Dirt Simple Grappling

How long have grapples been a meme for in D&D or DIY stuff? I feel like at this point, they've been such a point of contention that people have created a whole bunch of house rules and simplifications for them. Even 5e has pretty simple rules for grapples.

But can we go simpler? By simpler in this case, I don't just mean "roll attack or roll under strength", I mean something that's got a little meat to it. So instead; Dirt Simple Grappling.

Grappling Rules
Grappling goes in two stages, going from a Grab to a Hold. You must have at least one hand free to utilize a grab. You can still use the other hand. You can only upgrade a Grab to a Hold if you have both hands free, or using small enough weapons (daggers, claws, etc.) that you can still use an arm effectively. You can make attacks with your free hand, but must use your action for a round grabbing somebody unless you're a badass Fighter or something. You can also instantly put somebody in a Hold IF you perform a grapple from stealth.

In order to grapple somebody, roll one of your class's HD size die vs one of whatever size dice you use for monster HD (I use d6 for my game), if your  roll is higher, you succeed in your grapple action and have grabbed the monster. If the monster's roll is higher, your action fails. If the monster is naturally armored and spiked or is wearing spiked or razor armor, then you take damage from your failed grapple.

Note: I use this for my surprise rolls. I would allow a player to add any initiative bonuses they have from stats/class/race/magic items or whatever to add to this grapple, since its implied to be a sort of agility thing, but you can't get a bonus to grapples if it's a weapon, since it only works for attacks with that weapon.

In a Grab: The Monster cannot move away from the grabber and they cannot attack the grappler with a ranged or long reach weapon like a spear or whip. The Grappled target CAN attack the grappler with a shorter weapon, spell, natural weapon, etc. The grappled target can move towards or around the grappler, just not away from them. This includes the ability to charge right into them in an attempt to bowl them over if they are significantly larger or wearing heavy armor.

To move from a Grab to a Hold, you can simply use your action on a round to hold the creature. You move it into a position you can wrap your arms around it, pinning it down. The grabbed creature cannot attack the grabber anymore once in a hold.

In a Hold: Creatures that are in a hold are put in a condition where they (pick one);

• Cannot Move AND Cannot Attack their Grappler. All other attacks are made at disadvantage.
  
• Are shoved/thrown 10 ft in a direction (ends grapple)
  
• Knocked prone (must spend a round to get back up, or fight with disadvantage on the ground- can end grapple or the grappler can go prone to keep the hold on the ground)
  

If a creature is of a significant size advantage OR has more arms then the defender, then they can make a grab turn instantly to a hold. The first roll determines if the monster can escape from the hold before it is made. For example, a giant wrapping his hand around you is instantly a full hold, meaning you can't fight as your body is constricted in its grasp. The same applies to giant snakes, many-limb tentacle monsters, and so on.

Takedowns
Once someone is in a Hold, you can attempt to take them down. This can be a nonleathal choke until they pass out, or a lethal neck-snap type of move.

Add your class damage bonus with attacks with your Strength modifier. If you're a Monk/due with powerful unarmed attacks, you can add the maximum possible size of your unarmed attack die to this too if you don't think it's too broken. If this number is equal to or greater then the enemy's remaining HP, you can take them down. Otherwise, you deal your normal unarmed combat damage as you slowly twist their ligaments too far or constrict their airway and the like.

The purpose of this ruleset is to make grappling a simple ruleset that reduces the power of a grapple while making it something that doesn't waste your turn automatically- and provides some tactical use. Also, a lot of ruling over rules still applies. You can't grapple anything too big or strong, or anything without a physical body, of course, and will have to handle it on a case by case basis.

Scene from a Dream - The Dwarven Climb

 

You are one of many within the Dwarven army. Your patrol travels through the mountains, when you are stopped at a sheer cliff face climb. The patrol thins to a line as each and every dwarf must climb- the only strange thing is the silence atop the cliff.

As you climb the sheer cliff, you begin to see the carvings. They are names, these ones short and simple. These are memorial runes, for low born soldiers and humble servants. As you climb the cliff, they become more and more ornate, belonging to names from noble families. Your stomach twists into knots as you reach the top and climb over.

At the top of the cliff, you see it. It is a slab and a grave- for the King of the Dwarves. His great green axe sits atop it in memoriam. His long, royal name etched on stone. Your Noble King is dead, killed with his army, before the news of it could return to your unit. You feel the tears well up in your eyes, but must be silent. You weep silently, as all Dwarves must carry their own burdens alone; to cry out or warn those below would robe them the honor of suffering this loss each and all alone.

