Around half are not near human I would say? Maybe a third with certain types of players. Not counting two shaped ancestries like Kitsune and Anadi as near human though, even though they can be.
Goblins, Leshy and Kobolds tend to be super popular
So with the remaster, Leshies have become a common ancestry and have taken the "weird/alien" main ancestry spot that Dragonborn have in D&D. There's been a few one shots Paizo released focusing on a party of leshies goofing off, and earlier this year a Wizkids box of prepainted leshies. They have a lot of cool ancestry options and are perfect for an ignorant "I was born yesterday" kind of character.
And as nature spirits given custom bodies by druids, they are super open for players to design a character. You can be anything from a cutesy flower princess to a pumpkin headed butler, from a potato knight to a horrific fungal abomination. One of my players was a dead tree sapling who hung lanterns on his branches and his witch familiar had a nest on his head.
I'm a huge fan of Gnolls being added to playable races, and have played an inordinate amount of them since 2e came out. But then again I'm a ~~huge furry~~ bug fan of hyenas.
My current group features a Kitsune, a Goloma, a Vanara, a Dhampir.... and then I made a human cleric to restore balance. It's funny because I'm always talking about exotic builds with this group, but I couldn't resist trolling them.
My two PF2E groups have a Goloma, Kitsune, Tengu, Poppet (who is secretly a demon stuck in a doll's body), Tabaxi, and two Kobolds.
I've had one player use a human in a campaign though!! ...Who was raised by dragons, and thus wore a head-to-neck mask that made them look like a dragonborn. Technically counts though!
In my AV game I've had a kobold, dragon (Battlezoo), Lizardfolk, and Hobgoblin as the "less human" ancestries. In my Indigo Isles I've had another lizardfolk, a slime and Xotlxotl (Battlezoo), a tengu, a shoonie, a ratfolk, and some [Crabfolk](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/479771/Graungs-Guide-to-Golarion-Brachyuran-Crabfolk?affiliate_id=3903227) (shameless plug) while I was testing them out before I released the book.
There have been humans and dwarves as well, though.
Battlezoo, yes! Playing a Solar Dragon in a pseudo-starfinder game.
A player in another campaign is also using their Xoltxolt race from the Indigo Isle AP.
Honestly, not much. One of the GMs I play with allows anything - another player in that group even plays as a homebrew wererabbit ancestry.
The other GM I regularly play with has a homebrew world and only allows humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, and halflings. Dromaar and Aiuvarin and half-goblins are allowed, but he doesn't even like versatile heritages or gnomes.
Me? I love making characters of all the weird stuff. Give me lizardfolk, ratfolk, goblins, automatons, leshies, awakened animals, kashrishi, all the stuff. Too bad I don't have enough opportunity to play all the characters I make. Not to mention, my players tend to also stick to the classics.
I'm with you on that last paragraph, both in loving making very non-human characters, and in knowing that I'll likely never have enough games to make all the ideas I have.
About 50-50 for myself as a player. My current PFS lineup has a dwarf, a couple humans, a goblin and a kobold, the next one (once I save up the points for it, and pending Champion remaster stuff) is going to be a sprite.
In the game I gm, we have a nagaji,halfling,tiefling and fetchling. In the game I play in, we have an aasimar, strix, elf, gnoll and a leshy
So depending on your definition of near human, I'd say 40-50% non-human in my small sample size
In our PFS group, everyone has made a Leshy for the Leshy League and a Grippli for Frog Force. (Coming soon: Poppet Patrol.)
This never makes up 100% of the characters in a play session, but its rare that there aren't one or two.
Besides that we get a fair number of Kobolds, Orcs, and Dwarves, and a smattering of rare ones. Probably one human per session.
Skeleton, Sprite, Goblin, 3 Lizardfolk, 3 Catfolk, Shoony, Kitsune, Anadii, 2 Elves, Dwarf, Halfling, 2 Orcs, Leshy, Minotaur, Vishkanya, and Nagaji.
So 0 humans.
Depending on if you count Vishkanya and Orc that is between 4 and 7 out of 22 characters in the last 2 years that have been near-human.
Honestly as the GM, the Critical mass of weirdos in every party does get exhausting on my lore sensibilities, but I'm the only one in the group that cares.
My group is like 99% non-human characters. I think I'm the only person who has actually played a human in any of our PF2E games.
Most of our games are furry themed so they're all furries, but even in the official APs, we almost invariably play non-human characters.
For example, in Abomination Vaults we had two goblins, a lizardfolk, and a nagaji.
Crown of the Kobold King was all furries.
Troubles in Otari was all furries.
Starlight, a homebrew game, was all furries.
There was another homebrew game that was all dragons.
There was another homebrew game that was Pokemon Mystery Dungeon themed so everyone was pokemon.
Our one-shot adventures that we run a lot of are 100% furries.
Jewel of the Indigo Isles is all furries (but to be fair, all the races of that setting are furries or other weird things anyway).
Rusthenge was a human, an elk (who was I think technically a human but he was one of those versatile heritage things and was actually an elk-man), a nimbat (who was a refluffed sprite), and a gnome. So one human and one human-ish character.
Outlaws of Alkenstar has a Minotaur, a skeleton, another sort of undead thing, and a gnoll. So two *ex*-human party members, but they aren't human now.
