Well, we can have a rich personal story without having to save the world. Quests don't have to be of the 'save the town' type either. For instance, the player isn't asked to be the judge at a trial, instead she joins as a witness, is threatened by the panicked suspect, and can decide to tell the truth, keep silent about the threats, say it was accident, or just lie to help the suspect.

 

Oh yeah: No situation where you're forced to fight. Zero. 0. Nyet. Kein. Egy se.

Edited August 14, 200916 yr by Oner

What about different astral planes? Does the whole "realm that differs from the one in which we live" seem too generic nowadays?

Humans are just as common as elves in fantasy. Perhaps even more so. It's just the way they're stereotyped that makes them boring.

 

Alan Dean Foster (I think) had a series of books in which humanity was the proud warrior race. It wasn't that humans behaved any differently, but that the other species found combat psychologically devastating and very few could adjust to it.

 

Humans are usually posited as the do-everything people. Imagine a world where all the other peoples all have neato magical powers but no one can build anything more complicated than a fishing pole. Some of them can fly, and some can run like the wind, and some have nasty pointy sharp teeth, but none of them can get their heads around anything that requires precise workmanship.