So I noticed something rather peculiar as of late. Now i've been running Shadowrun for awhile now, not as long as many of you, but a few good years. I've played in more third edition campaigns than I can directly recall (with only two or so of them actually completing a coherent plot) and four or five fourth edition campaigns. In all of this time, I've only played with a Dwarf PC is two sessions. One was a guest player, and the other was that same player returning to our group as a temp GM and decided to use the same character as a GM character.

I haven't played a single fourth campaign in which one of our players played a dwarf. (I don't particularly recall playing many with trolls either) and it just stunts me as to why. The majority of players I come across play humans or elves, in fact you didn't see much else until I started playing an ork (and i've played one in every campaign since). Now, in our current game, we have a human, two orks, and an elf; with another human player contemplating joining us.

Does anybody else have their own Dwarf Affect? Races they just....never see in their groups?

Because you don't play with number-crunchers.

Elves have the advantage of PR. They're the uber-characters in LotR. They were fantastic in D&D. Humans have the advantage of being... us... more cyberpunk, and much cheaper.

Dwarves have the worst PR. They're like people, but stumpier, uglier and smell worse. Who wants to play that? But they have the best ROI. In groups of number-crunchers, dwarves are very common. (For SR3. Not sure about SR4. Probably never worth it in SR1-2, because they're priority A.)

Was it Target:Matrix that had some shadowtalk about metahumans playing different races in the Dawn of Atlantis game, where humans tended to play elves, orks played humans, and trolls played trolls, or something like that? Like nezumi said, they simply don't have the kind of flair in SR that you'd associate with dwarves from other games. Interesting too, if you look at the demographics numbers presented for SR vs the raves most commonly played in the SR setting.

I agree with nezumi on this. A lot of players want to play "good" characters and don't want to play "fun" characters (this is the whole roll playing vs role playing argument). I do have a Dwarf in my latest campaign, I don't have any other metahuman though (granted we are running in Asia where Metahuman racism is uber-high). Personally I tend to play either a goblinized or human character (I never liked elves or Dwarves). That is just my personal preference though (and not number-crunching).

Elves never have interested me.

I always want to play a Dwarf or Troll, but I have trouble picturing them in a real world environment. I'm fine with those kind of races in other games, but Shadowrun has more expected realism for me.

Ork is where I usually end up, or human.

I've got one player who frequently plays dwarves but he's it. Everyone else usually plays humans with the odd elf or ork thrown in. Not too many trolls either. This has held true through out all editions (yes I've had one constant player for over 20 years. Amazing isn't it?). This player is in fact the most likely to play an ork, dwarf or troll and yes he's a number cruncher too.

If you think about it, elves have the Tirs and immortals, orks have persecution and MOM, as well as orksploitation. Trolls have things like the Spikes and the Sons of Sauron, not to mention goblinization (the book Changeling as an example).

Dwarves have ... Arthur Vogel.

It's not just the players that are under utilizing dwarves. Hell, about the only things they've got is a little spot of land in Europe that doesn't get much attention, a bad stereotype as tech guys. and they got kicked out of the ork underground that they helped make.

Screw orks, dwarves are the ones that are getting the bad end of the stick in the sixth world.

One last thought - Dwarven characters from novels : 1- Fixer/Johnson that lead the team in Shadowboxer before getting killed. 2- Dorky "Fantasy Throwback" dwarf with an axe in the latest Kenson books (but in said dwarf defense, the series was equally 'Dorky' all round IMO.

Any others?

The dwarf affect is stereotypically grumpy and alcoholic.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you mean dwarf effect?

out of my 25 Chars only 1 is a Dwarf
everything else is evenly spread (Orks,Trolls,Humans,Elves even Hobbits and Metavariants like Nartaki or Fomori)
I'm not really fond of Dwarves and even Numbercrunching is secondary for me if I don't get a positive Vibe at the beginning

he who dances with rather long Legs
Medicineman

I've had few players play dwarfs over the years, one was ex. prostitute turned Shadowrunner, she was in campaign for quite a while then recently retired.

