I've been out of the Shadowrun loop for a while, so excuse my ignorance if it's showing. But I remember trolls being mentally challenged, and now in third edition people just 'think' they're a bunch of delberts because of the shape of their pallets. "I'm not a doofus. I have a speach impediment." Has political correctness invaded Shadowrun? Do we have to worry about upsetting non-existent races too?

I also seem to remember that orks were a societal pain the the hiney. I don't see this in the SR3 stuff I've checked out and I think that sucks. It made total since that orks would be a problem. Remember when you were 14 and fully convinced you could kick anybodies ass? Full of piss and vinegar and suffering from testosterone poisoning. Now think about an ork. He reaches physical maturity at about 14 and physical maturity for an ork is like a human power lifter. Add to that the fact that orks as a race are undoubtably pissed off about the fact that they are likely to die from old age before the other races even reach middle age. Think about gangs of young orks prowling the streets. Big, angry, puffed-up and looking to impress their buds, filled with a since of apathy about tomorrow.

Anyhow, is this stuff still an issue in third edition? I don't notice it.

Not exactly sure what youre getting at. The game stats (int, cha penalty) as well as various supplements (New Seattle) both reflect those races with at least some slant towards your rather colorful description. So yea, that facet of the game is there, perhaps not as explicit as you wrote it however. Did you want an example, or a page reference for it or something?

Well, I haven't noticed any changes personally.

Trolls: Having a look at my trusty treasury-tag bound copy of SR1 I think the bit that may cover the issue is this (p38)

i haven't played any other edition of SR but 3rd. so my knowledge here might be somewhat lacking. but here goes:

i think trolls have always had some mental disorders or simply underdeveloped brains (the rules state this black on white by adding a +2 penalty to int). but this penalty can have many forms.
one troll might simply be ilitterate (spelling? doh! this couldn't be more inappropriate...) or and have very little or no education, whilst another troll might simply be 'slow' and not very perceptive, but he could still be well educated.

so trolls are dumb, but they can be dumb in many different senses.

You're also feeding into the stereotypes of the race, which FASA first and now FanPro are working against. Trolls are naturally strong and have longer reach, therefore they're usually melee specialists. Orks are less strong, but still obviously suited for combat and thus are typically street samurai or other combat types. Elves are quick and charismatic by nature and therefore are usually either the face, the pistols specialist/shartshooter, the mage (more elementals/spirits), or a combination of those. Dwarves are short and stumpy, but they have high willpower so they're usually riggers and deckers. These are what min/maxers usually play the different races as.

However, FASA and FanPro have been trying to break those stereotypes for a long time and push the game more into role-playing than roll-playing. Therefore, Orks and Trolls esp. (since their penalties generally mean they're just cannon fodder) are still treated that way generally, but the company is going out of its way to show that there are exceptions to every stereotype, esp. when it comes to something like race. So that's why you see an ork decker and a troll mage as the archetypes in the BBB.

The Abstruse One

Note that the SR3 metatype descriptions, unlike the ones in previous editions, are written in-character by members of the metatypes in question. Do you think that they're really going to say, "Yeah, most members of my metatype are really dumb and aggressive. I'm just one of the small minority of exceptions, and even as exceptional as I am, I barely meet human average"? Even if that's just the plain truth?

Nice point Johnny C! I never even thought of that. Maybe I'm a troll.

SR3 p. 50 says that they have "... speach that sounds flat, uninflected, and therefore 'stupid' to the ears of humans and others." Page 40 says that trolls are "less acute (lower Intelligence) than humans." The Intelligence attribute deals with more than just smartz, it has to do with things like visual acuity, and they chose the words 'less acute' wich leads me to think they are not saying that trolls are a little shy in the brain-bucket. I seem to remember just about every adventure or novel I read made the trolls look like they were pretty dumb. The rule book seems to avoid this.

As for the orks, I seem to remember (and I'm just going on memory here, and admittedly mine ain't so good) the first edition rules pointed out that orks matured quickly and caused some havoc; that the race as a whole had something of a FTW attitude because they new they would grow old and die so quickly. All I see about this in SR3 is on page 47 in the Metahuman Characteristics Table, under Lifespan "35 - 40 years".