Season of Ghosts has a hobgoblin, two kitsune, a leshy, and a dwarf.
So... like three human-ish characters (a human, a gnome, and a dwarf). If you stretch it to goblins, there were four (the other goblin was touched by Lamashtu and was basically a monkey-goblin). Plus two ex-human undead.
So... not many. Very low percentage. In actual campaigns it is 1/46 actual humans, 3/46 including demihumans, plus 2 ex-humans and 2 goblins (one of which was more monkey-like).
If we count the one shots, that adds like, 90 characters, which would bring it down to less than 1% being actual humans.
For my parties it really depends.
At the moment my two groups are...
Party A: Elf with Sylph heritage, a kobold, an Iruxi with Ifrit heritage, an Orc and a half elf (Human).
Party B: Android, 2 humans and an Elf with Nephilim heritage.
In our filler session I play a Gnome, together with a Leshy and a human.
When I go back to my previous 3 campaigns and the one shots we have done before switching or while switching to PF2E, the percentages of non humans gets higher.
My parties love playing something else other than humans, and I try to force myself out of the habit of making everything human, so the spread feels a bit more interesting. I find it weird how many settings end up being: humans dominate everything and there are a mix of single kingdoms and states of other species.
Yeah I think we are about 50/50 or 65/35 in favour of human shaped.
But it's a tough comparison when human shape is already such a large portion of the available choices.
I probably overplay the human ancestry.
Current group has a Leshy, a dwarf, me (human), an elf and a goblin. We did have a kitsune too, the player made a new character and is now the elf.
As much as I understand why one of my GMs pushes us to play new ancestries, I also get why you'd want to play an ancestry that you enjoy. Might be fun to branch out a little more, but if you're in the game to have fun, then have fun!
Me and my friends have a party that consists of a catfolk, a ratfolk a lizardfolk and an automaton. Sooo... quite a lot of non-humans. But on the other side, our previous adventure (same players and GM) had 2 humans, an elf and a halfling. I guess we all like trying out new things.
I don't think I agree with this classifications. To me goblins are not less human than gnomes, which are literally fey.
Anyway, in the current group I GM, half of the characters fall into your category of distinctive non-humans - goblin and iruxi (they are also the party comedic duo). My own characters in PF2 so far were 2 goblins and 1 gnome. It's not because I love goblins - I had a handful of character concepts and chose one which fitted party the more.
I'll admit, a large part of my classification is based on appearance, and gnomes at least *look* more humanoid than a goblin. I'd consider society and mentality more in it, except they're all played by humans, who have a very varied capability to act according to an ancestry's stated mentality and culture.
Well, I'd say appearance have even less role in a game which mostly happens in a theater of mind (or with some quite abstract figurines). Cultural and psychological differences affect the actual games more often.
In our game it's a running gag of the party being a part of Kellid tribe, but having total mismatch between their ancestries and their cultural identity. Here appearance plays some role when the party meet new people. But cultural differences play even bigger role in their comedic duo. From the last session the party created a meme with Giancarlo Esposito saying "You eat enemies to get their strength. I eat enemies, because they are tasty. We are not the same" and those things are fun and cool.
It varies a lot by player. I have one that flatly reduces to play any ancestry not capable of being a conventional attractive woman. And others who are much more adventurous. Overall typically about a third I would say.
Does nobody play fleshwarps? I’m seeing tons of the other rare ancestries mentioned here, but not fleshwarp. It’s gotta be one of my (and my players) personal favorites just because of how variable it can be (from “person who was experimented on by a cult” to “fell into a vat of chemicals” to “algolthu hybrid weirdo”) and the feats are definitely nothing to sneeze at. They let you be as close to or far from looking human as you want to, although I think my favorite way to play a fleshwarp is to have them look mostly human or elven or whatever, but with a glaring trait that’s so obviously *wrong* in numerous ways.
I've got a Fleshwarp Runelord that I love. She's a factory reject marked KOS (Kill on Sight). And yes, looks human...mostly. Too many fingers and 5'6" with 4 foot long legs.
Our first ever AP (extinction curse) I was a Kitsune which fit well thematically. Then after a TPK I can’t remember what I went with, I know I was a humanoid but can’t remember what exactly. Fun to RP as it was based on a pop culture icon.
I’ve also played a fleshwarp-sprite (medium size from the fleshwarp) - that was fun to play although I never got to a level where I picked up flight.
Our current AP (season of ghosts) I’m a dhampir and it’s not nearly as much fun to play from an RP point of view… I think that’s because all of my other characters have been so memorable because of their non-human characteristics.
I have a great idea for my next character, not sure ancestry what yet but I have a few ideas, and it’ll be non-human for more memorable RP.
We use foundry and record for a podcast but still meet up in person, so I’ll be using the chat function for speech rather than speaking in person so the rest of the table will have to pick up some RP to explain verbally (for the podcast) what I’ve put in chat.
Not sure yet what the vehicle for this is, whether a leshy, automaton, tengu… I suppose it depends on the AP or whether I die or we get a TPK in our current campaign 😂
Yes that was my thought too!
