I've been creating a bunch of SR4 characters and I notice that the majority of my characters tend to be human. I'm not sure why (but I think it is because I can't really identify with any of the other races or develop a decent story around them).

I was wondering what about other people out there, what race do you usually pick and why?

Maybe I'm in a rut, but I've been on a human kick for the last five or six years.

You should add SURGE.

Edit: Human, always. I will however often add templates - in this case, Infected & SURGE.

I answered Human, Ork, Elf and Troll.

I like fluff aspects of making metahumans. Gives a lot of room for various backstories, as well as giving game-stats variety. For some reason, I've never found dwarves appealing and I've very rarely seen anyone play a dwarf, ever. Also, I've never been interested in going for more exotic races, like metavariants or even surge. I find those too freakish and weird, whereas orks are already freakish high-fantasy if you ask me.

If I play a mage or adept I run human, however, my current charater has gone through several rewrites and somehow became a shapeshifter. (Don't ask...) Played one troll (up to almost 300 karma after 4+ years) and a character I have in development is an ork. Never played an elf or dwarf.

everything but human, elf, drake, shapeshifter and HMHVV

w00t first Shapeshifter. Yeah, i dig'em and (according to my fellow players) make a good performance. Although i don't play them not that often (background reasons)

Most of the time i play a Norm. But i always eyeball with a Troll when i create a new character.

I play Elves almost exclusively (I've got one Ork, Tyler Wilde, and he was in more short fiction than any actual games). I play guys who can handle themselves in a fight (Adepts, Sammies, or Mages with a silly-high Unarmed skill) almost every time. I keep waiting and hoping for some GM to toss a "hur hur hur, go home dandelion eatin' fag!" Humanis or Ork Underground type at me, but it never happens.

I know as soon as I make a human or something, for any game, ever, our first session we'll be dealing with horrible metaracists.

[IC flag is for the tough guy image]
Tough Guy image
Being a human , I play them. Though, if I wanted a real challenge I could play one of the defect races. With their pointy ears and fake languages.

Reality
My GM won't let me play an elf because of how easy it is to break a game with them.

I've played mostly humans (even my drake is Human), but since RC I've had a drake character. Though I'll probably experiment with SURGE at some point (they look fun), though if I ever need to do something twinky (who knows?) I'd probably take my drake concept and do a troll instead (25 more BP, same if not better, race stats).

Most of my chars have been humans, followed by orc, dwarf and troll. Never played an elf (though once an elf poser ) and probably never will (unless i make an orc poser).
Drakes and shapeshifters are maybe a bit too exotic for the settings we play so they aren't pc's.

Wow, no love for dwarves. I played a rigger dwarf in SR3 for a while but never really stuck with the metatype.

No Goblins.
No Dandelion-eaters.
Humans only.

FINAL DESTINATION!

(A SURGEe is fine too)

One of my players has a dwarf mage. However, he found no mechanical advantage and is planning on saving the points next go. All the combat types in my group choose ork if they go meta.

In First/Second Edition I played Dwarves all the time. As a matter of fact, BlueMax was a dwarf shaman.

the biggest advantage of a dwarf is their size.
no, really, it is, hear me out on this one!
shape earth, maximized on character creation so you can cast at force 8 without trouble, maxed out willpower or whatever to resist drain damage.
1m "tall" dwarf, force 8 shape earth, 8 meter long tunnel!

I had a neopathy (the RC quality) dwarf, double jointed, stealth sam he was pure win XD bar his low condition monitor.

I checked everything but Metavariant (don't care too much for them so I ignore them in my games), HMHVV (meh, if I wanted to play Vampire, I'd play Vampire...and I don't ; these tend to not come up in my games either outside of ghoul baddies), Shapeshifter (I'm lazy and I don't want to keep up with stat changes, I also don't like the concept all that much; never played a druid in D&D, etc.), and Drake (no good reason, really, just no desire to I guess).

Elves, Humans, Shapeshifters, and Other most of the time. But I have played orks, trolls, and dwarves as well. Really, whatever fits my mood. But the first 4 are my preferred races.

Human.
Nothing else.

Humanis Skum!

Just kidding!

You know. I'm proud of the fact that I'd prefer to play an underused "race."

I am a fan of playing Trolls, but I have played a Dwarf Techomancer and it was good times.

My GM has an idea for a Troll hacker. Something like Logic 2, Hardware 2, no software. Walks up to a server rack, punches his fist into it and rips out the harddrive and says, "Yuh, that's the harddrive. Decrypt it later" and stashes it in a backpack.

I have no special Preferance (Ok Hobbits ,but they aren't official),but I have a dislike for HMMVV and Shapeshifter.Free Spirits and AI aren't my Cup of Tea either,but everything else ...Why Not

with a hobbitish dance
Medicineman

Human, Elf, Ork in that order. Haven't gotten to play a character with SURGE yet and since I've been nothing but the GM since 4th until only a few weeks ago... yea. But I'm playing an Ork gang banger in a low powered "Go Gang" street game. Nothing like a low powered game thug still managing to throw 12 dice of intimidation. Of course, that might be from his blinged out AK, Gov 2066's, and knives.

My characters are 100 % dwarf..usually Street Samurai/Merc (99 %) or Street Shaman..

I'm surprised that elves are losing to orks and humans. They are costly in terms of build points and priority points, but I would think they would be popular because of the charisma, beauty, finesse, and exotic traits associated with the race.

Most of my characters tends to be elves. Adapts, faces, and magicians.

HUmans. Orks and metavariant of all races, some surged some not.

Humans mostly and quite a few elves, two orks, one dwarf. Never ever considered a Troll.
I build some concepts based on the other options but only a surged human made it into play as a PC

Really, i'd play anything bu infected to be honest.
My preference though has to be dwarves, just because they're dwarves . Swiftly followed by humans and shapeshifters.
If i'm trying to create a RAW-monster however i almost always go for trolls, elves and orks. I have yet to play any of those characters however, as i do like knowing why my character does stuff beyond "I KILL IT GOOD!" etc.

Let's see...In reverse order, here are the most recent characters I've had in games:

Human Cat Shaman
Human Gun Bunny Adept
SURGED Human CQC Adept (3rd Edition)
Night One Elf Sensor Sammie (3rd Edition)
Human Hermetic Mage (2nd Edition)
Orc CQC Adept (2nd Edition)
Human Gun Bunny Sammie (2nd Edition)

I think that's pretty much every character I've made that made it into an actual game. I've built literally hundreds of others, though.

Dwarves by preference but iv been veering away towards humans for mages in sr4