species, but then all these values would be lost anyway.

[@Yeldibus]

@@Dreamfox-df6bg It's not like having more elves would necessarily help with the whole race finding atonement, but more importantly, elves simply won't multiply in the way humans do. Elven souls are finite in number, which is a perfectly fine explanation for why they do not rule the D&D world. As much as I like Esper, it's pretty obvious that he is heavily exaggerating the inconsistencies in the lore in order to get people to dislike D&D and switch to the alternative "product" he is currently working on. It's not really what I expected out of him, but I guess I can see why he'd think that this route will be most benefiicial.

[@reachcole514]

In the world I'm developing its mostly due to how isolated they've became after long periods of conflict and following a cataclysmic event that prevented the live birth of the elves and dwarves and started a 300 year period of dead magic humans were able to expand substantially.

[@popularopinion1]

This is why the og racial traits had negative modifiers. Elves had a negative mod to Con.. which makes them quite fragile. Orcs HAD a negative modifier to int, which makes their societoes harder to organize beyond a given size without a particularly intelligent and charasmatic orc to rally them. Dwarves had a negative to Charisma, making them harder to make meaningful relationships with for anybody not in their specific clan. There also used to be ass restrictions for non-human races. Humans may not have any particular bonuses, but they have none of the restrictions. They have the keys to success: rapid birth cycles with high levels of fertility, and high levels of adaptability. The race that's second best at everything will out compete every races thats only best at one or two things.

[@lordmortos979]

I think you've way under estimated the human race. Humans are incredibly intelligent that's why we currently are the top of the food chain. Our capacity for violence has gifted us the ability to destroy all life on earth several times over.

[@daikaijugamer]

In my dnd setting elves have a lifespan of 300 years max, and an elf of 20 years is by all means an adult. That because of their slow aging and extended lifespans elven societies tend to be very gerontocratic. Halflings have the same lifespan as humans, and their cultures tend to value humbleness and modesty. They tend to view greater geopolitical conquests as something for the tall folk to worry about. Gnomes have lifespans similar to elves, and they prefer to have their communities hidden under the shadow of other races. Dwarves live up to 150-200 years. They prefer to isolate their civilizations within their mountain territories. Now as to why are humans the most populous and widespread of the races. There's probably several reasons as to why, but I like to think humans excell at adaptavility, ambition, wanderlust and willingness to cooperate with the other races. I should also mention that chief deities of demihuman pantheons are worshipped as major deities in the human pantheons, putting further complexity to how humans are regarded by the other races.The demihuman races in my setting also don't have much of a headstart over humans, having evolved or otherwise come into being around the same time period. Elves for the longest time vastly preferred to establish their empires in the Feywild, so when they set foot back on the material plane, humans had already built theirs. And finally how come all the dragons, giants, aboleth and all these other mighty and monstrous beings haven't conquered the world? Well simply put they are stuck competing with one another.

[@metaltornado3457]

I never liked the idea of humans just being the one single dominant race of the setting, so I made it so different races are adapted to different habitat types. Dwarves like cold and live on mountains and cold tundra and taiga forest, Elves are more tolerant of heat and live in tropical jungles, swamps and forests (and sometimes deserts), Halflings are seafaring (insular dwarfism) and live on islands in the ocean and the humans are temperate and live on open grassland, savanna and steppe habitats as well a coastal shores. In particular, I like the idea of humans having the best stamina of all the races, so they are predisposed to being more migratory than the others. Humans in dwarven and elven lands are more likely to be merchants and traders constantly on the move to pedal their wares and because of this, humans are stereotyped by the other races as a "merchant race" constantly looking for a quick buck. This way as the party travels around the world, they can come across lands where Elves, Dwarves and others are more common than humans and have their own kingdoms and countries.

[@gutz166]

The answer to this video is actually pretty simple and it's stated in various versions that humanity is more curious, more creative and more versatile and has more ambitious than any other races because the short life that humans have. Humans also breed more can can breed with almost any other races/beings. And despite humanity's penchant for violence and war, we tend to resolve our struggles more with haggling and diplomacies first before resolve to other means. Yes, we're resilient and thanks to all that humans produce the most heroes in existence (at least in Thoril and Gygax's original world). As for the gnomes as the more magically gifted race, is simply not true, from lore perspective, Netheril humans outclassed everyone in the magical department even beating the high elves, who are more magically gifted than the gnomes.

[@PrimusxPilus]

The setting my players are in is a young world recently cobbled together by the remnants of the broken predecessor by the overdeity before it died. The gods are young, the world is young, magic is barely blossoming again, and all the races are in their starting corners, much like a Risk game where the bulk of each race gets their own area.

[@matthewshimabuku]

Why have humans taken over? Simple: Variant human option.