I'm a DM for a bunch of new players who are going through the Lost Mines of Phandelver starter set with the pre-generated characters. This campaign will be over fairly soon and I need to get the group thinking about creating their own characters, ready for the next campaign.
Part of this process is getting myself familiar with the various races and classes so that I can assist them with creating their characters. After looking at each race in turn in the PHB and typing up a short cheat sheet showing each race's stats/abilities/proficiencies etc, I asked myself one question. Why would any of my players want to play as a human?
Each of the other races has some sort of proficiency or trait that makes them stand out and gives the character something extra, but all humans appear to have is a +1 to each ability score. This doesn't seem like much fun compared to all the bonuses other races receive. Therefore my question is:
How much of an advantage is it to have a +1 in each ability score and what other potential advantages would a human have in D&D from a mechanical and role playing point of view?
I don't want to force any of my players to actually be a human. If all five wanted to choose Dragonborn, that would be completely fine. But a good answer here will allow me to present a solid argument for considering a human over other, more exotic races.
Although I would like some answers based on RAW, anything that mentions optional races/features such as Variant Human would also be helpful.