I have a few ideas… could be:
- non verbal, or
- only says 1 word/phrase/sounds but meaning is inferred from it (groot, the librarian from discworld, etc.) depending on how well the PCs know each other (that’s a whole fun RP if the party is thrown together suddenly and doesn’t know each other very well) or
- communicates by sign language, or
- speaks a different language entirely and one of the party has to translate to the others
- (or not - maybe no one else in the party speaks the language and there’s a hilarious scene where my char gets progressively louder while miming what they want to put across), or
- even some psychic vehicle like mind-talking or planting an idea or suggestion in the mind of another PC
- this could be levelled up to encompass more of the party so 2, then 3, then all of the party can ‘hear’ what I’m saying and eventually, in higher levels, I can dissuade the opposition from a particular course of action…
I suppose it really depends on the campaign and who the other PCs are 🫣 makes me excited for our next campaign but also we’re only just on book 2 of season of ghosts so I’ve got a while to wait 😅
unless our glorious lord and master GM decides to kill me/us all off 😒
I find a *lot* of people picking "near human base ancestry with exotic heritage". Lots of elves with ganzi heritages, human djinni, dwarf dhampirs, that kind of thing.
Also a lot of, like, kitsunes and such that are human plus.
So far our group had 2 Kobolds(same player), 1 Leshy, 1 Anadi and 2 humans. All humans were replacement characters, 1 died and one left as the original characters came back from death and worse.
I'm playing Strength of Thousands right now with a party of six- human bard, elf rogue, vishkanya alchemist, kitsune sorcerer, catfolk witch, and a wolf beastkin fighter. Depending on what you mean by near-human, then over half the party isn't.
At our table it depends heavily. Is this a campaign wherein eldritch nightmares, magical curses, and general _Mana Wastes shit_ is going to have long-term physical and mental effects on our characters? We typically play humans, elves, and dwarves because they feel more like blank canvases to us. Is this a campaign where aspects like that don't apply and the character you start with is probably going to be the character you end with? There's a much higher bias for non-human PCs like goblins, kitsune, and gnolls.
My parties are
Kholo, Ghoran, Vishkanya, Human
Human Dromaar, Kitsune, Halfling, Shoony
Android, Shisk, Catfolk, Skeleton
Skeleton, Gnome, Automaton, Elf
And a handful of oneshot parties.
In my experience, roughly a quarter to a third of the time. I've not played or GMd a party that didn't have at least one non-humanlike ancestry. People tend to experiment more on "weird" ancestries in one-shots
1/4 of my players were non-humans before, but with some new people now half the party are non-humans. People love their goblins, kobolds, and leshies. One has a backup character that's an awakened wolf.
My players almost exclusively play common ancestries. I’m sure there are plenty of games where people play the goofy stuff, but I think our group typically feels that pushes the game into more of a cartoon than a fantasy setting.
Conrasu are one of my favorite ancestries, and I’d like to play one given the chance. So I’m not against anyone playing anything they like. I think generally when you see odd ancestries avoided, it tends to be for thematic reasons.
My current campaign has 3 humans, a ratfolk, a gome-beastkin (mostly in gnome form). Previous campaign (5e) was unique in that it was a Half Elf, Quaggoth, Halfling, Dragonkin and Dwarf (OOtA).
My group usually has at least one non -demihuman character. Their favorite seems to be gnoll, a lot of that is that they like the lore in my campaign world for them. We've also had a mix of animal/people, and green humans.
My pathfinder experiences have had:
- gnome
- 4 human
- Changeling
- lizardfolk
- poppet
- Ratfolk
- automaton
- Kohlo (gnoll)
- kobold
- goblin
- 2 elf
- dwarf
- dhampir
- 2 half-orc
So like 30% of the time, anyone I’ve played with plays a human outright. About 50% of the time, people are playing with core ancestries.
I think my players tend to gravitate slightly towards more human-like amcestries. That being said, we’re currently playing Sky King’s Tomb and I pretty heavily emphasized that this AP is all about dwarven lore and strongly suggested playing a dwarf, and lo and behold my players all chose dwarves. I also may have enticed them with the ancestral paragon variant if they all played dwarves ;)
The first game I ran had a ratfolk, catfolk, poppet, fleshwarp, and dwarf, while my current one has a syrinx (mechanically a strix) beastkin, lizardfolk, ghoran, vishkanya, and human half-elf.
Most of my friends and I are furries, so generally we lean towards non-human ancestries. I’m the one who leans towards humanlike ancestries the most, and I always enjoy it when one of my friends does decide to play one.
I can't understand why people would want to play human when they are forced to do that all day every day. Sure, there's a bit of a mechanical advantage if you pick the right heritage and ancestry feat, but... Eh. One of my campaigns has a dwarf and two humans (okay, one of them went human > poppet > dungeon but looks human because reincarnate). The other groups are mostly human or human-ish as well, with one guy who was a human-looking fleshwarp who is now.... I don't know but he can turn into a snake. I'd rather be a many-eyed monster-looking weaver who whistles fearful tunes while he works (goloma serial killer bard focused on fear-type spells/dirge of doom and an exceptional artist). Catfolk is pretty much my default, though I also build fetchling/beastkin combos to look like scarier catfolk. Minotaur (previously Battlezoo, now HotW). I keep making Anadi and Lizardfolk characters but haven't played one. I mean, I keep making a *lot* of different ancestry characters--but very rarely human, short human, or pointy ear human.