So, with the rest of your unit, you stand at the top as dwarf after dwarf crosses above, seeing the grave of their beloved monarch, noble and just, and each weeps silently. Every one of you will carry this burden alone, and by each alone, all together.

50 Faction Names

Need a name for a faction or group? Roll on this list.

Roll 1d10 for a cult's name.

Roll 1d30 for a name fitting a fantasy setting.
Roll 1d20+30 for a name fitting a science fiction setting.
Roll 1d50 for a totally random faction name.

50 Faction Names

[1] Ladies & Gentlemen of the Highest Esteem

[2] Jugglers, Tumblers, and More (the more is the cult part)

[3] Order of the Burning Sky

[4] Seekers of Saturn's Spade

[5] Blind Linchpin

[6] The Thresholders

[7] Everyday We Are Better

[8] Hopeful Terror

[9] The Seekers

[10] The Sounding of Frozen Chimes

[11] The Witches Circle

[12] Trollbloodies

[13] The Crossbreed Club

[14] Blight Buddies

[15] Goblin-Grabbers

[16] Rat Catchers

[17] Skulduggers

[18] Blood-Letters

[19] Bird Watchers (painfully obvious spies)

[20] The Valin'Dajo

[21] Squires

[22] White Wardens

[23] Cup Bearers

[24] Imbibers of the Sacred Starlight

[25] The Silverlark Guild

[26] The Family

[27] Mystic Order of (Put a God's name here)

[28] The Aviary

[29] Temple Guard

[30] The Sabre

[31] Noncorporate Security & Defense Initiative (Just said as NSDI)

[32] Watchers of the Wavelength

[33] The Investors

[34] Arms-Runners

[35] Laser Cowboys

[36] Moonfallen

[37] Nebula Pirates

[38] The Roadtrip Men

[39] Time without Loss

[40] The Catalogers

[41] Interspecies Relations Association

[42] Stardust Gardens

[43] Stardust Keepers

[44] Enig-Mass

[45] Delvers of the Event Horizon

[46] Frequency

[47] Intuitive Technologies

[48] Perfect Tyranny (PT)

[49] Valued Interests & Acquisitions

[50] Supernova Squad

Monsters - Brad Neely Inspiration

Sometimes inspiration can strike in the strangest places.

 

Going by the above picture; let's build some criteria. We're going to write up these monsters similar to the ones that we already know from the picture. So Goblins and Trolls are our baseline.

• Semi-Intelligent demihumans
• Are living creatures, nothing too inherently "supernatural"
  
• Have social groups, but are probably primitive / barbaric
• Are low to high level threats to adventuring people, but not ultra powerful

Womps (4 HD, +2 to hit, -2 AC, big fists at 1d6+1, slam bonus at +2)
Morale- 10
Number- 2d4

The Womps are a monsterous species of large fisted individuals. They are quite dull, with square heads that collect their sweat in pools on top to cool off when they think too hard. Being quite slow and stupid, they are easy to strike in combat and are not known to wear armor or use weapons. Instead, they use their fists, which are quite physically powerful.

The Womps like to crush and smash things, and deal +2 damage when slamming someone into a wall or ground repeatedly. The preferred Womp battle tactic is to isolate or knock down an opponent, and then gang up on them and slam them with their fists until they are squished flat and quite dead.

 

Twumps (3 HD, +1 to hit, +1 AC, weapons at 1d6, sponge lichen)
Morale- 12
Number- 1d8 in patrol, 3d10 in pool

Twumps are an ugly between child of trolls and goblins. They are roughly human in height, but are not strong and powerful like an orc. Instead, they are slender and lean, and have long sucker mouths fitted well for sucking up scum and lichen from underground pools and chambers where they live.

Higher then in intelligence then most other related creatures; they have a culture, language, and know the secrets of metalworking and fire. Typically, only their leaders are afforded iron armor, in which case bump up their AC to 15 for rough chainmail, but standard warriors go with cloaks and shawls of cave-creature skin. They live in semi-agricultural societies that stay around the most fertile underground chambers, and defend them to the death from intruders. Warriors and scouts outside of these chambers will carry sponge lichen; a useful source of food but also medicine. If a warrior is injured after a fight, the lichen can be put in the wound to suck up the blood and staunch bleeding; healing 1d4 hit points. Each warrior carries enough for about one use, and the party can make use of these for themselves.

