Editing Humanoid

'''Humanoid''' is a term ubiquitous in both fantasy and science-fiction, meaning "a creature that is similar to a [[human]] but not a human". It's a catch-all term for literally any race other than just plain-old humans. Unless you're talking about [[Dungeons & Dragons]], in which it case it has some more specific meanings.

In [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]], for unknown reasons (possibly due to his belief in the importance of humanocentrism), [[Gygax]] divided the various nonhuman into two categories. Anything that was either half-human or had been a protagonist race in [[The Lord of the Rings]] was deemed a '''[[Demihuman]]''' (why [[gnome]]s got in on this, who can say, maybe due to their basically being an [[elf]]/[[dwarf]] crossbreed). Anything else that had a roughly humanoid form and some level of civilization was deemed a '''Humanoid'''. On paper, this was a neutral term referring to all non-demihuman races, from benevolent-to-neutral ones like [[centaur]]s, [[firbolg]]s and [[aarakocra]] to evil ones like [[orc]]s, [[ogre]]s, [[goblinoid]]s, [[gnoll]]s, [[kobold]]s, etc. In practice, it was just used as a catch-all phrase for "all the races you are legally allowed to kill in this game".

When [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]] came along, they figured this was a clumsily used (and stupid) idea, so they dropped the whole thing. Instead, they divided the various creatures of the D&D [[multiverse]] into "creature types"; '''Humanoid''' became the "normal type" - the races that were fundamentally human-like in nature, being creatures based on relatively normal biology with little in the way of truly powerful inherent magic. For example, a [[Medusa]] is a Monstrous Humanoid, because she can turn you to stone with a look; a [[gnoll]] or [[minotaur]], on the other hand, is just a [[beastfolk|human-shaped animal]], and thusly is a Humanoid type.

This second version has undergone revisions over subsequent editions, but has remained the definitive version, casting the AD&D original into the dank depths of [[OSR]].

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]] [[Category: Gamer Slang]]