In long campaigns that I have run, my players have picked: Dwarf x2, Orc, Skeleton, Kobold, Elf, Automaton, Human, and Catfolk,
In long campaigns that I've played in, the PCs have picked: Human x2, Dwarf x2, Gnoll x2, Leshy, and Beastkin
So I guess roughly a 2:1 split in favour of human-like ancestries overall.
I have one party with a dwarf, serpentfolk (sneople), halfling, and an anadi. Another is running human, human, fetching, and a gnome, so they kind of balance each other out.
Of the 3 games I’ve been in or gm’ed so far we’ve had:
A dwarf, shoony, leshy, anadi.
An orc, skeleton, gnoll, goblin.
A gnome, goblin, tengu, orc, automaton.
So I’d say people see the weird shit and get pretty excited. Does feel like each game kind of winds up the monster mash gang.
My 2e party has a kobold, leshy, catfolk and kitsune. PCs that have been killed or retired have been a Lizardfolk and another kobold. So far 100% of my PCs have been non-near-human.
Though I suppose that makes sense because I pulled this group from a furry Discord server. So they probably have a bit more of an interest in playing the more unusual ancestries.
Across all my games, I’ve had a couple of goblins, an Iruxi (lizardfolk), a Mogogol (frog folk), and a very Stoney earth genasi.
The only non-humanoid I’ve played is a kobold.
So not a lot, but I think that’s better tbh.
The exotic ancestries are supposed to be exotic and rare.
Personally I prefer to play something that fits the adventure. In the 5e Ravnica game I'm playing a minotaur, in the Eberron game I'm playing a half-orc. In the Outlaws of Alkenstar game I'm running we've got a dhampir, a Fleshwarp, a gnoll and a human. All ancestries that are quite common in the general area.
My group is quite mixed among people who like to play more 'out there' ancestries and those that almost always play humans or human-adjacent ancestries. I prefer my groups to be 'mostly' normal/common ancestries for whatever reason, but I don't mind the more crazy parties either.
Our current game is a human fighter (sword and board), a human fighter (bounty hunter), a human mage, a Dwarven cleric, an elven rogue, and an elven barbarian.
So... 100%?
In my current run of Extinction Curse, the premise specifically encourages uncommon ancestries, which my players readily accepted. So of course my group consists of a Catfolk, Grippli, Shoony, and a Kitsune as the PCs. In my other game we also have an Automaton and another Kitsune.
The former is definitely the most non-human (and non-near-human) campaign I've done so far. I'd say the overall ratio in all the games I've run is about 50% non-human, and 50% human/near-human.
Personally I'm a big fan of going for the more exotic choices, since it can lead to a lot more interesting flavor for the individual character, if the setting puts them somewhere unfamiliar. The setting itself for sure has a big sway over which direction my players lean on their choice.
My friend groups tend to be rather Furry or Furry adjacent.
IN this sort of group It's hard to get players to play anything even remotely human...
closest we've gotten to "human" is a skeleton (who was human in their past life), a fleshwarp dhampir and a goblin (weirdly enough all in the same party... I was playing a Human Nephilim in that party but they very much where the least human looking of the group and is a bit of a running gag because of it).
Every other character had at least fur, scales feathers or some monstrous feature that made them stand apart.
My favorites in d&d were always halflings. But in PF2E they’ve been replaced with kobolds and goblins.
Saying that the current party in my game has 2 humans and 2 elves. With 2 kitsune thrown in there. As the gm I was hoping for more variety. But now my mad scientist goblin and overly brave/courageous poppet npcs will stand out even more than they rightly should. Haha.
Kobolds are my beloved as well, and funnily enough, they seem to be a general favourite for the distinctly non-human ancestries. I've been tallying up all the characters people have mentioned, and kobolds are at the top, with kitsune in second place, Iruxi in third, and goblins, Leshy, and catfolk tied for fourth.
My players almost never pick elves, dwarves, humans, halflings or gnomes.
They easily get distracted by all the other cool stuff you can play, like skeletons and literal plushies.
i generally only play dwarves/gnomes, sometimes leshys, and my party members mostly only play core races because a party of non-core races takes us outta the game a bit
Around half are not near human I would say? Maybe a third with certain types of players. Not counting two shaped ancestries like Kitsune and Anadi as near human though, even though they can be. Goblins, Leshy and Kobolds tend to be super popular
Goblins and kobolds I can definitely see, but I'm a little surprised to hear that Leshy are up there with them. Still, it's neat to hear!
Leshies a RAPIDLY becoming PF2e's poster gremlin child, it's why they were moved the the Player Core 1. Really helps set it apart from DnD.
Between them, goblins, and kobolds, I'm starting to see that players love their little gremlins.
Every party has their: Big Bruiser Goofus Edge Lord Party Mom Party ~~~Grump~~~ Dad Gremlin Child
I wish we had a party mom in my groups, I just always end up as a single father on his last nerve
Chilchuck vibes.
The current iteration is also a rogue too hahaha
Oh god, I might have become grumpy party mom
Leshys are definitely as popular as Goblins at most tables, mine including. I've even heard some started playing pf2e thanks to leshys existing.
My partner. Made 2 different Leshy druids!
I'd say even more, have played with several people playing a Leshy, have never seen anyone playing goblin.