Thanks for your input one and all and Abstruse, I like that you know the difference between rollplaying and roleplaying.

The troll in Nosferatu seemed like he wasn't a moron. Maybe not a Rhodes scholar, but definately not stupid.

The Abstruse One

The intell and charisma penalties mean that the average troll or ork still have those problems, but pc's can rise about this putting extra into intell. The part about the speech problem explains how a being with intell of 6 can still sound like he's from Brooklyn. In general the average troll is as dumb as a box of rocks with an intell of 1, 2 if they're lucky.

The troll int penalty might be rationalized using biology.

The Troll metatype has roughly 3-4 times the body volume to have to control and monitor. It might have been easier to borrow CCs from the higher thought processes for control purposes, than actually increasing brain size.

Evolution is based around the motto "just good enough is perfect".

Hate sound all PC and everything but I don't allow any kind of intelligents modifier. Up or down. Haven't since 1st ed. For me it seemed like it legitimist racism, because one race was literally smarter than the others. Elves could treat humans poorly because the elven race is generally smarter than the humans. The humans could then turn around and teat the orks and trolls in the same manner with the elves putting them down as well. I think it makes for a much more interesting game if everyone has the same intellectual chances. Plus then the elves really are arrogent snobs and they get to have the bad racial stereotype.

Just for the record and to put everything in context, I am a white hetero male over 21. No real agenda just like to see people treated on there merits as an individual instead of some member of a stereotyped group. You know, like gamers.

Thanos

I'll even go so far as to say that goblinization can cause some small amount of brain damage and that's how all the stereotypes for orks and trolls got started. As most of them are now born it's not really a factor.

Just a note, Trolls and Orks have the penalties to mental attributes becasue they werent born that way, Thier body shifts and causes major havok with them. Now at the point you are born as a troll, you probably arent that stupid, but you are alwasy treated like you are so you accept it and dont try to accel, this has happened a lot in human history. Anyways the net result is you get trolls that dont try to be einstiens and thus they arent. -2 int protrays the lack of effort, and or mental changes that create the less acute troll, besides ive never seen a troll in one of my games with less than 3 int.

Racism would be giving one particular metatype a net total significantly above or below the usual.

Most metas get 2-3 net attribute pts and a few neat tricks in exchange for their priority selection. If someone came up with a "uberaryan" metatype that had a natural +1 to all stats, then that would be a problem.

Race: Uberaryan
Priority: E
Racial Advantages: +2 all stats (Including Magic and Essence)
Disadvantages: Nobody likes them, every non-Uberaryan gets 10 racisism points againts uberaryans. Hunted 6 point flaw, really, nobody likes them, they all have little square mustaches, very cliche. The Keeper on the Edge doesnt like them, they arent allowed on the metaplanes.
Other advantage: In fact the only people who like them, is themselves, -4 to all social tests with other uberaryans.

Heh, nobody likes them, but they don't care because they are <trumpet fanfare> Uberaryans!

Awakened fascists united in their destiny to rule the world. (and eliminate a few ethnic groups in the process.)

Back to pseudo-reality:

if it is acceptible that magic works now, then isn't psychoneurological regression also acceptible?

Hmm. I like -1 Int, but perhaps -2 is a bit extreme for Trolls.

Lots of Trolls would have an Int of 1, which to me would make them barely functional in society.

I think shifting the average 3-4 range to a 2-3 range gets the point across, without creating a race of morons.

What I'm suggesting only applies to the non-physical stats: Charisma, Intelligence and Willpower. If trolls are bigger (i.e. enjoy bonuses to their Body and Strength), than they're bigger. Physical statistics are easier to quantify than intelligence or attractiveness, which are highly abstract and context-specific.

The thing you aren't seeing, Velocity, is that the Ork Rights guys aren't saying that Orks and Trolls are as smart as Humans, Elves and Dwarves and more than animal rights people are saying that Tigers are as smart.

