that sounds like the lead in to some dumb joke O.o

More than one, actually. The team hacker was a dwarf from the Tir, and the player felt it was his IC obligation to assemble as many elf jokes as possible. Most weren't funny, just bad.

elf jokes . . who needs elf jokes?
all elves are a single big joke *g*

While human is tempting, with the flexibility, cheapness and extra edge, it has to be the orks. Sure the stats are nice and there's the whole underdogs thing, Orxploitation etc, but the real reason why? Two words, Gary and Kline. He is the coolest guy in Shadowrun, just look at his artwork in Corp Enclaves. He's the first corper who to my mind reflects the media profile of certain corp highflyers and politicians, to have that air of superstardom that AAA CEO's are entitled too. He's not a simple playboy like Villiers always struck me as, A draconic plot device like Lofwyr or an immortal schoolgirl. Instead, theres a carefully crafted personality based on demographic research coupled with what appear to be small attempts to cause positive change in some areas,which is both totally Shadowrun and RL. Its also one of the few locations that comes to mind of characters not defined by meta stereotypes. One of the most charismatic guys in the world is an ork :O.

/(semi-horizon fanboy) rant over

Nah, nah, nah, unfixed.

For me, the idea with these guys, since this is RP, is to stress the non-linear or non-obvious aspects. The Troll former Merc who has an extensive knowledge of art and culture, a couple of PhDs and a rep for being "gallant"; the Troll Hermetic Mage who is exceedingly cerebral and who isn't even in the same league as his teams strongmen strength wise...and they're both Elves, the Troll former Doc Wagon Medic who's certainly capable with his fists and with weapons but who's entire focus is saving lives... not ending them.


Isshia

Larry Zincan's pretty kewl too, the way he toppled the Tir and masterfully piloted the coup of the century...

Elf, hands down.

And if you have to ask why, you'll just never understand! *snooty nose-in-the-air*

Long Live the Might Orkish Nation!

But he hired Kline for his PR

A very wise decision, eh? Orks gotta stick together!

I build my characters on concepts not on metatype However most of my concepts seem to run into the pitfall of racial stereotypes if i play anything but humans.. and some are plain wrong, the troll femme fatale?

Why is it that elves in various RPGs seem to be arrogant pricks?

Tall, Thin, rich, beautiful? Don't they sound like real-life arrogant pricks?

I think Dwarves are very versatile, yet cheaper than elves and trolls. Their ork-like physical bonuses are good, and I've heard good things about dwarf sams. The Willpower boost is great for a drain stat, so they make enduring magicians, and hardy, solid hackers. The natch thermo is good too.

The running multiplier is the only part I hate about them, though. But if I was a Dwarf samurai, I'd probably have my stump legs torn off and replaced with Kid Stealth legs.

Sweaty Hippo: They were in LotR, which was one of the largest influences on D&D (etc. etc.) and therefore leading to the stereotype of "Elf = uppity dick."

Anyway.

I prefer humans to all else, in all RPGs. Elves are acceptable, as are Orks. I don't like trolls, unless I'm deliberately going for a heavy. Even then, I will play a Dwarf over one. I like more Human-esque characters than otherwise, I guess.

Whatever happened to originality?
How about elves that aren't uppity dicks?
In Shadowrun, I guess that it's mostly the Tir Na Nog ones.

I wouldn't bet on it!

It's definitely generalizing, but I would say that Tir Tairngire elves have nothing on those from Tir Na Nog when it comes to uppity snobbishness.

And as for LotR, I never really found Legolas to be all that uppity and arrogant. Especially when compared to some of the other companions.

Because they're better than you. Duh.

[offtopic]Well, not Legolas exactly - he was a damned personable elf. However, consider some of the older elves - Elrond to give a widely-known example. Though considering their origins (read the Silmarillion if you haven't) they have good reason to be so.[/offtopic]

I'm really sorry for derailing your thread like this. I have nothing more to contribute to the discussion, which means I'll take this discussion to PM if it continues.