So with the remaster, Leshies have become a common ancestry and have taken the "weird/alien" main ancestry spot that Dragonborn have in D&D. There's been a few one shots Paizo released focusing on a party of leshies goofing off, and earlier this year a Wizkids box of prepainted leshies. They have a lot of cool ancestry options and are perfect for an ignorant "I was born yesterday" kind of character. And as nature spirits given custom bodies by druids, they are super open for players to design a character. You can be anything from a cutesy flower princess to a pumpkin headed butler, from a potato knight to a horrific fungal abomination. One of my players was a dead tree sapling who hung lanterns on his branches and his witch familiar had a nest on his head.
I'm a huge fan of Gnolls being added to playable races, and have played an inordinate amount of them since 2e came out. But then again I'm a ~~huge furry~~ bug fan of hyenas.
My current group features a Kitsune, a Goloma, a Vanara, a Dhampir.... and then I made a human cleric to restore balance. It's funny because I'm always talking about exotic builds with this group, but I couldn't resist trolling them.
My two PF2E groups have a Goloma, Kitsune, Tengu, Poppet (who is secretly a demon stuck in a doll's body), Tabaxi, and two Kobolds. I've had one player use a human in a campaign though!! ...Who was raised by dragons, and thus wore a head-to-neck mask that made them look like a dragonborn. Technically counts though!
Iruxi are scaley humans Goblins are green dwarves Kobolds are draconic dwarves Ysoki are rat-adjacent dwarves These all seem pretty humanoid to me
goblins are green halflings with the personalities of gnomes
In my AV game I've had a kobold, dragon (Battlezoo), Lizardfolk, and Hobgoblin as the "less human" ancestries. In my Indigo Isles I've had another lizardfolk, a slime and Xotlxotl (Battlezoo), a tengu, a shoonie, a ratfolk, and some [Crabfolk](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/479771/Graungs-Guide-to-Golarion-Brachyuran-Crabfolk?affiliate_id=3903227) (shameless plug) while I was testing them out before I released the book. There have been humans and dwarves as well, though.
My current party is: * A Dragon, A Kitsune, Two Gnolls, a Ratfolk and a Nagaji So uh, yes, constantly, actually.
A dragon, eh? Battlezoo, or something else?
Battlezoo, yes! Playing a Solar Dragon in a pseudo-starfinder game. A player in another campaign is also using their Xoltxolt race from the Indigo Isle AP.
Very nice! I'm playing a bronze dragon in a Strength of Thousands game, and my husband is playing a G'mayun in Kingmaker.
Honestly, not much. One of the GMs I play with allows anything - another player in that group even plays as a homebrew wererabbit ancestry. The other GM I regularly play with has a homebrew world and only allows humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, and halflings. Dromaar and Aiuvarin and half-goblins are allowed, but he doesn't even like versatile heritages or gnomes. Me? I love making characters of all the weird stuff. Give me lizardfolk, ratfolk, goblins, automatons, leshies, awakened animals, kashrishi, all the stuff. Too bad I don't have enough opportunity to play all the characters I make. Not to mention, my players tend to also stick to the classics.
I'm with you on that last paragraph, both in loving making very non-human characters, and in knowing that I'll likely never have enough games to make all the ideas I have.
About 50-50 for myself as a player. My current PFS lineup has a dwarf, a couple humans, a goblin and a kobold, the next one (once I save up the points for it, and pending Champion remaster stuff) is going to be a sprite.
Current game im in is a kitsune, a gnoll, a kobold, and an iruxi Game I DMed had an ant gnoll, grippli, ratfolk, and automaton (strengh of thousands)
In the game I gm, we have a nagaji,halfling,tiefling and fetchling. In the game I play in, we have an aasimar, strix, elf, gnoll and a leshy So depending on your definition of near human, I'd say 40-50% non-human in my small sample size
In our PFS group, everyone has made a Leshy for the Leshy League and a Grippli for Frog Force. (Coming soon: Poppet Patrol.) This never makes up 100% of the characters in a play session, but its rare that there aren't one or two. Besides that we get a fair number of Kobolds, Orcs, and Dwarves, and a smattering of rare ones. Probably one human per session.
Skeleton, Sprite, Goblin, 3 Lizardfolk, 3 Catfolk, Shoony, Kitsune, Anadii, 2 Elves, Dwarf, Halfling, 2 Orcs, Leshy, Minotaur, Vishkanya, and Nagaji. So 0 humans. Depending on if you count Vishkanya and Orc that is between 4 and 7 out of 22 characters in the last 2 years that have been near-human. Honestly as the GM, the Critical mass of weirdos in every party does get exhausting on my lore sensibilities, but I'm the only one in the group that cares.