We only had some random tries to establish dwarf-chars, but after the first session of dwarf-jokes, everybody stopped playing their char. immediately. That is definitely no matter of their stats, because these are quite good. It is more about the feeling being everybody´s joke.

That argument is madness.

My characters are all always both!

Glorious spelling flame.

Cheers, -- N

Most of the characters I play these days are dwarfs. From a min-max perspective, I like the particular Attributes that are boosted and that no attributes are hurt. From a role-playing aspect, I like the lack of attention they get. People fear orks and trolls, and they disparage or envy (or both) elves.

What's funny is that the fluff in the books say that the Dwarves are the most accepted of the metatypes after humans. And that dwarves get 'positive' sterotyping as 'Hard working" "Trust worthy" "Dedicated" and "Smart" and that while some humans will be asshats no matter what, that dwarves get less of that than the other metatypes.

I personally don't play dwarves. I"m 6'3" IRL and I feel sorry for short people. Come to think of it. I don't' think I've ever played a human in Shadowrun. Elves. Night Elves, Orcs of different metavariants, normal orcs, trolls. I don't honestly think I've ever went white bread normal human before. lol.

I have been running SR well...Since first edition. I remember the day they opened the box at the Complete Strategist. Thank you Larry for convincing me to buy the game. But, anyway....I have ran Shadowrun for 20 years. I have seen one player that I have ever ran for play a Dwarf. Well make that 2 players, one played the gnome variant when that came out. I have had maybe 4 or 5 NPCs that were Dwarves. I think the thing is that they just get over looked.

Trolls and Orcs no one plays either. I have had lots of NPCs that were Trolls and Orcs (My Favorite being Krupp (Orc) and Vandemar (Troll) Gaiman fans will recognize those names) Everyone seems to just want to play Elves and Humans. I think we need to boost the PR on the Dwarf and bring him up there with everyone else. The actually have decent stat bonuses. Most Rigger portraits I see are Dwarves. What gives?

Lets Stand up for our Dwarven bretheren and give them the respect that they deserve!

Across all games, all systems, I think I have played an elf twice.

In a random D&D game (attributes, class, race, gender, age, starting level, etc - all randomly generated) I played a dwarf.


Other than that, I play human. I often play with racial templates, but the base is always human.

That being said, I have seen two or three dwarf PC's in Shadowrun games over the last 3 or so years (keep in mind we periodically change systems, so not all games in that time have been Shadowrun). I am unsure how many dwarf characters I have seen played in other systems, but I don't think much more.

Or illustrated in the books. The SR3 main book had the dwarven drone rigger with the goofy glasses, the dwarf(?) raven shaman who looks like she just got rolled out of a dumpsters, and the dwarf PI - the best of the lot, except who ever plays a PI?

Then you move on to SR4 and... oh god, I'm sorry, poor dwarves... first thing we see is that dorky dwarf hacker who looks like if we left Helen Keller to dress herself in a clown shop.

My first Shadowrun character was an ork. I had a blast with him.



Was the dwarf stat line changed in 4A? My book has them getting -1 Reaction.

I usually play orks. I like orks. I don't play elves because of too many years of playing with my "elven supremacist" Dad. I don't often play trolls because as I make them I almost always feel munchy and I don't like that. The reason I don't play many dwarfs is because I have trouble visualizing hand to hand combat with them. I admit it is silly but there it is.

I absolutely love dwarves and orks. I don't care about their costs; their flavor is awesome. I play them and humans far and away more than any other metatype, with trolls coming in a distant fourth (which, sadly, is mostly a number-crunching decision; they're just so damn expensive to play and thus I have trouble making my concepts work since I run out of points way too quickly). I rarely have a reason to create an elf. Not because of their costs; they come close to balancing out with their perks (especially since I tend to play charismatic characters). It's just because they don't have a lot of interesting flavor. They're just assholely humans with long ears who need to eat a sandwich. I think I've had two concepts over the years that were elves, and one was "forced" since everyone was playing a member of the Ancients. And even then I was playing a self-hating elf.

