Trolls, like other meta-humans and para-normal critters can only exist when there is a high enough mana level for their species. The apparent low weight of trolls can be explained away with this. All trolls whether mundane or awakened have 2 low level adept-like abilities - Reduced Weight and Renewing Joints. These always-on powers have a drain on the troll's mind, resulting in the some of the modifiers to mind-related attributes.

I am asking this, because I'm currently detailing a bunch of stuff for trolls, ranging from portable toilet seats to BFTGs and would like to see how people cope with trolls in their worlds.

I have to choose E. None of the Above.

In my campaigns, I have adopted the rules laid out in the TSS 13 article, "How Much Did You Say He Weighed?" Find it Here

This article correctly adjusts the average weights based on the size difference as compared to a Human.

Unfortunately, as we have recently discovered, this leaves Trolls grossly under-strength'd for their size. I hear everyone saying "No Way!", but its true. For a being that is 1.7 times the height of a Human and weighing 4.9 times as much, adding a mere +4 to Strength is NOT proportional. But thats another thread...

The answer here is, We use the weight adjustments found in TSS Issue 13.

Enjoy.

Yup, TSS13 is the way to go. And then make Tumby Troll pay! It's an evil, dark world and "Same rights for all" have long gone out of the window. Add in that Trolls are the "poor minority" and you get:

- Most bars are not build for Trolls (to small, to frail) and post "No Trolls allowed" signs

- Most supermarkets don't care for them as customers

- Public transport is not for them


Birdy

I've become quotable! It's so good to see the kids all grown and finding work!

I would have to go with "none of the above" as well:

The "it's canon"-option is quite close, but not as close as I'd like it to be
Same for the "mana"-option.

For me there are two things important with the weight of trolls:

1. There is no qualified material on muscle density or fat / other tissue relations for trolls. So just like e.g. cat-muscles have a much higher strength / volume ratio in comparison to human muscles, the same can be true for a genetically compatible yet significantly different subspecies like the troll (metas are called "races", but within biological taxonomy they could be viewed as either a race or a subspecies) in comparison to the normal human.
Additionally even our real world provides some serious differences when it comes to the weight of animals that reach sizes of about 3m. Male walrusses reach an average weight of about 1200kg at that size. Grizzly bears (that easily reach an erect size of 3m) IIRC come in at about 500kg. Tigers at about 350 kgs.
Now, the usual argument against these examples usually is the general artwork in SR. But take a closer look: There are so many different pictures that trolls sometimes look like a SR-verion of the incredible hulk (and in most cases the then portrayed trolls are nowhere near "average"), while other pictures portay rather slim and compact trolls => there's actually nothing that portrays the average troll

2. Suspension of disbelief. It's a game after all. My main concern is fun. Trolls are legal player characters and they are supposed to provide some fun for the player(s). So just for the sake of that fun, I'm more then willing to disregard ultra-realistic weight-issues or size comparisons (beyond the occasional annoyance of non-fitting chairs and having the group sitting extremely tight in a car for example)

It sound like canon in SR3 but I have always played Troll around the 7'9" Ave and about 250kg give or take. If there is SR4 in the pipelines they they should look into the Bio of the different races.

I haven't seen a single skinny troll yet. Quick glance through SR3 will follow:
Cover art: Huge arms, huge torso, small legs, very muscular + fat (looks about 200-210cm tall)
Page 9: Huge torso, normal built (impossible to say how tall)
Page 27: Huge arms, huge torso, very muscular + fat (looks nearly 3m tall)
Page 51: Huge torso, thick legs, lots of clothing but probably rather to very heavy built (no scale, either)
Page 53: Huge arms, huge torso, thick legs, very muscular (looks about 230-250cm tall when standing straight)
Page 67: Huge torso, lots of clothing but probably rather to very heavy built (no scale)
Page 72: Huge arms, huge torso, very muscular (no scale)
Page 73: Huge arms, huge torso, very muscular (no scale)
Page 115: Huge arms, huge torso, very muscular (no scale)
Meeting Mister Johnson ... and friends (non-numbered color-pages): Large torso, very thick legs, heavy built (looks about 210-240cm tall)
A pair of gangers ... (non-numbered color-pages): Huge legs, normal torso, very muscular (looks about 200-220cm tall)
etc.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of different views. They are all quite heavily built, most are massively muscular, most have huge torsos.

Also, strength/volume ratios don't have much to do with what trolls look like. Troll muscle might even be much weaker than human muscle, pound-per-pound, but obviously the prevailing view is that trolls are massive, with thick arms and barrel-like torsos, and flesh density is about constant throughout large mammals.

[Edit]That's most of the full-body troll art that I'm aware of, actually. There's one on the back of MitS which is of the basic "Strong Mad" type, basically square-shaped. Cannon Companion has a few, which are all as massive as the ones in SR3. The Cyclops in SRComp has a massive torso but normal arms. The hairy troll mage is another of the square-shaped ones. The Giant is very skinny, except for the torso. The minotaur is massive, again. SRComp p. 127 is, uhh, big. And so forth.[/Edit]

I should like to point out that while "How Much Did You Say He Weighed?" keeps trolls at 9'2" (280 cm), nothing else in the game supports that, and I've long held the theory that Tom Dowd pulled that height figure out of his ass without thinking about any of the implications of it.

All of the art shows trolls in excess of 7 feet but generally less than 8. I've long held that the "official" average height of a troll should actually be around 7'9". But I don't work where these decisions are made.