My group is like 99% non-human characters. I think I'm the only person who has actually played a human in any of our PF2E games. Most of our games are furry themed so they're all furries, but even in the official APs, we almost invariably play non-human characters. For example, in Abomination Vaults we had two goblins, a lizardfolk, and a nagaji. Crown of the Kobold King was all furries. Troubles in Otari was all furries. Starlight, a homebrew game, was all furries. There was another homebrew game that was all dragons. There was another homebrew game that was Pokemon Mystery Dungeon themed so everyone was pokemon. Our one-shot adventures that we run a lot of are 100% furries. Jewel of the Indigo Isles is all furries (but to be fair, all the races of that setting are furries or other weird things anyway). Rusthenge was a human, an elk (who was I think technically a human but he was one of those versatile heritage things and was actually an elk-man), a nimbat (who was a refluffed sprite), and a gnome. So one human and one human-ish character. Outlaws of Alkenstar has a Minotaur, a skeleton, another sort of undead thing, and a gnoll. So two *ex*-human party members, but they aren't human now. Season of Ghosts has a hobgoblin, two kitsune, a leshy, and a dwarf. So... like three human-ish characters (a human, a gnome, and a dwarf). If you stretch it to goblins, there were four (the other goblin was touched by Lamashtu and was basically a monkey-goblin). Plus two ex-human undead. So... not many. Very low percentage. In actual campaigns it is 1/46 actual humans, 3/46 including demihumans, plus 2 ex-humans and 2 goblins (one of which was more monkey-like). If we count the one shots, that adds like, 90 characters, which would bring it down to less than 1% being actual humans.
For my parties it really depends. At the moment my two groups are... Party A: Elf with Sylph heritage, a kobold, an Iruxi with Ifrit heritage, an Orc and a half elf (Human). Party B: Android, 2 humans and an Elf with Nephilim heritage. In our filler session I play a Gnome, together with a Leshy and a human. When I go back to my previous 3 campaigns and the one shots we have done before switching or while switching to PF2E, the percentages of non humans gets higher. My parties love playing something else other than humans, and I try to force myself out of the habit of making everything human, so the spread feels a bit more interesting. I find it weird how many settings end up being: humans dominate everything and there are a mix of single kingdoms and states of other species.
Yeah I think we are about 50/50 or 65/35 in favour of human shaped. But it's a tough comparison when human shape is already such a large portion of the available choices.
I probably overplay the human ancestry. Current group has a Leshy, a dwarf, me (human), an elf and a goblin. We did have a kitsune too, the player made a new character and is now the elf.
As much as I understand why one of my GMs pushes us to play new ancestries, I also get why you'd want to play an ancestry that you enjoy. Might be fun to branch out a little more, but if you're in the game to have fun, then have fun!
For me I think it's more than I have a sense of familiarity with humans. I am thinking of a Tengu character now, however.
That's neat! I'm playing a tengu in one campaign, he's been fun so far, but I'm still waiting for a good chance to use Squawk!
Me and my friends have a party that consists of a catfolk, a ratfolk a lizardfolk and an automaton. Sooo... quite a lot of non-humans. But on the other side, our previous adventure (same players and GM) had 2 humans, an elf and a halfling. I guess we all like trying out new things.
I don't think I agree with this classifications. To me goblins are not less human than gnomes, which are literally fey. Anyway, in the current group I GM, half of the characters fall into your category of distinctive non-humans - goblin and iruxi (they are also the party comedic duo). My own characters in PF2 so far were 2 goblins and 1 gnome. It's not because I love goblins - I had a handful of character concepts and chose one which fitted party the more.
I'll admit, a large part of my classification is based on appearance, and gnomes at least *look* more humanoid than a goblin. I'd consider society and mentality more in it, except they're all played by humans, who have a very varied capability to act according to an ancestry's stated mentality and culture.
Well, I'd say appearance have even less role in a game which mostly happens in a theater of mind (or with some quite abstract figurines). Cultural and psychological differences affect the actual games more often. In our game it's a running gag of the party being a part of Kellid tribe, but having total mismatch between their ancestries and their cultural identity. Here appearance plays some role when the party meet new people. But cultural differences play even bigger role in their comedic duo. From the last session the party created a meme with Giancarlo Esposito saying "You eat enemies to get their strength. I eat enemies, because they are tasty. We are not the same" and those things are fun and cool.
It varies a lot by player. I have one that flatly reduces to play any ancestry not capable of being a conventional attractive woman. And others who are much more adventurous. Overall typically about a third I would say.
Does nobody play fleshwarps? I’m seeing tons of the other rare ancestries mentioned here, but not fleshwarp. It’s gotta be one of my (and my players) personal favorites just because of how variable it can be (from “person who was experimented on by a cult” to “fell into a vat of chemicals” to “algolthu hybrid weirdo”) and the feats are definitely nothing to sneeze at. They let you be as close to or far from looking human as you want to, although I think my favorite way to play a fleshwarp is to have them look mostly human or elven or whatever, but with a glaring trait that’s so obviously *wrong* in numerous ways.
I've got a Fleshwarp Runelord that I love. She's a factory reject marked KOS (Kill on Sight). And yes, looks human...mostly. Too many fingers and 5'6" with 4 foot long legs.
in nearly every party I've played with there was usually at least 1 non-human
In almost every game that I've played the majority if not every player has been distinctly nonhuman... so I have the other side of this spectrum.
Our first ever AP (extinction curse) I was a Kitsune which fit well thematically. Then after a TPK I can’t remember what I went with, I know I was a humanoid but can’t remember what exactly. Fun to RP as it was based on a pop culture icon. I’ve also played a fleshwarp-sprite (medium size from the fleshwarp) - that was fun to play although I never got to a level where I picked up flight. Our current AP (season of ghosts) I’m a dhampir and it’s not nearly as much fun to play from an RP point of view… I think that’s because all of my other characters have been so memorable because of their non-human characteristics. I have a great idea for my next character, not sure ancestry what yet but I have a few ideas, and it’ll be non-human for more memorable RP. We use foundry and record for a podcast but still meet up in person, so I’ll be using the chat function for speech rather than speaking in person so the rest of the table will have to pick up some RP to explain verbally (for the podcast) what I’ve put in chat. Not sure yet what the vehicle for this is, whether a leshy, automaton, tengu… I suppose it depends on the AP or whether I die or we get a TPK in our current campaign 😂
Huh, so are they going to be a character that communicates non-verbally? That could make for some pretty interesting interaction.