What they're saying is that Orks and Trolls are of equal moral value to humans. If you needed a man to carry boxes for you, and it was an Elf or a Troll, who would you choose? You racist. Nobody's saying that everybody should ignore whether or not you're a Troll or an Elf or an Ork or whatnot - they're saying that they are of equal moral value and should be given the same basic rights and dignities.

Personally, I've completely eliminated all mental penalties in my campaign. I just feel they're.... well, to be blunt, racist.... I can't accept the fact that an ork or a troll is just inherently, biologically dumber than another race. But wait, I hear you saying, what about social differences? An average ork has less oppertunity to be educated than the average human. True, and that's reflected by how the player makes the character. If he wants to make an ork who was the rare exception, brought up to be a corporate "seat filler", well than why the hell should his intelligence be penalized?

So, what about game balance you say? Honestly... to hell with it. If my players are all going to stop playing other metatyppes simply because orks and trolls get higher bonuses than the other races than I don't want to play with them anyway. For the record, I've been running the same campaign for seven years and I've never had a problem with an inordinate amount of orks and trolls. And besides, the generic stat mods aren't exactly fair to begin with: Few people seem to notice it, but a dwarf has a total of 4 points of bonus, including the only bonus to the all important willpower stat and an excellent resistence to disease (Which is a really really big advantage when your GM is clever), at the cost of a x2 running multiplier. Not that big a problem when there's a troll to carry him away anyway. Besides, what's he running from with an 8 willpower?

For the record, my group also waived the shorter lifespan. Again.... it's just crap to make elves seem more attractive. Honestly I've had it up to my ears with elves.... it's just ridiculous how glamorized and focused upon they are. I find the fight of the ORC or MOM far more interesting than the latest racist special forces ninja badasses the Tir is rumored to have.

It's late, I'm tired.

Wow. You and Velocity must have great groups of players to not have game balance issues when you eliminate the mental Attribute penalties for orks and trolls. Currently, orks get a net increase of 3 to their Attributes after bonuses and penalties, and trolls get a net increase of 4 (not counting their dermal armor). Take away the penalties, and orks have a net increase of 5, while trolls have a net increase of 8 (assuming you still keep the Quickness penalty).

I kind of favor the penalties, myself. Trolls, elves, orks, and others should have different aptitudes and abilities. They fall into certain roles very well (elf shamans, troll tank sammies, ork gangers, etc.), but you can also break the stereotype - which is not as much fun if it doesn't take any effort to do so. I like the troll I'm playing in the Welcome to the Shadows forum, in part because trolls with mental stats as high as his are a rarity.

By the way, back when they listed the lifespans, they were giving average lifespans - humans were only at about 50 or 60-something. So orks and trolls are slightly shorter-lived, but they don't wither and die at 40 or 50 (despite what a few of the novel authors - who should try reading SR before writing about it - would have you think).

My concern is that one usually tend to equal low intelligence with stupidity. My POW on the whole thing is that they think slower than humans and take longer to reach the same conclusions. This can be seen in their perception tests since they generally roll 50% of the dice a normal person would. This can be seen as a slower brain activity since their brains doesn’t manage to pick up all the information in the same amount of time as everybody else.

Unfortunately the world lives by what we see and what we see is a big brutish hulk of a man with oversized teeth that can’t talk normally and seems to be plain dumb.

I would like another system for giving INT and CHAR penalties for trolls but I can’t really come up with one. Even if a troll is “ugly” with a visage that only a mother could love shouldn’t mean that they have penalties when purchasing skills.

Still, the SR system is not a realistic system so we have to use our imagination.

Well, I should clarify things a bit, as Glyph's post made me realize that I sounded as if I'm giving people who play orks and trolls a free ride: I use racism, a lot. Now, I know a lot of people feel it's a fair trade to get a +5 strength, +4 body and dermal armor for a bit of inconvinence when one tries to get a table at a restaurant, and I understand the sentiment, but I don't allow anyone playing an ork or troll to ever forget that their character, in most situations, is different with a capital D. It's much more than blatent racism, it's an ingrained attitude that many good-hearted people simply can't avoid, not just a group of Inferior rated Humanis thugs kicking down the troll's door every other session.