Well lets put Fanpro's art department to the test, or even some artist and lets have some impressions

There is a problem with SR artwork being used as a basis for comparative troll heights. Most pictures that feature trolls inconjunction with other meta-humans are portait/bust images, a collection of heads with the positioning dictated by the frame and layout constraints. Only panoramic pictures can be used for height comparison.

Does anybody who has access to all the SR books fancy a stab at continuing AE's excellent work?

500kg seems like an awful lot to me. Going off the table on pg 47 of SR3, the average troll is 2.8 m, the average human is 1.7. That means that a troll is about 1.65 times as tall, and from the art I'd say they're roughly about 1.65 times as wide and thick, too, if you compare them to people who are doing similar jobs (mercenary vs. street sam, combat mage vs. street mage (though this one is screwy because the street mage is an elf female), etc). From that I figure that trolls should weigh roughly 4.5 times what a human does (1.65^3) if we assume that they are the same density. Going back to the table that figures up to an average troll weight of around 315 kg. It wouldn't be too bad to assume that they have proportionally larger lungs and bones that are light for their size (though not to the extent of birds). I just think that half a metric ton is too much for a troll.

Why should Elves be skinny?

~J

Guys, compare the pictures of trolls to the pictures of elves. If elves used a real-world figured, they'd be anorhexic and your average house pet could pose a serious danger to them. The artwork doesn't describe them that way. So, that suggests the possibility the real world equation of body density is not longer applicable.

Now, turn to the combat mage picture. His strength? 6. Is he obviously muscled? I can't tell, but I doubt it. Now, turn to the mercenary and sprawl gangers. Both are obviously muscled. Their strengths? 10. Also, each troll is drawn very differently.

Trolls, we know, are going to have a naturally huge build compared to their actual weight. So will elves. That is, of course, if you look at the pictures.

All right, fine, elf art coming up:
Page 9: Dangerously skinny
Page 48: Very skinny
Page 53: Normal athletic human build
Page 68: Light athletic build
Page 70: Light build
Page 74: Light build
Page 101: Light-normal build
Page 155: Normal build (assuming that's an elf and not an ork on the left)
Breaking into Ares...: Normal build
A crazed street samurai...: Muscular, normal build
Meeting Mr Johnson...: Skinny
Rumble in Redmond: Normal build
Page 188: Light build
Page 232: Normal build
Page 249: Normal build
Page 321: Muscular, normal build

Assuming that the average portrayed elf is quite a bit heavier built and more muscular than the average elf, we end up with an image of elves, on average, being having a light build and tending to be skinny.

Yet even if we assume that the average portrayed troll is a lot heavier built and far more muscular than the average troll, we end up with an image of trolls, on average, having a heavy build, having large torsos, and tending to be quite muscular.

Ok, I brought these two models to prove to one of my players how big trolls are, The Covert ops Elf And the Troll Combat mage. The Elf has basic average Stats (B3 S3), but is physically fit (Atheltics 6). The Troll on the other hand, is what would be if human B1 S2, ie. A small(ish) weak Troll, with no Athletics Skill. Note the size difference.

An Elf is on average what? 6'2"?? The Troll appaers to be about 2' Taller and this is a "small" troll.

Anyway Excuse the wall paper.
Midnight and Lothan

Keeping in mind that Lothan's biceps are the size of Midnight's torso…

~J

I tend to make trolls smaller, around 2.30m (a little over 7.5feet for the metrically challenged), this means the average troll is still pretty tall (40 cm taller than your average ork and over half a meter taller than an average canon human) but not impossibly tall. It still means they'll have trouble fitting in most human-sized spaces (I'm 1.90m and I've banged my head SOOO many times, add another 40 cm and... ouch!-those aren't horns on their heads, it's accumulated scar tissue from banging their heads day in, day out for years on end...)

It also means that their canon weight makes more sense...

M¥$T1C, If you look at the bottom right of the pic you will see Lothan's "pistol" and your right it's fecking huge!!

It's actually an SMG, but it's remarkably larger than Kyushi's assault rifle. So much so that it really ought to be a sawed-off PAC rather than a SMG or AR.

Another sign that the Duels figures, wonderful as they may be, probably aren't to scale.

~J

Yeah but when you "Troll Modify" something the size of the rounds don't change, thus neither should the innerworkings, they just Space it a bit and bulk it up so that Trolls can use it, "looking stupid" might be the last on the desginers list. But still, When i told my player that that was close to the size of Troll he tried to take on he shat a brick and said you LET me fight it? (The one he fought was the Troll Merc but with Bioware instead of the Muscle replcement)

A spirited discussion on the BFTG can be found here where it discusses troll modified pistols. Very enjoyable read, I thought.

SR1 main rulebook has pictures of an average, elf, dwarf, troll etc. The only one I remember is the elf - very skinny, and well defined (but not large) muscles. Maybe someone with the book can check what trolls look like.

My answer is none of the above. My racial averages are

Humans 1.7 meters, 65 kilos.
Dwarves 1.3 meters, 40 kilos.
Elves 1.8 meters, 67 kilos.
Orks 1.8 meters, 90 kilos.
Trolls 2.4 metes, 250 kilos.

The average male is 5% taller and 15% heavier than the racial average. The average female is 5% shorter and 15% lighter.

A little bit of both Answers 1 & 2
reduce Height to about 8 / 9 Feet (240-260 Centimetres)
and raise Weight to about 280/300 Kilos

with 2 Dances
Medicineman

I general, I ignore all weights given in canon. They're all pretty whacked. That's kinda good, since I have no real perception of how much 300lbs is anyway, much less 300kg, so I just wing it, if it even comes up.

Trolls? Never seen 'em officer.