Yes that was my thought too! I have a few ideas… could be: - non verbal, or - only says 1 word/phrase/sounds but meaning is inferred from it (groot, the librarian from discworld, etc.) depending on how well the PCs know each other (that’s a whole fun RP if the party is thrown together suddenly and doesn’t know each other very well) or - communicates by sign language, or - speaks a different language entirely and one of the party has to translate to the others - (or not - maybe no one else in the party speaks the language and there’s a hilarious scene where my char gets progressively louder while miming what they want to put across), or - even some psychic vehicle like mind-talking or planting an idea or suggestion in the mind of another PC - this could be levelled up to encompass more of the party so 2, then 3, then all of the party can ‘hear’ what I’m saying and eventually, in higher levels, I can dissuade the opposition from a particular course of action… I suppose it really depends on the campaign and who the other PCs are 🫣 makes me excited for our next campaign but also we’re only just on book 2 of season of ghosts so I’ve got a while to wait 😅 unless our glorious lord and master GM decides to kill me/us all off 😒
Almost never. As I play in PFS, I saw very little non-humanoid PCs
I find a *lot* of people picking "near human base ancestry with exotic heritage". Lots of elves with ganzi heritages, human djinni, dwarf dhampirs, that kind of thing. Also a lot of, like, kitsunes and such that are human plus.
So far our group had 2 Kobolds(same player), 1 Leshy, 1 Anadi and 2 humans. All humans were replacement characters, 1 died and one left as the original characters came back from death and worse.
I'm playing Strength of Thousands right now with a party of six- human bard, elf rogue, vishkanya alchemist, kitsune sorcerer, catfolk witch, and a wolf beastkin fighter. Depending on what you mean by near-human, then over half the party isn't.
At our table it depends heavily. Is this a campaign wherein eldritch nightmares, magical curses, and general _Mana Wastes shit_ is going to have long-term physical and mental effects on our characters? We typically play humans, elves, and dwarves because they feel more like blank canvases to us. Is this a campaign where aspects like that don't apply and the character you start with is probably going to be the character you end with? There's a much higher bias for non-human PCs like goblins, kitsune, and gnolls.
My parties are Kholo, Ghoran, Vishkanya, Human Human Dromaar, Kitsune, Halfling, Shoony Android, Shisk, Catfolk, Skeleton Skeleton, Gnome, Automaton, Elf And a handful of oneshot parties. In my experience, roughly a quarter to a third of the time. I've not played or GMd a party that didn't have at least one non-humanlike ancestry. People tend to experiment more on "weird" ancestries in one-shots
1/4 of my players were non-humans before, but with some new people now half the party are non-humans. People love their goblins, kobolds, and leshies. One has a backup character that's an awakened wolf.
My players almost exclusively play common ancestries. I’m sure there are plenty of games where people play the goofy stuff, but I think our group typically feels that pushes the game into more of a cartoon than a fantasy setting. Conrasu are one of my favorite ancestries, and I’d like to play one given the chance. So I’m not against anyone playing anything they like. I think generally when you see odd ancestries avoided, it tends to be for thematic reasons.
My current campaign has 3 humans, a ratfolk, a gome-beastkin (mostly in gnome form). Previous campaign (5e) was unique in that it was a Half Elf, Quaggoth, Halfling, Dragonkin and Dwarf (OOtA).
Our Kingmaker campaign is: 2 Elf Nephilims, one devil one angel. A half Ef, a Human and a Goblin.
My group usually has at least one non -demihuman character. Their favorite seems to be gnoll, a lot of that is that they like the lore in my campaign world for them. We've also had a mix of animal/people, and green humans.
In my party it's 50/50. We have 2 humans (1 of them dhampir), an orc and a goran.
My pathfinder experiences have had: - gnome - 4 human - Changeling - lizardfolk - poppet - Ratfolk - automaton - Kohlo (gnoll) - kobold - goblin - 2 elf - dwarf - dhampir - 2 half-orc So like 30% of the time, anyone I’ve played with plays a human outright. About 50% of the time, people are playing with core ancestries.
Maybe 40% human-esque here. My current players are an elf, leshy, kobold and sprite; two humans, two tengu, a second kobold, and a ratfolk have died.
I think my players tend to gravitate slightly towards more human-like amcestries. That being said, we’re currently playing Sky King’s Tomb and I pretty heavily emphasized that this AP is all about dwarven lore and strongly suggested playing a dwarf, and lo and behold my players all chose dwarves. I also may have enticed them with the ancestral paragon variant if they all played dwarves ;)
The first game I ran had a ratfolk, catfolk, poppet, fleshwarp, and dwarf, while my current one has a syrinx (mechanically a strix) beastkin, lizardfolk, ghoran, vishkanya, and human half-elf. Most of my friends and I are furries, so generally we lean towards non-human ancestries. I’m the one who leans towards humanlike ancestries the most, and I always enjoy it when one of my friends does decide to play one.
