Metahuman Height Ranges, Or, how high is the tallest Dwarf? Options

[mmu1]

The topic on troll weight reminded me of something I've been wondering about for a while - how much variation from the average is there in height among the different metahuman races?

It came up first when I made a Dwarf street sam, and decided to make him really tall - for his race, anyway - since I don't like the idea of a killing machine that can't see over a grocery store counter, and I figured it made sense that someone who's extremely agile and quick would be less stumpy than is the average for his race.

So I made him 142cm tall, or 4'8" - proportionately, that compares to the average 120cm (4') tall dwarf like a 200cm (6'6"+) human does to an average man - which makes him very tall, but not freakishly so... Or so I figure, since I never came across any official height ranges. (although I didn't look all that hard, since I didn't really want to find something official saying dwarves top out at 130cm ;))

What does everyone else think?

[Austere Emancipa...]

My dwarves average 130cm, and range from 110cm to 160cm similarly to humans varying from 140cm to 210cm. I think it only makes sense for metahumans to vary in size as much or nearly as much as humans.

I would suppose Homo sapiens pumilionis are immune to dwarfism, ie there are no "short-statured" dwarves, since that just might get a little silly. Similarly I'd expect there to be no 4.5-meter trolls (like there has been a 2.7 meter human), because the complications would kill him soon enough.

[Kagetenshi]

I think that I continually think of Blake as slightly over six feet tall, mostly because I keep getting his metatype mixed up with Mk1.

~J

[John Campbell]

I've got my dwarven sorcerer's height and mass down as 130cm and 64kg, or about 4'3" and 140 pounds. That puts him about 8% over average height (proportional to a 6'1" human), and 18% over average weight. Given that he's 7 Body (max unmodified for a dwarf) and 6 Str (a bit above dwarven average), and it's all natural (uncybered mage), I figure that's about right.

I've also figured not much gender variation between dwarves - I don't remember whether there's canon support for that, or if it's just something I made up - so the average male dwarf would deviate less from the racial average than the average male human does. That being the case, it might be more accurate to say that Sven'd be about 6'4" proportionately (going off the human male average instead of the overall human average). Figuring your dwarf's proportional height the same way would make him almost 6'11". But, as I said, I don't remember if there's canon support for that.

[RangerJoe]

There's nothing in the BBB about it, but the lack of sexual dimorphism in dwarves certainly is an old joke.

[Bokujin]

I had a tall dwarf, once. I think he ended up being a full 5 feet tall. My GM forced me to take the human-looking edge, though... because I'm pretty sure that the only difference between humans and dwarves are their height, so a (relatively) tall dwarf would arguably be indistinguishable from a short human.
It's all up to your GM, though.

[John Campbell]

The differences in proportion aren't insignificant. Dwarves are short-legged, long-armed, and wide, relative to their height, and to a degree that puts them well outside normal human parameters. The average dwarf weighs in at about 120 pounds at a mere 3'11". Your 5' dwarf, if he kept normal dwarven proportions, would weigh a good 240 pounds, and probably have to turn sideways to get through doorways. I've seen humans that short and heavy, but I'd have to describe them as "morbidly obese". For dwarves, it's just the way their frame is built. "Human-Looking" dwarves will probably be slimmer, proportionately, and just look like short, stocky humans.

[Bokujin]

Noted.
I forgot about how dense (in terms of mass, not intelligence) dwarves are. So yeah, I guess a tall one who kept the same proportions would probably end up looking pretty silly.

"I am the Lord Torgo of dwarves!"
"So... what? Tall as a human, but three times as wide?"