Anyway, dwarves rule. They do get underplayed in general, but I firmly believe that it's because people have complexes about being short in their fantasies. Their loss though.

But yeah, in my experience trolls are a lot more rare. But as mentioned above, that's because I'm one of those outliers who actually plays dwarves on a regular basis.

You're quite right. My bad. I just overlook that issue, what with both magic and tech providing common aids that help Reaction, it rarely is a deciding factor for me. The bump to Willpower is the most important for me, then Body and thereafter Strength.

I think the three main factors are:

-aesthetics
-attribute values
-Convenience

When it comes to pure bang for the buck, Orcs and Humans are easily the two best choices. For some magic traditions, Elves are superior (like a wakyambi Houngan, to name an excemple), but by and large, Orcs and Humans are best.

Humans are a net gain pf 10BP (+1 Edge), Whereas Orcs are a net gain of 30BP (+3 Body, +2 Strength).
By comparison, Elves are cost neutral (+0BP) and Trolls are at +40BP, but both are more specific in their application (Charisma) or display more significant drawbacks (capped Agility and Intuition).

On the aesthetic level, Elves and humans are likely to be the two top choices, but especially with human looking, Orks come into the race as an actual contender.

Last but not least, conveneience also plays a major factor here. Out of all the race options, ONly Trolls and Dwarves need extra accomodations, making everything more expensive. And that's just the rules section. The social consequences of hardly fitting into a cab, hardly fitting through a door, or hardly reaching up to the bar desk are a whole other world of grief. Most players probably won't want to take up with that.
Also, the concept of "the fat short kid" isn't exactly the one screaming "hero" or "tough guy", regardless of the fluff. You can tell people "dwarves are tough as nails" all day long, but the first impresion they will get is "the short fat one".

If they had any significant benefit, you'd see more dwarves, but they are just a novelty item that people play when they get bored of everything else (or if they are diehard dwarf fans for some obscure reason; A friend of mine would fall into that category).
Within our gaming group, even when it would have been a major benefit to play a dwarf (dronomancer technomancer), the player decided in favor for an Orc (despite the drawbacks).

Well, in a world in which magic plays a significant role, I think the bonuses dwarfs get should be seen as more important. Most direct damage and manipulation spells affect either WIL or BOD. Dwarfs get bonuses in both. And in the plus/minus calculation above, dwarfs come in at +15, better than humans.

+5. Humans get a free point of Edge.

There's also Wheeler from Mel Odom's Jack Skater novels. He's a kick ass dwarf rigger. He's also the focal point of my Dwarfs & Riggers SRTCG deck, which is my favored deck to play.

I've run several dwarves over the years. I can't remember his name offhand, but I had a former Secret Service agent who ended up working for the "Dream Police", a squad of runners put together by the Draco Foundation to try and complete items from Dunklezahn's Will. Kreig, one half of the band Blitzkrieg (Who I name dropped in Dot6W), a menahune drummer. I've had a couple others that were short lived characters due to the campaigns not going anywhere.

But yes, Dwarves tend to not get too much play. They're not as physically impressive as a Troll or even an Ork, they're not as "point friendly" or as normal as a Human, and they don;t have the overblown PR that Elves get (I blame Peter Jackson, in part. Fucking shield surfing elves).

Bull

I Allways play Trolls.
I would LOVE to play Dwarves.
But my buddies are ALL complete jokesters <.<
There is no short joke, no little gag, no small play on words that's not used even a tiny bit.
See? See how fast that happens? See how easy it is? There'S 4 of them just in that single line!
And now imagine that over 4 or moure HOURS!
Nobody makes fun of the Troll. Even if he is dumb and uncharismatic, he can pick you up and do horrible things to you.