 

Sklorgs (5 HD,  +3 to hit, 1d8+3 bite, ravenous, grapple+1)
Morale- 14 (9 once 'fed')
Number- 1d6 (if result is 1- it's a yellow sklorg)

Sklorgs are large headed monsters with gaping mouths filled with many sharp teeth. They are a dull red in color, but a few are yellow. The yellow sklorgs are loners, kicked out of their social groups, and may be more intelligent and reasonable then the others. Sklorgs only care about eating and as such they always attack immediately (reaction roll of 2) unless they are a yellow sklorg, in which case they have the intelligence of an ogre or troll and are mostly food motivated.

Sklorgs have hands, but prefer to only use their mouths to attack and eat. They only use their arms to grab and steady prey before biting- as a demihuman species they have increased strength and count as grappling +1 (as though they had Strength modifier of +1 for grapple contests) if their teeth are broken or mouth is forced shut, they can make a weak punch that deals 1d2 damage instead.

Once a Sklorg has done a total of 15 or more damage, they have bitten off enough flesh that they are considered "fed". They will no longer jump into swords or spears to try and bite off more flesh, but will eat anyone knocked out or held by other members of their group. If all the Sklorgs remaining alive are 'fed', roll a morale check as 9 and for every other morale check beyond that point.

6 Spells made by your Apprentice

These are some spells made by your dumbass apprentice. Roll on the table every downtime turn they have no assignment and have time to just screw around in the arcane laboratory.

6 Spells made by your Apprentice
[1] Broken String Repair
Useful to repair a broken string on a lute, a strap, a drawstring for a bag of holding, etc. When the spell is cast, a length of the caster's hair flies out and takes the place of the cord. You still have to snip your hair off at the right length, as your hair is tied to where the string should go. If you have short hair, it'll hurt a lot more and suck up some body hair to finish the string too.

[2] Firestarter
Lights the end of your finger on fire, like a match. This fire deals no damage and doesn't hurt, at least. The fire on your finger can be used to light other fires- the fire on your finger goes out after a full turn. No, you can't turn it off early.

[3] Suction Cleaning
This spell creates a magical vortex of air in a container or bag that sucks up the air in a room; along with it taking in the dust, particles, and small insects around the place. Useful for cleaning. However, this spell has two drawbacks. First, if used in a space without good ventilation, it will create an airless place where you can't breathe. Second, if too much is sucked up into a bag, it becomes highly pressurized and will explode when opened, dropped, or pierced dealing 1d4 damage from a powerful sonic blast, that deafens for the same number of rounds.

[4] Pressure Finger
Creates a pillar of "pressure" that extends from the end of a finger pointing in whatever direction the finger is pointing. The closer one pushes their finger towards the next solid object in its path, the more pressure is applied. This pressure can be used to press switches, activate pressure plates, knock small objects off shelves, etc. at about a distance of 10 feet. Can only do one "thing" per casting.

All of the effects of this spell could be replicated by an (unlimited use) 10 ft pole.

[5] Bone Blast
By holding a bone by one end and pointing the other, this spell releases the death-energy within the dead body part and fires it out like a roman candle. The caster must make a d20 + Int modifier To-Hit roll vs the target's AC for the bolt to connect.

Deals 1d3 damage for a human bone, 1d6 damage for a giant monster bone, 2d6 for a demigod bone, and so on. The bone is splintered apart and charred black after being used. Actually not a bad spell, but needs a bone and magic missile is probably still more useful.

[6] Wickerweave
Requires several sticks, twigs, and bits of straw. The resulting parts are sown together over the course of 1d4 turns to create a piece of furniture, equipment, or tool. The wicker version of the item works exactly as well as a base version of the item would work without bonuses but is made of wicker; so a wicker shield acts as a regular shield of its size but burns up if hit with fire, etc.

The wicker item, after being made, works as intended for one turn. Then, it ceases its enchantment and will fall apart or become as brittle as anything made of wicker.

[Class] Eelstronaut

Eelstronaut
HD- d6
Max AC- 12 / Minimum Hit-Points- 4

You're a big scary eel man. You're also exceptionally intelligent, dexterous, and all around nice guy. If you're playing in a more fantasy setting over sci-fi, maybe this guy is from another dimension, future timeline, or is dropped in from a cosmic spelljammer starship that crashed on your primitive planet.

