Yeah, so, uh.

Humans, because I prefer to play ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and most metahumans aren't ordinary. (I voted low power in the other poll, if you hadn't guessed.)

I've played a number of dwarves and humans in the past, and have dabbled with orks. Never played a troll, as yet. And I have played elves only rarely.

My current character is a nonmagical human who got SURGE'd in the year of the comet.

One of my characters was a formed Ghost combat decker, so naturally he is an elf. however as soon as I get into another campaign I really want to try a couple of the new metavarients. The giant (troll), oni (orc), gnome (dwarf), and miniator (troll) all look really interesting. However since I usually end up as the GM i'll probably have to settle for making cool NPCs.

I love playing trolls with bonus point: Int and Exceptional attribute: Int. It's a lot of fun to come up plans as complex and well thought out as the human players, who are used to the "big dumb trog" sterotype.

And they're unbreakable.

Human fan, meself. Karma pool up the wazoo.

~J

Orks - They have a noble quality lacking in elves, dwarves and humans.

I always kind of played them as (sterotypical) 80's blacks- sticking up for each other all the time, crammed in the poorest sections of the cities, etc.

i played a troll, elf, and ork, in that order.

i like trolls, cause theyre big ass monsters, played an elf because it seemed different from a troll, and played an ork mostly because the g-dogg chracter from the wizkids game influenced me.

I voted ork, but my ork characters only outnumber my elves by 1. I play humans, too, but for some reason, I just don't like trolls and dwarves.

I voted for Orc, cause I've been playing them a lot lately, though I've played every race, including lots of the metavariants. I'd say that in the long run I've played Orc the most, followed by human, then elf, then troll, then dwarf.

I think I like Orc the best because I love the idea of the Orc Underground and making characters that have a Robin Hood mentality.

SRComp.

Also being used by the new emporer as real kick-butt gaurds at his palace.

Night Elves Rock!

I hate elves! Gah. We never have elves in my fantasy games. Why, cause I, the GM, can't play them, so I place them out of the character's reach (mostly). Otherwise, they'd want to talk to the great elvish whoawhatist for whatever those pansies want.

And in my SR games most Elves wind up acting like everyone else or being hyper-racists from one of the Tirs.

I voted elves, but I really haven't had any preference. None of my main characters share a metatype...although when I make up those quick and dirty type characters I tend to go for an elf...

While I normally play Humans, I tend to have the most fun playing Dwarves (especially a Dwarven Face I have -- Orks may have the Underground, but Dwarves of all creeds band together like some kind of fraternal order) and Orks (for the same reason, though focused more on the Underground). They just ooze style in my opinion. I voted for Dwarves, though, just because I like the little guys.

1 Ork
1 Oger
4 Humans
as PC.
No elves, never ever.

Voted Ork, as it´s fun to have bad habits.

Ork or dwarf, because priority-system wise, it comes free with every non-awakened character. But seriously, I perfer humans and orks. Trolls and dwarfs are somewhere in the middle-ground. Elves are, well, boring and arrogant.

I like elves but only because i like to play magic characters and the 2 cha. bonus helps with conjuring other wise my preferance would be human. dwarf and ork are ok but not prefered and trolls rock when you get to be a metavariant you get less bonus but then again there are less negitives.

Troll, because I'm mainly a Sammie guy, and they make mean mofos.

I voted human 'cause they make up most of my chars, but when I choose a metatype, it's almost always orc.

I voted ork. Because i play them the most often.

Also people have a tendentcy of putting orks into the "thug" catagory and with just a little edge here or there they can become SO much more.

Currently my characters are
Ork male, retired Covert ops.
Ork Female, Spy who wants to be pretty.
Elf Female, Otaku

And the one im writing up at the minute, Human who surged into a Ork/ Drake look a like Physad.

I like orks too, mainly for the aforementioned noble, brotherhood air about them.

I also like trolls, for mainly the same reason, but I only got one of those.

Humans are easy as hell to design into anything, but get old.

Dwarves are awesome and, played right, really unfair. That +2 Willpower has so many applications for a creative runner A lot of what makes dwarves cool in D&D/Tolkien is kinda demphasized in SR though.... dwarven crafted weapons don't mean a lot when there's no dwarven society.

Elves.... I have a real love hate relationship with elves. See.... elves, by no real fault of their own, have become the biggest cliche in existence. They're always, in EVERYTHING, the magic using, pointy eared, snobs, and that just gets annoying. I can't describe how happy I was when Shadows of North America went into the Tir's huge economic problems. But, I don't hate elves... in fact, an elf played against type can be one of the most interesting types of chracter. I'm just tired of people who play the typical snobby daisy chewer being rewarded for, essentially, being an ass.

Metavarients.... some are awesome ideas (Night Ones, Minotaurs, Cyclops, Oni), some are not (Dryads, the African elves... Wakawhatever, Goblins). Sidenote, actually, we made our own Goblin metavarient... basically a smaller, agile cousin to the orc. Very fun Some people are SURGEing into them.