I wouldn't consider this derailing, the OP did ask for why as well...
Now if I'm not mistaken, wasn't legolas a young elf by any standard?
Maybe getting snobby and stuck up is an effect of getting older, like with humans...

No, he was a more than two millenia old.

He makes the comment when entering Lorien that it makes him "feel young" as he has not felt since he started travelling with "you children".


Isshia

My point being that Legolas is the main elven character in LotR, and he is not portrayed in that manner. Other elves are, but they don't hold the spotlight in that particular book.

A certain arrogance has always been attributed to elves and the 'fae' in literature well before LotR. Age is definitely a factor in how they have been portrayed throughout history. When everyone around you is destined to die off before you have even grown out of childhood, it would tend to give you a superior outlook on the 'lesser races'.

Oh, and as for the Silmarillion, I have worn out a few copies.

Dwarves, in many circles, have also been known to have an air of arrogance about them with their abilities. Not 'snobby' per se...but some arrogance nonethless, and you could indeed pin that on being a rather long-lived race, too. Dwarves in SR are said to live well into the 3 digit range, and we don't quite know how old they can get, either. Again, the first ones only appeared...60 years ago?

Some fantasy dwarves have been known to get to the 400-500 year range.

But i can kinda agree, you start living for hundreds of years, and yeah, that 60 year old guy is a child to you.

I can agree that Tir Na Nog elves probably are a bit more snobby than Tir Tangire. But yeah....put an elf on the poverty line with a couple of junkie parents(no doubt that there are junkie elf parents) and see how uppity and snobby they are. They'll probably beat you with a pipe just as fast as anyone that lived that life.

Hell, I had an elven character kinda like that-his parents, though were human, uber-religious Humanis freaks...he was born an albino elf. Needless to say his parents were appalled they had a 'demon elf' as a child, and he did not grow into the proper, snobby uppity elf; he was probably the most bloodthirsty one of the gang who might have still been mildly psychotic from his old hackjob ware and stints with drugs had he not come into some money from very ill-gotten means to get himself fixed up. I don't doubt there are other elves like him around, either.

It's all how it's done. One of my troll characters was a rather classic example of a rich, British big-game critter hunter. Not a snob, he was actually quite a nice fellow, but he was quite refined in his ways, and did not kill people.

But old stereotypes can cling to many a race in many a game.

I play elves almost all the time, and they come in all varieties. Even way back in my Basic D&D days, I didn't feel constrained to follow any general stereotypes. I just like elves. Even when they are not cost-effective.

Well, the arrogance part couldn't be the reason they are disliked...
Dwarves are arrogant...
And gruff and rude and...
And they aren't hated, they're mostly ignored...
I've only known one guy who prefered playing dwarves, and that was because he could powergame the hell out of Dwarven mages (in a bad way, with glaring weaknesses)...
I really do think it's the charmed existence of theirs that somehow rubs people the wrong way...

I think it's a relic of the overpowered elves of old D&D, and more recently the "whatever class you want, we got the perfect elven subrace for it" 3.X version.

But mostly I think it's not the elves from literature, but the elves we saw portrayed and even more so the ones we saw played in RPGs that can cause the race to become hated.

i like dwarves . . sure, they are gruff and rude and stubborn . . heck, makes em easier to roleplay for me *g*
but dwarves have the stereotype attached to them that they like to drink and eat and build cool toys . . technically speaking they are the nerds of fantasy *g*

I usually end up playing a human but I voted Orks because I freakin love them from a story perspective. Here to go, born to die, you're middled aged by college and freakin dead by retirement. Keeps you on edge, makes things mean a little more.

That's their natural limit. Just makes them hungrier to hit the big time so they can earn the money to stay alive.

Heh...looks like dwarfs "unoficially" suck!

Well, they are the right height ...

fix'd in bold

I tend to play humans, just because they fit most concepts, and I'm not creative enough to come up with decent, non-cliche concepts for other races.