They're scary to most people, physically and mentally. The majority of the world simply isn't made to fit them. Any who attempt to rise above their expected role in life are branded as sell outs by many of their own kind, and those who don't are viewed as the worst kind of scum by the majority of metahumanity. They have certain approved ways of acheiving success (athletics, certain forms of entertainment, designated forms of music), and any attempt to reach success by any other way is, as mentioned, perceived as "selling out". They are profiled, harrassed, and followed by authority. They are plagued by distrust and anger they have not earned. In short, the situation of an ork or troll is, in my version of the SR world, no better than that of a black in the US during the 60's.

And yes, I suppose I do have an unusually mature group to be able to handle this kind of roleplaying. Anyone picking an ork or troll knows they will have to deal with racism, both that of other races and of their own kind. Culture, context, and race... these are aspects of any subrace of people, and one which I feel has been woefully underrepersented for the nonhuman races. True, there is the Tir's, but as many sourcebooks have pointed out something like 90% of elves are not citizens of one, nor desire to be. Every group should have a certain culture springing from their place within the social hierarchy, and this has been touched on, but it needs more. There should be an entire sourcebook dedicated to the unique forms of music, art, and language created by these various races who, as we are constantly reminded, are very very separate.

What does Ork rap sound like, dammit?

its racist! how could it be racist against a fantasy race? why take human in priority if your mundane if theres no negatives to being an ork? if you have a problem with them being slower, then you may as well take away elves +2 to charisma and dwarves +1 to willpower.

oh yea, and being bigger doesnt mean your slower, so the quickness penalties should be gone too. and elves? they shouldnt have that +1 to quickness then. because just cuz theyre elves doesnt mean they get free rides.

and just because theyre "bigger" doesnt mean they have to be, or are stronger, so all body and strength bonuses should be gone too, they are racist.

and from now on you cant call them orks, theyre robustus-americans dammit! only orks cancall other orks orks, jeeze!

Because, frankly, when you sit down around the table to play a game of Shadowrun you are submerging yourself in the world, and if someone made an RPG within the world where orks and trolls had an intelligence modifier.... well, yeah, I think they'd be pretty pissed.

As far as physical modifiers go, we haven't changed any of them. Elves still get their +1 quickness, trolls still get -1. This is fine because in a mature roleplaying world your physical stats do not define who you are. People /are/ physically different, even today. But to say that one race, because most of it's members are part of a certain culture, are generally uneducated louts across the board.... that's where I have an issue. Behavorism teaches us that we are products of our enviroment, not nature, and I refuse to accept the excuse that maybe orks and trolls are just naturally born brain damaged. Evolutionarily it doesn't make any sense, and it's just not a concept that I can see mature roleplayer including in their games....

((I don't mean to offend with that last post, I'm simply stating my point of view. I'm sure that there are many good players and GM's out there who feel they have good reasons for keeping the penalties, and I'd be interested in hearing them, but not in the context of "yu0 suck, trogz r stoop1d.")

It all depends on how you define intelligence. Intelligencefrom what I've read is how inherently quick, in a mental sense, a person is. How fast can you grasp a new concept. How fast can you take sperate pices of information and draw a correct (or nearly so) conclusion.

If you are the most intelligent person in the world and were raised in a cave you still won't know shit. Where as a person of average intelligence who has had four years of collage (still won't know shit) will "seem" to be the more intelligent person.

Intelligence in the game and real life is your basic ability to grasp things. What most people judge as intelligence is how much knowledge a person has. A ton of knowledge doesn't make you intelligent. I'm sure you all know someone like this. Think Cliff Claven (given that his knowledge was correct).