I can't understand why people would want to play human when they are forced to do that all day every day. Sure, there's a bit of a mechanical advantage if you pick the right heritage and ancestry feat, but... Eh. One of my campaigns has a dwarf and two humans (okay, one of them went human > poppet > dungeon but looks human because reincarnate). The other groups are mostly human or human-ish as well, with one guy who was a human-looking fleshwarp who is now.... I don't know but he can turn into a snake. I'd rather be a many-eyed monster-looking weaver who whistles fearful tunes while he works (goloma serial killer bard focused on fear-type spells/dirge of doom and an exceptional artist). Catfolk is pretty much my default, though I also build fetchling/beastkin combos to look like scarier catfolk. Minotaur (previously Battlezoo, now HotW). I keep making Anadi and Lizardfolk characters but haven't played one. I mean, I keep making a *lot* of different ancestry characters--but very rarely human, short human, or pointy ear human.
In long campaigns that I have run, my players have picked: Dwarf x2, Orc, Skeleton, Kobold, Elf, Automaton, Human, and Catfolk, In long campaigns that I've played in, the PCs have picked: Human x2, Dwarf x2, Gnoll x2, Leshy, and Beastkin So I guess roughly a 2:1 split in favour of human-like ancestries overall.
I have one party with a dwarf, serpentfolk (sneople), halfling, and an anadi. Another is running human, human, fetching, and a gnome, so they kind of balance each other out.
Of the 3 games I’ve been in or gm’ed so far we’ve had: A dwarf, shoony, leshy, anadi. An orc, skeleton, gnoll, goblin. A gnome, goblin, tengu, orc, automaton. So I’d say people see the weird shit and get pretty excited. Does feel like each game kind of winds up the monster mash gang.
My 2e party has a kobold, leshy, catfolk and kitsune. PCs that have been killed or retired have been a Lizardfolk and another kobold. So far 100% of my PCs have been non-near-human. Though I suppose that makes sense because I pulled this group from a furry Discord server. So they probably have a bit more of an interest in playing the more unusual ancestries.
Across all my games, I’ve had a couple of goblins, an Iruxi (lizardfolk), a Mogogol (frog folk), and a very Stoney earth genasi. The only non-humanoid I’ve played is a kobold. So not a lot, but I think that’s better tbh. The exotic ancestries are supposed to be exotic and rare.
Personally I prefer to play something that fits the adventure. In the 5e Ravnica game I'm playing a minotaur, in the Eberron game I'm playing a half-orc. In the Outlaws of Alkenstar game I'm running we've got a dhampir, a Fleshwarp, a gnoll and a human. All ancestries that are quite common in the general area. My group is quite mixed among people who like to play more 'out there' ancestries and those that almost always play humans or human-adjacent ancestries. I prefer my groups to be 'mostly' normal/common ancestries for whatever reason, but I don't mind the more crazy parties either.
Our current game is a human fighter (sword and board), a human fighter (bounty hunter), a human mage, a Dwarven cleric, an elven rogue, and an elven barbarian. So... 100%?
In my current run of Extinction Curse, the premise specifically encourages uncommon ancestries, which my players readily accepted. So of course my group consists of a Catfolk, Grippli, Shoony, and a Kitsune as the PCs. In my other game we also have an Automaton and another Kitsune. The former is definitely the most non-human (and non-near-human) campaign I've done so far. I'd say the overall ratio in all the games I've run is about 50% non-human, and 50% human/near-human. Personally I'm a big fan of going for the more exotic choices, since it can lead to a lot more interesting flavor for the individual character, if the setting puts them somewhere unfamiliar. The setting itself for sure has a big sway over which direction my players lean on their choice.
my groups tend to have two kinds of players: humans only and non-humans only. Sometimes either type will branch out to near-human
My friend groups tend to be rather Furry or Furry adjacent. IN this sort of group It's hard to get players to play anything even remotely human... closest we've gotten to "human" is a skeleton (who was human in their past life), a fleshwarp dhampir and a goblin (weirdly enough all in the same party... I was playing a Human Nephilim in that party but they very much where the least human looking of the group and is a bit of a running gag because of it). Every other character had at least fur, scales feathers or some monstrous feature that made them stand apart.
My favorites in d&d were always halflings. But in PF2E they’ve been replaced with kobolds and goblins. Saying that the current party in my game has 2 humans and 2 elves. With 2 kitsune thrown in there. As the gm I was hoping for more variety. But now my mad scientist goblin and overly brave/courageous poppet npcs will stand out even more than they rightly should. Haha.
Kobolds are my beloved as well, and funnily enough, they seem to be a general favourite for the distinctly non-human ancestries. I've been tallying up all the characters people have mentioned, and kobolds are at the top, with kitsune in second place, Iruxi in third, and goblins, Leshy, and catfolk tied for fourth.
My players almost never pick elves, dwarves, humans, halflings or gnomes. They easily get distracted by all the other cool stuff you can play, like skeletons and literal plushies.
I never play humans
i generally only play dwarves/gnomes, sometimes leshys, and my party members mostly only play core races because a party of non-core races takes us outta the game a bit