Generate your Dexterity and Intelligence as 3d6+1
Generate your Charisma as 1d6+1

You have a very low Charisma. This isn't just because you are ugly and scary looking, but because of several innate biological traits that can't be suppressed. You are totally carnivorous and have to eat your prey live- eating dead prey is similar to a human eating uncooked meat. Technically possible, but unpleasant and can get you very sick. You're also prone to several gross or weird social ticts and habits; such as saying "Please pass me the plasma wrench dear. Oh yes, thank you eheheheHEHEHE." and other fits of creepy behavior. Sorry.

You are, however, an Eel person. You can't breathe underwater but you can hold your breath for an hour. If this is because of your race or if it's because of your advanced Eelstronaut training that's up to you. You can also see in darkness, especially dark water, and can fit into anything that your head can fit into letting you slip through pipes and stuff. Useful on a space ship.

You're very good with advanced technology. You can repair high tech gadgets and gizmos a number of times equal to your level before they stop working or need replacement parts. As a general rule, something high tech without a support network will keep working until it is either damaged or used incorrectly, then it has a 1 in 6 chance of failing until it fails. Eelstronauts can repair these, but they have a 1 in 6 chance to fail each time they are used from damage. You can also move around in micro gravity, which helps when hit with a levitation trap in a fantasy world.

You can also add +1 to hit with blasters and energy swords at first level. Every three levels after, add a bonus +1.

You can do a bite attack at 1d6+1 as long as you don't have your spacesuit helmet on. You find this kind of thing very barbaric however, and will need to spend at least a turn after combat grooming and picking man-flesh out of your sharp, spiky, glass-like teeth.

At 4th level, you gain the ability to perform an electric shock. You can do this pretty much as often as you want for low voltages, but for a big, high voltage attack; once per day. These low voltage shocks can be done on anything you're touching and can restart generators, run electrical circuits, or hotwire a device. The high voltage shock hits anything you are touching or that is grappling you; deals 1d8+1 damage and shorts out killer robots and stuff and deactivates them for 3 turns.

At 10th level, you become an Eelstronomer and now work in mission control, once you return to civilization (as in, a society with space ships, not a medieval town.) You no longer have to get into the cockpit, now you perform mission control and school the new generation of astronauts. You become the unsung hero the Eel space program and can retire with a comfy pension.

Pet Peeve Corner- "Half Swording" & Human "Endurance Hunting"

 I can't force you to read it, but I can type it. Random pet peeves of mine.

"Half Swording"
Look at this garbage. This is from a simple Google search. As you can see, two different, distinct techniques are presented here. There is Half Swording, the correct technique for the name, where the sword is gripped halfway up the blade to provide more control, and the Mordhau or "Murder Stroke", where a sword is held by the blade to bash an enemy with a pommel.

My problem? People keep calling the fucking Mordhau grip "Half Swording". Even Skallagrim did it in a youtube video, which probably popularized the naming scheme.

Ever since the more "historically accurate combat" zeitgeist began a few years back people have been pushing sword techniques like this an others into the forefront. But like any new piece of knowledge, people slap it around everywhere without much thought or consideraiton. To be fair, the very first image is misleading- Wikipedia uses the below picture for BOTH techniques.

If you look closely, you can see this image actually shows both the half swording AND the Mordhau grip. The man on the left is half swording, the man on the right is using the murder stroke. However, it is somewhat harder to see the man on the left's hand position, and since this is the first result on google, I'm sure this mislead some people. I should also mention that my main complaint here is that these two different techniques seem to both be given the term "half swording" by the general public, which is grating to say the least. Even if you want to argue that the Mordhau grip is a 'type' or position of a half swording technique, I'd argue that the purpose of the grip (blade control versus blunt attack) is totally different and deserving of a different name.

Endurance Hunting
I want to begin this topic with two admissions. The first is that, simply put, this is a real thing. Persistence hunting and endurance hunting are real techniques used by certain tribal groups in Africa today (and were probably used by early man/man ancestors). The second thing to admit is that this nitpick is 100% for an ulterior motive.

Here's the thing; I've seen persistence hunting miscatergorized a lot recently. (Online of course, normal people don't know or give a shit about this kind of thing.) Do you know what persistence hunting is not? Walking slowly at something until it becomes exhausted and dies. This very silly concept is something I have seen with shocking regularity presented as a valid, if not exclusive hunting technique used by early man.