*Snickers with amusement at subtle dwarven prejudice at work*

I, for one, would be wary of picking on anyone who has a set of teeth at the same level as my crotch. Especially anyone who has a Napoleon Syndrome to boot.

meh!? that gave me too many conflicting assumptions, so whatcha talken bout?

Watch the punctuation, big guy. "+15, better than humans", not "+15 better than humans."

That's true, but it's still less than an Ork or Troll.

Dwarves are still just a +5 versus the baseline. Since, you know, Humans are the baseline. They're not "+10," they're 0.

He is talking about a net BP gain. He is not talking about baseline comparison. Humans are a net +10BP gain. Why? They get an extra edge point.

<sighs> If the 0 BP option gives you the equivalence of +10 BP, then it's not the equivalence of +10 BP because it is 0 BP. Humans are the baseline. If you didn't spend the 25 BP to play a Dwarf (40 BP - 25 BP = 15 BP), you'd have a Human (10 BP - 0 BP = 10 BP), for a 5 BP difference. You wouldn't have a character without a race.

I think the number crunchers fail a bit on this though. Elves have the best stat bonuses. Yes they are Stat neutral they cost 30 points and get 30 point sin stats, but this also effects the maximums. Orks may have the best stat return but a chunk of it is in strength which is virtually worthless even for people focused on hand to hand damage, the other is body. While Body is a good stat I think both charisma and agility are more important overall. Yes I've seen some characters who miraculously don't have any need for charisma and have enough agillity, but agility and charisma cover what I consider all the core shadowrunning skills. (things like con, gymnastics, palming etc.) While +1 die is less than the +3 dice from body and whatever extra that means for more armor you can wear, the +1 in agility skills and +2 in charisma skills happens almost in every action you take which hopefully is a lot more often than the times you are shot.

For pure I got the most points in my character yes orks win, but I think it ignores where you can grow and the importance of the attributes. Still elves cost more, which is a long way to say I think even from a number crunching perspective I think most races are roughly balanced and I don't give the edge to dwarves and orks. Now Trolls I kind of think got the short end of the stick on this one, if close combat had been a strength based skill at least they could play to there stereotype, as is they are worse at it than a minmaxed elf.

I have one new player who really likes to play dwarf.

About (in)famous dwarves, I remember Greerson from "Never deal with the dragon". The scene when Kham's orks nearly pissed their pants because of just one dwarf's enter... Heh. That's some rep.

I said "net gain". And yes, starting with an attribute at 2 is a net gain as opposed to 1. The base of ALL attributes, INCLUDING edge is 1. That is the attribute baseline during character generation prior to step 1, the point where you still have all your 400BP.
If, during step 1 you choose "human", you GAIN an edge point at no cost. You just raised your edge from 1 to 2 without paing a single Build Point (a +10 BP net gain) by virtue of chosing "human" as your metatype. That is a deliberate choice, not a default availability.

*edited to accomodate for temper*

This is where I point out a big difference between a condescending tone and an out right personal attack.

We'll take a moment and get back to the both of you.

Whether charisma is important to your character depends on you, your group and your role. If your group already has a face, charisma is dump stat. Can't handle negotiations well? Ask your buddy. Having trouble to intimidate people? Ask your buddy. The list goes on.
If you're a combat role, charisma will hardly matter. Strength and body will (for recoil and damage compensation abilities).
If you're a mage, charisma is a lot more important than for your streetsam. Same holds true for a technomancer.

Not every metatype is equally suited for the various tasks and a solid group is usually made up of specialists, not jacks-of.all-trades. The question in regards to dwarves is: what are they best suited for? Mage? You could argue whether charisma or willpower is more important on this one, but overall, the elf will have the better drain resistance pool. Rigger/hacker/technomancer? Here we actually have Dwarves as the leading candidate. But we are only talking about a 1 point benefit (still: dwarves would be the best choice here).
Then there is combat. Orks and trolls simply beat the dwarf here. More body means more armor, means tougher. More strength means less recoil. And especially Orks don't have any major handicaps in the metal stat department (from a combat perspective).