I wouldn't call them my favorite, though. I guess I don't really have a favorite.

Dwarves for me, thank you. followed closely by orks. then Humans, Trolls and finally elves .

Not that I have anything against Elves, just can't seem to keep one alive. Its a curse I think. I have a chummer who had a similar problem with shamans: could be invisible,wearing Mil Spec heavy armor behind a force 10 ward. and still be the guy that catches a lucky round to the instant dead spot.

I like the three legged race. Or the patato sack race *yuck,hyuck*

Well I picked Elves. I have seen someone play the arrogant elf stereotype once in 28 years of gaming, and they received exactly what was coming to them...a big pile of party smackdown, immediately following the very public NPC smackdown. Needless to say the player quickly amended their world view. As far as the IE thing well, I like it but mostly because of how it played out in Earthdawn, I understand the use or rather abuse of IE involvement was frequent and the seeming end all be all of things. If a dragon was not behind it, an IE was, everyone else was just a bystander, patsy, or fool. If however you were into Earthdawn, the existence of IE works and fulfills a purpose in the overall story. So for me the enjoyment of IE's stems entirely from the Earthdawn side of things.

It`s funny that in the whole discussion about elves being hated and orks being the underdogs no one mentioned that it is actually more the other way round.

I mean: most of the players i know hate or at least dislike elves for what ever reason. That`s why i personally like to play elves, because they`ll for sure will have a hard time in any group, making them more underdog than any troll or ork could ever be.

Challenging roleplay!

Moreover elves are effective killing machines because of their high agillity.

Of course, a troll just takes the bullets, but i always prefered killing the othres before they can kill me...

Playing-Wise Elves might be underdogs, but Society-Wise in Shadowrun? no, not so much . .
as for the killing .. i like trolls, orcs and dwarves because they can deal as much damage with their fists as they can deal with most weapons . .
as for trolls and taking bullets . . come on, admit it . . just calmly walking up to the guy shooting you and waiting for him to go clik clik clik clik and giving him the cruel smile and beating him upis just too good to pass up ^^

Ok i have to admit that trolls are a lot of fun (at least for the players...i`m just mastering a campaign having three trolls in the team and it takes a lot of preparation to scare them at least a little...)

But why making a difference between playing-wise and society-wise? I mean a shadowrunner ended up in the shadows, because he probably couldn`t make it in society. So an elf with no other choice than joining some runner team will have to deal with what ever the teammates throw at him.

Heh! *Stahlseele the troll stands in front of the pistol armed elf Iota*

BANG! BANG! BANG! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!"

*sTAHLSEELE* "You done?"

yeah, kinda like that ^^
either hit em with 20M Damage Fists
or hit em with 20D Pole-Arm . .
i don't really care for Heavy Weapons, i am my own heavy weapon *g*
only thing that can really scare trolls is chem-tech, as it's still hard enough to roll 10's to not drop and fall asleep when hit with Gamma Scopolamine Arrows . .
but everything else is only a question of Armor-Mods in SR3 . . 8 Worn and 3 build in Armor makes 11, and it's easy enough to roll 6's to stage down a Hit from a PAC . . GM threw grenades (16M Damage) at my Troll once, i got away with 1 light damage, no damage, 1 light damage . . yes, he was kinda peeved about that . . then i went and cancelled out his magics due to insane dice-rolls on my part . . twice . . one of his mages dropped dead as the drain killed him and my Troll only had Serious-Stun after that *snickers*

as for the elves again: society views them as being better than orcs and trolls, so that more or less takes care of them being underdogs society-wise . .
and in my group, they ain't underdogs when it comes to playing . . there's been times when i was the only one NOT playing an elf x.x . .

...dock that man a karma point in Pun damage and misspelling Potato.

Don't trolls fear Mana Bolt even a little bit?

Only if the Mage casting it isn't an incompetent mook.