Firstly, I am not a anthropologist. However, I know more about prehistory then a lot of normies. This is stupid. No animal, even animals more suited to this technique then humans, use this "method" of taking out prey. It is nonsense.

Now it's important to remember this- chasing a creature down and having more stamina then the creature so you can capture it is a common technique in nature, called pursuit predation. And the above example of endurance hunting is incredibly similar. So much so that they could basically be called the same thing. To further complicate things; this technique has and is used to some extent. I'm not claiming it was never used, I'm claiming it is mischaracterized and greatly exaggerated.

Let's look at persistence hunting objectively for a second. What conditions have to be met for it to work? Well, firstly, it works in a specific place (hot savanna) at a certain time (hot day) against a specific type of prey (mid to large animals that will retreat from humans). It will not work against burrowing animals, birds, large territorial animals that will hold their ground instead of waste energy running, it will not work against animals that can easily escape into the bush, and it won't work against animals with a similar or better cooling off method (such as animals that live in water, of course). This limits the scope of this technique to a very small selected pool of creatures in a specific habitat.

The problem is humans ate a lot more then just gazelles and they lived in a lot more places then just savanna.

Secondly, and more importantly, the concept that a prey animal can be tracked consistently and not confused with another animal of its herd, not disappear into the bush, or just flat out outrun humans to the point where no amount of jogging, walking, or human sprinting can keep up is hard to imagine happening consistently. And this is combined with the fact that any failed hunt of persistent hunting would waste an entire day of time (can't hunt at night- not hot enough and humans do not have good night vision compared to other predators), tons of caloric energy, and possibly most importantly, causes dehydration from how much sweat the hunters would produce.

Once again, this doesn't mean it's impossible, just not likely. Nobody has ever killed a bear by walking slowly towards it, and yet humans killed them. Cavemen did not kill wooly mammoths by walking at them, and yet people killed these too. Despite how seemingly easy and convenient this special humans-only hunting technique seems to be; no other predator animal anywhere in any part of the world or any part of the fossil record seems to have exhibited it. That's because it's not how people hunted.

So how did early man hunt? Well, simple. They pursued their prey. With weapons. Humans became one of, if not the dominant form of life on Earth through intelligent use of tools and, by extension, ranged weaponry. Sneak up or get close enough to prey, injury with a spear, dart, or arrow, and then follow the wounded animal until it either collapsed or you can get a better shot off. This is the same way that every indigenous human culture continues to hunt to this day, the same way modern human hunters hunt (cept with guns), and the method of hunting in which every single artifact of arrowheads, spears, or atlatls continues to support.

Do these sound the same to you? Well they are very similar- like I said in the title of this blogpost. This is a Pet Peeve. The difference between these is that one is believable, and understandable, and supported by evidence and simple common sense. The other is a fantasy, attributing humans with a magical power of "endurance" that is somehow greater then other living things- including living things that can walk a few minutes after being born, and only sleep for 30 minutes at a time in near constant alertness. Horses only sleep 2 hours, total, a day in many short intervals. Humans sleep 8 in one chunk. Are you going to try to walk something to death that gets a six hour head start every morning?

And here's that ulterior motive I talked about; Human Endurance. Why am I complaining about it? Because people want humans to be special.

Fantasy Races and Endurance
In fantasy (or fiction in general), humans may only be one race of many. However, most stories feature humans in the center of the action. Because humans are the only species that the majority of humans have considered to be a "self aware" species (which is wrong, by the way, but let's not get into that now) that means that intelligent races are created wholecloth from imagination.

In order to present other, fantastical races or species; if they be elves, dwarves, animal-people, weird aliens, or what have you; there needs to be something to compare them too. So they are compared to humans.

Orcs are stronger then humans, but dumber. Elves are more magical and long lived then humans, but reproduce slowly. To the reader, this makes sense and is easy to understand. It is easy to compare these races to humans, as while despite not being able to live for hundreds of years you can imagine a being who could, being able to collect all that knowledge in a life much longer then yours, would be incredibly intelligent, or well learned/magical/whatever.

So in these fantasy worlds, how are humans presented? Well typically, they are presented as the every man. The middle race- jack of all trades, master of none. However, I'm sure to many people, this gets old. People are tired of being the "quick learning", short lived, young and ambitious race that humans always are in every fantasy or sci-fi universe. People want humans to be special.

