So while I’m able to talk about the game a lot because I am deeply steeped in its culture, what I say is by no means authoritative because it isn’t based in actual play experience.

Frankly, Cyde, actually playing the game (of which I’ve done a heck of a lot in the last almost-thirty-years) is just anecdotal experience for this topic. Even I, having put more hours into D&D as a hobby than some people have into their careers, don’t have enough direct experience of the game to call it authoritative or statistically significant, because there are so many people out there who have played a bunch of D&D without me. Being thoroughly familiar with the books, having been immersed in the culture over that thirty-ish years of time, and reading metric assloads of swords and sorcery fiction over the span of my life, however, provides me with a much more authoritative and statistically significant sampling of the trends — and that tells me you’re very much on the right track.

quoth Knacker:

I can understand why you like this stuff, I just don’t. I’m a sci-fi and horror nut, because those genres usually make creativity a foremost concern.

Actually, I don’t like replaying the same crap over and over. At the very least, I try to explore a new character concept in each game — and I prefer game settings that diverge from the norm in fundamental ways (whether that be a superficially subtle or obvious difference is secondary to how deeply the difference goes). I’m also a fan of sci-fi, and sometimes like some horror mixed into both sci-fi and fantasy.

Pure “horror”, however, is far too often retread tripe for my taste. Every once in a while I read some, but most of the time it’s not worth my time. It’s generally too limiting a genre.

My major problem with fantasy isn’t its potential. By definition, “fantasy” is nothing but potential for new ideas, new concepts, and new themes. The problem is that so many fantasy authors are just crappy authors, and the fanbase is weirdly skewed so that a lot of mediocre (or worse) writers are hailed as among the genre’s greats just because they can string a sentence together in a manner that is easily parsed. In science fiction, on the other hand, the fanbase seems to have a generally higher set of standards.

quoth Cyde Weys:

Nearly every trope that makes science fiction workable — warp travel, abundance of alien species, etc. — is completely unrealistic.

I think you’re reading the wrong science fiction — but then, it seems like Knacker is reading the wrong fantasy, too.

Try Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Joe Haldenman, Neal Stephenson, and Charles Stross for examples of science fiction that isn’t full of “unworkable” tropes. Also, me — but I haven’t gotten anything published (nor tried to) yet. I also probably fall in the category of fantasy writers that doesn’t just rehash the “same old stuff” but, again, nothing’s published. In fact, the only fiction of mine that’s likely to be available anywhere is pre-first-draft stuff that, predictably, sucks.

I can understand why you like this stuff, I just don’t. I’m a sci-fi and horror nut, because those genres usually make creativity a foremost concern.

In fact, they don’t even need to necessarily die without devouring other intelligences: if you had an IQ of 250, and knew you’d drop like a rock to about 70 IQ if you didn’t eat others’ brains (in kind of a withdrawal crash as evident in other addiction-like needs), I’m sure you’d be sorely tempted to eat others’ brains. Thus, the illithid race — which may have developed an intricately contrived system of ethics over the years for the purpose of justifying their own predatory activities.

You’re right, though — in concept, at least, illithids are designed to be truly alien, superior intelligences, in a manner even dragons are not. GMs are just too limited in imagination, far too often, to be able to run them properly.

Now I want to run a game with major illithid activity. Could be fun.

Maybe the closest thing to a smart villain race in D&D are the ancient dragons, which are said to be ridiculously smart (something like 35 intelligence??). But they sure don’t act like it. That intelligence figure must just be used for calculating spells, because the dragons are otherwise entirely stupid, pointlessly hoarding gold and treasure while otherwise doing nothing with their lives. Show me a dragon civilization that dwarfs anything man has accomplished — heck, just show me a dragon that has access to smarter tactics than humans in battle and actually uses them — and I’ll believe that high intelligence score. Until then, it’s really just a glorified spell modifier.

In any case, the whole “humans have ta be smurt ta be special” thing doesn’t really hold water. Note that humans are often not the smartest thing in fantasy realms. They’re quite often the most populous, the most “flexible” and “adaptable”, or the most virtuous, but they’re are quite often only tied for smartest along with elves and halflings (or whatever else is allied with them). Sometimes, humans aren’t even the smartest — they’re just the standard for average intelligence. For instance, elves in Pathfinder RPG get a +2 to Intelligence, and in D&D certain subraces of elves often get an Intelligence bonus as well (such as the Gray Elves).

What Cyde is talking about here, whether he strayed from the point or not, is not that humans are always the smartest so much as that the traditional “villain” races are the stupidest. Notice that, in both D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG, half-orcs have a -2 intelligence. That really says some awful things about the intelligence of actual orcs, I think — and it only gets worse from there when discussing creatures like goblins, ogres, and trolls.

Ironically, Tolkein, the wellspring from which the tropes of most modern sword and sorcery fantasy sprang, did not portray all villainous races as stupid. While some of the vaguely differentiated subraces of orks in Middle Earth might have been mentally challenged, others were every bit as smart as humans, with an extra dash of dangerous cunning thrown in for good measure. They didn’t have pig snouts and tusks, either. See Real Orks if you want more on the subject of orks in general — I’ve written a bit about the mistreatment of orks by fantasy setting designers a bit myself.

Anyway, in the vast majority of modern takes on sword and sorcery fantasy, the villainous races are generally depicted as droolingly stupid. Not only that, but they’re all ugly, too. The closest we get to the same treatment for “good guy” races is generally the dwarves — short, bearded, and stubborn. That doesn’t sound like “ugly and stupid” to me. It just sounds like “short, bearded, and stubborn”.

Hmm. I think I’ll make dwarves misshapen and decidedly dumb the next time I design races for a campaign setting, and perhaps give orcs (or orks) superior intelligence with no tusks or pig snouts. That sounds like fun.

Knacker: Or, in a very interesting twist on explaining how humans fit into a world of much more fantastical creatures, in one of Larry Niven’s Ringworld/Man-Kzin War books humans are unique by virtue of being the luckiest race. I kid you not. Some aliens have been breeding humans for luck for generations, and the luckiest humans have galactic events bending to their subconscious will.

Humans are just humans. But they’ve still got to be in the story, because you’ve got to have someone you can relate to. It’s just convenient to make them cope with all these threats by being smarter than everything else.

My eyes tend to glaze over whenever I’m reading about orcs and trolls and the amulet of gambelon or whatever

As an aside, if sims are any kind of accurate, putting me in any kind of aircraft would result in friendly forces shooting me down.
While I was still on the runway.
With my engines completely inactive.
And, unfortunately, my landing gear, as well.

In case you’re questioning the accuracy of such a sim, it was in Falcon 4. I don’t do flight sims.

As for Earthbound, I vaguely remember it as being an SNES game that my friend played, but beyond that, not much. Reading its Wikipedia article, I see that it’s set in the modern day rather than a high fantasy universe. So it doesn’t really fit what I was talking about either.

It pays to be wily.

Also, I think you really overestimate the use of this device. I can think of a lot of major fiction that don’t use it.

War of the Worlds
Earthbound
The Matrix
Dragonball Z

I could probably go on but I don’t feel like it.