With drakes kicking around we also took it upon ourselves to let T'skrang in. There's only one, and he faces MASSIVE social discrimination (You can only get by on the freaky lizard look in a handful of places ), but he's fun as hell. Obsidiman showed up, briefly, as background during a rather weird run, but no PC's.

That's a tough question. As a metatype, I like dwarves the best. Dunno why. I like all the different races, but dwarves are... just cool. On the other hand, all my favorite characters have been elves. But I hate elves as a group for the aformentioned stereotype issues that invade games far to often and make me absolutely raving bloody crazy. And I've never, ever played a metavariant, though I've thought about a couple and played a fair few as NPCs. In terms of being a race, drakes are my vote for the absolute coolest, maybe, but I would never, ever, ever let someone play one in my game, and that kinda made me not vote for them.

On topic ... I do not have any preference, so I cannot vote on a specific race.
I played almost everything apart from Dryads, Oni and Wakiyambi in any form (decker, magician, rigger, sammie, etc.)


off topic:

I voted Ork. When SR1 came out, I went through my Elf phase but, it being SR1 and all, that was quickly purged from my system. Nowadays I pretty much just play Orks and Humans. Trolls can be fun, but they're just too damn big to be very effective at things like sneaking, which is pretty important in a lot of my games.

They aren't too big to be good at sneaking. I made a 10' Troll with Stealth 6 that didn't even think about Ruthenyiums. He managed to sneak past the guards every time.

Yes, he was Mundane, too.

Maybe I'm just a good roller, but you don't have to say something is bad at sneaking just because it's big. That would also mean that Dwarves are better at sneaking because they're short. No way, chummer.

Edit: Sorry, Stealth 7 (8). Skill of 6, Reflex Recorder (We were playing with the rules that you could get regular Cultured Bioware, but not culture your bioware), and Enhanced Articulation.

Menehune with PMP hair. Why, because you can.

Humans... only race besides elves that isn't slow of mind and/or foot. Elves have never been all that interesting to me, probably due to the fanboys and lack of any race-based negatives to balance the positives. Some of it is probably due to my hate for the IE, too...

Elf's boring. All bonus no flaws.
Dwarf, Kind of fun if you play a 'bad' dwarf. Someone with a napoleon complex and hates people that are taller. If you don't play that way it gets rather boring at least in my opinon. Dwarfs should be cranky in my opinion.
Humans They run the gambit from boring if you're too normal to really fun if you put them on the edge.
Trolls (Personal fav) Big, tough, slightly slow(physically and mentally). Extremely open to roleplaying. Trying to break sterotypes(ballerina, medics, Crime boss ect.), or fufill them with a 13 foot tall walking metahuman flesh tank of ultimate doom ™ To the Gentle giant that just doesn't realize he got shot when he was helping grandma across the street.
Ork (Personal fav) Also very open to roleplaying. Can push the noble edge trying to get away from the 'thug' mentality that is forced on them. Or go with it and be the best. To being overexxagerated humans (human looking edge) and look like a ultrabuff body builder. To down right cruel. To just being a cabby hard on his luck. Very easily adapting to many situations.

I must say that I find Minotaurs really, really cool. Not only do you get kick-ass fashion accessories like smooth symmetrical horns and a slight furcoat, but they're also "toned-down"; Not as heavily penaltied but still packing enough BOD and STR to be decent trolls. Played one once, great fun it was.

I think my biggest complaint about SR is the total want of a halfling/hobbit race. I mean if you're going to put in elves and dwarves, why not go all the way? The character type in general is one of my favorites; a rather quiet, boring person who finds himself struggling against giant eyeballs in a world full of evil. I'd probably play them even if they had more flaws than advantages. I also enjoy shapeshifters, although by the 2nd edition rules, not third. The idea of playing something with such an alien mindset trying to figure out the world is rather fun, especially when you aren't allowed to use your powers or you'll get blown into kibble (to date, my shapeshifters have only changed in public twice, once in a stand alone just for fun combat game, and once because I was getting pasted. No armor didn't help much, really.)

I think the reasoning is that they weren't a Namegiver race. And since ED and SR are tied together, that's why we wouldn't get one.

Anyways, they're too Tolkien-esque for me to have in anything but a Tolkien-esque world.

I would agree they're very tolkienesque, but I think we already sort of threw away the absolute grit and not at all tolkien feel of the genre as soon as we invited in the dandelion eaters.

True, true. However, with the carry over of the Fourth World, I think it was somewhat inevitable.

Anyways, what'd you vote for? Non-canon metatype (LotFR)

Have to go with humans. They aren't the most cost effective guys out there, but hey I like them. I dislike elves but will play them if I'm min/maxing a bit and am shooting for a face/some one who can conjure.

I like orcs but I hate the int/chr hit especially since I like spellcasters. Still that's what I'm playing now.

Dwarves eh nothing for or against them, trolls can be fun but there a bit to dumb without a heavy cost for me to have long term fun usually.

i like elfs for ONE reason:
I can put 1 point in charisma and still call her a "Well Shaped" and "Beautiful" woman

yay!

Elf. Period.

Santa's coming! God, I love elves!!!

Correction: I can still call her a wellshaped, beautiful woman with a nice personality