I just don't see many cases where the dwarf wins the race (other than Rigger/Hacker/Technomancer) when it comes to pure numbers crunching. Especialy when you also consider the increased gear cost. But I am biased, since I don't like dwarves, so my opinion may very well be flawed here.

Sorry, he ruffled my feathers.

Yeah, he does that.

For riggers dwarves are... acceptable. The slightly lower cap on Reaction is a shame. But for hackers/technomancers they're pretty nice.

I think the aesthetic aspect factors a lot into choosing dwarves and trolls. It's just such an obvious race, so hard to blend in and get the normal treatment.

Hmm, I'm thinking about a dwarf B&E specialist, or perhaps hitman.. being small should have some advantages in infiltration. And it's at least not such a cliche as a dwarf technician. Hmm, maybe a dwarf bioadept.

Exactly. The net gain is only 5 BP because humans -- the default race, which you're playing if you don't spend any BPs at all to be a dwarf -- get that +1 to Edge. "Net gain" means accounting for all of the variables, not just the ones you want to apply and ignoring the rest.


Incorrect. Human is the default. There isn't a "no race" option. If you're not spending BP for a race, you're a human. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. They're the baseline to which all the other races are compared and the default race of the game.

And this is where you're just plain wrong. The base value of all attributes is 1. No race gets a reduction, only bonuses. Base Edge is 1. Hence, Humans have a net gain of +10 BP.


Wrong. If you spend no build points for race, you are still at step 1. You HAVE to purchase a metatype. Humans just happen to cost 0BP.

Why am I even arguing with you?

Stat-wise, dwarves are not so hot. They don't come out ahead on net stats as much as orks do (+20 for orks vs. +5 for dwarves), and their penalties are more severe. An ork's mental Attribute caps might not even come up, depending on the concept. But a dwarf has a cap on Reaction, a lower running speed, and needs to use specially modified gear.

Dwarves are fun if you have a specific notion for a character - a gnome who impersonates a street kid, a face with a loud tie and a Napoleon complex, etc. But I would almost never pick dwarf unless I had a concept specifically calling for one.

Personally I really like dwarves and have been playing with a couple of concepts for them- and we've had one gnomish technomancer in the group so far.

Books: theres that dwarven assassin in the Secrets of Power trilogy

<shrugs> You're still not correct. Humans are the baseline, and that baseline includes a +1 bonus. You inability to process that is of no concern to me, so think whatever you want to think. It won't make it any more right.

Lets not forget that dwarves have lower movement rates than any other race. That's not reflected in these build point comparisons, but can be a real turn off for some players / character concepts.

(Similalry, a trolls massive weight is a problem not factored into the build point comparison; if your buddies can't drag you to safety when you go down, that can be a real problem.)

Most people ignore the secondary perks, too, like natural Thermographic Vision and the +2 to resist toxins and pathogens. Mostly because they're pointless (at least in 4th Edition; there's no difference between natural and technological Thermographic Vision,and cybereyes are probably the most common implant across all archetypes) or just plain hard to quantify. But as others have said, it really comes down to personal taste when playing a dwarf. Their mechanics aren't anything to write home about unless you're playing a very specific group of concepts, but their flavor is a blast if you can get over your min-max tendencies. Which everyone has to one degree or another even if they won't admit it to themselves.

I like them because they're a hearty, down-to-earth people who commonly have strong ties to one another due to always being overlooked and ignored by everyone else. They can often be found in the most important roles in society (at least as far as a runner is concerned), such as administration and technical professions, and their commonly gruff, stubborn, and Napoleonic personalities are fun to play. At least for me, for some strange reason.

Elves on the other hand are just boring. They're like the O.C. or Melrose Place of metatypes. Nice to look at, but mind-numbingly dull to be around.

Oh the irony...