So in a few places, humans are made special through circumstance. Often humans may be the chosen race, the most noble or most destined by the Gods. In other universes, humans may be the most industrious or scientifically the best (though curiously, this never seems to mean intelligence directly, as elves or dwarves may still technically be smarter or "better craftsmen", humans can just pump out more apparently). In some, humans may be the physically largest and therefore the strongest race. If you have your typical fantasy D&D races of elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes then yes, Humans would be the biggest race and this fits well enough.

But some people want a special, real world biological quirk instead of these more cultural or setting-specific quirks. So what do people go for? Endurance.

The problem with this is twofold. The first is the belief that humans have some kind of long range endurance that is special or unique. I have yet to find any indication that this is the case. Now I mentioned above, this doesn't mean humans can't outrun certain animals during certain conditions- that much is true. But that is more a matter of thermal regulation. Humans can cool off a lot better then many other animals, but that isn't quite the same thing as endurance.

The second, and perhaps more important, is the inherent implication that humans having "endurance" being their special thing would be absent or reduced in other fantasy races. I don't see this as the case. These most standard fantasy races; elves, dwarves, halflings and the like, are all bipedal and all have similar skin covering to humans. They would sweat too! Of course, you could argue that a long human stride would be much better then a short hobbit or dwarf shuffle, and I'll give you that, but going by that logic a 20 ft tall giant will have a stride that puts any human to shame and can outpace any man over distance, so that kind of kills the concept of humans having some special enduring trait.

So with all this in mind, what makes humans special?

What makes humans special?
The reason why this is such a portentous topic, in my opinion, is because of people don't want to accept the reality. The thing that makes humans special, in the real world anyway, is intelligence. That's it. Humans are bred to be smart and sociable, capable of learning and use of tools. These traits took a MASSIVE amount of energy and effort to evolve over time. Humans lost almost every other special, unique, or "powerful" trait that an animal could have in pursuit of intelligence. Oh and, I guess technically a greater range of motion in the shoulder. Even compared to all the other great apes and human offshoots, homo sapiens sapiens are the best at throwing stuff.

Of course, when I say "human" trait here, I really mean pre-human ancestor that diverged down a more human path. Everything I am saying here relates to most primates, it's not technically homo sapiens sapiens that gave up everything to be smart of course, but even compared to other great apes, we have some weaknesses. I'm not the type to try and shill a "humans so feeble and shitty chimpanzees could literally rip you in half if they wanted woah!" kind of narrative because that shit annoys me too, but moreso in the development, child rearing, and pregnancy side of things. Human babies can barely be born because their heads are too damn big to hold a brain, any larger and mothers literally couldn't birth them. Humans take over a decade to become sexually active, and are not especially strong or fast even once become adults. Massive amounts of calories are needed to sustain the human brain, which is a very hungry organ. Humans rely on social groups for both food and protection for the long period of their lives- not totally unique in the animal kingdom, but still relevant. It's still intelligence or sociability that is the factor here, not some nebulous "endurance" trait.

The problem in fantasy then becomes this; when you write a fantasy race in, you aren't considering the "cost" of what it took to become an intelligent, tool using, "self aware" actor. Nobody asks how dwarves could evolve the level of intelligence and social ability of humans whilst also keeping low-light vision and their pound-for-pound strength and toughness. Nobody is asking how elves could gain such an efficient and long lasting immune system and resistance to diseases and cancers that they can live for centuries, but yet are still as smart (or smarter!) then humans that would have to evolve into a very similar lifestyle of hunter-gatherer in the forests.

Now the above is only for more naturalistic fantasy worlds and settings- ones where races evolved. Obviously if the fantasy 'verse just has Gods or ancient beings which created humans or the other races, then these don't apply; but you're still comparing made up races with humans, who had to evolve and struggle in the real world, and didn't essentially get to be smart "for free" the way our fictional fantasy creations get.

So then the question becomes this. What trait(s) SHOULD you give humans in a fantasy or science-fiction universe to help them stand out?

Well, in my opinion, nothing. Humans shouldn't be special. Make them the boring every man, the middle manager, the "default" race. That's more then enough. People who want to be something other then a human and be special or different can, and people who want to play as something relatable, simple, and self-explanatory can be a human. Everybody wins.