IMHO the game is designed about the assumption that Trolls and Orcs are biologically handicapped when it come to intelligence.
You say that you hold up Behaviourism and that’s were I beg to differ. Even today not all humans are equal and even so education can do a great deal, it cannot do everything. Some people are just smarter, some are stronger, some are faster. Evolution is constantly trying new ways. Anybody should have the same rights and opportunities, but people are just not equal biologically. If I want a strong man for the job, and the smarter man is just not as strong, I will not hire him. You cannot have equal chances for them because they are inherently unequal. That is called an individual.
I really don’t want to tell you how to play SR, you asked for opinions. My opinion is that Trolls and Orcs are not as intelligent then other metaraces but as always, there are exceptions. And with some training, many Trolls and Orcs will raise there intelligence more easily then others do (i.e. raising intelligence from 1 to 3 is cheaper then from 3 to 6). My 0.02$.

Stupid quotes....

You know, as long as they could run the register (2-3 int?) I would PREFER a troll for 3rd shift at a stuffer shack.

Your robbery rates would be so much lower. People getting soy chips and an algea squishee at 3am probably aren't looking elequent conversation anyway.

Of course not all humans are of equal intelligence. That'd lead to an absolutely bland, analytical world. However, Helmesque statistics aside, there is absolutely no basis for saying that one race (White, black, asian, whatever) is more biologically predisposed towards intelligence. The idea that orks and trolls, who are basically Shadowrun's 60's era African-Americans, -are- different in that regard might be FASA's intention, but I simply can't accept it.

And once again, I'd like to reiterate, I've never had a problem with too many orks and trolls in my game. In fact, I'd say I've got less than I really want, most likely because of my hard stance on racism and it's effects on the everyday world.

Also, for the record, I changed canon a bit by making one of my players Robert Page, the guy given the ancient orkish language manuscript in Dunkelzahn's will. Years later, that character is an active and vocal voice in the ork community, fighting the injustice and racism that is so ingrained in the American societies (The non-Indian ones, mainly. Amerinds, after all, hate white people, not orks Maybe I've just been swayed by the player's extremely excellent playing of this character, but I just can't accept that his views on his race's potential are... wrong.

I don't understand how you can put so much difference between mental and physical modifiers. Your saying it's fine for trolls to get the plusses and minuses to str, bod and quickness but that no race should have intelligence modifiers. At the end of the day, it's all down to biology, trolls have less "clever" brains.

Surely environmental issues are only relevant within a species. If you raise a chimp with a human family send it to a good school and don't let it watch too much TV, it's never going to get into harvard (although McDonalds may hire it).

My opinion is Trolls are as biologically stupid as they are biologically strong. That modifier has nothing to do with education.

You can't have this conversation in the context of anything resembling a "fantasy" setting.

Fantasy settings come with ingrained racism, which is both good and bad. Bad because it makes some people uncomfortable (Hi Velocity!! /wave) Good because it often forces the players to deal with the issue and maybe learn a little something.

Orks, on average are less intelligent than humans, basic fact of Shadowrun. Troll are even dumber and to an elf, we're all ugly. Fantasy settings (Orcs, dwarves, elves oh my!) are built ON racism, racism is one of the big themes of Shadowrun.

On science point blank agreeing with bigots. You can't draw parallels with real life. We all know about all the backward morons who think they have scientific proof that for instance "black people aren't as smart as white people". We also know that proof is complete bullshit because the color of your skin is GEOGRAPHY, that's all it is. It says "somewhere along the line, you have ancestors from X" that's what it says. Because we are all humans, our DNA is identical, we are the same race.

Orks, Trolls, Humans, Elves and Dwarves are NOT.

Upset about scientific data proving that Trolls are dumber than humans on average? Suck it up, in the world of Shadowrun, it is indeed a fact. Does that make humans better?!? No, no it doesn't, which is the angle the Ork rights activists work on. Are they fighting a losing battle?!? If they insist on trying to integrate into "human" society, yes, yes they are. Society must therefore change, and that period of change is when Shadowrun is happening, it is indeed a dark time, full of hatred.

Just because something is less intelligent than you doesn't make you any better. It might make you smarter, but intellect is not the measure of complete worth, smarter is not better.

There they are, my 2

Sunday